Gregg's Nearly Interminable Adventures in Linux Land

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by Glorfindel

Personally I'd go for the second, simply because it's a quad, which is much better than a duo for video editing. Ram and hdd can be upgraded if you need more.

Thanks Glorfindel. Excellent. Didn't know that about the video editing. Appreciate it.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I did a desktop upgrade, and my starting point was similar to the first system you list. My old built-from-components dual-core desktop box was developing issues I could not resolve. My SO said "You need a new machine. You have $500. Go." By happy coincidence, midwest retailer Micro Center send an email with deals including a refurb Dell Optiplex SFF system with a quad-core 2.4ghz Xeon CPU, 4GB RAM, a 240GB SATA HD, and Win 7 Pro for $250.

That was a decent starting point. I added 4GB more RAM to take it to the 8GB that was the max supported by the Intel chipset, added a Crucial MX-100 240GB SSD, and an ATI low profile graphics card with a GB of video RAM to replace the onboard Intel graphics. Total cost when the dust settled was $550.

The intent was to dual boot Windows and Ubuntu from SSD, but there were a few speed bumps in the road.

Problem one was the Small Form Factor model had two SATA connectors - one for HD and one for a built in DVD. I wanted to keep the HD as well as using the SSD. I had a USB DVD drive, so I could live without the internal DVD and repurpose the SATA connector. This required getting a Y adapter for the HD power lead, because the DVD used a different power connector. I also added a 7 port USB hub to accommodate an assortment of thumbdrives.

Another issue was the Dell BIOS. While the machine would see the SSD, there was no way in the BIOS to tell it to boot from it. The BIOS assumed one SATA drive, and there was no way to select a second as boot device. A freeware Windows utility let me modify the Windows boot file to add the SSD to the list.

Next step was migrating to the SSD. The Crucial MX-100 came with a license for a version of Acronis True Image, that would let me clone the Windows version on the HD to the SSD. But while Device Manager would see the SSD device, Windows didn't see it as a drive. It had to be initialized and have a file system. I could do that from Windows, using Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management. Once that was done, I could install Acronis True
Image and tell it to clone the HD to the SSD. That happened very quickly.

After the image was cloned, I could reboot and select the SSD as the boot drive from the Windows boot menu, and Poof! I was booted and running from the SSD. It's [i]fast[i]. Boot from cold start to a Windows desktop was about 45 seconds. Applications load similarly quickly.

Next step was dual booting. I could use Windows disk management to carve out a raw partition on the SSD. I made one 20GB in size, as adequate for Ubuntu and Linux apps. Ubuntu could see the existing HD, and data could live there.

I rebooted into BIOS setup, and made USB the boot device, then booted from a Ubuntu installer on a USB thumb drive. The installer matter of factly saw the raw partition on the SSD, formatted it ext4, and installed Ubuntu to it. The end result was a grub2 menu offering Ubuntu, Win 7 from SSD, and Win 7 from HD.

The end result is a pleasure to use. There are bigger, faster machines out there, but what I have is adequate for what I do with it.

The biggest minus is lack of expandability. It can't be overclocked, so making it faster would require replacing the CPU. It doesn't have USB3, so additional storage hooked up through USB might be hobbled. (This would mostly affect trying to run a different Linux distro from a USB thumbdrive. Folks who have tried reported disappointing experience doing it from USB2, and much better results with USB3.) There is one PCI-e expansion slot, intended for a replacement video card. If I wanted to do something else that required a PCI-e slot, I'd have to drop the video card and revert to built-in Intel graphics. (The machine was built to be a corporate desktop machine, where 3D performance would not be a requirement. The Intel graphics do 2D just fine, but lack on 3D.)

But I knew that going in, and largely don't care. I do need to dual-boot, because too much of what I do tends to be Windows specific, sl going all Linux isn't a viable option. But what I do doesn't really require the most powerful machine. I'm not a desktop gamer, and I'm not doing heavy development with a local repository, compilers and debuggers, where the speed with which something can be built from source is an issue.

I spend most time in my browser, so I set up something that recapitulates what I did on the old desktop. I found an open source 64 bit ramdisk driver, and devote 512MB to a ramdrive seen as Z: in Windows. My Firefox profile and cache live there. I speeds up the browser a treat.

At some point, the desktop will get upgraded to Win10 Pro. I already have two laptops which got upgraded, and there were no special issues. It was mostly a matter of telling Win10 what not to do once it was up and running.

And just to make it more fun, Ubuntu parent Canonical is apparently working with MS to get Ubuntu to run on Win10 side-by-side with Win10...
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Dennis

Thanks Dennis. Wow, you really know how to make things work. Impressive.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks Dennis. Wow, you really know how to make things work. Impressive.

Thank you. I've been at this in one way or another for three decades, and have learned at least a bit along the way.

For a few further thoughts, I agree with Glorfindel that a quad core CPU is an improvement over a dual core, but how much of an improvement will vary.

A quad core CPU is essentially four CPUs on one die, and the machine can be executing four different instructions at any particular moment. But there are still constraints. Most applications software is not written to use multiple cores. Doing so requires the app to parallelize the tasks into parts that can be executed independently on separate cores, with message passing to keep things in sync.

Multiple cores come in handy to handle other things going on besides the application you're running. For instance, I have a quad core CPU, and spend most time in Firefox. Looking at a process status, I may see 25% CPU usage, indicating that Firefox has maxxed out one core but the others are essentially idle. Firefox can only use one core at any particular time. On the other had, I make extensive use of Calibre to manage my eBook library, and Calibre may spawn several Calibre Parallel tasks. Those are separate tasks that can be run on separate cores.

One thing I would do is max the RAM on whatever machine you get. Current OSes like lots of RAM, and Ubuntu is no exception. It tries to run entirely in RAM where possible. On an older iteration of my desktop, I had a quirky motherboard that supported four IDE devices, period. I had multiple IDE hard drives, and had a PCI IDE card installed to provide additional IDE Connectors to accommodate them. It would work for a while, but then a drive would simply drop out and no longer be seen by the system. I preferred to install different OSes to different drives when I multi-booted. I once had the drive Ubuntu was installed to drop out while I was in Ubuntu. I didn't even notice until Ubuntu updates were failing because the file system they needed to be written to no longer existed. The running Ubuntu image was in RAM and didn't care. (I could only imagine what would have happened if I was in Windows and that drive dropped out... )

The HD is the slowest part of the system, so anything you can do to reduce HD Access improves performance. More RAM allows better caching by the OS, so I/O requests can more likely be satisfied from cache instead of disk access.

And I'd look seriously at installing an SSD. The usual concern is that SSDs have finite write operations. A cell on an SSD can be written to about 10,000 times. Beyond that, it becomes inaccessible. Current SSDs use firmware that attempts to spread writes evenly over all cells, and the firware also attempts to transparently migrate data on failing cells to good spares and mark the failing cell as bad. In practice, you are likely to upgrade to a new maching lone before you even notice SSD wear.

Last but not least, pay attention to what video is offered on the machine you get. Will it be adequate for your needs, or will you want to add a video card? Will the video card you use be supported by Linux? Is there a manufacture's driver for Linux, or are you limited to existing Linux support for the card? You didn't mention details on what sort of video editing you wanted to do, but you need decent video on the machine to support it.
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Dennis

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Thank you. I've been at this in one way or another for three decades, and have learned at least a bit along the way.

For a few further thoughts, I agree with Glorfindel that a quad core CPU is an improvement over a dual core, but how much of an improvement will vary.

A quad core CPU is essentially four CPUs on one die, and the machine can be executing four different instructions at any particular moment. But there are still constraints. Most applications software is not written to use multiple cores. Doing so requires the app to parallelize the tasks into parts that can be executed independently on separate cores, with message passing to keep things in sync.

Multiple cores come in handy to handle other things going on besides the application you're running. For instance, I have a quad core CPU, and spend most time in Firefox. Looking at a process status, I may see 25% CPU usage, indicating that Firefox has maxxed out one core but the others are essentially idle. Firefox can only use one core at any particular time. On the other had, I make extensive use of Calibre to manage my eBook library, and Calibre may spawn several Calibre Parallel tasks. Those are separate tasks that can be run on separate cores.

One thing I would do is max the RAM on whatever machine you get. Current OSes like lots of RAM, and Ubuntu is no exception. It tries to run entirely in RAM where possible. On an older iteration of my desktop, I had a quirky motherboard that supported four IDE devices, period. I had multiple IDE hard drives, and had a PCI IDE card installed to provide additional IDE Connectors to accommodate them. It would work for a while, but then a drive would simply drop out and no longer be seen by the system. I preferred to install different OSes to different drives when I multi-booted. I once had the drive Ubuntu was installed to drop out while I was in Ubuntu. I didn't even notice until Ubuntu updates were failing because the file system they needed to be written to no longer existed. The running Ubuntu image was in RAM and didn't care. (I could only imagine what would have happened if I was in Windows and that drive dropped out... )

The HD is the slowest part of the system, so anything you can do to reduce HD Access improves performance. More RAM allows better caching by the OS, so I/O requests can more likely be satisfied from cache instead of disk access.

And I'd look seriously at installing an SSD. The usual concern is that SSDs have finite write operations. A cell on an SSD can be written to about 10,000 times. Beyond that, it becomes inaccessible. Current SSDs use firmware that attempts to spread writes evenly over all cells, and the firware also attempts to transparently migrate data on failing cells to good spares and mark the failing cell as bad. In practice, you are likely to upgrade to a new maching lone before you even notice SSD wear.

Last but not least, pay attention to what video is offered on the machine you get. Will it be adequate for your needs, or will you want to add a video card? Will the video card you use be supported by Linux? Is there a manufacture's driver for Linux, or are you limited to existing Linux support for the card? You didn't mention details on what sort of video editing you wanted to do, but you need decent video on the machine to support it.
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Dennis

Thanks Dennis. Great explanation of the cores. Makes the multiple cores seem appealing if you're doing lots of little things, whereas not so much if you're doing one big thing. And the maxing out on RAM suggestion--that quad core has only 3GB and so that wasn't thrilling. And interesting about the SSD drives. I never knew that about the limited writes. I'm definitely much better informed for what to look for now. Thanks!

[eschwartz]

It is easy to add more RAM to a computer.
And it is fairly cheap too.

...

Most desktop computers have four RAM slots, and 3GB RAM has only two permutations: 1+2, or 1+1+1.
You can simply add another stick of RAM to what you currently have.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks Dennis. Great explanation of the cores. Makes the multiple cores seem appealing if you're doing lots of little things, whereas not so much if you're doing one big thing.

Multiple cores are always useful, but the effect might not be as great as you might think just by seeing that there are multiple cores.

In a modern multitasking OS, there are always an assortment of things going on at once. Do a top or htop in a terminal on Ubuntu to see what Linux itself has going on, aside from apps you may be running. Granted, most will be in a sleeping state, but more than one core is handy. It simply won't make any particular app quicker, unless the app is written to use them, or spawns other processes.

And the maxing out on RAM suggestion--that quad core has only 3GB and so that wasn't thrilling.

RAM is cheap. I was given a laptop by a friend who wanted to get a new machine, which I helped her buy. It came with 3GB, as 2GB and 1GB modules, and could take 4. Upgrading it to 4GB cost about $25 to get a 2GB RAM module to replace the 1GB unit. I was also upgrading it to Win10 from the installed Win7, and every bit helps. It's an older machine and hardly a speed demon, so it may get an SSD drive to replace the HD. Most machines are I/O bound, not compute bound. The CPU is waiting for things to be read from/written to disk, and all machines wait at the same speed. Anything that reduces disk access helps performance. More RAM for better caching helps, as does a faster drive for when you do access the disk.

And interesting about the SSD drives. I never knew that about the limited writes. I'm definitely much better informed for what to look for now. Thanks!

The write limits are inherent in the NAND flash SSDs use.

But there's a lot of misunderstanding about the limits. Given that the firmware on the drive tries to spread writes evenly, how long will it take for any particular cell to get written to more than 10,000 times? A long time. As mentioned, you are likely to get a new machine before you even notice drive wear.

Back when, the folks I know recommended Intel as the safest choice in SSDs. Things have gotten better, and Crucial and Samsung are also well rated. My 240GB Crucial MX-100 SSD in the desktop cost $100.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Most desktop computers have four RAM slots, and 3GB RAM has only two permutations: 1+2, or 1+1+1.
You can simply add another stick of RAM to what you currently have.

When I got my refurb Dell SFF destop, it came with 4GB and could take up to 8. I assumed it would have two 2GB modules in two slots and two empty slots, and ordered a couple of additional 2GB units along with the machine. When I got it home and opened it up, I discovered it had four 1GB sticks in the four slots, and had to get two additional 2GB sticks to take it out to 8GB. The 1GB sticks are in a drawer for pass along if I encounter someone who can use them.
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Dennis

[eschwartz]

I have seen computers that had four 512 MB sticks too. It's quite annoying since practically speaking you cannot really reuse them as part of your upgrade.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I have seen computers that had four 500 MB sticks too. It's quite annoying since practically speaking you cannot really reuse them as part of your upgrade.

So have I. I have a batch of old RAM in a drawer that doesn't work in anything I have now.

The curious part is that older RAM may be more expensive. One machine here is a Fujitsu p2110, an old (circa 2005) notebook that has a 787mhz Transmeta Crusoe CPU, IDE4 HD, and a whopping 256MB RAM (of which the Crusoe grabs 16MB off the top for code morphing.)

It came to me with WinXP SP2 installed, and was snail slow, taking 8 minutes to simply boot. No surprise - XP wants 512MB RAM minimum. I replaced the HD with a bigger one, re-partitioned, and installed Win2K Pro SP4, Ubuntu Linux, Puppy Linux, and FreeDOS in a quad boot configuration. The object was to see what performance I could wring out of it without throwing money at it. Win2K actually ran more or less acceptably. Linux was tolerable. FreeDOS flew.

Technically speaking, the p2110 could be expanded to 384MB with a daughtercard for the RAM, but while I could still get one, I could get multiple GB of current RAM for what the 128MB module would cost.

To make it more fun, Fujitsu offered an earlier model that had 128MB, and could be expanded with a 256MB daughtercard. I could get that too, and have a 512MB RAM machine, but couldn't find any info on whether the 256MB card would work in the p2110 and successfully expand it, and wasn't willing to spend the money without some assurance of success.

In a moment of pure surprise, I got email from a woman in Britain not long back who had seen my commentary on the machine elsewhere. She decided to give it a shot, bought and installed the 256MB card in her p2110, and it worked as desired. She was pleased. I was moderately astonished.
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Dennis

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

It is easy to add more RAM to a computer.
And it is fairly cheap too.

...

Most desktop computers have four RAM slots, and 3GB RAM has only two permutations: 1+2, or 1+1+1.
You can simply add another stick of RAM to what you currently have.

Hey eschwartz, It got sold. I wasn't crazy-keen about it either. It had the ASUS computer, an LG CD/DVD drive and a Dell keyboard. Maybe it was great on the inside. I liked it a lot. Bu as it is, something else came along. (One of the computers at my work crashed and I'm going to try to salvage it with a Linux distro.)

Good to know about the RAM. So the RAM slots are always in even numbers?

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Multiple cores are always useful, but the effect might not be as great as you might think just by seeing that there are multiple cores.

In a modern multitasking OS, there are always an assortment of things going on at once. Do a top or htop in a terminal on Ubuntu to see what Linux itself has going on, aside from apps you may be running. Granted, most will be in a sleeping state, but more than one core is handy. It simply won't make any particular app quicker, unless the app is written to use them, or spawns other processes.


RAM is cheap. I was given a laptop by a friend who wanted to get a new machine, which I helped her buy. It came with 3GB, as 2GB and 1GB modules, and could take 4. Upgrading it to 4GB cost about $25 to get a 2GB RAM module to replace the 1GB unit. I was also upgrading it to Win10 from the installed Win7, and every bit helps. It's an older machine and hardly a speed demon, so it may get an SSD drive to replace the HD. Most machines are I/O bound, not compute bound. The CPU is waiting for things to be read from/written to disk, and all machines wait at the same speed. Anything that reduces disk access helps performance. More RAM for better caching helps, as does a faster drive for when you do access the disk.


The write limits are inherent in the NAND flash SSDs use.

But there's a lot of misunderstanding about the limits. Given that the firmware on the drive tries to spread writes evenly, how long will it take for any particular cell to get written to more than 10,000 times? A long time. As mentioned, you are likely to get a new machine before you even notice drive wear.

Back when, the folks I know recommended Intel as the safest choice in SSDs. Things have gotten better, and Crucial and Samsung are also well rated. My 240GB Crucial MX-100 SSD in the desktop cost $100.
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Dennis

Thanks Dennis. Yeah, I used to get worried about writing too many times on flash drives. (When I was younger I told my uncle I was afraid of using Drano because it would eat through the pipes. He said, "Use it. Those pipes'll last longer than you will.")

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I have seen computers that had four 512 MB sticks too. It's quite annoying since practically speaking you cannot really reuse them as part of your upgrade.

Haaa! I had one on the computer I'm using right now. It's a Dell Optiplex 170L and it had 1 1/2 GB RAM. I got a 1GB stick from Crucial and had to get rid of the 512 MB stick.

[Dngrsone]

Gregg,

Computer motherboards tend to have memory slots in groups of two for the simple reason that a matched pair of 'sticks' can operate faster when in matching slots. On laptops, it's usually only two slots, but on desktop systems it's generally four, though I have seen lower-end systems with only a pair and higher-end ones with six or even eight slots.

Right now, I wouldn't run a machine without at least 8GB of RAM (older systems may not be able to do this, consult the owner's manual, YMMV, etc). I always recommend buying memory in matched pairs for the reasons I mentioned above. I have a lot of Crucial in my machines; and I have a lot of low-capacity 'spares' littering my garage... one day I'll make jewelry or something out of them.

I had a problem with wearing out Flash memory sticks some ten years ago (here's a good idea: don't run a portable app on one that will use the drive as a cache). I actually still have a Kingston from back then which I had replaced some four or five times through warranty (back when the warranty was unlimited). The number of permissible writes is much higher nowadays, but I find that I don't need to worry about wearing out a thumb drive anymore because I just don't use them as much these days.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

Gregg,
Right now, I wouldn't run a machine without at least 8GB of RAM

I believe you, and that's probably a good approach for your needs, but I don't think it applies to Gregg's current situation. He has modest needs and will be installing Xubuntu. 4GB should be enough. RAM might be "cheap" but how cheap is it if it's not used?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

I believe you, and that's probably a good approach for your needs, but I don't think it applies to Gregg's current situation. He has modest needs and will be installing Xubuntu. 4GB should be enough. RAM might be "cheap" but how cheap is it if it's not used?

4GB is probably adequate, but more is better.

Ubuntu tries to do everything in RAM. It allocates a swap area to handle cases where there isn't enough physical RAM to satisfy demand. Like other current OSes, RAM is divided into 4K pages, and if more RAM is needed than available, pages not recently used are moved to the swap partition, and the OS keeps a table of which pages are swapped out. If something tried to access a swapped out page, a "page fault" occurs and the page is swapped back in. Total memory is considered to be physical memory plus the size of the allocated swap file.

What you really want is that swap stays blissfully unused, and there's enough physical RAM.to handle demand for best performance.

Since one use Greg mentions is image editing, I'd want to install more RAM. That tends to be a RAM intensive process.
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Dennis