Re: [gentoo-user] AMD 64 bit system selections

[Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.]

On Tuesday 31 January 2006 11:58, James <wireless@×××××××××××.com> wrote 
about '[gentoo-user]  AMD 64 bit system selections':

> We'll I'm finally taking the plunge and building a  high performance
> 64 bit AMD system. Oh, but the company paying for it insist upon
> windozXP 64bit, just in case Gentoo does not work. I'm really surprise
> some vendor is not listed on gentoo.org, as it'd make this purchase
> more straightforward, and It'd be a great opportunity to support Gentoo.
> Any 'off the shelf' system recommendations, or  should I just purchase
> pieces? (Reasonable vendors that build systems and perform Gentoo
> installation here in the US?)

I've been running a pure 64-bit gentoo system since July/August of last 
year as my desktop.  It had been 6 (or more) years since my last MB 
upgrade, and I was going for something near the top of the line so I 
wouldn't have to upgrade in the future.

> What's the best 64 bit processor choice for performance for Gentoo?
> Dual-core?
> Complimentary ram specs?

I went with 2 Opteron 275s and I'm quite happy with it.  I'd suggest 
staying away from Itanium architectures for linux as it doesn't have as 
much developer support, from what I can tell.  Also, while I am not an 
expert in system board design, the NUMA architecture available from AMD 
does appear to have fewer bottlenecks.

> Mobo recommendations (lm_sensors and acpi support) in a 19 inch rack?

My system is an EATX desktop, not a rack, but I'm using a Tyan board.  I'll 
recommend Tyan with the caveat that I have limited experience.

> N+1 redundant power supply recommendations?

Can't say anything here, I run a single power supply. :)

> 10/100/1000 Ethernet support?

While I don't get to use it that much, I really appreciate Gigabit ethernet 
being available on my motherboard.  When I'm making a backup image of a 
system or transferring CD/DVD images over the LAN it really pays off.

> What's the friendliest  high end video card for displaying video
> (fast motion) that has open source drivers? Multiple displays?

Do you mean pure open-source, or just drivers that will work?  I think it's 
gonna be hard to find pure open-source drivers for a card that handles 
this (*please* correct me if I'm mistaken).  I love my NVidia 7800GTXs.

> Which Sata-2 drives give good performance and size (400 G or more)?

I'll swear by my 6 Hitachi 7k500s.  They have blazing performance, and 
they've yet to perform a single bad block relocation, despite bringing 
them on a road trip, and keeping them in my filthy apartment.

> What's the best Raid level to run for storing, searching and
> manipulating tons of video, and should I get a Gentoo friendly
> controller or use software raid?

Software raid in linux is fine, and you can even use some of the limpware 
raid (like the nv_raid on my Tyan board) with the dmraid utilities.  That 
said, I went with hardware raid because I wanted to keep /boot on a raid 
array.  I definitely think my areca 1160 is worth what I paid for it, and 
while the tools are not in portage and the module is not in mainline the 
support for linux is good.  They provide 32 and 64 bit binaries for the 
command-line interface and http control interface and the kernel module is 
GPL'd and in the mm tree.

> Finally which file system would one recommed for this video server
> with the best, stable performance.

If you are going to have a UPS and cleanly shutdown in the case of power 
failures, go with XFS.  I'm a big reiser (3 and 4) fan, but I'm starting 
to see some of it's ragged edges, and I think XFS will probably serve you 
better.

-- 
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
bss03@××××××××××.com
ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy
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