Re: [gentoo-user] planning a new machine : comments welcome

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 12:40 PM Philip Webb <purslow@××××××××.net> wrote:
>
> After  > 6 years , I'm planning to build a new machine ANB6.
> The present machine ANB5 -- details at end -- continues to perform well,
> but I can't rely on that for ever.
>
> I use it for everyday desktop work + fun.
> The weekly Gentoo update is the main stressor, for which ANB5 is adequate,
> but it's always nice to get a bit more speed & avoid too much heat-up.
>
> I expect to buy the parts from the local store
> -- Canada Computers in Downtown Toronto -- & prices below are in CAD.
> I'm price-sensitive, but willing to pay a bit more for a better part.
> Here's the list + a few comments ; '*' denotes presently prefered item :
<SNIP>

You've gotten some great answers/responses so far. I've just been through
(and am still sort of sorting through) the same situation. My main machine
was an i7 980 Extreme processor I built back in about 2013. I ran Gentoo
on it until about 3-4 years ago when 2 things happened:

1) I was just spending too much time building code

2) Gentoo as a distribution went through a period when it seemed for
me that I could no longer just run a stable version and get apps to work

At that time I switched to Kubuntu which out of the box supported two
commercial apps I run all the time - PixInsight and Mixbus. However about
2-3 years ago Google changed the processor requirements for
tensorflow and I could no longer run that so finally about a month ago
I built a new Ryzen 5950X liquid-cooled machine. Jobs that took
6 hours on the old machine are now done in under 10 minutes. It's a
whole new world.

A few things for you to consider:

1) Do you really need/want all your storage in this machine. Wol
encouraged me a few months ago to look at using an old machine
as a backup server. I settled on TrueNAS Core which runs great
on a 4 core/8 core type machine. I built 2 of them, the first as a
24/7 file server and a second to back up the first.

2) The new machine, based on an Asus x57u0 motherboard,
has 2 M.2 slots. I put 1TB M.2 SSDs in them. One has Windows
and at this time the other has Kubuntu 21.10.

3) I also got a PCI Express card for a 3rd M.2 which has 128GB
in it just for playing around. It's slower than the two on the MB. Cost
was about $35 for the card and the M.2

In my case I seldom need all my data on my desktop machine. I
do astrophotography which generates a few GB of data every
night but the Raspberry Pi streams that onto the file server as
pictures come out of the camera. In the morning I grab a copy
over Gigabit, process locally, keep the result and delete the local
copy.

Same sort of story with Mixbus - studio level audio recording
based on Ardour. I seldom work on more than 1 or 2 songs at
a time so I don't need the 100 or so songs in my library to be
local.

If you go the M.2 direction - which you really want for speed -
then remember they are installed with heat conducting tape
and I suspect won't be easy to change a few years down the
road.

I currently have no traditional disks or SSD's in this machine.

The machine isn't silent, but it's very, very quiet with an
AIO (All-In-One) liquid cooler for the processor.

I went overboard on the GPU getting a 3080 ti which is
a dream for tensorflow and will, if I ever use Windows,
be fun for gaming. However you could buy a used
Honda for less than I paid for this card.

I'm currently considering coming back to Gentoo but
monitoring this list the number of maintenance problems
people have scares me. Not sure I have the stomach
for that anymore.

Best wishes for your new build. I'm sure you'll love it
when you make the move.

Cheers,
Mark