[ubuntu-uk] ubuntu-uk Digest, Vol 44, Issue 2

Tue Dec 2 08:04:07 GMT 2008

On 12/1/08, ubuntu-uk-request at lists.ubuntu.com
<ubuntu-uk-request at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re:  OT CPU Advice (Seb Ward)
>    2. Re:  OT CPU Advice (Rob Beard)
>    3. Re:  OT CPU Advice (gav)
>    4. Re:  OT CPU Advice (Chris Coulson)
>    5. Re:  OT CPU Advice (Rob Beard)
>    6. Re:  OT CPU Advice (Rob Beard)
>    7. Re:  OT CPU Advice (gav)
>    8. Re:  OT CPU Advice (Darren Mansell)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:05:04 +0100
> From: Seb Ward <ubuntu at gmx.it>
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] OT CPU Advice
> To: ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID: <20081201130504.223000 at gmx.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 13:52:42 +0000
> From: Rob Beard <rob at esdelle.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] OT CPU Advice
> To: British Ubuntu Talk <ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Message-ID: <B0E1E96C-9757-4AC7-AD88-D4DFDCCF3E86 at esdelle.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
>
> On 1 Dec 2008, at 10:24, Darren Mansell wrote:
>>>
>>
>> I sold my EEE PC about 10 months ago and for (almost) the same money
>> built
>> a very respectable rig with bits from ebuyer. My spec was:
>>
>> Decent Abit mainboard
>> AMD Athlon X2 4200+
>> 2GB Corsair standard stuff
>> 2 x 250GB Samsung SATA HDD's (in Linux software MD RAID 0, it rocks)
>> dual layer DVD-+RW
>> 19" wide HannsG monitor
>> Good quality case from eBay with decent PSU
>>
>> It was a grand total of about ?300 but I had to make sure I got good
>> components. Most important is the PSU as Rob says. I've always liked
>> Abit
>> motherboards. Foxconn are actually pretty good from my experience.
>> They
>> used to make Intel's own brand boards, not sure if they still do.
>>
>> The disk speed makes this computer feel very fast.
>>
>
> I heard bad things about Foxconn boards and Linux a while ago, can't
> remember if it was posted here.  I'm just a bit dubious now.
>
> I'm currently running an Athlon X2 3800+ and that seems pretty quick
> (I did have a Phenom X4 9600 but it died over the weekend and the
> Athlon X2 was the only thing I had which could chuck in the board).  I
> could also recommend the Pentium Dual Core chips as they're also
> pretty quick (I had one before upgrading to the Phenom, it's now
> sitting in my wife's PC).
>
> Rob
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 14:11:46 +0000
> From: "gav" <revford at blueyonder.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] OT CPU Advice
> To: British Ubuntu Talk <ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Message-ID: <20081201141146.GA16685 at bluemidget.local>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> On Mon, Dec 01, 2008 at 01:52:42PM +0000, Rob Beard wrote:
>> I'm currently running an Athlon X2 3800+ and that seems pretty quick
>> (I did have a Phenom X4 9600 but it died over the weekend and the
>> Athlon X2 was the only thing I had which could chuck in the board).  I
>> could also recommend the Pentium Dual Core chips as they're also
>> pretty quick (I had one before upgrading to the Phenom, it's now
>> sitting in my wife's PC).
>
>
> I've not really found a massive multi-core chip to be needed on a modern
> Linux desktop, recently I've moved over to an Atom processor on my desktop,
> this board:
>
> http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147222
>
> Works beautifully under Ubuntu and Debian for me and the whole system runs
> with an 80W power supply, rather than the hundreds of Watts these big rig
> machines use.
>
> --
> Gav Ford
> revford at blueyonder.co.uk
> http://revford.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
> I think we need to:  Reverse the polarity of the communications circuit
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 14:21:15 +0000
> From: "Chris Coulson" <chrisccoulson at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] OT CPU Advice
> To: "British Ubuntu Talk" <ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Message-ID:
> 	<383a17600812010621n454d12d2x52ae694f0f0e5b5e at mail.gmail.com>
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>
> 2008/12/1 Rob Beard <rob at esdelle.co.uk>
>
>>
>> On 1 Dec 2008, at 10:24, Darren Mansell wrote:
>> >>
>> >
>> > I sold my EEE PC about 10 months ago and for (almost) the same money
>> > built
>> > a very respectable rig with bits from ebuyer. My spec was:
>> >
>> > Decent Abit mainboard
>> > AMD Athlon X2 4200+
>> > 2GB Corsair standard stuff
>> > 2 x 250GB Samsung SATA HDD's (in Linux software MD RAID 0, it rocks)
>> > dual layer DVD-+RW
>> > 19" wide HannsG monitor
>> > Good quality case from eBay with decent PSU
>> >
>> > It was a grand total of about ?300 but I had to make sure I got good
>> > components. Most important is the PSU as Rob says. I've always liked
>> > Abit
>> > motherboards. Foxconn are actually pretty good from my experience.
>> > They
>> > used to make Intel's own brand boards, not sure if they still do.
>> >
>> > The disk speed makes this computer feel very fast.
>> >
>>
>> I heard bad things about Foxconn boards and Linux a while ago, can't
>> remember if it was posted here.  I'm just a bit dubious now.
>
>
>> Rob
>>
>>
>> --
>> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
>>
>
> Rob,
>
> You're probably referring to this:
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249
>
> Regards
> Chris
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:43:17 +0000
> From: Rob Beard <rob at esdelle.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] OT CPU Advice
> To: British Ubuntu Talk <ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Message-ID: <49341425.5070107 at esdelle.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Chris Coulson wrote:
>>
>> You're probably referring to this:
>> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249
>>
>> Regards
>> Chris
>
> Yeah that was it.  TBH, there's not much difference in price between
> some of the Foxconn boards and other boards from MSI/Gigabite/ASUS etc.
>
> Rob
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:46:54 +0000
> From: Rob Beard <rob at esdelle.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] OT CPU Advice
> To: British Ubuntu Talk <ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Message-ID: <493414FE.2060509 at esdelle.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> gav wrote:
>> I've not really found a massive multi-core chip to be needed on a modern
>> Linux desktop, recently I've moved over to an Atom processor on my
>> desktop,
>> this board:
>>
>> http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147222
>>
>> Works beautifully under Ubuntu and Debian for me and the whole system runs
>> with an 80W power supply, rather than the hundreds of Watts these big rig
>> machines use.
>>
>>
> I guess it depends on what you use your machine for.  I *could* make use
> of all 4 cores on the Phenom but not very often, juging by the system
> monitor the majority of the time most of the cores were sat idle at
> about 1.2GHz and it was only specific things I did that actually used
> more than two cores.  I do however sometimes tax the system so I don't
> think an Atom would meet my needs.  If I didn't play HD video on my
> other half's PC then an Atom would probably do her.
>
> I'm considering an Atom Dual Core for my server (it's currently running
> an Athlon 1400) although I'm not sure what to do after reading this....
> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-atom-efficiency,2069.html
>
> Rob
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 19:10:54 +0000
> From: "gav" <revford at blueyonder.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] OT CPU Advice
> To: British Ubuntu Talk <ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Message-ID: <20081201191054.GA28322 at bluemidget.local>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> On Mon, Dec 01, 2008 at 04:46:54PM +0000, Rob Beard wrote:
>> I'm considering an Atom Dual Core for my server (it's currently running
>> an Athlon 1400) although I'm not sure what to do after reading this....
>> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-atom-efficiency,2069.html
>
> The Atom seems to work fine for DVD playback, if that helps you judge on
> the video side of things, I use an external USB DVD on the machine.
>
> I've no interest in BluRay yet so I can't tell you how it handles that.
>
> From that review, it looks like the chipset it holding the Atom back, 4W
> for the processor but 22W for the chipset seems backwards.  However that
> chipset is well supported under Linux, especially the hassle free, open
> driver 3D support.
>
> --
> Gav Ford
> revford at blueyonder.co.uk
> http://revford.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
> I think we need to:  Repair the kettle flow
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:50:11 +0000
> From: Darren Mansell <darren at vcoc.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] OT CPU Advice
> To: British Ubuntu Talk <ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Message-ID: <342bbd654d1b1dbf225faa82bc732008 at localhost>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> On Mon, 1 Dec 2008 14:21:15 +0000, "Chris Coulson"
> <chrisccoulson at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> 2008/12/1 Rob Beard <rob at esdelle.co.uk>
>>
>>>
>>> On 1 Dec 2008, at 10:24, Darren Mansell wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> > I sold my EEE PC about 10 months ago and for (almost) the same money
>>> > built
>>> > a very respectable rig with bits from ebuyer. My spec was:
>>> >
>>> > Decent Abit mainboard
>>> > AMD Athlon X2 4200+
>>> > 2GB Corsair standard stuff
>>> > 2 x 250GB Samsung SATA HDD's (in Linux software MD RAID 0, it rocks)
>>> > dual layer DVD-+RW
>>> > 19" wide HannsG monitor
>>> > Good quality case from eBay with decent PSU
>>> >
>>> > It was a grand total of about ?300 but I had to make sure I got good
>>> > components. Most important is the PSU as Rob says. I've always liked
>>> > Abit
>>> > motherboards. Foxconn are actually pretty good from my experience.
>>> > They
>>> > used to make Intel's own brand boards, not sure if they still do.
>>> >
>>> > The disk speed makes this computer feel very fast.
>>> >
>>>
>>> I heard bad things about Foxconn boards and Linux a while ago, can't
>>> remember if it was posted here.  I'm just a bit dubious now.
>>
>>
>>> Rob
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
>>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
>>>
>>
>> Rob,
>>
>> You're probably referring to this:
>> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249
>>
>> Regards
>> Chris
>>
>
> Very interesting. Back in my R+D days for a used-to-be well known british
> PC manufacturer I had to do a lot with Windows WHQL testing. WHQL (Windows
> Hardware Quality Labs) is basically Microsoft paying hardware manufacturers
> to break support for Linux or any other OS.
>
> There are test suites called the HCT tests. The mainboard BIOS, VGA card
> BIOS, optical firmwares etc all had to be bodged to work with these tests.
> Microsoft would give you kickbacks via the MDP (market development program)
> if your stuff was all WHQL certified.
>
> Of course every system integrator is then under pressure to get every piece
> of hardware in their PC's WHQL certified and in turn put pressure on the
> hardware manufacturers to alter the BIOS/firmware to make it work for the
> Windows HCT. As money talks they have no time left to look at Linux
> support.
>
> It's all just another way Microsoft have to make Linux look like some cheap
> joke. Open standards are their enemy.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> --
> ubuntu-uk mailing list
> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
>
>
> End of ubuntu-uk Digest, Vol 44, Issue 2
> ****************************************
>

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