[finished] How about a tower case recommendation just for De

[Caitlin]

Alright then, since there's no recommendation for a dual-boot machine (see http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 67#p723867 ), how about a recommendation for a good, solid medium-to-high-end tower case machine that will run Debian 10 without problems? My last machine, a generic which I've had for about 8 years, has one foot in the grave and really needs to be replaced fast.

Thanks,

Caitlin

[LE_746F6D617A7A69]

Medium to high-end means a lot of possibilities - what budget do You have?
"Just for Debian" is also a little vague - do You need a PC just for browsing the internet or do You need a PC for doing some real work (CAD, data mining, video editing, gaming, etc) ?

[cuckooflew]

Just make sure the hardware is NOT MS Windows specific and you should be fine.
===edited: was "Microsoft specific",... apology my bad

[Head_on_a_Stick]

https://www.raptorcs.com/content/BK1SD1/intro.html

[Caitlin]

Medium to high-end means a lot of possibilities - what budget do You have?
"Just for Debian" is also a little vague - do You need a PC just for browsing the internet or do You need a PC for doing some real work (CAD, data mining, video editing, gaming, etc) ?

Budget? I don't know; not too cheap I guess. If it's what I want I'll MAKE the budget, I just want to make sure I'm getting my money's worth.

When I say "just for Debian" I mean NOT dual-boot. I also want to run Windows 7 (because some s/w only comes in a Windows version or it does come in a Linux version but it doesn't work) but I guess I'm looking at some level of virtualization for that.

I do everything from programming to graphics to blogging to emulation. I just don't want to get stuck with anything underpowered.

C38189A3938995

[Caitlin]

Just make sure the hardware is NOT microsoft specific and you should be fine

I'm not really sure how to determine how h/w is Microsoft specific -- is it obvious, like stickers that say Windows 10 on it?

Caitlin

[Caitlin]

https://www.raptorcs.com/content/BK1SD1/intro.html

A bit TOO rich for my blood; it seems to come with features I would never use, and doesn't even have an optical drive.

BTW, nice spaceship.

Caitlin

[LE_746F6D617A7A69]

BTW, nice spaceship.

Nah, the price is just for the IBM Logo, a PC worth $1000 will outperform it in all possible test cases.
Besides POWER9 is not x86 compatible - running W7 on it would require full CPU emulation in QEMU -> deadly slow.

Have You seen this:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=146567
What do You think?

[cuckooflew]

Just make sure the hardware is NOT microsoft specific and you should be fine

I'm not really sure how to determine how h/w is Microsoft specific -- is it obvious, like stickers that say Windows 10 on it?

Caitlin

Well, sort of, some that come with MS windows pre-installed, also require drivers that are closed source, and only work on MS products, some can be extremely difficult to impossible to install any other OS, one needs to really read the specs carefully, and you can not trust sales people, if you ask them , "Does it support Linux, or Debian ?", they will tell you it does, only to find out it doesn't, and you voided the warranty by trying to install another OS. Get it in writing, that it does support other OS ,etc. If they say, "oh no, we can't do that, we can't guarantee Linux will work, logic should tell you don't buy it. What I mean by Microsoft specific is that it does not support anything but MS products,and hardware.
I did some search for you,

from https://www.pcworld.com/article/2975800 ... linux.html:Just buy a PC designed for Linux

But let’s back up. You don’t need to dig through hardware compatibility databases to buy a PC you know will be compatible with Linux anymore. Many PC manufacturers offer laptops and desktops with Linux preinstalled. This means that those PCs are guaranteed to work properly with Linux. You can often even save some money when buying these—a Windows license isn’t included, so you’re avoiding the “Microsoft tax” you usually have to pay when buying a PC for Linux.

the article goes on to list some various brands of hardware, EG: Dell, and that is what I prefer, or HP as a second choice, I got this one I am using now, after doing a fair amount of searches, it is a tower, supports 3 HD's, and has a Optical drive as well. It was a re-conditioned ,and I paid $100.00. It shipped with no OS installed,

Code: Select all

Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq 8200 Elite CMT PC 
Disks   sd0   cd0   sd1  
bios0: vendor Hewlett-Packard version "J01 v02.01" date 04/06/2011
bios0: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq 8200 Elite CMT PC
-----snip--- 

Do you not think it would be easier, to just do some searches, include the specs that you want in your search string ? (that is what I did), then read the specs of the ones in the results, if and when you see one that is close to what you want, including price , etc,... then buy it. We could suggest a lot of various ,and ,

A bit TOO rich for my blood; it seems to come with features I would never use, and doesn't even have an optical drive.

Or some other reason it does not suit you.
Please don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with asking us to recommend or promote something, it does make a interesting discussion, but you might have better things to do, and a search would be the fastes way to find what you want.

[cuckooflew]

Here is what I wanted to say, about "Windows specific hardware" , https://www.debian.org/releases/slink/i ... eq.en.html
(old but should still be kept in practice)

2.5.1 Avoid Proprietary or Closed Hardware

Some hardware manufacturers simply won't tell us how to write drivers for their hardware. Others won't allow us access to the documentation without a non-disclosure agreement that would prevent us from releasing the Linux source code. One example is the IBM laptop DSP sound system used in recent ThinkPad systems -- some of these systems also couple the sound system to the modem. Another example is the proprietary hardware in the older Macintosh line.

Since we haven't been granted access to the documentation on these devices, they simply won't work under Linux. You can help by asking the manufacturers of such hardware to release the documentation. If enough people ask, they will realize that the free software community is an important market.

========================

2.5.2 Windows-specific Hardware

A disturbing trend is the proliferation of Windows-specific modems and printers. In some cases these are specially designed to be operated by the Microsoft Windows operating system and bear the legend ``WinModem'' or ``Made especially for Windows-based computers''. This is generally done by removing the embedded processors of the hardware and shifting the work they do over to a Windows driver that is run by your computer's main CPU. This strategy makes the hardware less expensive, but the savings are often not passed on to the user and this hardware may even be more expensive than equivalent devices that retain their embedded intelligence.

You should avoid Windows-specific hardware for two reasons. The first is that the manufacturers do not generally make the resources available to write a Linux driver. Generally, the hardware and software interface to the device is proprietary, and documentation is not available without a non-disclosure agreement, if it is available at all. This precludes its being used for free software, since free software writers disclose the source code of their programs. The second reason is that when devices like these have had their embedded processors removed, the operating system must perform the work of the embedded processors, often at real-time priority, and thus the CPU is not available to run your programs while it is driving these devices. Since the typical Windows user does not multi-process as intensively as a Linux user, the manufacturers hope that the Windows user simply won't notice the burden this hardware places on their CPU. However, any multi-processing operating system, even Windows 95 or NT, suffers from degraded performance when peripheral manufacturers skimp on the embedded processing power of their hardware.

You can help this situation by encouraging these manufacturers to release the documentation and other resources necessary for us to program their hardware, but the best strategy is simply to avoid this sort of hardware until it is listed as working in the Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Nah, the price is just for the IBM Logo, a PC worth $1000 will outperform it in all possible test cases.

How about the test case in which the user requires open source firmware for the motherboard and an open source ISA for the processor? Management engines are bad, m'kay

POWER9 is not x86 compatible - running W7 on it would require full CPU emulation in QEMU -> deadly slow.

The OP doesn't want to run Windows.

[LE_746F6D617A7A69]

The OP doesn't want to run Windows.

hmm, for Me it seems that he wants to do this:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=146689

How about the test case in which the user requires open source firmware for the motherboard and an open source ISA for the processor?

Yes, I agree that open source firmware is a very valuable property - but the price for this HW is just stupid - it does not reflect the real value of the HW. If the Blackbird/Talos PCs would be priced proportionally to other PCs, then I would be their first client

But, maybe not just right away: they are not telling what is the exact CPU model, and they are avoiding to tell that this is a NUMA system -> serious performance problems for typical users ...

[CwF]

this is a NUMA system -> serious performance problems for typical users ...

Wait. What problems? I have NUMA stuff, they run fine?

Any few year old high end used system would be great. And actually, I prefer horizontal layouts since they work better than towers.

[LE_746F6D617A7A69]

Wait. What problems? I have NUMA stuff, they run fine?

NUMA systems are designed for a single use case: one Application/VM per physical CPU socket. In such scenario the performance is very high, because the CPUs/Applications have their own dedicated RAM (no access collisions between CPUs).

For desktop use case however, NUMA is a performance killer, exactly because of the separated RAM controllers -> applications can't use all the memory and all the cores efficiently, because:
a) NUMA architecture requires special optimizations in such case
b) no optimization will fully compensate for inter-CPU data transfers
c) 99.99999% of desktop applications are not optimized for NUMA -> a cheap multicore PC will easily outperform an expensive server-grade NUMA system in all typical tasks.

[CwF]

Well sure... A numa machine is much better for isolating vm's for sure. I've mentioned before I built a few for the purpose of using orphaned equipment. That's done. During the process I discovered the secrets to utilize these beast under bare metal XP32. Sure enough, found the info for custom chipset inf's, found out I could go beyond 4GB main memory, found out I could use a 4GB+ video card... matter of fact my favorite of all time dual boot amd64/XP32 was a numa machine, an Intel 5520. I built a few, kept one that is now only XP32. Like a Lambo sitting in the corner of the garage, still powerful enough for anything today, it just sucks much more fuel, eh kilowatts. And no, I've never been on a faster XP32 machine than that, numa and all...

With the dawn of the 600 series chipset in multisocket setups, the vm isolation got worse, way worse, but the automated config in debian got better, power savings out weighed it all. Win7 would do fine, those are still powerful machines.

Overall, it's not like Debian maximises the newest hardware. I don't have one classic 'out dated' machine that doesn't run better today than when it was new. I usually recommend people stay away from lower end moderate desktops, get a laptop. If one desires high end power multitudes more than a laptop provides, then a desktop, or tower is in order. And I do prefer the desktop version.

So as always, what's the purpose?

[Caitlin]

The OP doesn't want to run Windows.

hmm, for Me it seems that he wants to do this:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=146689

Hmph. I WANTED to do that, but I gave up, seeing as how processors that run W7 are not so available anymore.

I'm now looking at some sort of virtualization to run W7 -- or I'll just run it on my laptop instead, which supports it just fine.

And don't call me he.

Caitlin

[Caitlin]

So, I bought a tower case machine at a local computer shop (not a consumer electronics store) for about $450. (That was with a 1TB hard drive rather than a 256 GB SSD. I'm not so sure that was a good trade.) The proprietor built it himself out of components, so I was pretty sure it was generic enough to run any x86-based operating system. My optimism did not go unrewarded; I installed Debian 10.2 and it worked just fine, but I'm still working on customizing it. See http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=146829 for my current set of problems.