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System of the Year, Linux Style 250

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-lust-after dept.
Bob the Blob writes "LinuxHardware has put together a wonderful article that gathers up all of the top hardware into the ultimate Linux system from 2001. In the article, there is a review of the hardware from 2001 that discusses what we've seen and why the parts were chosen. To make you drool, think Athlon XP with GeForce 3 Ti500 with the stability of Linux." Worth noting that this machine is of course now at least 10 days obsolete ;)
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System of the Year, Linux Style More

System of the Year, Linux Style

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  • This just in (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chundra ( 189402 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @05:53PM (#2819634)
    Slashdot posts advertisements as news.
    • LMAO!
      My question: why would you need a machine like that for linux? I only own a nice processor/lotsa memory/good video card, cause I like to play all the newage games. My linux box is a P100 MHz. I always thought the joy of linux was that you don't need the heavy hardware...

      Only for specific purposes would you need a machine with all that (like graphic coder or something...).

      BTW - Nice sig, but I'm no troll :-P
      • I agree that one can get along nicely with an oldish desktop system. I still use my Libretto 50CT for a laptop, and it works nicely. But I wouldn't think of seriously running KDE or Gnome fulltime on it's 100Mhz processor and 32Megs of RAM. E runs on it, but not as quickly as I'd like, so I use Windowmaker. But when you start doing things like playing MP3s, you can forget about doing much else if you don't like skipping.

        While these aren't things that many people are doing yet, there are some reasons why getting a top-of-the-line system like that would be nice, such as up and coming games and video encoding.

        But for basic stuff, you are right, you can get by on very humble system specs.

  • Obsolete? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @05:54PM (#2819637) Homepage Journal
    I thought one of Linux' charms was that it delayed obsolesence. I.e. find the lost power of that old 486/66.

    Still pretty impressed with what it does on my 70MHz SparcIPX (it's got a sped up processor ;)

    • I thought one of Linux' charms was that it delayed obsolesence. I.e. find the lost power of that old 486/66. Some people prefer not waiting 6 hours for the kernel to compile. :-) FreeBSD's "make buildworld" command recompiles everything on the entire system. I wonder how adequate a 486 is then. Yes, Linux and BSD are perfectly useable on ancient hardware...in console mode. Try KDE or Gnome,however, and feel the pain.

  • SWEET! (Score:3, Funny)

    by clinko ( 232501 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @05:54PM (#2819646) Journal
    Now i can take this baddass linux box and reboot to windows to play games even faster!

    • Re:SWEET! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DRO0 ( 252117 )
      I'm sure some would consider your post as troll-ish, but it does lead to a valid point.

      What's really so great about having a GF3 on Linux? The most graphically intensive games are probably Quake3 and UT and a Voodoo3 on up work more than adequately for them. For fun gaming at the price of a GF3 I'd get a Nintendo Gamecube with Super Smash Brothers Melee and Madden 2002.

      I'm running an Athlon 1.2Ghz and a GF2 MX and don't feel that I'm suffering at all. Plus with RAM so dirt cheap (I have 768 or something like that), the longevity of hardware is even greater IMHO.
      • Voodoo 3? Yes, it's adequate if you don't mind running in 800x600 with (rather nastly looking) 16-bit color. Remember, when the Voodoo 3 was released, there were people saying "Why would you need a Voodoo 3? The most graphically intensive games are probably Quake2 and Unreal and a Voodoo1 up up works more than adequately for them." Note that gaming hardware advanced about two to three times faster than processors. Why buy a card like that when the games of tomorrow (and today) need more already?
        • Maybe a Voodoo 3 is exagerated, but his point was that availible 3d games for linux are old, so a TNT say would be enough. It's not like you can run Medal of Honor on linux, so why buy the horse power to do it?
      • If you are doing OpenGL development, it is a good platform. Linux + GF3 (or GF2 for that matter) beats low-end SGI and costs a tenth as much.
      • The answer to your question is that there are uses for 3D accelerators beyond games. My research lab has replaced aging SGI workstations (used for molecular visualization -- google "VMD") with ridiculously cheap linux boxes with GeForce cards. While I wouldn't buy a GF3 Ti500 today (do you want your tax-dollars paying for nVidia's R&D?), I will be more than happy to buy systems with them when they reach a $100-$150 price.

        RC
  • "To make you drool, think Athlon XP with GeForce 3 Ti500 with the stability of Linux."

    Now what exactly are you going to run on Linux that will take advantage of the Geforce 3?
    Blazing fast command line with realtime pixel shading? C'mon people. Get real.

    If you even suggest rendering software, I'll tell you this: I run everything from Maya 4, to 3DS Max R4 and even Bryce, and the rendering times on my Geforce 3 aren't much different from those of my old TNT 2 Ultra.
    Fix the other bottlenecks in the system before you start playing with the video cards.

    • There are two main areas in 3D production, modelling and rendering. These kind of cards are for the first part, modelling and creating the animation files.

      When you have millions of polygons and want to spin the camera, you need a card of this quality. It has nothing to do with rendering, which is a processor intensive task.

      Sure, you can model a landscape in bryce with any card, but when you have the LOTR balrog sitting in Houdini or Maya, you need something really powerful, even the Geforce 3 will not be enough.

      For the rendering phase you have the clusters and render farms, and there you need an 1's and 0's cruncher, and a CGA card will do the job as good as the Geforce 10.000 ...
    • My GeForce 3 Ti500 is put to quite good use running Loki's port of Tribes 2 (at 1600x1200).

  • GeForce? Feh. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Snowfox ( 34467 ) <snowfox@[ ]wfox.net ['sno' in gap]> on Thursday January 10, 2002 @05:55PM (#2819655) Homepage

    It seems like a 'Linux System of the Year' ought to fully embody the Linux spirit, which nvidia does not. I'd much rather see a Radeon in there.

    nvidia cards are severely limited if you're not willing to run the closed-source drivers. nvidia still won't share all of the information about their cards needed for activating DVI-D and other parts of the display output hardware, as well as pieces of the rendering hardware.

    Admittedly, nvidia has done a decent job of keeping the closed-source drivers up to date for 98% of the users out there, but simple things like using an nvidia card as your secondary/tertiary display can still lock your system up, and there's not much you can realistically do to fix that without the source.

    • You don't get the source to those either...

      • And not for your TV either...

        The drivers for your video card would be useful, and the poster even gave you an example.

      • BIOS and HD Firmware use open interfaces (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The interfaces used by the BIOS (int 15h and others) and by the hard drive (IDE, ATA-100, SCSI, etc.) are well-defined. You don't have to install closed-source drivers to use your hard drive or BIOS (Linux rarely uses the BIOS anyway).

        An open-source BIOS would be helpful, because often there are bugs in the BIOS that must be worked around (Linux contains several workarounds for BIOS bugs). But since the BIOS can usually be bypassed, it's not a huge problem.

        For a hard drive, there's not much point in having open-source firmware. You can already access the full functionality of the drive using open-source drivers.

        With Nvidia's video cards, you can't access many of the features without using their closed-source drivers (you need to load the closed-source driver into your kernel). This can cause noticible problems, like crashes when there are driver bugs, or incompatibility with new kernel versions. Some people say it's not a problem (right now Nvidia is pretty good at fixing the bugs), but what happens when Nvidia decides their cards are obsolete, and stops providing drivers? They already did this with their 3dfx cards - not only did they stop updating the drivers, they don't even offer old ones for download.

    • Re:GeForce? Feh. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Isn't it obvious why Nvidia will not open source their drivers? (I'm not an ATI/Nvidia fan-- A conspiracy loony, maybe) Because releasing that information will show that when drivers are first released they are intentionally designed to be underperforming! This is how they can release drivers that increase the performance of their cards. Now, logically, you could say that this makes no sense, that Nvidia should simply release the most optimized code right away. However, underperforming drivers mean that they can tweak their drivers in the event that ATI releases a new card and Nvidia does not have any new silicon ready. Likely they learned this lesson from Intel when Intel was caught with its pants down when AMD released the Athlon.

      • Re:GeForce? Feh. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Osty ( 16825 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @06:39PM (#2819987)

        Or, you could lose the conspiracy theory and enter the real world. nVidia will not release the source to their drivers for one simple reason -- they have a lot of intellectual property tied up into those drivers, property they developed by spending millions in R&D funds. Opening the drivers is simply an invitation for their competitors to steal all their hard work. Maybe that's fine if you subscribe to RMS's unreachable utopia where no proprietary software exists (and nobody goes hungry, and nobody shits, and we all sit around singing filk songs at morale meetings ...), but here in the real world that's the perfect way to bankruptcy.


        So, you say, why don't they just give us the specs to the boards, if they won't open the drivers? The answer here is two-fold. First, it can easily be dismissed by the IP argument above. But that's a cop-out. The real reason is because nVidia uses a unified architecture that allows them to write drivers that will work on any of their cards, from the oldest Riva TNT (not the Riva128 or earlier) to the latest GeForce 3 ti500. Releasing register-level information would undermine that process, and generate many different, incompatible drivers. I for one like to know that regardless of what nVidia-based graphics card I have, I can always go to www.nvidia.com [nvidia.com] and get drivers that will work. So why don't they release the specs to the layer above the register-level hardware? Intellectual property :) (hey, you knew it was coming.)


        As for underperforming drivers, that's a by-product of nVidia's aggressive production cycles (where they generally try to have a new product or a refresh of the last product out every six months). They learned their lesson way back in the day, after nearly going under because they took so long on the nv1 (oddly enough, Sega bailed them out by contracting nVidia to do the graphics in the Saturn, and now Sega is the one in financial trouble and nVidia has moved to a different console manufacturer ...). If you only have six months to get your new hardware or hardware refresh out the door, you don't have much time to work on drivers. However, driver development is always happening (just look at the frequency of "leaked" alpha and beta drivers). And on top of all that, and as a by-product of the above unified design, all owners of nVidia products (well, again, anything RivaTNT1 or newer, anyway) benefit from these driver advances. Two years after buying a TNT2 Ultra board, I was still able to get a performance increase simply by downloading the latest drivers (well, I run a GF3 now, but because of nVidia's aggressive driver development, my TNT2 latested much longer than a comparable 3dfx board for example).


        Point: You need to learn how nVidia runs their business (and it's a good lesson to learn, as nVidia went from near-bankruptcy to insanely successful in only a few short years) before you go promoting conspiracy theories with no basis in reality.

        • I hope someone mods you up. Good points indeed. My tnt2 ultra was still kicking (and still is on my brother's computer) and still has mad features. The unified driver architecture is brilliant. If you install the nvidia drivers under linux, you can switch from a TNT to a Geforce3 and anywhere in between while having to make NO CHANGES to your xconfig or anything else.

          Also recently someone benchmarked the geforce3 ti under linux. The 2314 drivers under linux give better performance than winxp in quake3 at most resolutions. RTCW didn't fare quite as well but the MP release is still beta. I bet TTimo hasn't slept for weeks.
        • You've described quite well their reasons for not releasing the source. (Well, some of them.) But those don't directly affect me. What affects me are things like:
          1) Will it work?
          2) Will it continue to work when I upgrade?
          3) Will it work when I do a clean install from a distribution's CDs?
          4) Can I adapt it to suit my needs?

          So I'm not directly interested in their justifications for why they are doing things the way that they are. I'm interested in whether I can use the tool that they are selling to do what I want to do in the way that I want. For this open source has definite advantages. (And this even though I'll never write a video driver in my life.)

          If there are any advantages to me in a closed source distribution, I don't see it, and several decades of unpleasant experiences show that there are many disadvantages.

          Open source also has its disadvantages. Linux has gotten a lot better in the last couple of years, but I had a struggle getting started. And the word processors are still clunky, though they're getting better fast. etc. The flash and splash is slow to appear, and things tend to never achieve a finished look. (KDE and Gnome are clear exceptions here, but consider even their basic applications for examples.) But you don't get hung out to dry. I've never had an open source application leave me, though I've left several of them. Indeed one of the main problems with Open Source is the "embarassment of riches" problem. How does one choose! In the major categories this is settling down to a few major choices, with the others reserved for those with special needs. But compare this with the Windows word processor market. They one uses MS Word. (Unless one is a lawyer .. then one may use Word Perfect.) And if that's an inappropriate tool, use it anyway. There aren't any significant options. Think how much that simplifies choosing. Of course, the version keeps changing, new versions appear to be heading toward application rental rather than purchase (lease, officially). So you can expect to be hung out to dry regularly. But you don't need to worry about too many choices. And it's quite polished. (Debugging is a totally separate concept.)

          So...
          To my mind, a better choice for "the ideal Linux system" would have had open source drivers.
          .

    • Re:GeForce? Feh. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john.lamar@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday January 10, 2002 @06:08PM (#2819777) Homepage Journal
      While I see your point about open source very well, I can't fully agree.

      At least there are drivers available. They could have simply ignored linux like plenty of other hardware vendors and left you to deal with it on your own.

      In a fantasy world we would have the source to everything, but that isn't the case. If for say, a company was going to reveal trade secrets, we shouldn't shun them because they are protecting them.

      Sometimes we aren't going to get the source. It's that simple. Be happy we have drivers at all really. They did what they could to make you happy.

      I believe this is the reluctance to release games and the like for the linux OS, people bitch if it's not 100% Open Source[ed].

      • Re:GeForce? Feh. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by rgmoore ( 133276 )

        I think that you miss the point. The point is not to blast NVidia for releasing only binary drivers but rather to reward ATI for making open source drivers possible. The Radeon is at least competitive with the GeForce, and given a choice between two competitive products, the Ultimate Linux Box should pick the one that is most in keeping with the spirit of Linux, i.e. Free/Open Source Software.

      • Re:GeForce? Feh. (Score:2, Interesting)

        by dan g ( 30777 )
        The problem isn't just with the ethics of people who want to use open source software. If you have a closed source module loaded into your kernel and it oopses on you, you only have one recourse: take the oops to Nvidia--even if the crash was in your scsi driver or the network layer. Kernel developers won't touch bug reports from people who have proprietary drivers loaded because there is no way to know what that driver is doing to other parts of the kernel (without disassembling it).

        dan.

      • Re:GeForce? Feh. (Score:2, Interesting)

        by subsolar2 ( 147428 )
        I recently faced the choice between going with a GeForce3 Ti 200 and a Radeon 7500.

        I picked the 7500 because:
        1. I've never have gotten nVidia's drivers to work on my system.
        2. I believe it's good to support hardware vendors that support open source.

        I believe that voting with my wallet is the only way to effect change with hardware manufacturers. So my last two purchases have been an Epson USB scanner and now the Radeon since both companies support open source developers.

        nVidia needs to open up the drivers so that it can be properly be supported under linux. The only way to reach the "fantasy world" is by making the choice to support the companies that work with the community.

        - subsolar

    • Re:GeForce? Feh. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      Couple of points:
      OS advocates say is fast release times, lower bugs, and quicker bug fixes then most CS projects, but, If a company wrote good software, fixed bugs quickly, and had a fast release time, why would we need OS?
      If MS came out with a truly secure, well written, stable OS, wouldn't that kill most off the advantages of OS?
      • Yeah and when that happens, I'll send you a picture of my Snowman in hell.
      • Couple of points: OS advocates say is fast release times, lower bugs, and quicker bug fixes then most CS projects, but, If a company wrote good software, fixed bugs quickly, and had a fast release time, why would we need OS? If MS came out with a truly secure, well written, stable OS, wouldn't that kill most off the advantages of OS?

        You have some good points, but you probably shouldn't use "OS" (Open Source) and OS (Operating System) in the same sentence. It's confusing. :-)
      • There must be at least one more meaning for OS which you could fit in the same paragraph, or at least another two letter acronym ;)

      • Not even close (Score:3, Interesting)

        by A nonymous Coward ( 7548 )
        I use free-as-in-speech software because I have been burnt too many times by closed source software which changes in ways I don't want, or doesn't change in ways I do want, or goes out of business, or changes its licensing model, or doesn't keep up with the times and won't work with newer software. Etc etc etc.

        I WILL NOT be burned by proprietary software again if I can help it!

        As a semi-aside, my original disgust for Microsoft was the patronizing "we know what you want" attitude of their software. Then of course there was the bugginess of it. I also grew to loathe their business non-ethics. A few years ago, a wonderful job went away when some vulture capitalists would not fund a friend's startup "because M$ would dup the effort and we wouldn't get our money back". And since then M$ has compounded all reasons for disgust. However, all this disgust for M$ is not why I use free source software; it's because I don't want to ever again be trapped in proprietary software over which I have no control.
        • You left out licensing issues. Borland is pretty good about their licenses. Something that's intended as a tool doesn't need to be distributable. (They still have the product obsolescence problem that you were talking about, but that's distinct.)

          At one time the MS license allowed one to use a single copy of the software both at home and at work. That's long in the past, though. The recent licenses have started from you need one license per computer and gotten more restrictive from there. They are clearly headed toward "you need to buy one license per computer per year" or possibly even something as predictable as "as often as we say". This is totally unacceptable to me.

          It is remarkable just how many people believe that the way to deal with unjust licenses is to ignore them. This only works for awhile, however. If you have agreed to terms, and the software evolves to enforce them, then you have no protection at all. Being dependent on software that uses that kind of license, then, is quite short-sighted. A court might not enforce an unduly restrictive contract, but if the product self-enforces (e.g., disables itself after so much time), then it is unlikely to order the manufacturer to fix the problem, and if it did, so much time and expense would pass during the trial and the appeals that you would be out of business before the matter reached its conclusion. And then the matter would be declared moot. "There's nobody to complain, so there's no complaint."

          If corporations are people, then this is murder. Premeditated. But there's no prosecution for this kind of murder. (Well, I deny the hypothesis, but that's the way the logic looks to me.)
          .
      • Except it misses the most important point of all. With an Open Source License, the code is more accessible to the end users. If the company goes under, you are not left high and dry. For some, it goes beyond that. To not be cobbled by a companies whims with regards to the source code. Example [nwfusion.com]
      • If any one can produce a secure, stable, OS, or for that matter any product that is head and sholders above the rest, it will do very well, possibly to the point of destroying the rest of the compotition because it is so perfect it makes you want to cry with joy. However, the compotition will not go away if this maigc OS is 10K a pop, or if it can only be run on a 10ghtz machine with a gig of ram and a terrbyte of harddrive space, and some sort of reverse enginered UFO technology. No matter how good a product is, there is usaly some reason for compotion to exist, if only to fill the nitch markets of people with out the 10k and super computer needed.
      • They'd have to start designing and coding from scratch. There's a lot of baggage they'd need to jettison. And they can't start from scratch because that would mean losing their foothold.

        Linux has a lot going for it outside its stability and security. Look at what you get. You get an entire system with all the tools you could possibly want. For free. And Microsoft can't match that because they make their money selling those tools. Hell for what their OS costs, I could install Linux AND buy a bunch of Loki games.

        If they did come out with an OS that blew all that away, I wouldn't have any qualms about switching over, mind you. I choose my OS because it's the best way to run my computer and that's pretty much it.

    • The thing that amazes me about nvidia is that they do appear to take linux users seriously. There have been several releases of the drivers and support for GF3 was fairly quick after the board came out. The number of OpenGL and GLX extensions they support is overwhelming! While new features appear to make into win32 drivers first, they continue to add new extensions to the linux driver on a fairly rapid basis.

      There is no other solution on linux that gives you the power under OpenGL that nvidia does.

      I think, if anything, we should be rewarding them, rather than complaining. Without nvidia, linux does not make a reasonable OpenGL platform. (Mesa is nice, but too slow to be practical for many applications).

      I have no connections with them; I'm just a happy OpenGL developer.

  • 12 comments and already slashdotted.
    I guess their hardware is not quite up to par.
  • That's a very nice system, and I can't help but drool. With the Raw Coolness factor of Linux, this machine must SCREAM. Of course, install Windows XP on it and watch it just barely outperform a cranky 286 with the turbo button un-depressed.
  • Personally, I wouldn't have the need for a system like this under Linux unless I planned on running a server and maybe do some 3d modeling. The main uses for such powerful hardware are servers and games. Only one of those Linux does well.

  • Oh, yeah. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mike1024 ( 184871 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @05:59PM (#2819701)
    Hey,

    To make you drool, think Athlon XP with GeForce 3 Ti500 with the stability of Linux.

    That will be useful! The $300 graphics card [pricewatch.com] will be ideal for all the 3D-intensive games that are only availiable for Windows!

    Michael
    • That will be useful! The $300 graphics card [pricewatch.com] will be ideal for all the 3D-intensive games that are only availiable for Windows!

      Unfortunately, this is true.

      But, just think of your TuxRacer framerate.

    • Such as Quake3, Unreal Tournament and Return to Castle Wolfenstein that *all* run under Linux.

      nVidia's also have a decent frame rate under linux even though they have somewhat funky kernel drivers.
      • Quake3 and UT are nearly 3 years old. RtCW is newer, but largely based on the same engine as Quake3.

        None of these games take advantage of the features of a GeForce 3. You'd see very little difference between a GeForce 2 MX and a high-end GeForce 3 running these games.

        The point the original poster made, though it came off sounding a little trollish, is 100% correct.

        • Quake3 and UT are nearly 3 years old. RtCW is newer, but largely based on the same engine as Quake3.

          None of these games take advantage of the features of a GeForce 3. You'd see very little difference between a GeForce 2 MX and a high-end GeForce 3 running these games.

          No matter who old those games are, they are still widely played. And as far as RTCW is concerned, having a more powerful card does make a difference.

          But I'm curious, which games would make owning a GF3 worthwhile, in your opinion? To me, RTCW is pretty much cutting edge...

          Anyway, you'll be able to use that neat GF3 card to play Doom 3 when it comes out. Being an id game, it should run on Linux!
        • I think your framerate is gonna be a hell of alot faster on the Geforce3 if that's all your concerned about. Also RTCW supports compressed textures (read: detail), Trueform, vertex shading, hardware t&l, etc. The Geforce3 is nice but realistically, not many games really cater to it yet.

          Besides, does it matter how old games are? It's the popularity. Look at how old Half Life is, and it still rocks and has a huge following. Until something comes along to kick it's ass and be the 'next big thing', those games are still used as the mark of quality. Games like Max Payne are great for awhile but if you can't keep playing it online, people forget about it.

          So there you have it. The most popular FPS games are available on linux or can be run under wine/winex. Dispel the myth, drown the FUD.
        • > Quake3 and UT are nearly 3 years old.

          And they're _still_ really fun. Just because it's not new (heh.... or GNU) doesn't mean you can't use it. That having been said, I use Linux/PPC and my graphics card doesn't support DRI. Oh well. Mario is fun too (and it's 17 or so years old).

    • Re:Oh, yeah. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BrookHarty ( 9119 )
      Doesnt RTCW (Wolfenstien), Q3A and Tribe2 also have linux ports?

  • How 'bout a "decent" system (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tif ( 207976 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @05:59PM (#2819704) Homepage
    I've seen the "ultimate linux box" articles before. What I wish they'd write is the "affordable and reliable linux box". In other words, just tell what's a good sound card for linux, a good video card, etc.

    --tif

    • I've seen the "ultimate linux box" articles before. What I wish they'd write is the "affordable and reliable linux box". In other words, just tell what's a good sound card for linux, a good video card, etc.Just hold on to those articles for a year or two, then you'll have a "decent" system.

    • Re:How 'bout a "decent" system (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Duke of URL did it. Buyer's Guide 13 [thedukeofurl.org]
    • LinuxHardware.org does hardware reviews, but of course, they plug their own stuff.

      Internet.com [internet.com] has a decent hardware review site, but this is mainly geared towards server hardware.

      ZDNet [zdnet.com] also has a pretty decent Linux section, with hardware reviews and compatability lists.

      And, if you want to get straight to business, Google [google.com] has a wealth of information regarding tech review sites.

      Hope this helps,

      Ted
  • I have basically the same system, with a ti200 instead of the 500, and it does infact, rock.
  • All this and still under 140 decibels.
  • I don't get it. I've seen "dream" systems before, but what's the tie in with Linux? I mean, a fast system is a fast system. Who cares what OS you're running?

    Oh wait. I see. This is the best system you can get with peripherals that have Linux drivers. Well, that narrows it down a bit.
    • For those of us who would gladly sacrifice speed for near perfect system stability and compatibility, I think articles detailing specific OS-hardware compatibility are important. This article did not strictly focus on that, however, but targetted those who wanted to drool over something they will not be able afford. Overall, I'm still not entirely sure which components I would by, with compatibility in mind, if I were to build a new Linux system.

      And I'll die before I purchase another board with a VIA chipset in it. I've been told they're good with games, but I've had FAR too many stability problems, dating back to the K6 chips to newer Thunderbirds, and the stability on all was crap. And, yes, I always read the hardware guides before I buy a new system and usually buy the boards that are recommended. I work with video - give me Intel (and give me Windows, I suppose, at least until they port VirtualDub to the Macintosh or Linux).
    • I don't get it. I've seen "dream" systems before, but what's the tie in with Linux? I mean, a fast system is a fast system. Who cares what OS you're running?

      It is important what system you want to install there. It's becouse device drivers. And that's the reason NVidia is bad choice.
    • Yup. Lots of critical hardware not supported by Linux. Important things like, well I can't think of any right now. Oops, sorry.

      I have an iMac of all things, and Linux runs flawlessly. Even on the supposed ultra-proprietary hardware.
    • I'm not an expert on these things, but my understanding was that these proprietary drivers often add an additional layer to the OS and generaly slowed things down a bit.

      If a card was well supported by conforming to the published standards, it didn't need a propietary driver and in most cases should be expected to run faster using the OSes built-in, highly stable and well-tested drivers in both Linux® and Windows®.

      In a dream system the goal is maximum concurency of tasks. You get that by the CPU doing CPU tasks, the modem doing modem tasks, the hardrive controller doing the hardrive tasks as well as the video card doing the video tasks. When the card lacks intellegence and forces the CPU to help out, things tend to get slower and glitchy.

      I've seen Windows applications crash and burn on launch, because of non-standard OEM drivers

  • POS HSF (Score:2, Interesting)

    by linzeal ( 197905 )
    Cost: Thermaltake Dragon Orb 3 - $20.00

    Anyone use these things? If you get a hardon for those window kits and want to show off these are fine. If you actually want to cool/overclock these are POS. Did they get paid by thermaltake to use all their products I mean listen to this, "Other supplies we'd like to mention all come from one company, Thermaltake. Thermaltake is a total cooling solutions company and provide the best products for many of those extra cooling jobs." WTF? For anyone interested in some real cooling for about 20 bucks more and peice of mind the damn fan won't die check out this [heatsinkfactory.com]. I have no comment on the memory coolers as they give a whole whopping 1 degree celsius of difference in tests I've seen. Were these people stunned stupid into liking shiny impractical things?

  • I only have one question:

    How is something the ultimate Linux system, and not the ultimate AnyOS system?

    Now I know this is a troll, but jesus, people! Writing an article and slapping "Linux" on it to make a slashdot article? Its pretty pathetic!
  • NVidia is worst choice for Linux. You should try Voodoo, Matrox or ATI. If you choose NVidia you can't use Xv/OpenGL or you must use closed source module!
    And if you don't need Xv/OpenGL - why the hell you want spend so much money to Geforce??? Or is it just system for "dual boot" ? So don't call it best for Linux!

  • What's the point? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I know I'll get flamed for this, so I'm going AC. ;)

    What's the point of a Linux-based powerhouse with a GF3 Ti500? I mean, you have what, 5 games to choose from? If I'm going to spend that much money on a video card, I'm certainly not going to be using it under Linux anywhere near its full potential. I'd rather stick it in my Win2k box and play some sweet Wolfenstein or Medal Of Honor.

    Great system and all, but frankly, I don't need that much gaming power under the "stability" of Linux.
    • I know it's been said already, but RtCW has a Linux port that you can grab, so long as you own the full version of the game.

      Perhaps once I've benchmarked it under Windows and Linux, I'll have post an article giving the results. Nice part of being fairly OS neutral is that I wont be tempted to make Linux look best!
  • to bad they didn't use the box to host their site.

    /.'d in 2 minutes....
  • Although the link seems to be slashdotted, I've read a few "Ultimate Linux Box" articles including one on slashdot [slashdot.org] recently. That one is apparently a sequel to another article Eric Raymond wrote in 1996 which discusses building a Linux box on the cheap. Since that would now be out of date, I'm wondering if there are other articles/advice on building or buying a cheap linux box.

    Since I am not much of a hardware guy, I'd be more interested in questions like where is it essential to spend a little money. For example, if one only wants reasonable performace and would be developing only for hobby and self-education, is one of the cheap Celeron systems OK or will it bite me in the ass down the line that I don't have a Pentium? And if I would also need to boot Windows for work related stuff, does that change my minimum hardware requirements?

    Anybody have any links or advice?

  • Nice system... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I bet KDE and GNOME still run like shit on it.

  • Depends on how you describe "ultimate" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Stiletto ( 12066 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @06:42PM (#2820001)

    Clearly this system is in no way "ultimate" in terms of price/performance, reliability, or open-ness of software and hardware.

    It would be educational to see what system LinuxHardware could come up with with a $1000 spending cap, and a requirement that it reach a 60-day uptime under constant use.
    • It would be educational to see what system LinuxHardware could come up with with a $1000 spending cap, and a requirement that it reach a 60-day uptime under constant use.

      An iMac running OS X, would be my suggestion.

      Oh, it has to run Linux? Yeah, good luck with that.

      --saint
      • Good luck with what? iMacs run Linux. Just ask these guys [yellowdoglinux.com].
        • Good luck with what? iMacs run Linux.

          I know, and on my iMac (running YDL 2.0) it was a mess. X was crashing left and right, even on the default desktop (KDE) and without changing a whole lot of anything. I reinstalled a couple times, it didn't fix it.

          OS X, on the other hand, is both significantly more stable _and_ handles most of my hardware correctly. (Linux couldn't see my Firewire CDRW, while OS X can't see my cheapass printer. Sort of a tossup.)

          However, to get off the tangent, my original comment was aimed at the fellow looking for a solid *nix on a sub-$1000 machine. OS X on one of the bargain $799 iMacs is a great choice.

          --saint
    • For XMas, I built a more modest version of linuxhardware's version: xp1600+, soyo d+, 512MB PC2100 DDR, MSI GF3 ti200, plextor 24/10/40 CDRW, antec 400W PSU, HSF. I had a case and a maxtor 60GB IDE drive already for it. I spent $900 with burn-in and shipping.

      They chose all scsi, which is a bit over the top IMO - the dragon+ has 4 IDE controllers for 8 devices (2 of which are promise raid which can run as normal ide for linux). The PC2400 memory is overspec for the board (unless you want to boost the FSB beyond 148).

      RH7.2 installed without a hitch - lan and audio drivers found and installed no problem. cdrecord is happy with the CDRW - no configuration there. I installed nvidia's drivers and have full opengl - that did require a kernel recompile (because of the the athlon I think). lm_sensors is working, etc. All on a board that was released in November - says a lot about the state of linux drivers.

      Point is, I believe I have a rock solid system that by any measure meets price/performance/value.

      I can also run the FSB at 143 reliably which shows the cpu/mem benchmarking as a xp 1800+. The geforce 3 ti200 can be overclocked to come close to a ti500 (the MSI driver provides overclocking in the windows driver - a linux version -nvclock - is available at http://209.167.100.83/ (evil3d).

      I'm satisfied.
  • of the 'Ultimate Linux' machines 'crash' alot because of a conflict with the soundcard?

    SB Live! if I remember right.
    • I dunno, my SB PCI512 worked just fine (except for MIDI), and it has the same chipset and uses the same kernel module as SB Live. It was the damn p.o.s. Radeon that kept crashing my X server (not to mention it's OpenGL support sucked).
  • It's no wonder there are so many Mac bashers here. While I'll admit I'm as much of a geek as the next guy, clearly this /. article is aimed at those who would "drool" over hardware, instead of drooling over solutions.

    To put it in perspective, a system based on an Athlon XP and Nvidia Geforce card is useless on its own, without software to run on it.

    Yes, there's lots of power there, but I think the ultimate Linux system is one that does what it's intended to do, not just one with all the best hardware. If the box is employed as a server, for example, then the Geforce is an irrelevant, extravagent, useless nicety. The processor's also probably not worth what you'd pay, considering you could get something a little slower for a lot less.

    There are no "ultimate systems" - just ultimate solutions.

  • Nomination. (Score:4, Informative)

    by saintlupus ( 227599 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @07:43PM (#2820401)
    The article seems Slashdotted, but from the summation I can only assume that this is another desktop x86 setup.

    I'd rather like to nominate the iBook as the portable Linux dream system of the year. The TiBook is a little too flimsy for a clumsy oaf like myself, but the iBook is an indestructible, lightweight, brilliantly engineered machine. There's an Apple on the outside, but even if you eschew OS X for Linux, it's still the best bang for your buck in laptops from 2001.

    --saint
  • i just bought a new file server at home with the following specs:

    1 x Tyan 2640 motherboard (Athlon MP)
    2 x 1800+ MP (1.5GHz) Athlon CPU
    2 x ThermalRight SK-6 heatsink
    2 x Delta "Black Label" fan
    2 x Tekram 390U3D Dual Ultra-160 SCSI HBA
    6 x Seagate 15K RPM 36GB U160 SCSI Cheetah
    1 x Seagate 10K RPM 4GB LVD SCSI Cheetah
    1 x Plextor 40X SCSI CD-ROM
    1 x Plextor 12/10/32X SCSI CD-Recordable
    1 x NetGear FA310TX 10/100Mbps NIC
    1 x Trident Video (4MB, PCI)
    1 x CoolerMaster ATC-400 rackmount case
    4 x Crucial 256MB ECC DDR-SDRAM

    it's not much on the gaming front, but damn does it crank out the dnet keys (RC5: 10.5Mkeys/s)!

    i'm also very pleased with the disk throughput. each individual 15K RPM Cheetah pulls ~55MB/s. all 6 done in RAID-5 maxes the PCI bus (133MB/s). theoretically it should cap around 266MB/s (due to the 64-bit PCI bus), but i'm not sure why it doesn't. still, 100+ MB/s is pretty damned fast.

  • practice what they preach? (Score:4, Funny)

    by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Thursday January 10, 2002 @08:25PM (#2820627) Homepage Journal
    Maybe they should get themselves a server that doesn't get slashdotted.

    I'm sure the GeForce really helped there.

  • When x86 is the weakest design of them all.
    Good for gaming perhaps, but Linux isnt really a gamers OS.

    Why no Itanium based PC? Sparc? What about SCSI Raid 0, what about bandwith?

    As if a Gforce3 really matters on a Linuxbox that cant even do Alpha channeling yet in the GUI, and as if it matters if you have an AthlonXP thats designed for Windows?

    System of the year for a Windows user yes.
    But for Linux? I could do better. When building a system you build it for the software that you run on it, not build it because everythings name brand.

    Ok so lets say you run games, Thats when you need Gforce 3. (Linux users dont apply here)

    Lets say you do alot of graphics manipulation, then you need perhaps another card.

    Things that all users can use is alot of ram, SCSI raid, and a fast CPU, but unlike Windows Linux runs on any CPU, people always forget that.

    The only problem with Itanium is its price, but for System of the year, price shouldnt be the issue.
    • Yeah, I couldn't disagree more with your statement regarding Linux not doing games. My current favorite four games run in Linux, often better than on my windows 2000 machine. My Linux box has a geForce 2 MX in it, my windows box has an ati 8 MB rage pro something. Guess which is the better video card? And yes, I put it in my Linux box, I get better performance out Quake 3 Arena in Linux.

      The Linux Gamer market may be a niche inside a niche, but were there, and we can be just as loud as annoyingly bad starcraft players on Battle.Net
  • Did they forget the flaw in the via chipset thet prevents any PCI scsi controller from exceeding 60mb/s? Adaptec/cheetah combo is a complete, utter waste of effort on that board.
  • I can't help it, but as a non-gamer I find all computers on the market today more than sufficient for my needs. Any CPU that I can buy brand new is enough. Memory is more or less free, and 512 Mb is more than I've ever needed. A 20Gb hard drive makes it. Most graphics adapters can do 1600x1200x85.

    I just want something that is "completely" silent. My Mac G4 is not silent. My IBM Thinkpad is not silent. The Sun Blade 100 at my work is not silent.

    There was an article a few days ago on Slashdot telling how to build a quiet performance PC. I believe dropping "performance" could make it even more silent.

    How do I build a machine (to run my favorite free os) that is completely silent?
    • If you only want to run linux it's trivial:
      build an X terminal with a slow fanless CPU and no disk (boot from floppy) and a fanless power supply.

      Put your real PC somewhere else. Make it as bad ass and noisy as you like.

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