On 07/13/2014 01:46 PM, mhunt0 wrote:
>
> hello
>
> What you think would be best for Suse or Linux in general, install on a
> Dell (Precision) Workstation or build a PC?
New, a Dell Precision workstation is expensive and maybe not really worth it.
Memory is expensive for them, etc. If you want to buy new, you might find a
9010 or 9020 a better deal since you can actually afford to put 32GB in them.
Sure, it won’t be Xeons, it will be just a single i5 or i7, but there’s a lot of
headroom even in an i5.
I’ve owned a lot of Dell Precision workstations, so I’m speaking from
experience. My current “workstation” at work is a 9010 with 32GB and it runs
many VMs (kvm).
>
> I know… which specs… well, Dell uses custom motherboards and
> sometimes memory, other than that, the general specs are:
>
> 16 GB Ram
> 1 TB HD (maybe SSD)
> Quadcore Xeon CPU (1 or 2 CPU… haven’t decided)
> NVidia K4000 3GB GPU
Actually, Dell is pretty stock nowadays. But those workstation motherboards can
be constraining memory wise. Again, you might be able to buy two 9020’s with
32GB before you could afford a single Precision box with same memory (ECC).
>
> The main thing here is that Dell has the motherboards build for them.
>
> Not talking about price, I know Dell can be a couple of hundreds more
> expensive but you do gain on the testing and compatibility of the pieces
> as well as, well… Dell are indeed quality workstations. The issue here
> is compatibility with Linux.
Dell does a pretty good job being compatible. I’m just saying you might do
better without the Xeons and the ECC memory, etc. But, since I have owned these
in the past with the expensive components, they do work… it’s just that the
Xeon of yesterday can’t compete with an i5 even… so I’d rather buy more often
than buy something really expensive and try to hold onto it for 5+ years.
>
> Look forward to your opinions. 
>
> I have an old Dell Precision 340, 2.8 single P4 CPU, 2 GB ram, ATI
> Radeon GPU and system gets frozen with no apparent reason. asked around
> here about it with no solution and concluded that it is something on the
> Linux side that doesn’t works well with my hardware (or a piece of it) ,
> gpu driver ? kernel, whatever… :… not the question anymore (XP
> partition… the game partition doesn’t have such problem: DCU Online at
> 1600x1200… no lag at all)
>
>
My home workstation is a HP (the other guys) xw6600 with two E5440’s and 4G of
memory. My work “workstation” is a Dell 9010 with 32GB. The latter is a very
powerful box running many VMs. The former is old and slow by today’s standards.
Or course, I don’t “game” at work, it has a midrange Radeon in it and I run the
drivers from AMD… no problems (mostly, it is a Radeon… cursor can get messed
up, but usually after many months of uptime).
Nvidia wise, doesn’t make much sense to go above a midrange board… I use a
GT240 in my xw6600… plays everything at 1920x1200 just fine (Half Life 2,
Portal 2, etc.). Apart from problems with KMS, I’ve had no problems with the
GT240, but people will site the KMS issue. I run OpenSUSE 12.3 on the xw6600
and I’m still at OpenSUSE 12.1 on the Dell 9010 (but probably will upgrade soon).
Dual boot? No. I see no need. On the 9010 I run Windows 7 as a VM just for
work needs. Well… I guess I can boot into Vista on the xw6600, but I don’t.
Now… I also have my big server at home, which is dual AMD 6128’s with 32GB.
That’s my home VM (kvm) box… I run it headless. I did own a dual X5550
machine with 12GB, but gave it away. It was fast enough, but pricey to own,
operate, upgrade. I’d rather have the 32GB. Your needs might be different than
mine though.