Choice between Intel i3-530 and AMD Phenom II X3 for Debian user

(I am considering experimenting with other distros, but, for now, am most familiar with Debian Linux.)

I was about to buy a An Intel i3-530 with a Gigabyte H55MUD2H motherboard, but read the following in another forum:

I built a new machine w/ the excellent help found here. It's an i3-530 machine with H55MUD2H Motherboard. I just wanted to let everyone know that given how new the processor is with integrated graphics, that support within the Debian-based Linux X community isn't complete or ready to go. This, of course, includes support for Ubuntu. X basically crashes regularly, which makes your machine inaccessible from the GUI. Keyboard, mouse is dead, restarting X doesn't work, although SSH is still ok enough to do a restart. This is with Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha, running an even newer 2.6.33 final kernel, and absolute latest version of X. Bug was filed with Ubuntu bugtracker. Buying an off the shelf graphics card might solve the problem, but I have not tried that yet. Note that CentOS 5.3 and Fedora 12 work fine. Just an FYI if this comes up.

So, now I am considering, instead, getting and AMD Phenom II X3 555 (although I am not completely sure what the correct designation of the model is. Also see pdf catalog near top right of first for AMD processor labelled '555', which is what I have been told it is.) and a GigabyteMA785GMT-UD2H even though the performance value may be somewhat less.

Could someone tell me what would be the right choice between the two, or would neither be?

Bad luck with integrated network cards

In the past I have had bad luck with Gigabyte integrated network cards for Intel processors. Does anyone know if the network cards with either of these will give me problems?


Problems with DVDs

I have often had the unsettling expereince of having begun the initial install of Debian Linux off a DVD only to have it suddenly tell me that it can't find the same DVD to install the packages from.

Does anyone know how this could happen and how t avoid it happening again?

Thank you for your interest. All suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Your exact issues in each case may or may not be correctable but we'd need more info.

To make things worse, almost no hardware is factory tested for linux support. Even between runs parts change and timings go off not to mention may or may not have linux support for devices.

I would be inclined to use a live cd and test what I can. I tell the store that if they want a sale then let me try a live cd.

Network cards at least can be overcome by add on nics usually.

I can see that the question I have posed may be a difficult one for many who have looked at this thread to provide an answer to in which they can feel confident.

Even an opinion as to whether or not one or other or both choices should be avoided would be helpful and appreciated.

Thanks again for your interest.

Thanks jefro.

To be honest, I don't know all the questions I need to ask.

Whilst I have no interest in gaming, I do need a desktop computer that will be powerful enough to effortless handling all (or at least most) the following simultaneously:

1. The usual disorganised chaos on my desktop including up to several dozen web pages open simultaneously open in multiple browser windows and up to a dozen half-finshed e-mails.

2. Applications such as Quanta, Open Office, Gimp, Inkscape and Scribus (although perhaps not all at once).

3. Eclipse or similar development environments.

4. Basic adequate multimedia capabilities to allow production of basic YouTube videos.

5. Multiple simultaneous open desktops

6. Virtual Windows XP (the name of the application escapes me now).

My current 2.33 GHz Intel Core Duo E6550 with 2 Gig of Ram doesn't cope very well with even 1 and 2.

Both the Konqueror and Epiphany browsers will regularly freeze, leaving me with no alternative but to close them down, losing all the pages.

I am hopeful that either or both of the choices with 8 Gig of RAM will be capable of meeting all these demands.

At the moment, I am leaning to the AMD chip simply because I would prefer to forgo some grunt for more certainty.

Personally, I have have very good luck with AMD CPUs and Nvidia chipsets and video boards. That's not to say that the others don't work, of course. Have you tried looking through the HCL motherboard posts?

http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php/cat/8

My current 2.33 GHz Intel Core Duo E6550 with 2 Gig of Ram doesn't cope very well with even 1 and 2.


I'd think that setup would be enough for a standard distro. Might consider a more speed oriented distro then like Gentoo or Vector or other that is less bling and more HP.

As it happens, I decided to buy the Intel processor. It seems likely that it will work with the NVIDIA graphics card.

Thanks again for the interest and the help.

Originally Posted by jefro I'd think that setup would be enough for a standard distro. Might consider a more speed oriented distro then like Gentoo or Vector or other that is less bling and more HP.

I had been meaning to create a Gentoo Linux box. I downloaded and burnt the Gentoo CD once, but lost it almost immediately.

I had not heard of Vector Linux until now.

The number of Linux distros seems truly insane.

Can anyone here understand why there are so many?

Surely it often would often make more sense for people to throw in their lot with one of the many existing distros, even if it is not totally ideal, rather than create yet another.

Originally Posted by daggett 1. The usual disorganised chaos on my desktop including up to several dozen web pages open simultaneously open in multiple browser windows and up to a dozen half-finshed e-mails. 2. Applications such as Quanta, Open Office, Gimp, Inkscape and Scribus (although perhaps not all at once). 3. Eclipse or similar development environments. 6. Virtual Windows XP (the name of the application escapes me now).

What version of Debian are your running?

I am running the applications you mention concurrently (and more!) on a AMD 1700+ single core, without problems, on Lenny.

However... if you are running Squeeze, especially with KDE4, there is no hardware available to give you decent performance, and you'll continue to experience crashes and freezes. I am unhappy to say that this is currently Debian's state of the art, whereas Testing used to be stable enough for production.

jlinkels

However... if you are running Squeeze, especially with KDE4, there is no hardware available to give you decent performance, and you'll continue to experience crashes and freezes. I am unhappy to say that this is currently Debian's state of the art, whereas Testing used to be stable enough for production.

I am sorry, but i have to disagree.
Both of my boxes at home run Testing without 'crashes and freezes'.
And no,i don't like or use KDE4 either,but i find both boxes run just fine with Fluxbox.
I also don't believe problems with KDE4 are Debian specific,i've seen numerous posts here on the subject.
I would suggest trying Testing with a different window manager or desktop environment.

Originally Posted by the trooper I also don't believe problems with KDE4 are Debian specific,i've seen numerous posts here on the subject. I would suggest trying Testing with a different window manager or desktop environment.

First, I should rephrase my statement. It is not Squeeze especially running KDE4, but running KDE4 in Squeeze which is the awful experience.

I have seen KDE4 working very nicely in Ubuntu on an eeePc1005, which is not the fastest computer on earth. Too bad I completely dislike Ubuntu.

I already followed your suggestion, and installed XFCE on that machine. Still the machine feels slow, maybe because of traces of KDE still being there, dunno. I scrapped KMail for Thunderbird as KMail was too unreliable and too buggy. Maybe I should make a fresh install, but somehow I am against making "fresh installs", this is not Windows.

I think I am utterly frustrated and that is why I make posts like this. In my office I have the same hardware, running KDE3.5.9 and the machine is snappy and extremely stable. Usually the uptime is 60+ days and it is being restarted only after a power failure.

So it seems that KDE4 might be usable in other distros, Squeeze might be quite stable (as you say), the combination of the two is not a succes.

jlinkels

I already followed your suggestion, and installed XFCE on that machine. Still the machine feels slow, maybe because of traces of KDE still being there, dunno. I scrapped KMail for Thunderbird as KMail was too unreliable and too buggy. Maybe I should make a fresh install, but somehow I am against making "fresh installs", this is not Windows.

Maybe a reinstall might help.
Have you tried Lxde out of interest?,lighter on resources than XFCE and may be more responsive.

So it seems that KDE4 might be usable in other distros, Squeeze might be quite stable (as you say), the combination of the two is not a succes.

That could well be true,unfortunately KDE4 will make its way into Stable eventually.

I think I am utterly frustrated and that is why I make posts like this

I understand your frustration,i've been there myself.
It's what made me find an alternative for KDE.

Your computer is fast enough to handle all those tasks at the same time. The problem you are having is a bottleneck. Something is making everything seem slow. Turn off all services that you are not using, use Flashblock to minimize Flash usage, and tweak the kernel settings using sysctl. If you done everything you can in software, then you need to figure out which piece of hardware is causing the slow down. How you partition and which file system you are using depends on the performance of your computer.

I have a Core 2 Duo T7300 (2 2GHz with 4 MB of shared L2 cache), GeForce8 8400M GS, 2 GB of DDR2-667 memory. I can do what you do with out any slow down and this is only a notebook computer. I do not use eye candy features and I mainly use XFS as the file system. Also I use Gentoo and I do not have problems running Konqueror, Epiphany, and other web browsers. The window and desktop manager that I use Xfce.

If you are going to install Gentoo, use a LIVE CD from another distribution to start installing Gentoo. Installing Gentoo manually is better than using a GUI program to install it.

One thing I notice with several distributions is how each program is setup. Some distributions have unstable versions of programs while others uses stable versions. Pre-compiled distributions will always have problems even if using stable versions because there will always be a mixture of stable and unstable versions installed or you are forced to installed the unstable versions. I found out that Gentoo does things a lot better than other distributions including Debian. Gentoo goes for stability rather being on the cutting edge. People think that Gentoo is on the cutting edge, but in fact they go for stability. Gentoo states what programs are stable and which ones are unstable in a true way instead of taking the developer's word. This information can be used for other distributions.

If you insist on buying a new computer, the AMD Phenom II X2 555 BE will not be able handle all those tasks faster than your present system. It will mostly be equal or be a little slower because of its larger L3 cache. A large L3 cache increases latency, so the processor will be penalized. If the system will be mostly be used for playing games, sure go for it because this processor has a huge strength in this area. I recommend either AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE or AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE. The GIGABYTE MA785GMT-UD2H should work in Linux with out any problems. Use radeon drivers from freedesktop.org or X11 instead of ATI proprietary drivers.

Originally Posted by jlinkels What version of Debian are your running? I am running the applications you mention concurrently (and more!) on a AMD 1700+ single core, without problems, on Lenny.

My version is Debian Lenny version 5.0.2 (according to /etc/debian_version)

Originally Posted by jlinkels However... if you are running Squeeze, especially with KDE4, there is no hardware available to give you decent performance, and you'll continue to experience crashes and freezes. I am unhappy to say that this is currently Debian's state of the art, whereas Testing used to be stable enough for production.

Actually, I bought Linux User magazine issue 83 with Debian Squeeze in it. So, thanks for the advice. I suppose I'd better forget about trying to install Debian Squeeze for the time being.

Headaches getting hardware to work with out-of-the box Debian

The infuriating problem I face, as I wrote above. is that up until now the Debian DVD's will boot my system and then almost immediately fail to find the exact same DVD I just booted from.

This happened two days ago, when I attempted to install it onto an older Pentium PC lying around the house.

I must have got around that problem to install Debian Linux on my latest PC, but the DVD is not fully functional and doesn't work with K3B. Of course, I am sure that there are solutions to my problems, but it takes perseverance and time to find those solutions.

Some initial success with Gentoo on an older Pentium

I may see how I go installing Gentoo or possibly even Vector on my new hardware.

I just downloaded Gentoo Linux, burnt it onto a CD. I seem to have had some success installing it onto an older Intel Pentium PC that was lying around, although I have some way to go before the installation is complete.

Reasons for persevering with Debian

As I administer two Debian based web-servers, I will be persevering with Debian for some time at least, regardless. I certainly like the way Debian does things with apt-get, but have run into infuriating hardware compatibility difficulties of which the abovementioned DVD problems are but one.

Should one normally use Secondary Partions?

In theory, I could install dozens of different Linux distributions, however someone once told me that it was poor practice to use non-primary partitions on hard disks.

In some way this is supposed to strain the hard disk and increase it's wear. So, without using Secondary Partitions, I am limited to four partitions per hard disk. (On the other hand, I could consider breaking this rule for perhaps just one Hard disk.)

Originally Posted by daggett The infuriating problem I face, as I wrote above. is that up until now the Debian DVD's will boot my system and then almost immediately fail to find the exact same DVD I just booted from.

That sucks and demonstrates Debian's problem at the moment. I don't know what your problem is with that DVD and obviously I can't solve it from here. But it could be a problem with newer hardware you use. Debian Stable gets outdated, and outdated quickly, and like I said before, Squeeze is not ready for production yet, certainly not in combination with KDE4

Originally Posted by daggett As I administer two Debian based web-servers, I will be persevering with Debian for some time at least, regardless. I certainly like the way Debian does things with apt-get, but have run into infuriating hardware compatibility difficulties of which the abovementioned DVD problems are but one.

I do agree with you on this. Debian is a great distro, despite of it shortcomings and the current chaos Squeeze is in. Switching to another distro doesn't usually solve a problem, and if it did, you are most likely exchanging known problems for unknown problems in your new installation.

Originally Posted by daggett In theory, I could install dozens of different Linux distributions, however someone once told me that it was poor practice to use non-primary partitions on hard disks. In some way this is supposed to strain the hard disk and increase it's wear. So, without using Secondary Partitions, I am limited to four partitions per hard disk. (On the other hand, I could consider breaking this rule for perhaps just one Hard disk.)

This is bare nonsense, in fact the greatest nonsense I heard in years. Secondary partitions are partitions like any other, the difference is that the primary partition table can only hold 4 partition descriptions, and the extended partition table can hold as many as you like. Mind you, the partitons are anywhere on disk, whether you use primary or extended. You can create 100+ partitions if you wish. You are worn out faster yourself keeping track of those partitions than your hard disk.

jlinkels

Thanks, Electro. (I also neglected to mention that I intended to use a Bamboo Fun CTE-650 USB graphics tablet.)

You have provided a lot of useful information to go on, so thank you.

But could I quickly get a response from you concerning this?:

Originally Posted by Electro If you insist on buying a new computer, the AMD Phenom II X2 555 BE will not be able handle all those tasks faster than your present system. It will mostly be equal or be a little slower because of its larger L3 cache. A large L3 cache increases latency, so the processor will be penalized. If the system will be mostly be used for playing games, sure go for it because this processor has a huge strength in this area. I recommend either AMD Phenom II X32 720 BE or AMD Phenom II X4 665 BE. The GIGABYTE MA785GMT-UD2H should work in Linux with out any problems. Use radeon drivers from freedesktop.org or X11 instead of ATI proprietary drivers.

Firstly, I don't play any games on PC's. Back in 1994, I found myself waking up at 2.00AM and switching on my Windows PC just to play MineSweeper. I removed Minesweeper and all other games from my PC and have never played a computer game since (except for a brief further addiction to Snake on my Nokia Mobile phone.) Mind you, I still find lots of other ways to spend time unproductively on the Internet.

Secondly I had bought an Intel Processor and Motherboard yesterday, but as I haven't opened the boxes yet, it should still be possible for me to take them back and have them exchanged for one of the processors and the motherboard you recommend.

It will be a drag to have to delay all this until at least Monday after having made that extra car trip across the river through Brisbane's often gridlocked traffic, but it may prove to be worth the extra trouble.

I am also unable to spot the processors that you recommend on the parts list (pdf 109K) Can you spot them from the list below (prices omitted) or, if not, recommend some processors from those listed (prices omitted)?:

Intel 775pin E / Q-series (Genuine Retail Boxed CPU)
Celeron D430
E3300 / E5400 / E6500 / E7500

Intel 1156pin Core i5 / i7 Series (Genuine Retail Boxed CPU)
Core G6950 / i3-530 / i3-540
Core i5-650 /i5-661 /i5 670 / i5-750 /i7-860 /i7-870

Intel 1366pin Core i7 series (Genuine Retail Boxed CPU)
Core i7-920 / i7-930 / i7-950 / i7-960

AMD AM2/AM3 (Genuine Retail Boxed CPU)
AM3 Sempron LE 140/ x3 Phenom II 710
AM3 x2 Athlon 240/245/250/255/545/550/555
AM3 x4 620 /630 /635 /925 /945 /955 /965