Slackware 13 probably deserves some new hardware - what to get?
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Hard drives always hold back your cpu. With 6GB ram you should try the old fashioned trick of creating a ramdisk and loading your Slackware into it. If it made at atari fly I would imagine it would make slackware stratospheric.
You could just get a ramdisk card. I've used those for years. The memory technology allows one to utilize the newer chips available. No issues with writes and the newer units have backup abilities. Still rather expensive for the average user but beats the issue with 'SSD'.
FWIW. (powers KVM with Windows 7 rather nicely / quick) For a while now:
Slackware 12.2 with hugemem support compiled in; Asus P5Q Pro motherboard; 8 GB DDR2 ram; 750 GB sata II HD; ATI Radeon PCI-E
Marvell IDE controller (KDE daemon or whatever don't like that controller (pata DVD burner) (sometimes burns cd's ok when X has not been started (can't burn when through / in X) -- I burn on another box, haven't yet resolved on this box
That and the ATI are my *only* beefs (ATI works good with 9.3 catalyst for me (but, oh the kernel compiling, etc. before I got there)
I've a 3 speed 120 mm fan on low speed -- it draws from near the back side of my HD while it blows (upward and rear ward in case) at an angle at the motherboard chipsets and the ATI heatsink and also just gets / cools the DDR2 ram as well.
Guess I'll try open radeon at next release of Slackware. If needed, I'll get me an Nvidia or other PCI-E video.
Code:
al@P5Q:/mnt/sda_8/virtmach$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6750 @ 2.66GHz
stepping : 11
cpu MHz : 2666.287
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 2
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips : 5332.57
clflush size : 64
power management:
processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6750 @ 2.66GHz
stepping : 11
cpu MHz : 2666.287
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 1
cpu cores : 2
apicid : 1
initial apicid : 1
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips : 5332.65
clflush size : 64
power management:
al@P5Q:/mnt/sda_8/virtmach$
Windows 7 runs relatively fast in KVM virtual machine
Hard drives always hold back your cpu. With 6GB ram you should try the old fashioned trick of creating a ramdisk and loading your Slackware into it. If it made at atari fly I would imagine it would make slackware stratospheric.
samac
With 6Gb ram, wouldn't the disk cache pretty much cover 99% of what you'll be accessing anyway? (obviously it'll have to read it in the first time but once it's in it should be pretty snappy).
I can see why you might want to put /tmp or other heavily used workspace on a ramdisk (either software based, or hardware as onebuck suggested), but is there really any advantage to copying /usr or other read only data on there when the linux filesystem cache will be doing it's thing?
Here's another question I just thought off. Is the kernel intelligent enough to not cache stuff on tmpfs filesystems or do you have to tell it to ignore them?
I can see why you might want to put /tmp or other heavily used workspace on a ramdisk (either software based, or hardware as onebuck suggested), but is there really any advantage to copying /usr or other read only data on there when the linux filesystem cache will be doing it's thing?
Here's another question I just thought off. Is the kernel intelligent enough to not cache stuff on tmpfs filesystems or do you have to tell it to ignore them?
I have never tried this so I don't really know the answers to these comments, however I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work, after all several live disk distributions copy everything to ram.
What above posters have said, especially due to the virtual machines you'll want lots of RAM (4G on the low side I'd say, which will make you go x86_64 come slackware 13.0 probably)
But I don't agree with running nvidia cards. At least not fan-cooled ones, as I no longer dare to keep my computer on while I'm not there, now being on my 4th videocard in about half a year time due to the fan suddenly deciding to quit working. Those things smell funny, I can tell you now... No more nvidia for me anymore, if his one breaks as well I'll try to find something else that's just as well supported (or even better) and go with that.
What above posters have said, especially due to the virtual machines you'll want lots of RAM (4G on the low side I'd say, which will make you go x86_64 come slackware 13.0 probably)
But I don't agree with running nvidia cards. At least not fan-cooled ones, as I no longer dare to keep my computer on while I'm not there, now being on my 4th videocard in about half a year time due to the fan suddenly deciding to quit working. Those things smell funny, I can tell you now... No more nvidia for me anymore, if his one breaks as well I'll try to find something else that's just as well supported (or even better) and go with that.
Despite all else, and that I'm an nVidia user, Ramurd is totally right about the nV GPU fans: they are CRAP CRAP CRAP.
My current cards are passive cooling, but I have been known to rig/modify/attach better quality fans to my video cards (and my northbridge right now too has a 'custom' fan on it a la moi). It's a bit of a home remedy, but it works very well.
Beside a small speed increase, don't SSDs shine more in a netbook?
Besides, I always thought Slackware was an argument not to buy new hardware. I have one of these with 384MB RAM - it just shines and gives me an extremely sweet battery life.
I always thought Slackware was an argument not to buy new hardware.
I disagree, I always think Slackware is an argument against planned hardware obsolence, not against buying new hardware. Buying new hardware is always good and sometimes essential to keep up with the times. This doesn't mean we have to ditch things that work
Beside a small speed increase, don't SSDs shine more in a netbook?
Besides, I always thought Slackware was an argument not to buy new hardware. I have one of these with 384MB RAM - it just shines and gives me an extremely sweet battery life.
I've found myself using VirtualBox more and more, and it's not rare that I have 3-4 vboxes running concurrently, all the while I'm compiling an Ada program.
This does require a few resources, and I feel my current machine is, well, lacking in that area.
So yea, Slackware will make your hardware last longer, unless you keep increasing the base load of the system, which is what I've done the past few years.
If you end up going with intel processors make sure you get one that supports the VT extentions. Virtual box will run much better with them. So, basically avoid the E7xxx and Q8xxx series.
P.S. I have an E7400, but as I don't do much with Virtualisation, it's no great loss to me.
Hi. I have the Intel E6750 (with VT). E8400 or E8500 Intel would be nice (waiting for cost to come down).
Screams, (E6750) for the most part, with KVM (8 GB ram - Asus P5Q Pro MB, as per my earlier "FWIW" post.
1024 X 768 is max. res. in Windows 7
KVM uses a modified Qemu which in turn emulates an older pci vid. adapter like from the days back when lesser video ram and pci (before AGP).
KVM work good for me, does what I need. I'm not a gamer (obviously).
I've not yet tried virtualbox. (KVM does me - if it ain't broke, don't fix it).
Anyone know/share what virtualbox emulates for video adapter/hardware?
Any other compare / contrast virtualbox versus KVM?
On the strictly virt. mach. topic, a link to another or a new thread might be fine so as not to highjack this (real, not virtual) hardware thread. Thanks.
The new power supply for my i7 system came this past Thursday, so I've had a few days to play. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up . (Ferris Bueller anyone, anyone?)
I didn't care for KDE 4.x with my 2.4 GHz P4 box, but it's a different story with the i7. It's really too bad you can't get the same feeling on the older hardware... the P4 box will stick to XFCE, which is fine, just more spartan with less eye-candy.
I had thought about setting up a partition and installing MS Windows for games. But after installing Windows 7 RC and playing with it for a short while, a balloon popped up stating that Windows Activation was successful. That crap leaves such a bad taste in my mouth... the thought ended there.
I'm enjoying Slackware64-current, and I can't wait for 13 to go final. Gonna go hog wild and have some fun.
Get something with exotic hardware that there's either none or limited support for in Linux, then test out all the development hardware-related software (kernel, etc) you can. 8-)
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I've used those for years. The memory technology allows one to utilize the newer chips available. No issues with writes and the newer units have backup abilities. Still rather expensive for the average user but beats the issue with 'SSD'.
