Hello LinuxQuestions forum members.

I have an existing older Slackware development workstation that needs to be replaced with new hardware and I have zero useful up to date knowledge of Intel/AMD CPUs and NVIDIA/AMD GPUs or how to verify the hardware I pick is completely supported for Linux/Slackware.

I am looking to build a system that:

* Hits the sweet spot for compilation/build speed/parallelism
* Runs the latest GPUs
* Does not use any gaming focused overclocking or elaborate cooling systems
* Has the latest networking: wired/wifi/bluetooth
* Bluray burner
* Supports three monitors

I don't need to have the absolute latest/fastest system, but price isn't an issue.

Thank you for any help with existing builds or pointers to better places to ask my question.

Laptop or desktop?

Desktop

If the Slackware aspect is a priority, press the report button on your first post and ask a mod to move it to the Slackware-specific forum, where you'll get more Slackware users seeing it. (A lot of them don't venture out into other LQ areas.)

Here's a list of computers people have [tried to] run Slackware 15 on in the past year:
https://linux-hardware.org/?view=computers&f=os_name&v=Slackware+15.0&p=-2

You'll need to drill down to individual probes to get detailed hardware info and confirm what works.
Also, you can use "Find Computer" and/or "Find Parts" in the menu to check specific target hardware.

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Thank you for the help boughtonp.

If anyone has any current example development workstation builds running Slackware, it would be appreciated.

A place like this might be a good place to start:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/work...xctopt5820us_4

That "sweet spot" on speed/parallelism totally depends upon what you are going to use it for. CPUs with more cores have less GHz. You will also need to consider if you want a single socket system like the example in my link, or if you want dual sockets like the one that can be chosen at:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/work...xctopt7920us_4

Again, it is possible to configure more GHz with a single socket system than with a dual socket system.

Somehow you are going to end up in a decision between price, performance and functionality. In my example links I linked to systems with Xeon CPUs. You can get other CPUs with higher clock frequency but then you will lose the ECC capability of the RAM memory. As long as everything works fine the lack of ECC is no problem, but when things sometimes start to go wrong ECC is good for telling you if your memory is OK or if your memory should be replaced.

I would start by looking at your old system and think about why you want to replace it. Does your old system have any bottleneck that you are suffering from? Usually systems "get old" because of lack of RAM. So you should probably try to buy more RAM than you think that you need.

regards Henrik

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You should better build your custom desktop rather than buying one assembled. It's very easy to build one with Youtube and Google.
Personnaly, I've never bought a desktop and always built my own and I build them for 25 years.
The desktop I built this year is designed to built Slackware from Scratch, not the most powerful but enough to build the Slackware distribution in about 13 hours.

Don't buy absolutely too new products, they could be not well supported by linux kernel.

- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X are very powerful CPU: 16 cores/32 Threads
- CPU cooling: an high end CPU cooler like Be Quiet DARK Rock 3 or 4
- GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti/ 3090 with Nvidia binary blob package should work very well for your purpose
- RAM: 32 Go or 64 Go if the price is not a problem (look compatibility with your MB for the brand mark,not absolutely necessary)
- Motherboard: any of top product in ASUS, MSI ...
- power supply: take any modular and powerful brand name (quality and stability: 80 Plus Gold)
- Tower: Lian Li are high end products (no limit for price)
- ssd: nvme like SAMSUNG 980 PRO

The most problematic are wifi and bluetooth, that's why you should buy them apart and maybe not integrated on the motherboard: you should absolutely look the compatibility with linux.
Everything else are common products.

4 members found this post helpful.

What I'd do if I wasn't building my PC from parts, and if funds weren't the issue?
Probably top of the line Dell or HP workstation, preferably the most advanced AMD box still shipped with Ubuntu.
Wouldn't touch the ones shipped with windows, or for example if those were cheaper with same hardware then I'd ask for a windows refund.
I'd replace Ubuntu though, can't say I ever liked it too much.

1 members found this post helpful.

What are you going to be using the system for? This would help narrow down exactly what parts I would recommend. You say money is not an issue, but were talking serious money if you start looking at things like threadripper CPU's and TR4 motherboards which are designed for workstations. If I was building a non-gaming PC for performance but also not ridiculously over priced and fully compatible with Slackware 15.0 this is what I would go with...

You're basically right around $1600.00 not counting monitor, keyboard, and mouse. But you get the idea. All these parts are compatible with 15.0. New hardware is right around the corner but it won't be compatible with 15.0, you would have to run -current. This setup is basically just a beast desktop with lower end GPU but you said you are not gaming, but want a modern GPU. The motherboard I recommended has wifi-6e and intel LAN which are both supported in Slackware 15.0. These are just my recommendations, but by no means the best for your situation. YMMV.

2 members found this post helpful.

I just finished building my new system from parts and had decided on something very similar to what Daedra described above. I got a Ryzen 9 5950X, Silent Loop liquid cooling, 64 GB of DDR4 3600Mhz memory, Asus X570 MB, NVME disks (crazy fast!!), RTX 2060 graphics, 750 Watt PS. I'm not a gamer, programmer or heavy duty user. My old wheezer with an 8 core CPU would take about 70 minutes to build the 5.19.2 kernel including the modules and headers (modules took lions share of time). Just built it on my new box two days ago ago and the whole shootin' match took 9 min 30 sec. Nearly fell out of my chair.

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Development workstation.

Building primarily small to large C++ projects is the main need for performance. Personal workstation, not a headless build unit. The system does not need to be the absolute fastest. Two to four grand for the core system not including the monitors or GPU seems reasonable.

Old system had a very good but not bleeding edge Nvidia GPU. Plan on getting something similar - 700 to 1000 dollar range seems reasonable.

Plan on having three monitors for the new system.

The old system had 16GB memory. 32 is probably good enough with the new system.

Overclocking or elaborate cooling systems are not things I see needing. Would like to build it and not mess with it once it is running.

Thank you for your help.

From this description I think what I suggested would make you happy. Yeah the 5950x and X570 are a desktop oriented MB/CPU combo, but would work fine in your situation and are ridiculously fast for a very fair price. The Zen4 and next gen video cards are only months away, but like I mentioned they will not be supported by Slackware 15.0, so you would have to run -current until the next version of Slackware is released which I don't think you would want to do because you do run the risk of the system breaking with its constant update nature. Also you could go with an nvidia 3060ti if you didn't want to do the AMD 6600xt. I recommended the 6600xt because it works "out of the box" on Slackware without any 3rd party drivers or config files like the nvidia cards requires.

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Take care for the memory, 32 Go may be to small for intensive computation, 64 Go may be wiser.
Personnaly, with 32 Go, to build qt5 it failed unless I installed zramctl.
I don't know how much memory it needs to build libreoffice, one of the most power hungry package to build (I've never tested): I'm going to test it this morning (just to see and tell you : 43 mn to build)

My system is:
- CPU: Ryzen 9 3950X (no difference with 5950x for SFS)
- MB : MSI B450 Tomahawk max
- RAM: 32 Go DDR4 3200
- GPU : a small one GTX 1050i (I just needed a graphic card, I already had it)
- DD : 1 nvme SAMSUNG 970 (256 Go) + 1 ssd (500 Go)


Mainly bought second hand products on 'Leboncoin' (only in France).

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Along with the 16-core CPU, I would get 128GB of memory. You don't want to run out of memory at the end of the machine's service life.

The 8-core Core i7-5960x workstation that I built in 2014 had 64GB (8 DIMMs). More cores need more memory. Large memory also enables the machine to never wait for disks once running.

As a reference point, my 8-year-old machine compiles the kernel in 17 minutes.
Ed

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