I would like to upgrade my system to a 64 bit machine. I'd like to find a bare bones platform to build on. I'm not looking to spend a lot of money on this as it is a home system. I looked on the CentOS sponsor page but only saw hosting services.
I haven't kept up with hardware in years so I'm dumber than dirt on what's out there. I would prefer a desktop so I can stack it. Don't think I need to do the Xeon as that would be overkill for a home user.
This would be replacing my 'server' so I need PCI slots for an additional NIC and a 32 bit video capture card used for zoneminder. Not sure what PCI express is or if my cards would work in those slots. Yep, I'm running 8 yrs old machines, IBM NetVistas. :-(
Any help or referal to a sponsor would be greatly appreciated.
TIA,
Eddie
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Dukes Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 8:18 PM To: centos@centos.org Subject: [CentOS] OT: Hardware upgrade help
I would like to upgrade my system to a 64 bit machine. I'd like to find a bare bones platform to build on. I'm not looking to spend a lot of money on this as it is a home system. I looked on the CentOS sponsor page but only saw hosting services.
I haven't kept up with hardware in years so I'm dumber than dirt on what's out there. I would prefer a desktop so I can stack it. Don't think I need to do the Xeon as that would be overkill for a home user.
This would be replacing my 'server' so I need PCI slots for an additional NIC and a 32 bit video capture card used for zoneminder. Not sure what PCI express is or if my cards would work in those slots. Yep, I'm running 8 yrs old machines, IBM NetVistas. :-(
Any help or referal to a sponsor would be greatly appreciated.
TIA,
Eddie
PS If any of youu have any 2 or 3 yr old machines for sale, let me know as well.
Thanks!!
I suggest:
mini-tower / half-tower AMD 4 core processor with virtualization facility (AMD are cheaper than Intel in Europe) (if buying Intel get the virtualization facility) 8 GB RAM motherboard with PCI Express and 1 or 2 older pci slots 4 SATA (and 2 PATA (ISA) for any old drives*) USB 2 or even USB 3 Ethernet controller sound chips DVD writer 500 GB SATA HDD HDD caddy for easy removal of the HDD
* Some ASRock motherboard have it
The cheapest source is likely to be found on-line by Googling or looking at a major web buying site.
Good luck.
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Always Learning Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 8:39 PM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] OT: Hardware upgrade help
I suggest:
mini-tower / half-tower AMD 4 core processor with virtualization facility (AMD are cheaper than Intel in Europe) (if buying Intel get the virtualization facility)
Strange, just installed virtualbox this past weekend. I prefer Intel processor as well as Intell for the mainboard. Although I did have an AMD DX-40 386 and it was solid. OK, I'm telling my age.
8 GB RAM
Was wanting at least 4GB would settle for 2.
motherboard with PCI Express and 1 or 2 older pci slots 4 SATA (and 2 PATA (ISA) for any old drives*) USB 2 or even USB 3 Ethernet controller sound chips DVD writer 500 GB SATA HDD HDD caddy for easy removal of the HDD
- Some ASRock motherboard have it
The cheapest source is likely to be found on-line by Googling or looking at a major web buying site.
I tried that and I'm blown away. The machines I have now have been rock solid and I bought them used. They are like me, old.
Good luck.
With best regards,
Paul. England, EU.
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On Tue, 2011-08-23 at 20:57 -0400, Thomas Dukes wrote:
.... The machines I have now have been rock solid and I bought them used. They are like me, old.
Just because something is old, one shouldn't automatically thrown it away :-)
You need to do a little on-line reading about USB (the effective replacement for Centronics (parallel) ports and RS232/RS423 serial ports. Also about the PCI replacement called PCI-Express.
The older ISA (now called PATA = Parallel ATA) has been replaced by SATA (Serial ATA). SATA has 3 speeds. Most new disks are either SATA 2 or SATA 3 speed.
Modern motherboards have on-board networking (Ethernet) and sound chips which replace the plug-in cards.
It is an exciting world out there, even if a little confusing with all the non-stop modern technology and new names to learn.
Why get second hand when new can be brought for little money, if you hunt-down a bargain. That is what I always do.
Centos 6.1 should be out soon so you can have a fresh start.
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Always Learning Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 9:04 PM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] OT: Hardware upgrade help
On Tue, 2011-08-23 at 20:57 -0400, Thomas Dukes wrote:
.... The machines I have now have been rock solid and I bought them used. They are like me, old.
Just because something is old, one shouldn't automatically thrown it away :-)
Exactly! These NetVistas have been rock solid and have a lot of life let in them but it seems the operating systems are passing them by.
You need to do a little on-line reading about USB (the effective replacement for Centronics (parallel) ports and RS232/RS423 serial ports. Also about the PCI replacement called PCI-Express.
The older ISA (now called PATA = Parallel ATA) has been replaced by SATA (Serial ATA). SATA has 3 speeds. Most new disks are either SATA 2 or SATA 3 speed.
Modern motherboards have on-board networking (Ethernet) and sound chips which replace the plug-in cards.
These NetVistas have on board networking, sound and graphics. They served me well. If I was a gamer, they wouldn't cut it.
It is an exciting world out there, even if a little confusing with all the non-stop modern technology and new names to learn.
Why get second hand when new can be brought for little money, if you hunt-down a bargain. That is what I always do.
Well, that's what I'm trying to find out but things have evolved so much since the last time I made an upgrade. I remember in the old days people wouldn't upgrade the OS. I'd bet there are still folks running apache 1.x.
Centos 6.1 should be out soon so you can have a fresh start.
Thanks again for your help!
The older ISA (now called PATA = Parallel ATA) has been replaced by SATA (Serial ATA). SATA has 3 speeds. Most new disks are either SATA 2 or SATA 3 speed.
IDE I assume you meant. :) ISA was the old bus PCI replaced.
On Tue, 2011-08-23 at 19:38 -0700, Drew wrote:
The older ISA (now called PATA = Parallel ATA) has been replaced by SATA (Serial ATA). SATA has 3 speeds. Most new disks are either SATA 2 or SATA 3 speed.
IDE I assume you meant. :) ISA was the old bus PCI replaced.
Yes since IDE really means Integrated Drive Electronics and was a replacement for the FM HDD with their plug-in controller cards.
On Tuesday, August 23, 2011 10:38:30 PM Drew wrote:
The older ISA (now called PATA = Parallel ATA) has been replaced by SATA (Serial ATA). SATA has 3 speeds. Most new disks are either SATA 2 or SATA 3 speed.
IDE I assume you meant. :) ISA was the old bus PCI replaced.
Yes, but, technically PATA is a souped-up ISA bus with address decode already done for all but the lower few bits. Old 16-bit ISA IDE cards were often referred to as paddleboards because the only thing on the card was a small address decoder/buffer chip and the rest of the lines went virtually straight through from the ISA bus to the drive.
So saying ISA is only partially incorrect. :-)
--On Wednesday, August 24, 2011 3:04 AM +0100 Always Learning centos@u61.u22.net wrote:
You need to do a little on-line reading about USB (the effective replacement for Centronics (parallel) ports and RS232/RS423 serial ports. Also about the PCI replacement called PCI-Express.
I see USB as being on par more with PCI-E than RS232/Centronics. It's a general external expansion bus, but lacks bus-mastering. Compare to Firewire, which adds bus-mastering. So for bus-level interfaces, use PCI-E inside the box, and USB or Firewire outside the box.
Ethernet and SATA interfaces then stack on top of PCI-E/USB/Firewire. (As does the older IDE now often referred to as PATA.)
The lspci and lsusb command line utilities can be used to view the topology of the buses. (Is there a Linux GUI tool similar to Windows Device Manager in view-by-connection mode to graphically show the topology? I've found that view a good way to get one's head around how this stuff goes together.)
On 08/23/11 5:57 PM, Thomas Dukes wrote:
8 GB RAM
Was wanting at least 4GB would settle for 2.
on the upper grades of the current Intel CPUs (for instance, the CoreI7 4 and 6 core processors), there are three memory channels, and right now the best bang per buck is 4GB DIMMs, so you get 3 x 4GB == 12GB in one of those systems. most of the better motherboards for these CPUs have 6 dimm slots, so its easy to add a 2nd 12GB for 24GB total. if you're even thinking of virtualization, you want lots of RAM :)
the low end budget version processors often have features disabled, such as the VTx thing that lets you run 64bit virtual machines, so its useful to study the specs closely. oh, and don't trust the specs on store websites, check with the chip and board makers to verify.
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of John R Pierce Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 9:14 PM To: centos@centos.org Subject: Re: [CentOS] OT: Hardware upgrade help
On 08/23/11 5:57 PM, Thomas Dukes wrote:
8 GB RAM
Was wanting at least 4GB would settle for 2.
on the upper grades of the current Intel CPUs (for instance, the CoreI7
I saw the i7's but I'm getting confused about dual core. Is the i7 thing a new speed instead of Mghz?
4 and 6 core processors), there are three memory channels, and right now the best bang per buck is 4GB DIMMs, so you get 3 x 4GB == 12GB in one of those systems. most of the better motherboards for these CPUs have 6 dimm slots, so its easy to add a 2nd 12GB for 24GB total. if you're even thinking of virtualization, you want lots of RAM :)
Well, I was interested in virtualization because I might be able to run Windoze and CentOS on the same machine at the same time and eliminating one machine. Not sure that would be smart but then, that's new to me as well. I need Windoze to run Quicken Home & Business. Never been interested in WINE.
the low end budget version processors often have features disabled, such as the VTx thing that lets you run 64bit virtual machines, so its useful to study the specs closely. oh, and don't trust the specs on store websites, check with the chip and board makers to verify.
Exactly!! I've been on this list for a while and I have never been given ill advice.
On 08/23/11 6:40 PM, Thomas Dukes wrote:
I saw the i7's but I'm getting confused about dual core. Is the i7 thing a new speed instead of Mghz?
the Core I series comes in a series of different processor subfamilies, I3, I5, I7... and individual members of each of these has different specs. and they bridge 2 complete chip micr-architectures
and to make it even MORE complex, there's "Nehalem" Core I3/5/7 and "Sandy Bridge" Core I3/5/7.
here, easier than explaining it all, its kinda confusing how many models there are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core#Nehalem_microarchitecture_based http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core#Sandy_Bridge_microarchitecture_based
For instance, the Core I7 920-960 family were Nehalem microarchitecture based 2.67 to 3.33 GHz 4-core 8MB cache CPUs. The I7 970-990 are 6 core 3.2-3.5Ghz 12MB cache Nehalem (and obscenely expensive).
The I7-2600 is the new Sandy Bridge guts, this time with 3.4GHz, 6 cores
nehalem and sandy bridge CPUs require different motherboards.
The I5 and I3 are smaller/slower versions of the above. For instance, a Core I3-2100 is a "Sandy Bridge" 3.1Ghz 2-core
confused yet?
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of John R Pierce Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 10:00 PM To: centos@centos.org Subject: Re: [CentOS] OT: Hardware upgrade help
On 08/23/11 6:40 PM, Thomas Dukes wrote:
I saw the i7's but I'm getting confused about dual core. Is the i7 thing a new speed instead of Mghz?
the Core I series comes in a series of different processor subfamilies, I3, I5, I7... and individual members of each of these has different specs. and they bridge 2 complete chip micr-architectures
and to make it even MORE complex, there's "Nehalem" Core I3/5/7 and "Sandy Bridge" Core I3/5/7.
here, easier than explaining it all, its kinda confusing how many models there are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core#Nehalem_microarchitect ure_based http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core#Sandy_Bridge_microarch itecture_based
For instance, the Core I7 920-960 family were Nehalem microarchitecture based 2.67 to 3.33 GHz 4-core 8MB cache CPUs. The I7 970-990 are 6 core 3.2-3.5Ghz 12MB cache Nehalem (and obscenely expensive).
The I7-2600 is the new Sandy Bridge guts, this time with 3.4GHz, 6 cores
nehalem and sandy bridge CPUs require different motherboards.
The I5 and I3 are smaller/slower versions of the above. For instance, a Core I3-2100 is a "Sandy Bridge" 3.1Ghz 2-core
confused yet?
OK, tell me again what we talikng about?? :-)
On Wed, 24 Aug 2011, Always Learning wrote:
To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org From: Always Learning centos@u61.u22.net Subject: Re: [CentOS] OT: Hardware upgrade help
I suggest:
mini-tower / half-tower AMD 4 core processor with virtualization facility (AMD are cheaper than Intel in Europe) (if buying Intel get the virtualization facility) 8 GB RAM motherboard with PCI Express and 1 or 2 older pci slots 4 SATA (and 2 PATA (ISA) for any old drives*) USB 2 or even USB 3 Ethernet controller sound chips DVD writer 500 GB SATA HDD HDD caddy for easy removal of the HDD
- Some ASRock motherboard have it
Ebay sell SATA -> PATA and vica versa adapters, plus others. So you should be able to use existing PATA drives on a newer SATA m/b with the right adapter.
HTH
Keith
----------------------------------------------------------------- Websites: http://www.karsites.net http://www.php-debuggers.net http://www.raised-from-the-dead.org.uk
All email addresses are challenge-response protected with TMDA [http://tmda.net] -----------------------------------------------------------------
On 08/24/11 1:16 PM, Keith Roberts wrote:
Ebay sell SATA -> PATA and vica versa adapters, plus others. So you should be able to use existing PATA drives on a newer SATA m/b with the right adapter.
not even worth the bother. SATA DVD-RW drives that are probably 6X better than the last ATA versions are $19. SATA hard disks are dirt cheap for terabytes. keeping a pile of obsolete hardware alive in a new system is just a waste of time.
Well!! This has been an adventure. I really appreciate all the help!!
Found this on tigerdirect: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4 01989&sku=B69-1317
Again, any advice, comments, etc., regarding any incompatibilites would be welcomed!!
TIA,
Eddie
On Wed, 2011-08-24 at 13:19 -0700, John R Pierce wrote:
not even worth the bother. SATA DVD-RW drives that are probably 6X better than the last ATA versions are $19. SATA hard disks are dirt cheap for terabytes.
Wish we had those low prices in England. Buyers should be aware that HDDs can vary in performance. I always check with
http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/ and select 'searchable HDD list'
I always buy high performance at the lowest possible price.
On Wed, 2011-08-24 at 21:16 +0100, Keith Roberts wrote:
Ebay sell SATA -> PATA and vica versa adapters, plus others. So you should be able to use existing PATA drives on a newer SATA m/b with the right adapter.
I was trying to avoid mentioning that 'name' in case one of the readers got upset about 'commercial advertising'. If buying small parts from them, get it from China, means waiting 2 - 3 weeks, at a really low price. Some SATA motherboards have two PATA connections.
'That name' was where I got my current development machine at a good price and without having to pay the almost compulsory Windoze Tax.
Paul.
On 08/23/11 5:17 PM, Thomas Dukes wrote:
I would like to upgrade my system to a 64 bit machine. I'd like to find a bare bones platform to build on. I'm not looking to spend a lot of money on this as it is a home system. I looked on the CentOS sponsor page but only saw hosting services.
I haven't kept up with hardware in years so I'm dumber than dirt on what's out there. I would prefer a desktop so I can stack it. Don't think I need to do the Xeon as that would be overkill for a home user.
any Intel Core 2 or newer, or AMD Opteron processor from about 3-4 years ago or newer would suit you just fine. the newest ones have 4+ cores.
This would be replacing my 'server' so I need PCI slots for an additional NIC and a 32 bit video capture card used for zoneminder. Not sure what PCI express is or if my cards would work in those slots. Yep, I'm running 8 yrs old machines, IBM NetVistas. :-(
parallel 32bit PCI is becoming obsolete, although many motherboards have both PCI-E and legacy PCI slots... PCI-Express is not physically or electrically compatible. ISA is totally history, you won't find an ISA slot on anything made in the past few years. Most newer NICs are PCI-Express anyways. I do wish more desktop motherboards had 2 ethernet ports, and more servers had 4 standard.
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of John R Pierce Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 8:26 PM To: centos@centos.org Subject: Re: [CentOS] OT: Hardware upgrade help
On 08/23/11 5:17 PM, Thomas Dukes wrote:
I would like to upgrade my system to a 64 bit machine. I'd like to find a bare bones platform to build on. I'm not looking to
spend a lot
of money on this as it is a home system. I looked on the CentOS sponsor page but only saw hosting services.
I haven't kept up with hardware in years so I'm dumber than dirt on what's out there. I would prefer a desktop so I can stack it. Don't think I need to do the Xeon as that would be overkill for a
home user.
any Intel Core 2 or newer, or AMD Opteron processor from about 3-4 years ago or newer would suit you just fine. the newest ones have 4+ cores.
What determines if it's a 64 bit machine? Dual core?
This would be replacing my 'server' so I need PCI slots for an additional NIC and a 32 bit video capture card used for zoneminder. Not sure what PCI express is or if my cards would work in
those slots.
Yep, I'm running 8 yrs old machines, IBM NetVistas. :-(
parallel 32bit PCI is becoming obsolete, although many motherboards have both PCI-E and legacy PCI slots... PCI-Express is not physically or electrically compatible. ISA is totally history, you won't find an ISA slot on anything made in the past few years. Most newer NICs are PCI-Express anyways. I do wish more desktop motherboards had 2 ethernet ports, and more servers had 4 standard.
Any suggestions on a mainboard with that can accommodate my needs?
Thanks!!
On Tue, 2011-08-23 at 20:40 -0400, Thomas Dukes wrote:
What determines if it's a 64 bit machine? Dual core?
Dual core = 2 CPUs effectively. Quad core = 4 CPUs on the same piece of Silicon
64 bit = more advance instruction set which replaces all the older 32 bit instruction set CPUs. 64 bit is more modern than 32 bit and that is the way software is going.
What determines if it's a 64 bit machine? Dual core?
Dual core = 2 CPUs effectively. Quad core = 4 CPUs on the same piece of Silicon
64 bit = more advance instruction set which replaces all the older 32 bit instruction set CPUs. 64 bit is more modern than 32 bit and that is the way software is going.
64bit doesn't specifically make it "more advanced." 64bit CPU's just support for a larger memory addressing space then 32bit CPU's, beyond the 4GB limit of 32bit addresses.
On Tue, 2011-08-23 at 19:37 -0700, Drew wrote:
64 bit = more advance instruction set which replaces all the older 32 bit instruction set CPUs. 64 bit is more modern than 32 bit and that is the way software is going.
64bit doesn't specifically make it "more advanced." 64bit CPU's just support for a larger memory addressing space then 32bit CPU's, beyond the 4GB limit of 32bit addresses.
Surely it is more than mere memory addressing, a logic problem which has existed since the original 8088 (and perhaps the 4040), it is extra instructions and a re-write of some existing instructions ?
On 08/23/11 7:40 PM, Always Learning wrote:
Surely it is more than mere memory addressing, a logic problem which has existed since the original 8088 (and perhaps the 4040), it is extra instructions and a re-write of some existing instructions ?
the x86_64 architecture has teh same basic instructions as x86_32, but with more registers which are also wider 64 bit registers. there are new instructions on the newer CPUs, mostly for doing advanced multimedia numerical work like enhanced SSE instructions for MPEG. these new instructions can be used in 32 bit or 64 bit execution modes
--On Tuesday, August 23, 2011 11:57 PM -0700 John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
the x86_64 architecture has teh same basic instructions as x86_32, but with more registers which are also wider 64 bit registers.
As someone who coded in assembler for PDP-11, PDP-10, 8086, and 68000, I have to report that more registers is a Very Good Thing. Just how many more registers do you get when going to 64-bit?
On 08/24/11 12:05 AM, Kenneth Porter wrote:
As someone who coded in assembler for PDP-11, PDP-10, 8086, and 68000, I have to report that more registers is a Very Good Thing. Just how many more registers do you get when going to 64-bit?
indeed, thats the main performance gain, other than the increased address space. in fact, for RISC architectures such as SPARC, Power, MIPS, where there were already sufficient registers, and for which the 64 bit extensions were virtually identical to the existing 32 bit base architecture, going to 64 bit code for most applications that dont need additional linear address space is actually a performance /penalty/ due to the increase in size of the code base for the longer offsets and addresses.
On the x86_64, there are 16 64bit registers instead of the 8 16/32 bit of the 8086/386 instruction set architecture (of those 8 or 16, two are the dedicated stack pointer and base pointer registers, leaving really only 6 or 14 general purpose registers).
On 08/23/2011 10:37 PM Drew wrote:
What determines if it's a 64 bit machine? Dual core?
Dual core = 2 CPUs effectively. Quad core = 4 CPUs on the same piece of Silicon
64 bit = more advance instruction set which replaces all the older 32 bit instruction set CPUs. 64 bit is more modern than 32 bit and that is the way software is going.
64bit doesn't specifically make it "more advanced." 64bit CPU's just support for a larger memory addressing space then 32bit CPU's, beyond the 4GB limit of 32bit addresses.
64-bit processors can deliver 64 bits of data at a time to all peripherals, not just memory. By contrast, 32-bit processors can deliver at most 32 bits to any peripheral, then as a second step deliver the next 32 bits. So, AOTBE, it takes twice as long to shoot data down the bus. That's outgoing. Same applies to data coming into the processor. I haven't looked up and compared the lists of instructions on 32- vs. 64-bit CPUs, but generally the bigger processors have more, and more sophisticated, instructions. This means, e.g., that instead of taking 20 steps to do a calculation on a 32-bit CPU, it might be done in 5 steps on a 64-bit. There might also be larger L2 and L3 caches on the larger processors (but this also varies within the 32-bit and within the 64-bit families).
All that said, I still use a five-year-old 686... as both a server and a client. It runs apache, mysql, and several other servers apps, plus the full range of client applications... most of the time I'm using about 2% of the CPU's power. I've worked in places where I've had access to 80 or so servers and most of them never used more than 5% of their CPU's processing time... kind of a waste... in several ways. So unless you really need the big, f*'ing CPU, why diddle away your cash?
On 08/23/11 9:21 PM, ken wrote:
I haven't looked up and compared the lists of instructions on 32- vs. 64-bit CPUs, but generally the bigger processors have more, and more sophisticated, instructions. This means, e.g., that instead of taking 20 steps to do a calculation on a 32-bit CPU, it might be done in 5 steps on a 64-bit.
except, this is almost entirely wrong.
On 08/24/2011 01:59 AM John R Pierce wrote:
On 08/23/11 9:21 PM, ken wrote:
I haven't looked up and compared the lists of instructions on 32- vs. 64-bit CPUs, but generally the bigger processors have more, and more sophisticated, instructions. This means, e.g., that instead of taking 20 steps to do a calculation on a 32-bit CPU, it might be done in 5 steps on a 64-bit.
except, this is almost entirely wrong.
LOL
On 08/23/11 5:40 PM, Thomas Dukes wrote:
any Intel Core 2 or newer, or AMD Opteron processor from about 3-4 years ago or newer would suit you just fine. the newest ones have 4+ cores.
What determines if it's a 64 bit machine? Dual core?
no, the CPU itself. btw, I meant to say Athlon, not Opteron (Opteron is the server version, just like Xeon is Intel's server version)
almost any mainstream Intel CPU since the P4 "Prescott/2M" are 64bit enabled, this includes all Core 2 Duo CPUs, and all Core I-series. The Core I3 stuff is a particularly cheap now.
note that 64 bit CPUs can run 32 bit operating systems.... and a 64 bit OS on a 64 bit CPU can run most 32 bit applications.
Any suggestions on a mainboard with that can accommodate my needs?
100s of desktop motherboards out there, any one that fits the CPU you want, holds sufficient memory for your needs, and has the IO slots and SATA channels you need would be good to go. Don't go looking for ATA/IDE or floppy controllers, they are also history. So are serial/parallel ports, if you need them, get a PCI-Express serial IO card.
On Tuesday 23 August 2011 20:17, Thomas Dukes wrote:
I haven't kept up with hardware in years so I'm dumber than dirt on what's out there. I would prefer a desktop so I can stack it. Don't think I need to do the Xeon as that would be overkill for a home user.
I suggest looking at the system guides at Tech Report, even though they don't deal with servers specifically: http://techreport.com/articles.x/21462
Ars Technica also has system guides, but less frequently, and they're not as useful, im my opinion: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/03/ars-system-guide-march-2011-ed...
These guides do assume that you'll be doing a fair amount of Windows gaming, so you may want to spend less on a graphics card than they suggest.
Yves
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Yves Bellefeuille Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 9:25 PM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] OT: Hardware upgrade help
On Tuesday 23 August 2011 20:17, Thomas Dukes wrote:
I haven't kept up with hardware in years so I'm dumber than dirt on what's out there. I would prefer a desktop so I can stack it. Don't think I need to do the Xeon as that would be overkill for a
home user.
I suggest looking at the system guides at Tech Report, even though they don't deal with servers specifically: http://techreport.com/articles.x/21462
Ars Technica also has system guides, but less frequently, and they're not as useful, im my opinion: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/03/ars-system-guide -march-2011-edition.ars
These guides do assume that you'll be doing a fair amount of Windows gaming, so you may want to spend less on a graphics card than they suggest.
Yves
Thanks!! I will check them out tomorrow as its getting late here.
On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 6:17 PM, Thomas Dukes tdukes@sc.rr.com wrote:
I would like to upgrade my system to a 64 bit machine. I'd like to find a bare bones platform to build on. I'm not looking to spend a lot of money on this as it is a home system. I looked on the CentOS sponsor page but only saw hosting services.
I haven't kept up with hardware in years so I'm dumber than dirt on what's out there. I would prefer a desktop so I can stack it. Don't think I need to do the Xeon as that would be overkill for a home user.
This would be replacing my 'server' so I need PCI slots for an additional NIC and a 32 bit video capture card used for zoneminder. Not sure what PCI express is or if my cards would work in those slots. Yep, I'm running 8 yrs old machines, IBM NetVistas. :-(
If all the jargon is new to you, you might be better off getting a pre-built system. System integration can be hit or miss until one acquires experience the hard way. My current home "server" is an off-lease business-class HP desktop. It's built from commodity parts, so it's upgradable. Look at the service manual before you buy. And the HP runs CentOS beautifully.
Jim
--On Tuesday, August 23, 2011 9:17 PM -0400 Thomas Dukes tdukes@sc.rr.com wrote:
I need PCI slots for an additional NIC and a 32 bit video capture card used for zoneminder.
Check with the zoneminder people to see what video capture options you can get today that will work with their code. Fewer and fewer machines come with PCI slots, which are incompatible with PCI-E. Some include a single PCI slot. Possibilities include an "IP camera" or a USB camera.
Kenneth Porter wrote:
--On Tuesday, August 23, 2011 9:17 PM -0400 Thomas Dukes tdukes@sc.rr.com wrote:
I need PCI slots for an additional NIC and a 32 bit video capture card used for zoneminder.
Check with the zoneminder people to see what video capture options you can get today that will work with their code. Fewer and fewer machines come with PCI slots, which are incompatible with PCI-E. Some include a single PCI slot. Possibilities include an "IP camera" or a USB camera.
Check http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/03/ars-system-guide-march-2011-edition.ars It's got build your own system guides, for budget, performance, and gaming. I was looking at it a few months ago, and the alternate board to the budget, I think, had several PCI slots, as well as PCI-X.
mark
-
Always Learning -
Drew -
James Szinger -
John R Pierce -
Keith Roberts -
ken -
Kenneth Porter -
Lamar Owen -
m.roth＠5-cent.us -
Thomas Dukes -
Yves Bellefeuille