I need a new PC for work use. I'm looking at: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186618 which is: - Core-2 Quad Q8300 - 4GB RAM - Intel GMA X4500 graphics, onboard sound (not sure what chipset, presumably something from Intel)
Anyone have any good reasons why this would be a bad bet for Ubuntu?
Should I go 32-bit or 64-bit install?
Usage is day-to-day stuff (web browsing, email, etc) but also running virtual machines would be good (using VirtualBox). Seems like a good price for the spec (<£350+VAT) but no point if I'm going to have to problems with it.
Any good partitioning suggestions for its 1TB drive?
On 30/07/10 10:18, Mark Rogers wrote:
- Core-2 Quad Q8300
[...] running virtual machines would be good (using VirtualBox)
Just looking now, I can't find a definitive answer as to whether the Q8300 has VT-x extensions. Anyone know? Do I need them?
eBuyer have an own-brand Q8400 box that's cheaper but lower spec in other areas (2GB RAM, 500GB HDD), but I think the Q8400 will at least have VT-x?
Or should I build my own? Wouldn't be the first time, but I'm out of date on what makes for a good motherboard spec these days.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Rogers" mark@quarella.co.uk To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Sent: Friday, 30 July, 2010 10:29:17 AM Subject: Re: [ALUG] Compaq CQ5306uk - good bet for Ubuntu? On 30/07/10 10:18, Mark Rogers wrote:
- Core-2 Quad Q8300
[...] running virtual machines would be good (using VirtualBox)
Just looking now, I can't find a definitive answer as to whether the Q8300 has VT-x extensions. Anyone know? Do I need them?
Its a fairly safe bet that any Intel Core-2-* chip or later has VT-x these days. You'd need it to have a usable VM running in Virtualbox - don't forget you need to make sure libvirt and kvm are not installed by ubuntu else you'll have to remove the kvm and kvm-intel modules every time you want to start a VirtualBox VM with VT-x extensions turned on.
There's a fairly well maintained list of virtualisation support currently on wikipedia here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization
Hope that helps
Jim
On 30/07/10 10:58, Jim Rippon wrote:
Its a fairly safe bet that any Intel Core-2-* chip or later has VT-x these days. You'd need it to have a usable VM running in Virtualbox - don't forget you need to make sure libvirt and kvm are not installed by ubuntu else you'll have to remove the kvm and kvm-intel modules every time you want to start a VirtualBox VM with VT-x extensions turned on. There's a fairly well maintained list of virtualisation support currently on wikipedia here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization
It was that wikipedia page that gave me the mixed story: regarding VT-x support it includes "some versions of the Q8300".
I'm edging towards http://www.ebuyer.com/product/227083 now, as it has the Q8400 (with 2GB/500GB) for £260+VAT, or possibly building my own if I can decide on a decent motherboard (the last PC I built was probably an early Athlon 64-bit, things have probably moved on!)
On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 10:29:17AM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
Just looking now, I can't find a definitive answer as to whether the Q8300 has VT-x extensions. Anyone know? Do I need them?
Looking at it, only some of them do. I think I'd avoid that one just in case it doesn't.
Adam
On 30/07/10 10:29, Mark Rogers wrote:
On 30/07/10 10:18, Mark Rogers wrote:
- Core-2 Quad Q8300
[...] running virtual machines would be good (using VirtualBox)
Just looking now, I can't find a definitive answer as to whether the Q8300 has VT-x extensions. Anyone know? Do I need them?
The Q8300 does have VT-X but sometimes it is disabled in the bios, you'd need to search against the specific machine model to find out for sure.
VT-x isn't a requirement for running VM's but it can improve performance....by how much I am not sure.
eBuyer have an own-brand Q8400 box that's cheaper but lower spec in other areas (2GB RAM, 500GB HDD), but I think the Q8400 will at least have VT-x?
The Ebuyer machine will be using a generic off the shelf mainboard which is very likely to have the VT-x option
On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 10:18:09AM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
Anyone have any good reasons why this would be a bad bet for Ubuntu?
Not that I can think of, not sure what Compaq machines are like in general.
Should I go 32-bit or 64-bit install?
64 bit!
Any good partitioning suggestions for its 1TB drive?
Buy another one, RAID1 the disks up and then use lvm to setup the space nicely and allow you to change it in future... Although, if it's a desktop you could just go mad and have 1 giant partition...
Adam
On 30/07/10 10:18, Mark Rogers wrote:
Should I go 32-bit or 64-bit install?
I'd say 64bit every time, for a start you won't be able to make full use of that 4GB of Ram if you run a 32bit system.
Most of the problems us early adopters had (I have been running x86-64 linux for about 6 years now) have since gone away. Flash is 64bit native, and most things that are still 32bit only can be installed easily enough using ia32libs etc.
On 30/07/10 11:14, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
I'd say 64bit every time, for a start you won't be able to make full use of that 4GB of Ram if you run a 32bit system.
Most of the problems us early adopters had (I have been running x86-64 linux for about 6 years now) have since gone away. Flash is 64bit native, and most things that are still 32bit only can be installed easily enough using ia32libs etc.
That's good to hear. I've been running 64-bit at home since I built my Athlon 64-bit machine (several years, not sure how many now, but Ubuntu 6.04 or 6.10 sounds familiar so about 4 years). But Home and work usage are different and it's nice to not hear anyone say to avoid 64-bit! We need some Win7 machines as well, but experience has taught me that 32-bit is still the best option for those if you want any hope of installing something slightly "odd".
On 30/07/10 11:24, Mark Rogers wrote:
We need some Win7 machines as well, but experience has taught me that 32-bit is still the best option for those if you want any hope of installing something slightly "odd"
Windows 7 64bit isn't too bad. Pretty much any driver written for Windows 7 should have a 64bit version available.
That said, if you get some hardware that is unsupported in Win7 then you can try and force on Vista drivers and sometimes get away with it. Vista drivers for 64bit were less common.
Also the problem is with 32bit win7 that you just really don't have enough address space for memory. I bought a laptop recently that came with OEM Win7 32bit and of the installed 4GB only 2.8 was usable.
Fortunately I have a 64bit licence to apply and I rarely use the factory OS installation anyway so it isn't a huge issue.
I'd say, consider 64 bit here as well but check compatibility with existing hardware and software first and expect a little bit of head scratching if you have an AD Domain that pushes out print drivers from a 32bit print server.
A quick update:
In the end, I built my own Q8400 system, using a cheap MSI mobo with onboard Intel graphics, a reasonable Coolermaster case, and (currently) 2GB RAM with a couple more on their way from Crucial as I write this. I've gone with Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit, which detected all the hardware (including graphics effects on the video hardware), job done!
Currently trying to convert my old Linux HDD into a VirtualBox machine on my new hardware - something which really is not as simple as it should be - but with luck that will be done by the end of the day.
I think the cost price of the components came in at around £360+VAT so it's a good spec at a reasonable price, although not earth shattering. It boots from power on in just a few seconds (thanks largely to a pretty quick BIOS POST - Ubuntu has been getting pretty fast anyway and my old PC let it down with 20sec to get past the BIOS).
Hopefully the speed improvements won't all turn out to be down to having a clean system - I could have save £360 and re-installed to achieve that!
On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 11:14:08AM +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Most of the problems us early adopters had (I have been running x86-64 linux for about 6 years now) have since gone away. Flash is 64bit native, and most things that are still 32bit only can be installed easily enough using ia32libs etc.
Unfortunately no longer true. There's no 64 bit 10.1 Flash plugin and no ETA on when it might appear.
J.
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Adam Bower -
Jim Rippon -
Jonathan McDowell -
Mark Rogers -
Wayne Stallwood