Hardware for custom built PC
I am planning to build my first desktop PC. I plan to run Ubuntu 12.04 with a Virtualbox VM having XP as its OS. My apps will consist of photo processing (Darktable, Gimp), video processing (Kino, Openshot), audio processing (Audacity), desktop publishing (Scribus), and household financial, graphics, and office applications. I have used PcPartPicker to come up with an initial configuration. Does anyone see any problems with this configuration related to Ubuntu and apps I want to run or have any suggestions for changing things? Here's my build setup:
I listed this on Reddit, but no one commented on whether anything in this configuration might cause problems under Ubuntu. I presume the only two pieces that are of concern with respect to the list are the mother board and the video card. Any comments will be appreciated.
Re: Hardware for custom built PC
All Nvidia cards have good support on Linux. I don't know about the motherboard.
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Re: Hardware for custom built PC
You might be better off shuffling funds from certain parts and put it towards others.
For example 32 GB of RAM is probably overkill, 16 GB is probably more than enough.
And instead of using a Full Size ATX Motherboard go with a Micro ATX Motherboard and possible a Micro ATX Case.
It looks like you will only have two devices the need expansion slots the Video and Sound Card and most Micro ATX Motherboards have three or four expansion slots.
You might not need the Sound Card either.
The sound capability's built into the Motherboards have come a long way and unless you have some Very Good Speakers or Headphones you probably could not tell them apart.
With the money saved on those parts you could put it towards an SSD Drive or a Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive for considerable faster performance.
You also might want to get a Comfortable Mouse and Keyboard (Your hands will thank you for it).
Since you will be using you Computer for Video and Photo Editing you might want to get a Mouse the uses Laser Tracking, it is much more precise for working with graphics.
This is the Micro ATX System I built Last Year...
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Re: Hardware for custom built PC
I would get a used Dell PowerEdge tower and use the money saved to replace the RAM with faster sticks and max out the motherboard. Put in SSD and a few terabyte spinners. You can probably find a dual Xeon dual core (4 processors) for around $300. Check http://craigslist.org . Nothing wrong with your kit list, it's just that companies upgrade computers every 3 years, so there are a lot of decent used hardware out there that will run Ubuntu like it was on fire. :twisted:
For instance: (This one is missing one Xeon processor, but you could by 2 faster ones, I think 3.2 or 3.6 GHz.)
Dell 1600sc server - $30 (rtp)
Dell Poweredge 1600sc tower server
Single XEON 2ghz with socket for one more.
Onboard SCSI
512m ECC DDR
DAT drive
CD and floppy drives
Single power supply
PCI IDE RAID controller.
Includes one 40g hard drive on standard onboard IDE channel. IDE RAID controller can run up to 4 hard drives which are not included.
System in very good shape and works fine. Boots with no issues off a Linux live CD. I think Linux recognized the IDE RAID controller too.
It's ready to run, just add more hard drives if you want and add an OS.
The bottom line is to not underestimate server hardware for the kind of work that you want to do. If you have a padded closet, you could go with rack-based PowerEdge servers, they can be had for cheap, but they have noisy fans--as in they sound like propeller aircraft. And they should, 7 fans spinning at 6700 rpm will make some noise.
Re: Hardware for custom built PC
Here is some info on the Micro ATX Motherboard that I chose for my Build...
This is the one that I chose because I am Overclocking my CPU...
GA-Z77MX-D3H
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro....aspx?pid=4370
If you do not plan on Overclocking your CPU you might find that this Motherboard will suite your needs and save you $40.00 to $50.00 in the process...
GA-B75M-D3P
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro....aspx?pid=4203
I have had no problems running Ubuntu with my Motherboard and the On Board Audio, Ethernet and USB were all working immediately after Ubuntu 12.10 was installed.
Re: Hardware for custom built PC
Good to see a modular PSU in there, my only regret from my last build was not spending a few dollars more and creating a cleaner build! Good on you for grabbing RAM since it is so cheap these days but is you HDD a little small? I see that you have mentioned video processing which normally requires an acre or 3 of space to run...
Re: Hardware for custom built PC
Thanks for the great comments here. They give me pause for thought. I should add that I currently have 6 TB in USB external storage with my current system that I plan to use with the one I build. The 1 TB I have in the build list is for OS and apps. And this mobo and case gives me plenty of room to grow my storage. As for the mobo itself, I may not "need" all the expansion capability, but I really like what I've read about it. The only thing I don't like about the mobo is it has RealTek audio. I have had some real issues with doing overdub recordings with some Dell systems that had used RealTek. That's why I want to go with a card for audio. At some point, I'll probably upgrade the audio card, just not now. But as I said, your thoughts are greatly appreciated, and I will assess them over the next few days. I am really amped about building my own system.
