Do you have an "overkill" ubuntu system?

[Jestersage]

So we know that ubuntu can run on old and weak systems, because it's much better at resource management... and overall, is better than Windows.

Which still does not stop us from trying to build something that is as powerful as possible!

So I want to ask: does anyone of you have an "overkill" Ubuntu system? Basically:
a) Anything with SLI/CrossfireX
b) Any system with i7
c) The case is either high end, casemoded, or just glow in the dark.

While I can't say I have one, if I manage to fix an SLI board that my friend say is busted, I can proudly say that I will have one. (In the mean time I will have to make do with a Crossfire system that runs on a gimped motherboard)

If only I can find the P190 to stuff two PSU in there.

[Dayofswords]

i dont have a computer that can half kill let alone over kill

i dont have a computer has it own graphics cards

but i do with what i have =p

[NightwishFan]

I recently played with the Zen kernel on Debian using the BFS. It is designed for low latency desktop use, though is not scalable toward higher end systems. One great thing about Linux is how you can make it optimised to your needs, and not just one size fits all.

As for the topic.. No my machine is practically ancient.

[Techsnap]

Depends what you define as old systems, Ubuntu will run like a load of rubbish on a 1GHz Pentium III with 512MB RAM until you do tweaks, XP on the other hand (and even Vista) flies on that spec. I've tried it.

Also with a spec like that, what actually is there in Ubuntu which will take advantage of it? CPU/RAM, yeah sure, VMS and compiling software etc. But the graphics cards? You don't need anything near to that for the FOSS games which are on offer.

[NightwishFan]

edit

[jruberto]

I tend to agree with Techsnap. Im running 9.10 on a somewhat vintage laptop (celeron 2ghz, upgraded to 1gb, terrible intel integrated graphics) and I've really had to tweak a lot to get even acceptable performance. Just a partial list:

- BIOS upgrade to get the thing to work at all
- completely remove compiz
- revert intel video driver to earlier version
- set a couple esoteric boot options in grub
- massively customized xorg.conf

And that's just stuff that worked. All the wrong trees I barked up: kernel upgrades, VESA drivers, hours on these forums... Just to get sort of close to the stability & performance I grew accustomed to with "that other" OS... Still, I'm much happier with an open source OS.

But to the OP.. Next time I have some free time to geek out, I intend to set up my (borderline overkill) desktop for dual boot and I bet ubuntu will smoke on this machine.

[Bachstelze]

An i7 is definitely not overkill... When running CPU-intensive tasks like large numeric computations or video encoding, there is no such thing as overkill. The more power you have, the faster your task will be done.

[xpod]

Depends what you define as old systems, Ubuntu will run like a load of rubbish on a 1GHz Pentium III with 512MB RAM until you do tweaks, XP on the other hand (and even Vista) flies on that spec. I've tried it.

Also with a spec like that, what actually is there in Ubuntu which will take advantage of it? CPU/RAM, yeah sure, VMS and compiling software etc. But the graphics cards? You don't need anything near to that for the FOSS games which are on offer.

What version of Vista was it......TinyVista? ;)

[gn2]

What version of Vista was it......TinyVista? ;)

More like FantasyVista.

Compared to Linux, XpSP3 runs like a snail on my wife's 2.6ghz 1.5gb RAM PC so there's no way it's even half decent on a P3.

[MooPi]

More like FantasyVista..
In in another universe far far away, Vistatopia, where everything runs better on Vista.:)
I have what I consider a mildly overstated Linux computer. Quad AMD 2 gig ram and Nvidia 9500 card.The reason I consider it overkill is because I never come close to utilizing the 2 gig of ram or the potential of the video card and rarely need the power of a quad(video encoding). I can just as easily get by with single core 1gig of ram and integrated graphics.Which is exactly what I'm using now.

[xpod]

More like FantasyVista.

Compared to Linux, XpSP3 runs like a snail on my wife's 2.6ghz 1.5gb RAM PC so there's no way it's even half decent on a P3.

Open up msconfig and stop all that junk from starting up.;)

[gn2]

Open up msconfig and stop all that junk from starting up.;)

Done that, still slow.

Probably needs re-installed.

[xpod]

Done that, still slow.

Probably needs re-installed.

You dont have Norton on the thing by any chance do you? Tell me you dont!..:p
Too often i`ve seen Norton and it`s associated junk using more of a similar spec machines resources than was left for the user themselves to use. Removing it in place of lighter alternatives usually helps but i`m sure you already know this eh.
If it`s a long running XP then re-installation is always a good idea when all else fails too though.

[earthpigg]

my system is overkill.

i7 quad @ 2.67 ghz, mobo FSB @ 3200 mhz
6gb ddr3 ram @ 1066mhz (ram speed is the system's weakest link)
1gb nvidia 250gt video
60gb ssd and 1tb conventional
dual display, 28" and 22"
plain case

excluding the displays, total was about $1300 5 months ago. hardware is getting cheap.

no such thing as overkill if you make use of the power, of course... which i do not.

i do school work in open office, play freeciv, kill time on ubuntuforums.org and a few other discussion forums, watch hulu, and play urban terror once in a while :lolflag:

[gn2]

You dont have Norton on the thing by any chance do you? Tell me you you dont!..:p

Nope, bad enough having to pay for MS licences without paying for bloatware.
It has AVG, PCTools Firewall and Spybot S&D.

[xpod]

Nope, bad enough having to pay for MS licences without paying for bloatware.
It has AVG, PCTools Firewall and Spybot S&D.

Well, besides reinstalling XP you could always try and convert her to Linux. It seems to be quite a popular approach after all.

Then again, if i was in your position i would just leave well alone. Hell hath no fury and all that....:p

[whiskeylover]

I am thinking of installing it on my Multivac. I need some questions answered regarding entropy.

[aklo]

Any thing with a dual core and more than 2GB ram is overkill.

A good way to let your system do some work is to get kubuntu and let the snowflakes fall :D

Edit: Unfortunately inkscape doesn't have any options for using GPU to render stuff. It lags quite bad when i zoom in on an image with "blur" effect.

[ElSlunko]

i7 920
GTX 260
12gb DDR3
3TB (2x1.5)

:blush:

[gn2]

~ you could always try and convert her to Linux.~

Scored a huge victory in that regard recently, got her using Scribus instead of Publisher.
One battle in the ongoing war....

The war will end in 2014 when Xp support gets turned off, I'm not buying any more MS licences or the required upgraded hardware to run them.

[xpod]

Any thing with a dual core and more than 2GB ram is overkill.

*

You forgot to add " for many users". ;)


Scored a huge victory in that regard recently, got her using Scribus instead of Publisher.
One battle in the ongoing war....

The war will end in 2014 when Xp support gets turned off, I'm not buying any more MS licences or the required upgraded hardware to run them.

Oh well, i just hope you dont have another "war" on your hands when push comes to shove. I`ll certainly keep an interested ear open next time the Winter Olympics comes round.:p
My own better half still doesn`t have her own computer yet although she likes the idea now of having her own little Netbook.

[rolnics]

Depends what you define as old systems, Ubuntu will run like a load of rubbish on a 1GHz Pentium III with 512MB RAM until you do tweaks

I'm running Karmic on that spec now .....


I tend to agree with Techsnap. Im running 9.10 on a somewhat vintage laptop (celeron 2ghz, upgraded to 1gb, terrible intel integrated graphics) and I've really had to tweak a lot to get even acceptable performance. Just a partial list:

- BIOS upgrade to get the thing to work at all
- completely remove compiz
- revert intel video driver to earlier version
- set a couple esoteric boot options in grub
- massively customized xorg.conf


Again I'm running Karmic on a lower spec than that. My first hit was to remove compiz as well! Just killing the speed demon of a computer!!

I think as with everything.... speed is relative to user. The other half has a laptop that takes ages to load firefox let alone anything else, maybe I should Ubuntu her lappy lol!

[virusiidx]

AMD Phenom II x4 940 OC'd to 3.25ghz
4Gigs DDR2 1066
nVidia GTX 260 x2 in SLI
1TB HDD - Ubuntu
500GB HDD - Win7
80GB - WinXP

It's not a top performance system, but I'd say it's overkill for anything I do in Ubuntu. I also do some gaming on Win7, that's mainly what the setup is for.

[jruberto]

It has AVG, PCTools Firewall and Spybot S&D.

Talk about overkill :rolleyes:

[gn2]

Talk about overkill :rolleyes:

Nope, that's what I would regard as a bare minimum for Xp.

[ratcheer]

No, I have a normal Linux system. Probably significantly below average. See my sig.

Tim

[The Toxic Mite]

I wouldn't consider my Ubuntu box to be overkill at this moment, but I have a few things on my must-get list:



Two 2TB HDDs
A higher-wattage PSU
An extra SATA data cable
IDE - SATA converter for the optical drives

Can anyone recommend me an LGA775-compatible CPU, preferably with 2+ cores and HyperThreading?

EDIT: Here's my current specs:

Intel Pentium 4HT @ 3.40 GHz
2 GB RAM
250GB HDD
ATi Radeon X800 @ ~800MHz, 128 MB
230 W PSU

[jruberto]

Nope, that's what I would regard as a bare minimum for Xp.

Nope, I gotta be honest, I've run XP for years with no virus / malware protection and have never had a problem. Follow two simple rules:

1) Use any browser other than IE
2) Don't open spammy email attachments.

However, if you are the type who is inclined to open FunnyJoke.exe from an email, then yes, you should have several layers of protection.

[gn2]

Nope, I gotta be honest, I've run XP for years with no virus / malware protection and have never had a problem. Follow two simple rules:

1) Use any browser other than IE
2) Don't open spammy email attachments.

However, if you are the type who is inclined to open FunnyJoke.exe from an email, then yes, you should have several layers of protection.

In your list of handy hints you failed to mention:

3) Don't let dizzy blonde wife near the computer

Running without security software might have been fine for you thus far, but it would be a recipe for disaster for my missus.

[J_Stanton]

Depends what you define as old systems, Ubuntu will run like a load of rubbish on a 1GHz Pentium III with 512MB RAM until you do tweaks, XP on the other hand (and even Vista) flies on that spec. I've tried it. i'd like to see vista FLY on 1ghz and 512 ram. not gonna happen. of course xp will run good on those specs because when it came out 9 years ago, it was made to run on as little as 64mb ram. ubuntu is a modern os made to run on more recent hardware. the comparison is unfair.

[Richard1979]

Dunno, my video card is kinda overkill - it's an NVidia 9800GTX+ which is a factory overlocked card that supports DX10.
I can play DivX movies or DVDs with less than 0.05 load when using that card - not sure if that's relevant though.

The computer I use in work is a beast, 8GB of RAM, dual core AMD CPU, ATI graphics card, but it runs Vista x64 like a Pentium 166 runs Windows 98.

Interesting to note the RAM usage too - my Linux PC at home hardly ever uses more than 25% of RAM (I have 2GB on this machine) but my work machine running Vista uses 25% too but has 8GB of RAM (I took cache mem into consideration).

[DownTown22]

No such thing as overkill...never know when the extra juice might come in handy!

[juancarlospaco]

I just added 4Mb SIMM EDO RAM more to my OverKill OverClocked PC :)