best version of linux for A64 to use 64bit capability for engineering

[dannybin1742]

i'm building a engineering box for my dad, strictly to run simulation (lots of number crunching) and he has already run dyna on his friends computer what runs some version of linux in 64bit on and A64 processors and is hella fast, but what i'm intersted in is what version of linux uses the most of A64s 64 power?

also where do i buy a retail copy of it?

here is what i'm building

90nm winchester 3500+
s939 board from msi
2gb of pc3200
10k raptor 36.7 gb
simple fx5200 256mb of ram (the box is essentially being run as a number crunching server)
antec 3700 (350W true power)
dvdr/rw dL burner sony

 

[drag]

Well. It depends.

How much experiance do you have with Linux so far? It's quite a bit different from Windows and can be a challenge to new users sometimes.

Linux is open source. This means that any person has equal access to the source as any other person, so what happens is the distros (different versions) generally have the best they can get and utlimate performance is about the same either way.

It also means that you can obtain most versions for free from the internet. linuxiso has links to many different downloads, http://www.linuxiso.org/

Some distros have only x86 aviable (32bit versions) others have both 32bit and 64bit aviable (called x86-64 or AMD64, something like that)

Some distros that have mature 64bit support are Mandrake Linux, Gentoo, Suse, and Redhat. Out of those Mandrake, Suse, and Redhat will probably be the most usefull for you.

Redhat sells several different versions of their OS and it can only be obtained by buying it. When you buy it you enter into a support contract for a year of updates and 30 days of configuration and installation assistance. (depending on your purchase you can increase support for up to a year) The desktop version is Redhat WS. You can find this stuff out and were to buy at www.redhat.com

Redhat may be worth looking at if your Dad wants to use commercial tools on it. It is the most common distro and is certified to run a large number of closed source and commercial applications on it. Some applications will only run on Redhat.

If you don't want to pay for it there are free clones of it like Whitebox or CentOS that are pretty much the same thing.

However it's not quite the most up to date version you can get.

Another popular version that has certification is Suse. Suse is one of the first distros to support AMD64 natively and is less expensive (and much more up to date) then Redhat. However less commercial closed source software has certifications for it.

Currently there are several ways to obtain Suse. Suse has a few different retail versions. The one your probably interested in is Suse Professional 9.2 and it comes in a box set with some manuals and installation sets for x86 (they call it IA32) and AMD64. That sells for around 90 dollars.

For free versions you have:
http://www.novell.com/products.../suse_linux/index.html

You can download the FTP install version. This is were you download a small ISO image for a cdrom and you boot up on a computer. Then you set it up so that as your installing it downloads the software from a online FTP site. This is the best way, but it can be difficult for a new user.

You can download a live-eval version. This is a DVD ISO image you burn to a DVD (as a ISO image, instead of copying it over). This boots up and runs completely off of the dvdrom without installing anything on your harddrive. It is provided as a way to try it out with no risk to any information on your harddrive.

You can download a DVD install ISO image for Suse 9.2 professional. This has everything you need for both the x86 and x86-64 versions. (I beleive. I haven't tried it out, but it should be that way).

Mandrake is suppose to be very user friendly, but it's also the least likely to have commercial support for many closed-source applications. It has a fairly inexpensive retail version and a free version that is aviable for downloading that is released quite a bit after the retail version is released. http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en-us/


I am thinking that your best bet is for one of the free versions of Suse you can download. Either the FTP version or the Eval version.

If you want the extra manual and the support that Novell/Suse provides then buy the retail version. But I wouldn't do that unless you knew that the software that your dad wanted to run would work well in it.

Your hardware choice is OK, but I'd stay away from Nforce-based motherboards because of their propriatory drivers. Via motherboards can be nice, but if you have your heart set on a specific nvidia board, then that's OK. It will work fine. You may run into issues if the Nic card doesn't work and you need to download the drivers to get it to work though.

Also you would have to download propriatory drivers if you want accelerated 3d performance from your card. (also shop around for those cards, you can probably find a much faster one for not much more expensive.)

here is some advice on buying computers for a Unix workstation. He suggests a nice ASUS motherboard and ECC memory. The ECC memory may be a to big of a bump in price, though. It's up to you. He recommends a older ATI card. These older cards have support from Linux automaticly because there are open source drivers aviable. (for versions up to 9200). Anything newer you have to use propriatory ATI drivers.. Which SUCK. Nvidia support for newer cards is much nicer.

Memory is the one thing that I've had trouble with on building these AMD64 machines. They have the memory controller built in the CPU and I think this makes them touchy, so be sure to make sure that what brand and type of memory your getting is on the list of recommended types of whatever motherboard you choose to get.

Good luck and check out the link in my sig for some guides if your not familar with Linux. They are more designed for administrator type, but I think that they could be usefull for most people.

 

[bersl2]

OK, so you want to buy a copy retail as opposed to downloading one. The motivation behind this would help choose a distro more accurately.

Of the major distros with x86-64 versions, there's Fedora Core 3, Debian, Ubuntu, SuSE, Mandrake, and Gentoo.

Fedora is way too unstable for the uses you describe. I can't find Debian's or Ubuntu's x86-64 versions, 'cause I'm too tired, and Debian-style distros aren't my personal cup of tea. SuSE 9.2 Pro is $90. Mandrake 64-bit is $130. Gentoo on CD is $20.

Gentoo will probably get the most power out of your machine, but you'll have to compile to at least some degree at install and for every upgrade. Suse and Mandrake are much more point-and-click, even though Gentoo's package management is supposed to be really good too.

You can buy those three with prices through the respective sites. I'd help more, but I really need sleep.

 

[w00t]

if u want performance get a 64bit os and it will be lighting fast 😀

 

[n0cmonkey]

Avoif nForce chipsets! 😉

 

[PoopyPants]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Avoif nForce chipsets! 😉

NOT TRUE you obviously havent tried any of the 64bit OS's (the 32bit versions suck hairy balls for nforce 3 support)

Fedora Core 3 x86_64 bit runs like a DREAM!! installed and runs like a friggin champ! kernel updates 100% and runs even better afterwards

best 64bit distro i have seen and all of the Nforce 3 chipset drivers, and network and SATA are included.

you cant use SATA RAID though,, which is fudging retarded, hell i cant even use SATA RAID with my 2 year old Promise FastTrak S150 TX2plus controller. its sad...... and rediculous


Fedora core 3 64bit is the best.

mind you i have tried all the others and FC is the best in my eyes, others will find other distro's better.

i have not found a free version of Suse 9.2 64bit only the Live cd version which too runs like a dream
but be aware that suse 9.2 is taking ALOT of heat cuz of their stupid lack of hardware support, for some reason they dropped alot of hardware support. at least for the 32bit version.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: PoopyPants

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Avoif nForce chipsets! 😉

NOT TRUE you obviously havent tried any of the 64bit OS's (the 32bit versions suck hairy balls for nforce 3 support)

Fedora Core 3 x86_64 bit runs like a DREAM!! installed and runs like a friggin champ! kernel updates 100% and runs even better afterwards

best 64bit distro i have seen and all of the Nforce 3 chipset drivers, and network and SATA are included.

you cant use SATA RAID though,, which is fudging retarded, hell i cant even use SATA RAID with my 2 year old Promise FastTrak S150 TX2plus controller. its sad...... and rediculous


Fedora core 3 64bit is the best.

mind you i have tried all the others and FC is the best in my eyes, others will find other distro's better.

i have not found a free version of Suse 9.2 64bit only the Live cd version which too runs like a dream
but be aware that suse 9.2 is taking ALOT of heat cuz of their stupid lack of hardware support, for some reason they dropped alot of hardware support. at least for the 32bit version.

When nVidia starts opening specs, I'll start recommending their hardware (chipset/NIC specifically, don't care as much about their video).

 

[drag]

I was just worried about the FC3 compatability. He said his dad was a engineering type guy and he may use some applications that are closed source and those generally have specific requirements for their software enviroment.

Otherwise any 64bit Linux OS would work fine.

 

[OffTopic1]

The best is to give the apps support/sales line a call and ask for their recommendation and go from there.

SuSE 9.2 have a full version 3.1 GB DVD available for free download (32bit & 64bit versions). They also have have full netinstall for you to try. Get an old hdd & give it a swing to see if it satisfy your need.

 

[dannybin1742]

sounds like i should go retail (whats another $90)

now what i'm curious about is redhat or suse? do they both use fedora core 3? (the latest versions?)

i saw suse 9.2 at bestbuy the other day and its like $88, so not bad at all

also why use the ECC ram? what does that get me that regular ram does not

alos if i don't got Nforce3 does anyone have suggestions for this


s939 board (i want dual channel w/ecc support)
s939 3500+ (newcastle or whinchester? whats the difference?- isn't whinchester newer?)
ram? i want 2gb

preferably i'mna get thei stuff from newegg


the number crunching system that they have been using at work at Dual processor 3.0ghz p4 from dell running win2000, and apperently it just sucks compared to his friends homebuilt A64 running redhat

 

[REMF]

nVidia nForce chipsets have great features and great driver support for linux.

SUSE 9.2 free DVD .iso would be a pretty good distro to try.

 

[drag]

I'd try it for free before paying for it. That way you know that you want what your paying for. 😉

Fedora Core is a animal all to itself. It's partially sponsored by Redhat and that's were people get to use and Redhat gets to test new features and software technology before incorporating it into their main commercial product.

ECC memory generally isn't used much for households and such because it's more expensive then regular memory. Not a whole lot more, though.

Plus it's difficult to find a motherboard that uses ECC memory. Lots of motherboards will run with ECC memory, so manufacturers say that it can use ECC memory, but it won't get anybenifit from it, and it may actually end being slightly slower.

What ECC is for is a extra level of error protection. It will help prevent a faulty bit of memory from crashing your applications or the computer. It's probably not that important for playing video games and such, but it's commonly used in server enviroments.

Hell, right now I am rebuilding a patched kernel with BADRAM support so that I can fix a problem with my computer by mapping around a small hunk of bad ram...

It was causing applications to crash and I figured it out when I was compiling something and GCC had random segfaults. Ran memtest86 and found out I had a small peice of very bad ram. So I am patching my kernel so that I can map around it. Unfortunately the compiler keeps hitting that bad patch of RAM and crapping out... 🙁

I think that it's a more and more common problem. I have a gig of RAM in that computer and it's pretty obvious to me that with larger and larger sizes of RAM and more competative pricing it's becoming more difficult to get error free RAM that will last a long time. Next time I build a computer it's going to have top-notch RAM... this is the second time this year I've had to screw around with a machine with spotty ram. I don't like it at all.

On average I think that you will get 1-3 errors a year, even on very good ram. By using protections like ECC and parity you can stop those from hurting your system.

The downside is that it will cause a slight reduction in performance. Probably unnoticable, though.

Anyways. It's probably not nessicary for your application.

 

[dannybin1742]

so can you suggest an s939 A64 board with nf3 or via chipsets that acutally will use the ECC, it can also have pci-e or agp it does not matter, as long as it supports 939 and dual channel ram

drag you seem pretty knowledgable

what would you suggest

board/ram

(i'm going with winchester 3500+ s939 regardless and 2 gb of ram)

 

[dannybin1742]

bump