Linux a good idea on my system?

[jdogg707]

Well, if check my system out at the bottom of the page...it's very very new and am just wondering if RedHat 7.3 or Mandrake 8.2 would be able to support it? I would like to play with Linuxx, but only if it's going to detect my hardware...thanks.

 

[Abzstrak]

the hardware is all pretty generic, it should all be fine with default drivers, but I'd suggest installing detonator drivers from nvidias site afterward for better video performance.

Linux is pretty sensitive to a overclock that isn't PERFECTLY stable, so be ready to clock it down just in case.

 

[Kai4Linux]

I don't know about redhat, it didnt detect my audigy, but MDk 8.2 did so 🙂

 

[gwlam12]

i hear they have problems with winmodems. thats the only reason i probably might not install linux on my system...

 

[Nothinman]

i hear they have problems with winmodems.

What would make you think that? Anyway, when you buy a winmodem you get almost nothing, all the modem work is done in the driver software. A real ISA or external modem is a much better choice for reliability, compatibility and even performance. Even so some software modems work fine in Linux, you just have to find the right driver.

 

[Chaotic42]

My computer is pretty close, and it runs fine.

You'll need to download the binary drivers for that GeForce 4 from Nvidia's site. Some people find them tricky (I only had problems when I enabled SMP), so post if you need help.

I don't know what the new version of Red Hat is, but I run Debian testing, and everything is fine.

 

[jdogg707]

I don't really have a problem installing linux...it's installing drivers in linux that I've never been good at. I think I'll give it a try and hope it work! Will I need to download linux compatible RAID drivers for the onboard highpoint controller or not? I don't really use a modem anyway, don't even have one installed into my system...so I'm not worried about that..

 

[Nothinman]

Will I need to download linux compatible RAID drivers for the onboard highpoint controller or not?

Not entirely sure, I'm willing to bet Mandrake will have drivers for it right out of the box but I can't say about others. Generally the IDE RAID controllers aren't revered very highly in the Linux community, infact they're big POSes and most of us avoid using them when possible. As a normal ATA controller their fine, but the supposed RAID isn't even RAID.

 

[jdogg707]

Why do you say it isn't even realy RAID?

 

[Nothinman]

Why do you say it isn't even realy RAID?

Well it's not real hardware RAID, it's all done in the driver in software. You might as well use Win2K dynamic disks or Linux software RAID, I'd even bet you'd get better performance with them.

 

[cleverhandle]

Will I need to download linux compatible RAID drivers for the onboard highpoint controller or not?

Ah... onboard RAID, the winmodem of the next generation. "It's not *really* RAID. Buy a real card." 😉

Joking aside, Nothinman is right in saying that using Linux's software RAID would be better, but that only works if the controller is not already being used by Windows in RAID mode. If you are using the controller in RAID mode, I'm about 95% sure that Mandrake will detect it - if not, the drivers are kernel options, so you may just need to find the right kernel. The RAID array should show up under /dev/ataraid.

 

[jdogg707]

so buying an ATA RAID card would be the best way to go then? Why is the card better than onboard RAID? What's the difference?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: jdogg707
so buying an ATA RAID card would be the best way to go then? Why is the card better than onboard RAID? What's the difference?

Reading is fundamental 🙂

Ok, ATA raid is like those flavor pops. It comes in multiple flavors. You have grape= OS Software raid, you have cherry= hardware raid, and you have rutabega= bios assisted software raid.

OS software raid is possibly a little trickier to setup, but you know your OS will work with its own raid software. Linux has decent software raid I believe (havent tested it or anything).

As long as there are drivers for it, hardware does all the work for the hardware raid. The drivers may not even have to be all that complex. (Think 3ware)

Bios assisted software raid is the bastard child of everything that makes sense to me. They add a little proprietary hardware, keep the information secret, call it raid, and sell it to unsuspecting people. These solutions often have undocumented (or atleast unreleased documentation) solutions. This means that only certain large companies with plenty of cash can get the information to create compatible drivers (why? We wont go into that unless you want me to 😉). The problem is that Linux developers and whatnot have to reverse engineer the drivers and software for these POS cards. It involves proprietary diskusage (not filesystem... but something else I cant think of the word for). Thats not an easy task. So basically, for the interrests of compatibility and whatnot, if you are going to settle for software raid, the OS' software may be a better solution. Personally, Id splurge and get a nice 3ware card.

 

[RedBeard0531]

Read This article and more specificly This page

It clearly shows that your "rutabega" (the AMI MegaRaid software controler) is beter tasting than the "cherry"😉

Granted, This is an NTFS partition in Win2k, and they didnt use OS RAID, I THink that the results and analisis speake for them selves. is is almosts always faster and the cpu utilization never peaks 2.65%. They said that this is b/c a modern prossesser is so much faster than most Raid co-procs it ends up being faster. If you want linux drivers for a HighPoint HPT3** chip, goto http://www.highpoint-tech.com/

I Generaly agree with u guys ( Nothinman and n0cmonkey) but this time Anandtech says otherwise😛

 

[Nothinman]

What about this page where it clearly says: The above graph clearly shows that the CPU has to do drastically less work when RAID functions are performed on a hardware RAID card.

And anyway, benchmarks are just as worthless as other statistics. With normal use RAID is pointless, the speed increase is mostly negated by the OS waiting on user input 99% of the time. And if you're hitting the disk a alot during normal use you're probably paging to disk and just need more memory. If you really are disk I/O bound working with large files a 5 disk RAID 5 using SCSI160 would probably do you a lot better speed and data integrity wise.

 

[RedBeard0531]

With normal use RAID is pointless, the speed increase is mostly negated by the OS waiting on user input 99% of the time. And if you're hitting the disk a alot during normal use you're probably paging to disk and just need more memory. If you really are disk I/O bound working with large files a 5 disk RAID 5 using SCSI160 would probably do you a lot better speed and data integrity wise.

Good point, but during things like bootup or loading of a prog, wouldnt raid increase performance(I wouldnt no as i have nvr used it)?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: RedBeard0531
Read This article and more specificly This page

It clearly shows that your "rutabega" (the AMI MegaRaid software controler) is beter tasting than the "cherry"😉

Granted, This is an NTFS partition in Win2k, and they didnt use OS RAID, I THink that the results and analisis speake for them selves. is is almosts always faster and the cpu utilization never peaks 2.65%. They said that this is b/c a modern prossesser is so much faster than most Raid co-procs it ends up being faster. If you want linux drivers for a HighPoint HPT3** chip, goto http://www.highpoint-tech.com/

I Generaly agree with u guys ( Nothinman and n0cmonkey) but this time Anandtech says otherwise😛

Ok, you want RAID 0. I dont like putting my data in extra risky situations. RAID 0 incurs too much risk for me.

2 reasons for RAID (that I can think of right now):
1. performance- This can definitely be handled well by software raid or bios assisted software raid. RAID 0 is great for someone that has no important information, doesnt mind putting it at extra risk, and needs to load counter strike levels 0.000002 seconds faster. For me, it doesnt foot the bill (see #2). In situations like this, a seperate processor wont help too much because there isnt a whole lot of calculation needed. I believe you are right about the cpu being faster than the raid processor and stuff.

2. data integrity- Ever had a disk fail? Ive had 1. Only one, Im lucky like that. 😉 Anyhow, double the risk. There is RAID 0. RAID 1, RAID 5, and some of the other RAID types (I dont know a whole lot about this stuff really 😛) help protect your data. Lose a disk and you should be ok. Lose two, figure out WTF you are doing wrong. 😉 How well did the bios assisted software raid controllers do at RAID 5?

Of course, these points arent related to my point about how the bios assisted software raid devices are generally fairly proprietary. But as you found out, HPT does provide linux drivers, hopefully the distros include them (if they are all open source of course! None of this nVidia BS!).

Anyhow, stick to your toys if you want. Just dont recommend one of these HPT/Promise controllers to a DBA with a 10GB database on a machine that needs upgrading... 😕

 

[Nothinman]

Good point, but during things like bootup or loading of a prog, wouldnt raid increase performance(I wouldnt no as i have nvr used it)?

Is bootup that long that you need to risk your data with a RAID 0 setup to speed it up?

I have non-RAID 15K and 10K RPM drives and I can't think of a single program that takes more than 1-2 seconds to start.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Good point, but during things like bootup or loading of a prog, wouldnt raid increase performance(I wouldnt no as i have nvr used it)?

Is bootup that long that you need to risk your data with a RAID 0 setup to speed it up?

I have non-RAID 15K and 10K RPM drives and I can't think of a single program that takes more than 1-2 seconds to start.

My SCSI card doesnt add more than 20s to the bootup either, and probably a *LOT* less than that. I dont use anything but cli on it though, so I cant really compare to Nothinman's numbers 😉

 

[RedBeard0531]

Ill admit that the only disk ive lost are on lappys. Then again I also lost a lot (5-10gigs) of mp3's and DiVX's when my file server's ata controller whent berzerk and no level os sw /raid can fix that. btw since u hate bios raid, and i cnt afford hw raid😉, but run 2 os's is there any OS independent s/w raid. Kinda like a partithion majic thing. i doudt it, but figured it was worth asken.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: RedBeard0531
Ill admit that the only disk ive lost are on lappys. Then again I also lost a lot (5-10gigs) of mp3's and DiVX's when my file server's ata controller whent berzerk and no level os sw /raid can fix that. btw since u hate bios raid, and i cnt afford hw raid😉, but run 2 os's is there any OS independent s/w raid. Kinda like a partithion majic thing. i doudt it, but figured it was worth asken.

I forgot about my first laptop... Make that 2 dead drives for me 😛

I dont know of any RAID that works across OSes, I dont need RAID so I dont bother much with it.

 

[RedBeard0531]

i figued that. i saw that the people who wrote the code to allow MS dynamic disks or LDM work under linux have a goal off getting the raid to work in linux, but they are still in beta of single drive dynamic disks, so i guese i might have to wait a wile lol