Re: [Ilugc] [Hardware] Config for Low end Linux desktop
Your first option > > 1. AMD Athlon II X2 260 + Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P + HDD + 4 GB Ram > > is good and I also agree, atoms wont do much > > > > -- > Vijai Ganapathy > Mailto: vijai.ganapa...@gmail.com > ___ > ILUGC Mailing List: > http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc > -- With Regards, RK, +91 9976294191 ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] [Hardware] Config for Low end Linux desktop
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 12:56 PM, Vijai Ganapathy wrote: > Hi All, > > > I am planning to buy 10 numbers of system for FOSS related free > education + lab setup. > Main purpose for buying these to enable students to work on FOSS ( > mainly Linux Admin and programming ) topics. > > Budget is really tight as all the money coming from my pocket. I was > thinking about below configuration. > > 1. AMD Athlon II X2 260 + Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P + HDD + 4 GB Ram You have not mentioned the number of students - assuming 10; Change this to Phenom II X6 (I am using 1075) with MAX RAM allowed by the system board with 2X1TB RAID1 setup. This can be your "server" Most AMD CPUs support SVM (Secure Virtual Machine) and so I suggest you give your student their own VMs with a 512MB RAM and 8 GB virtual disks and allow them to "brain damage" their system in their "sand box" e.g. cd /; rm -fr . You are in control of the "server" and the students are in control of their "VM desktop/server" You will only need one such "server" so the cost savings can be significant compared to full fledged desktop for every student. Additionally go with a Gb switch if budget allows - 16 port switches are in the 10-12K range. > or > > 2. Intel Atom D525 based system. > > Heard that Atom based system are not really facinating to work from > few users. Can someone throw light on this. My experience with Atom boards have been +ve. I have run 3-4 small VMs (LAMP + light desktops) in VBox on Atom boards. Heavy compilations not so good. Instead use D425 Atom based systems (Digisol) as thin clients i.e. without any disks. Board+RAM cost about Rs. 4250 or less. Look through the list archive - there was a similar discussion a few weeks ago. > Also need your suggestion on the HW config and keep in mind that my > budget is really tight. You get what you pay for. I suggest choose a good board, max. RAM and a CPU with multiple cores. HTH -- Arun Khan ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] [Hardware] Config for Low end Linux desktop
> I am planning to buy 10 numbers of system for FOSS related free > education + lab setup. > Main purpose for buying these to enable students to work on FOSS ( > mainly Linux Admin and programming ) topics. > Raspberry Pi is the ideal choice here. Although, I am not sure whether it will be available in India. http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs > Budget is really tight as all the money coming from my pocket. I was > thinking about below configuration. > > 1. AMD Athlon II X2 260 + Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P + HDD + 4 GB Ram > > or > > 2. Intel Atom D525 based system. > For your purpose, a 4GB/8GB flash drive would suffice, you don't need a HDD. Once the kernel is in memory and your programs are in the cache you won't see any difference in performance. Also, 2GB DDR3 should suffice for your purpose. Regarding CPU/MB, I haven't come across a package less than Rs. 6000 unless you get Atom. Atom D525 seems to be a reasonable processor. It is better than couple of my machines with Pentium 4 1.6Ghz and Pentium M 1.73 Ghz which run Fedora 15 and Fedora 12 respectively. Also, read reviews on whether Atom works on Linux without any issues. IMHO, you should setup one machine first. So that, you can make sure there are no driver issues and you are satisfied with the purchase. -- 0 ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] [Hardware] Config for Low end Linux desktop
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 12:56 PM, Vijai Ganapathy wrote: > Budget is really tight as all the money coming from my pocket. I was > thinking about below configuration. > > 1. AMD Athlon II X2 260 + Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P + HDD + 4 GB Ram > As you may have already found out, hard disk prices have shot up 2x in the past 6 months. So 10 x ~Rs.4000 == ~Rs.40,000/- just for your hard disks. I too had a similar need for 15 client systems for educational purposes. I decided to do away with hard disks and go with the thin client model not only due to price but also for other ease of maintenance, ease of expansion and consolidation reasons. Yes, it requires care on the server side but as Arun Khan and others have already pointed out on this thread, a combination of solutions (Virtualization + RAID + LTSP) can give you a better deal in terms of maintainability as well as cost. I now use openVZ for virtualized server access - students ssh into it and do all sorts of experimenting there. > > or > > 2. Intel Atom D525 based system. > D525MW isn't in production anymore, according to ritchie street vendors. You may want to double check this information. I too wanted D525 (because it has a gigabit ethernet onboard) but settled with D425KT (only 10/100) because that is what was available. Also, D525 is dual core, whereas D425 is single core. Not that it matters so much for thin clients, but we never know how we'd end up using our hardware in the future! > Heard that Atom based system are not really facinating to work from > few users. Can someone throw light on this. > Atom based systems are pretty good for thin clients. Also, by using a kill-a-watt someone measured 22W on an atom based thin client - so that makes two thin clients consume roughly about 1 tube light's worth power :) You get to save so much on stuff that conventional solutions tend to externalize (electricity bills, cooling needs, UPS, etc.,) edubuntu's in-built LTSP server solution is just _out of the box_ (as opposed to what someone here said earlier that LTSP will require "shelling out extra bucks for someone else's consultation"[1]). Just install edubuntu server, choose "LTSP" during install, connect your thin clients and make them PXEboot - voila, you've got N systems up and running GNU/Linux without any extra effort from you (well, one extra click!) > Also need your suggestion on the HW config and keep in mind that my > budget is really tight. > I asked on the list first: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/pipermail/ilugc/2011-November/068875.html ... and documented my experiences here: http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.user-groups.linux.ilugc/73548 HTH. regards, -suraj [1] http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/pipermail/ilugc/2011-December/068898.html -- Career Gear - Industry Driven Talent Factory http://careergear.in/ ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
