Re: x86_64 hardware recommendations/warnings?

[Oliver Dietzel]

2017-03-13 22:35 GMT+01:00 John D. Baker :

> ... In the back of my mind always is the problem:  "new but not TOO new".
>

If you want to stay on the save side i wouldn't go beyond Haswell Gen.
Intel CPU's and
AMD bevore Ryzen... no, not for video editing on big screens, if it comes
to compression.

Have a look on a used Dell T1700 like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T1700-Workstation-Tower-Quad-Core-8GB-256GB-SSD-DVDRW-Win-10-Pro-/172616890261

(Imho the build in graphic card would have to be replaced for 4K output
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvs-product-overview.html )


Should work with almost any recent open source OS for x86_64

Good luck!

Re: x86_64 hardware recommendations/warnings?

[Ian Clark]

On 13 March 2017 at 22:27, Swift Griggs  wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Mar 2017, John D. Baker wrote:
>>
[snip]
>
>> At this stage Intel vs. AMD is not so important as knowing what is
>> supported and will work.
>
>
> I avoid motherboards with AMD chipsets. It's mostly just superstition,
> though. I had a helluva time with USB on those under NetBSD 6. They
> basically never worked well enough for everyday on my AMD hardware. After
> having the same experience on every other AMD mobo after that point, I
> basically gave up since the Intel boards would "just work".
>
Just to add a pro AMD experience. I use NetBSD as my home server (for
many years now) and my last two machines have both been deliberately
AMD, because they (at the time) were the best option for lots of SATA
(for little money too; home system after all :) ).

I don't use USB (apart from the very occasional USB stick or keyboard
when fiddling on the console) however I do use 5 of the 6 onboard SATA
ports and have never had any trouble with the AMD stuff.

I previously had a Phenom something or other, but my current board is
one of the early Bulldozer AMD boards which has been rock solid.

As for the GFX, other than it changes to the native resolution of the
monitor on boot (which I assume means the KMS drivers are loading
okay) I can't comment.

Audio/video bits of the dmesg if they're any use:

NetBSD 7.1_STABLE (salome) #0: Mon Mar 20 13:27:17 GMT 2017
r...@ohmyno.co.uk:/usr3/build/stable/obj/sys/arch/amd64/compile/salome
total memory = 16253 MB
avail memory = 15763 MB
kern.module.path=/stand/amd64/7.1/modules
timecounter: Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec
timecounter: Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 100
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. GA-880GMA-USB3 ( )
[...]
radeon0 at pci1 dev 5 function 0: vendor 0x1002 product 0x9715 (rev. 0x00)
hdaudio0 at pci1 dev 5 function 1: HD Audio Controller
hdaudio0: interrupting at ioapic0 pin 19
hdafg0 at hdaudio0: ATI RS690/780 HDMI
hdafg0: HDMI00 2ch: Digital Out [Jack]
hdafg0: 2ch/0ch 44100Hz 48000Hz PCM16 AC3
[...]
hdaudio1 at pci0 dev 20 function 2: HD Audio Controller
hdaudio1: interrupting at ioapic0 pin 16
hdafg1 at hdaudio1: Realtek ALC889
hdafg1: DAC00 8ch: Speaker [Jack]
hdafg1: DAC01 2ch: HP Out [Jack]
hdafg1: DIG02 2ch: SPDIF Out [Jack]
hdafg1: DIG03 2ch: SPDIF Out [Built-In]
hdafg1: ADC04 2ch: Line In [Jack], Mic In [Jack]
hdafg1: ADC05 2ch: Mic In [Jack]
hdafg1: 8ch/2ch 32000Hz 44100Hz 48000Hz 88200Hz 96000Hz 192000Hz PCM16
PCM20 PCM24 AC3
audio0 at hdafg1: full duplex, playback, capture, mmap, independent
[...]
pad0: outputs: 44100Hz, 16-bit, stereo
audio1 at pad0: half duplex, playback, capture
[...]
drm: initializing kernel modesetting (RS880 0x1002:0x9715 0x1458:0xD000).
drm: register mmio base: 0xfdfe
drm: register mmio size: 65536
drm kern info: ATOM BIOS: B43106_DVI
radeon0: info: VRAM: 128M 0xC000 - 0xC7FF (128M used)
radeon0: info: GTT: 512M 0xA000 - 0xBFFF
drm: Detected VRAM RAM=80M, BAR=128M
drm: RAM width 32bits DDR
Zone  kernel: Available graphics memory: 5734334 kiB
Zone   dma32: Available graphics memory: 2097152 kiB
drm: radeon: 128M of VRAM memory ready
drm: radeon: 512M of GTT memory ready.
drm: Loading RS780 Microcode
drm: GART: num cpu pages 131072, num gpu pages 131072
drm: PCIE GART of 512M enabled (table at 0xC004).
radeon0: info: WB enabled
radeon0: info: fence driver on ring 0 use gpu addr 0xac00
and cpu addr 0x0x80011dc15c00
drm: Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 2 (21.10.2013).
drm: Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.
radeon0: interrupting at ioapic0 pin 18 (radeon)
drm: radeon: irq initialized.
drm: ring test on 0 succeeded in 1 usecs
drm: ib test on ring 0 succeeded in 0 usecs
drm: Radeon Display Connectors
drm: Connector 0:
drm:   VGA-1
drm:   DDC: 0x7e40 0x7e40 0x7e44 0x7e44 0x7e48 0x7e48 0x7e4c 0x7e4c
drm:   Encoders:
drm: CRT1: INTERNAL_KLDSCP_DAC1
drm: Connector 1:
drm:   DVI-D-1
drm:   HPD1
drm:   DDC: 0x7e50 0x7e50 0x7e54 0x7e54 0x7e58 0x7e58 0x7e5c 0x7e5c
drm:   Encoders:
drm: DFP1: INTERNAL_KLDSCP_LVTMA
radeondrmkmsfb0 at radeon0
radeon0: info: registered panic notifier
radeondrmkmsfb0: framebuffer at 0x80011df4, size 1920x1080,
depth 32, stride 7680
wsdisplay0 at radeondrmkmsfb0 kbdmux 1: console (default, vt100 emulation)

Cheers,

Ian

Re: x86_64 hardware recommendations/warnings?

[Aaron B.]

On Mon, 13 Mar 2017 16:27:13 -0600 (MDT)
Swift Griggs  wrote:

> BeOS used to have this site (way way back in the day) called BeOS Hardware 
> Compatilibity Matrix. Folks would contribute short reviews for working 
> hardware. I found it invaluable.

I've often considering building something like this, as it wouldn't be
much more than a set of basic CRUD pages.

Never got around to even starting it, though, as I'm both short on time
and uncertain if anyone would make use of it.

-- 
Aaron B. 

Re: x86_64 hardware recommendations/warnings?

[Swift Griggs]

On Mon, 13 Mar 2017, John D. Baker wrote:
I find myself in the position of recommending components for a friend to 
build a more up-to-date machine on which to run NetBSD.


I wish you luck. I've been using NetBSD since 1996 and, though I'm a huge 
fan, I have never found a great method to find "known good" *systems* with 
NetBSD. You can easily find known-good components by looking at various 
man pages for the drivers. Ie.. I look up the mobo then look at each 
problematic chipset and go digging to see if drivers are there. When I say 
problematic, I mean network, usb, and sound chipsets.


The other method I use is component based. I'll check pcidevs, usbdevs, 
etc... and then lookup the PCI IDs and find out if they are supported that 
way. This is sometimes tough because you don't always know what a given 
bit of kit will show up as (PCI ID). It's also easy to get it wrong when 
they release a "v2" of the same card.


BeOS used to have this site (way way back in the day) called BeOS Hardware 
Compatilibity Matrix. Folks would contribute short reviews for working 
hardware. I found it invaluable.


It's wierd, you get *great* hardware info from all the non-x86 ports, but 
then again, they have a lot smaller surface area to cover. So, it's no 
surprise.



 Intel or AMD Radeon graphics


Lately my experience has been that if your Intel graphics are supported in 
Linux KMS 1.3 code they will work great in NetBSD 7.x. I have a number of 
Radeon cards (newest is R9 Nano) and most do work, also. However, I care 
mostly about 2D performance and they can't beat my onboard video in 
gtkperf, so I only use those in gaming machines now. My i7 with built-in 
Intel graphics does all tests in 1.8 seconds. Drop the Radeon R9 Nano in 
and it goes up to 4.5 seconds.


At this stage Intel vs. AMD is not so important as knowing what is 
supported and will work.


I avoid motherboards with AMD chipsets. It's mostly just superstition, 
though. I had a helluva time with USB on those under NetBSD 6. They 
basically never worked well enough for everyday on my AMD hardware. After 
having the same experience on every other AMD mobo after that point, I 
basically gave up since the Intel boards would "just work".



In the back of my mind always is the problem:  "new but not TOO new".


That's spot on.

As UEFI support is only now taking shape in -current, is anyone aware of 
boards which don't support "Legacy Boot" or "Compatibility Support 
Mode"?


Well, once they do it on HP DL & Dell servers, you can bet it'll start 
happening everywhere. So far, they still support "Legacy" mode in their 
latest generations (G9 etc..).


What is known about whether the intel DRM/KMS support in Netbsd-7.1 will 
work with these?  The associated driver for Xorg?


The KMS driver version is what you are looking for. NetBSD 7 uses KMS 1.3, 
unless I'm mistaken.



 If they work at all, how do they fare when playing video?


Fantastic. XVideo support seems fully baked and works quite well. On the 
flipside getting things like vdpau to work may be more challenging. I 
dunno.


What is known about the radeondrmkms support for these parts?  The 
associated driver for Xorg?


It's the same. It's all tied to the KMS version.

If it turns out that the on-board video options are not suitable, the 
obvious solution is some sort of Radeon-based add-in video card.


That or an nVidia card. Some of those work with the Nouveau driver. I have 
an old GT9800 I got used that works with that driver even under NetBSD 
6.x. The Radeon 9800 is also another can't miss card but it's old, has 
slow 3D, fairly low memory, etc... However, that card works with the 
regular old X11 drivers we've had for eons. It really depends on if you 
want to get good 3D performance.


Given the above, are there recommendations for things that are new 
(available) but not TOO new (unsupported)?


Man, it really depends on the type of things they will be doing with the 
machine. What I do before I buy a new rig is to load NetBSD onto a USB 
drive (as in, do a full install with X11). Then I go to my local computer 
store (Microcenter is the best in my area, unfortunately) and I tell the 
sales guy exactly what I want to do and why and explain it won't hurt his 
machines. Then I start testing all the machines I'm interested. I just 
boot them up, check the sound device (make sure it's not one of those 
PoS's that want to route all the sound down the HDMI interface by default) 
then make sure it plays clean. Then check the NIC, wifi, and finally give 
the graphics a try with an intrepid "startx" to see what happens. Then 
you'll know for sure the hardware works before you even go through the 
trouble of buying & returning gear.



Or conversely, warnings of what to avoid?


I avoid Ralink wifi (they always die/offline on me), Realtek NICs (due to 
crap iperf performance and occasional hardware flaws), and anything as you 
put it "too new" on the graphics front.


YMMV.

-Swift

x86_64 hardware recommendations/warnings?

[John D. Baker]

I find myself in the position of recommending components for a friend
to build a more up-to-date machine on which to run NetBSD.  Having only
been seriously interested in non-PC hardware and otherwise being a
technological bottom-feeder in the PC-type hardware arena, I'm feeling
a bit overwhelmed at the options available and the things one must know
to wade through them.

Background:  Currently using a Dell PowerEdge SC430 as a workstation.
Primary tasks are photographic scanning and digital post-processing,
some audio processing, personal accounting/recordkeeping, and web
browsing, likely with light video usage.  Using NetBSD/amd64-7.1_RC2
and packages from pkgsrc-2016Q4.

The bare-bones graphics on the above machine is the primary problem.
User has a desire to use a large flat-panel TV as the computer display,
but the machine cannot accept an add-in video card with HDMI outputs
and VGA->HDMI adapters are considered unacceptably expensive.

I proposed the following recommendations for a more modern machine:

  PS/2 keyboard port required
  3.0+GHz Quad-core processor
  8+GB RAM
  Intel or AMD Radeon graphics
at least with DVI
DisplayPort if possible
HDMI nice but not required
  associated storage/media devices and other accessories.

Browsing a major online vendor of such components, there are a great
many mainboards from which to choose.  At this stage Intel vs. AMD
is not so important as knowing what is supported and will work.

In the back of my mind always is the problem:  "new but not TOO new".

As UEFI support is only now taking shape in -current, is anyone aware
of boards which don't support "Legacy Boot" or "Compatibility Support
Mode"?  The system needs to be able to boot a stock NetBSD/amd64-7.1
installation.

The Intel-based mainboards I've seen all have on-board graphics, typically
with all of VGA/DVI/HDMI (and sometimes DisplayPort) outputs, but are
dependent on the CPU die also bearing the GPU/graphics engine.  Such
processors seem to be 6th/7th-generation Core i3/5/7.  What is known
about whether the intel DRM/KMS support in Netbsd-7.1 will work with
these?  The associated driver for Xorg?  If they work at all, how do
they fare when playing video?

I see similar things with boards for AMD processors.  I think boards
for Socket AM3+ processors actually have an independent graphics chip
on them (most commonly Radeon HD 3000), while boards for Socket FM2+
processors use the GPU on the CPU die.  What is known about the
radeondrmkms support for these parts?  The associated driver for Xorg?

If it turns out that the on-board video options are not suitable,
the obvious solution is some sort of Radeon-based add-in video card.

Given the above, are there recommendations for things that are
new (available) but not TOO new (unsupported)?

Or conversely, warnings of what to avoid?  Note that there is no
real budget for this machine other than to cost the least possible
while meeting the above requirements.

Thanks.

-- 
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