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Spend my $1000 for a Linux rig...

B

bdbart

n00b
Joined
Apr 23, 2011
Messages
3
I will be running Ubuntu and want things to sail smoothly.

These are things I require...

- eSata
- USB 3.0
- HDMI
- able to upgrade to 32G RAM
- built in WiFi
- 4+ Sata ports

I just want all the drivers to be Linux compatible, sound, graphics, networking, etc.

Feel free to spend the rest of my $1,000 budget on other components, such as video card, SSD, RAM, case, PSU, etc.

Don't really know where to start. AMD? Intel? Is AMD more Linux-compatible nowadays? I know Intel had free drivers, but they had closed-source firmware. Perhaps AMD is a better start and will save me money??

$1,000 is the budget, but saving money is always cool with me. Diminishing returns and all that...

Thanks a bunch! :cool:
 
bdbart said:
I will be running Ubuntu and want things to sail smoothly.

These are things I require...

- eSata
- USB 3.0
- HDMI
- able to upgrade to 32G RAM
- built in WiFi
- 4+ Sata ports

I just want all the drivers to be Linux compatible, sound, graphics, networking, etc.

Feel free to spend the rest of my $1,000 budget on other components, such as video card, SSD, RAM, case, PSU, etc.

Don't really know where to start. AMD? Intel? Is AMD more Linux-compatible nowadays? I know Intel had free drivers, but they had closed-source firmware. Perhaps AMD is a better start and will save me money??

$1,000 is the budget, but saving money is always cool with me. Diminishing returns and all that...

Thanks a bunch! :cool:
Click to expand...

Sounds great, but what do you want to use it for? HTPC? Server? Main rig?
 
In my opinion intel gpus work great out of the box in linux.
 
I have played games under linux for 8+ years. Although most of the games I play are windows games on wine. The big requirement there is to get a nVidia graphics card since AMD drivers suck and Intel drivers suck even more..
 
Feel free to spend the rest of my $1,000 budget on other components, such as video card, SSD, RAM, case, PSU, etc.
Click to expand...

An i7 2600K + nVidia graphics card should be a start. Although from your budget you may want to drop that down to an i5 2500K instead.

built in WiFi
Click to expand...

That may be a difficulty with drivers. Make sure whatever wifi you get has linux support in the kernel.

sound
Click to expand...

I highly recommend using the motherboard sound and avoiding any after market sound cards. AC97 or Intel HDA are well supported in the kernel.
 
Last edited:
Asus Xonar cards have Linux support but not proper Linux drivers thru Asus.

Also, you may want to buy an AMD card if you're using openCL/openGL and not running WINE for gaming. Generally speaking, if you need CUDA or run windows games thru WINE then nVidia is the better bet (and that doesn't have to do with driver support but rather forum support and documentation) but outside of those 2 there's no difference between nVidia or AMD. I've found they both have issues and though historically AMD has had worse driver support in Linux, that just isn't the case anymore. If you're gaming on Linux and not through WINE then buy AMD because their openGL support is better. If you're not gaming at all then just buy the cheaper nVidia/AMD card and call it a day =P
 
Frequenting the wine list there still are a lot of trouble for users that do not use nvidia cards. AMD drivers are better now but still way too many bugs (even ones that have existed for 5 years) that wine exposes. Although I will certainly not say that you will have trouble free operation with nvidia drivers also and wine by no means is complete..
 
Graphics drivers in Linux and WINE compatible games has less to do with the drivers and more to do with WINE graphics card compatibility. Outside of WINE they are roughly equal as far as Ubuntu goes, so if you're not gaming through WINE there would be no need to favor nVidia. Both cards are safe bets now and everyone would agree it's Intel you should steer clear of :p
 
drescherjm said:
I have played games under linux for 8+ years. Although most of the games I play are windows games on wine. The big requirement there is to get a nVidia graphics card since AMD drivers suck and Intel drivers suck even more..
Click to expand...

AMD Linux drivers are now better than Intel Linux drivers? That's surprising but good to hear. Several times in the past i've had AMD cards that weren't even supported under Linux But Nvidia cards always seemed to work fine even the newer ones.
 
Yes. AMD binary/proprietary drivers are better than Intel drivers. Also when I was talking about nVidia I was talking about the binary/proprietary drivers and not the open source ones that have limited 3D acceleration.
 
Ubuntu 10.10 is excellent on my AMD machine. I'm running Windows XP & 7 in VM as needed. Get NVIDIA GPU if you can.
 
Bulldozer CPU & Nvidia graphics.

Nvidia is the only choice & there's no point paying for an i7 when BD will perform in the same league (well threaded OS & programs).
 
THUMPer1 said:
It's Linux. Obviously not playing any games. So webbernet porn machine.
Click to expand...

Certain programs run better in Linux than in Windows, especially encoding/folding/etc.

If it's a porn machine, as you said, a $300-400 computer (sans hard drive costs) would easily handle those tasks.
 
shallots said:
Bulldozer CPU & Nvidia graphics.

Nvidia is the only choice & there's no point paying for an i7 when BD will perform in the same league (well threaded OS & programs).
Click to expand...

I agree with BD, but outside of 3d support, the Nvidia drivers both binary and nouveau are horrible. They're the most crashy with compositing, they screw up accelerating video the most, and they are the worst with multiple monitors. Additionally, they have consistently caused problems for me during shutdown on a number of machines. My X logs end up with an inconsistent army of parading errors when I'm using Nvidia cards and multi-display setups.

The open source Nvidia nouveau drivers are probably the worst drivers of anything AMD, Intel, Nvidia. Avoid at all costs. The Nvidia binary blob is terrible with dual monitors if the EDID isn't perfect and it generally just sucks at multi monitor setups or if you need to customize anything. It's not randr compatible. The binary blob is also pretty bad at accelerating video. Additionally, it is wildly inconsistent from version to version making upgrades a nail-biting experience.

The open source radeon drivers are streets ahead of any of the nvidia drivers in the newer kernels. The only exception is in 3d acceleration. I wouldn't get them if you're gaming. I don't think they work with the 7000 series though. The AMD binary driver is not bad, but not great either. You could probably game with it... maybe.

If you need wireless, make sure you buy a card that is supported with open drivers. They work so much better than anything under ndiswrapper. I got mine from thinkpenguin.

Don't buy a motherboard with a fancy sound chipset or there's a chance it will be a giant pain to setup.

In linux, I'm generally IO limited so an SSD would probably be nice. I haven't added one to any of my machines.

If you can get an intel nic onboard that would be good. I've run into weird conflicts with realtek nics on fileserver debian builds.
 
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