Hardware for new Linux installs?

Hardware for new Linux installs?

[Jayson Smith]

Hi,

My Linux box decided last night would be a wonderful time to go to that 
great computer center in the sky. I was sitting here last night and the 
thing suddenly powered down, and won't power back up. Probably either a PSU 
or mobo blown. Time to upgrade anyhow, since I've had this box since 2005. 
Fortunately, when the Linux box went up to Linux box heaven, it didn't take 
the hard drive along for the ride, and I've already backed up all my data.

What I need to know is, what kinds of systems are people using these days 
for new Linux installs? I don't want to try to migrate my old system over to 
new hardware, since it was a hopelessly outdated Gentoo install. I probably 
wouldn't go with Gentoo again anyway. So what minimum hardware requirements, 
what distro? I'd love to play around with a GUI, but I absolutely can't 
stand Espeak! The GUY doesn't work with hardware synths, right? What about 
newer kernels and serial ports? If I do go with a GUI, is there any way to 
get Eloquence for it? Is anyone selling pre-built Linux systems for blind 
folks?
Thanks for any help!
Jayson

Re: Hardware for new Linux installs?

[Kyle]

I can build Linux systems with your choice of distribution. I build 
systems using mainly Asus motherboards and AMD processors, though I've 
found Gigabyte motherboards to be reliable as well. The hardware specs 
are negotiable, and I can build your system for a competative, and 
usually lowest price. If you are reusing a hard disk, it will take a 
sizeable portion off your price, since the hard drive can be one of the 
most costly parts of a computer. As for specs, I generally recommend a 
quad-core processor with 4GB of DDR3 ram in a minimal system, but adding 
another 4GB and using an 8-core processor is surprisingly inexpensive. 
My favorite distribution is Arch, because it gives you the flexibility 
of Gentoo without having to build everything from source, and if you 
like to package software, nothing beats the AUR, where you can store 
your own package build files, which are simple Bash scripts, in a 
searchable database, complete with dependency resolution, where other 
users can easily find them. Feel free to contact me off-list if you are 
interested in discussing the details and pricing for your next Linux 
computer.
~Kyle
http://kyle.tk/
-- 
"Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle?"
Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - "The Amazing Evie"

Re: Hardware for new Linux installs?

[Tony Baechler]

I just had a brand new server built, so I feel qualified to answer your 
questions.  Write me privately if you want the exact hardware details.  Yes, 
it has an onboard serial port.  No, new kernels still have broken serial 
support, so that means that you'll be installing with software speech.  I 
can't comment on anything other than Debian and Ubuntu, but they both use 
ESpeak, so learn to live with it.  The US English voice isn't too terrible 
once you get used to it.  I also have little interest in the GUI, but I 
think Debian and Ubuntu are your best bets.  I'll leave it to others to 
comment on Gnome 3 accessibility and Orca.

In short, what I would recommend is a new machine with Debian Squeeze. 
Squeeze still supports hardware speech.  You can then upgrade it to Wheezy 
which uses kernel 3.2 and doesn't support hardware speech.  That way at 
least you have the old kernel to fall back on and you won't have to do the 
install with ESpeak.  Another option might be to move everything to a VPS or 
dedicated server and just set up a dual boot Windows and Linux system or run 
Linux in a virtual machine.  I must say that I'm very happy with my Debian 
server which routinely handles hundreds of email messages and a few regular 
ftp connections.  I'm glad I left Gentoo behind, but I read that Arch is 
supposed to be good.

On 12/5/2012 5:20 PM, Jayson Smith wrote:
> What I need to know is, what kinds of systems are people using these days
> for new Linux installs? I don't want to try to migrate my old system over to
> new hardware, since it was a hopelessly outdated Gentoo install. I probably
> wouldn't go with Gentoo again anyway. So what minimum hardware requirements,
> what distro? I'd love to play around with a GUI, but I absolutely can't
> stand Espeak! The GUY doesn't work with hardware synths, right? What about
> newer kernels and serial ports? If I do go with a GUI, is there any way to
> get Eloquence for it? Is anyone selling pre-built Linux systems for blind
> folks?

Re: Hardware for new Linux installs?

[Tony Baechler]

On 12/5/2012 6:21 PM, Kyle wrote:
> I can build Linux systems with your choice of distribution. I build systems
> using mainly Asus motherboards and AMD processors, though I've found
> Gigabyte motherboards to be reliable as well.

I would avoid both of those.  First, I've had better luck with Intel, but 
there are some good AMD processors out there.  I personally used two 
Gigabyte motherboards and they both gave me nonstop problems.  I mean that 
literally.  Every day my box would crash, lock up, or otherwise do something 
weird.  I couldn't plug into the USB because it would eventually lock up.  I 
had to use two different brands of memory because otherwise it ran extremely 
slowly.  I had problems with the ethernet.  Nothing worked right.  It got to 
the point that I had to get a VPS because I was tired of losing data all the 
time.  I would absolutely not recommend that brand again!  Also, from an 
open source prospective, neither motherboard has free network and sound 
drivers.  While those brands are OK for a desktop, I wouldn't use them for a 
serious server.  I don't think new models still have serial ports.  In terms 
of quality, I would rate them as midrange.  Intel is much better, has free 
open source drivers and seems to be more reliable.  The first thing I had to 
do with the Gigabyte board is replace the onboard NIC with an Intel.

The hardware specs are
> negotiable, and I can build your system for a competative, and usually
> lowest price.

For a typical system, what would that be?  I paid $100 for labor in August 
when I had mine built.  Also, remember that shipping will add a lot and 
computers are breakable, so make sure you pay for insurance.  If you can 
possibly find someone locally to build one for you, that would be much better.

If you are reusing a hard disk, it will take a sizeable
> portion off your price, since the hard drive can be one of the most costly
> parts of a computer.

How do you figure?  First, I wouldn't reuse a hard drive.  They're so cheap 
now that it's better to buy at least one new drive.  Second, old IDE drives 
aren't really supported by modern boards and SATA drives are much faster.  I 
fail to see how you can say that hard drives are costly since I can buy 1 TB 
for around $80 to $90 and 3 TB for $150 each.  My motherboard, CPU, case and 
PSU were a lot more expensive than the drives.  I went with two RAID arrays, 
a RAID 1 and a RAID 5, so I had a total of six drives.  Two were 1 TB and 
the rest were 3 TB.  Obviously, that's overkill for most people, but the 
point is that drives are incredibly cheap nowadays, especially on Amazon.

As for specs, I generally recommend a quad-core
> processor with 4GB of DDR3 ram in a minimal system, but adding another 4GB
> and using an 8-core processor is surprisingly inexpensive.

No, you don't need 8 cores.  For that matter, you don't really need quad 
core, but it doesn't hurt.  I would say 8 GB of RAM is a minimum, and I 
would go with 16 GB if you can afford it, depending on what you're using it 
for.  I wouldn't go with the I5 or I7 lines.  I would go with Xeon or 
something higher end designed for a server.  They're not that expensive at 
all and well worth it.  Make sure your motherboard can support your CPU, so 
do research before you buy.  If you just want a desktop, 4 GB is more than 
enough, but for a server running virtual machines, 8 GB is on the low end. 
With that said, I've never ran out of memory with my 8 GB machine.  One 
really nice thing is that software compilation is very fast.  I don't 
compile kernels, but other programs compile in seconds.

My favorite
> distribution is Arch, because it gives you the flexibility of Gentoo without
> having to build everything from source, and if you like to package software,
> nothing beats the AUR, where you can store your own package build files,
> which are simple Bash scripts, in a searchable database, complete with
> dependency resolution, where other users can easily find them. Feel free to
> contact me off-list if you are interested in discussing the details and
> pricing for your next Linux computer.


With all due respect, I prefer Debian, but that's a preference issue.  I 
think Debian has done the most for accessibility.  Remember that the talking 
Arch install is NOT official and isn't available from the Arch servers. 
Debian has supported completely accessible installs since at least Lenny out 
of the box.  You can download any official Debian CD image with the 
graphical installer and have Speakup support.  Wheezy will support software 
speech.  Gnome 3 is packaged and should be available in Wheezy.  Having used 
Gentoo myself, Debian is much less hassle and you can still build packages 
from source if you want.  Gentoo and the like take a lot more disk space 
because of the overhead.  You need lots of extra build libraries and 
development files that a normal Debian system doesn't, just so you can say 
that everything is built from source.

Since this person can't give estimated price quotes and he makes some 
statements which are just plain wrong, such as that hard drives are costly, 
I would look somewhere else to have my machine built.  If you buy the parts 
on Amazon and find someone locally, your costs can drop considerably. 
Including six drives, case, and everything brand new including labor, my 
machine cost around $1,100, but again, that's with six hard drives and 
labor.  Without hard drives, it was around $585 if memory serves.  If you 
don't care about RAID and you do your own backups, you can get a good 1 TB 
drive for $90 or less.  My dad just paid $76.  As always, do your own 
research and checking before you buy.  I purposely didn't give the brand of 
my motherboard.  It actually isn't Intel, but Intel was highly recommended 
by the person who build my machine.  I have used Intel ethernet cards before 
and had much better luck than with the onboard.

1 of 2 - Re: Hardware for new Linux installs?

[Tony Baechler]

I'm sending this again since apparently you didn't see my original reply. 
Also, I don't know of any easy way to use hardware speech with a GUI.  Yes, 
there are versions of synthesizers which sound like Eloquence, but I really 
wouldn't recommend them.  First, they are not free software, so don't expect 
any community support.  Second, they don't work well on 64-bit systems from 
my understanding.  You really don't want to run a 32-bit Linux box with lots 
of memory due to hardware and BIOS limitations.  I can definitely notice a 
speed improvement with 64-bit Linux.  Almost any modern AMD and Intel CPU 
will work.  If you really want to play with the GUI, Ubuntu might be a 
better choice, but it seems to have more accessibility issues.  I personally 
like Debian a lot after trying Gentoo, Slackware and RHEL.  I've not used 
Fedora or Arch.  My original text is below.

I just had a brand new server built, so I feel qualified to answer your 
questions.  Write me privately if you want the exact hardware details.  Yes, 
it has an onboard serial port.  No, new kernels still have broken serial 
support, so that means that you'll be installing with software speech.  I 
can't comment on anything other than Debian and Ubuntu, but they both use 
ESpeak, so learn to live with it.  The US English voice isn't too terrible 
once you get used to it.  I also have little interest in the GUI, but I 
think Debian and Ubuntu are your best bets.  I'll leave it to others to 
comment on Gnome 3 accessibility and Orca.

In short, what I would recommend is a new machine with Debian Squeeze. 
Squeeze still supports hardware speech.  You can then upgrade it to Wheezy 
which uses kernel 3.2 and doesn't support hardware speech.  That way at 
least you have the old kernel to fall back on and you won't have to do the 
install with ESpeak.  Another option might be to move everything to a VPS or 
dedicated server and just set up a dual boot Windows and Linux system or run 
Linux in a virtual machine.  I must say that I'm very happy with my Debian 
server which routinely handles hundreds of email messages and a few regular 
ftp connections.  I'm glad I left Gentoo behind, but I read that Arch is 
supposed to be good.

On 12/5/2012 5:20 PM, Jayson Smith wrote:
> What I need to know is, what kinds of systems are people using these days
> for new Linux installs? I don't want to try to migrate my old system over to
> new hardware, since it was a hopelessly outdated Gentoo install. I probably
> wouldn't go with Gentoo again anyway. So what minimum hardware requirements,
> what distro? I'd love to play around with a GUI, but I absolutely can't
> stand Espeak! The GUY doesn't work with hardware synths, right? What about
> newer kernels and serial ports? If I do go with a GUI, is there any way to
> get Eloquence for it? Is anyone selling pre-built Linux systems for blind
> folks?