Todd's Linux System Setup--Circa 1997

Disclaimer: Engineers are useful friends...they research the hell out of anything they buy. They usually end up selecting the most technically superior crap in the world, and will go on to great lengths justifying their purchasing decisions to you. If you're not all that inclined to do so much research, you can simply act on their recommendations and save loads of time. So here's one anal-retentive engineer's analysis of his recent PC purchase....

--Todd 4/14/97 (now just kept around for comedy's sake -Todd 2/2008)

I built my own system from the ground up using retail versions of all components. I probably ended up paying the same or slightly more than had I purchased a similar system from Gateway, Dell, or the like. The problem with system vendors is that you don't know exactly what components you are getting, and you do not get support directly from the component manufacturer. And good luck getting Linux tech support from such Wintel-centric houses such as Gateway and Dell who can't even spell Linux much less support it.

Building your own system affords end-user support direct from the manufacturer rather than dealing with an OEM. Through my research, I learned that OEM versions of various cards often differ from retail versions in non-trivial ways. For example, video cards packaged with systems from some of the major mail order places are often lower-cost OEM versions of the retail equipment. Linux grabs every ounce of performance out of your hardware, and as such, is far pickier about hardware than DOS or Windoze.

There are a small number of companies who sell ready-to-run Linux systems. If I find them in my notes, I'll post them here. If you have the time, there's nothing like building it all from the ground up, though. Imagine how interesting you'll be at that next party.

Computability, Milwaukee, WI.

Good prices, fast shipping, yet out of state. One of the few dealers carrying BusLogic :)

CDW Computer Discount Warehouse, Chicago, IL

Good prices and just minutes away.

Accurate Automation, Oregon

Rod Grimes rgrimes@GndRsh.aac.dev.com (503) 492-8005.

Rod is part of the FreeBSD development team. I was referred to him by a very knowledgeable FreeBSD-using friend. Rod was a great resource for answering the extensive hardware compatibility questions I had and was able to make informed recommendations on components I wasn't able to research thoroughly. He sells Asus motherboards as well as complete systems for FreeBSD. He was able to bench-test my core system (motherboard, processor, cache, video, 32M RAM) prior to shipping it to me.

Accurate Automation is a small operation and doesn't take credit cards. I swallowed my paranoia after speaking with Rod and realizing that he was a very knowledgeable, reasonable and trustworthy businessman. He arranged a FedEX Hold-at COD order for me that I picked up at my local Federal Express station. I would cheerfully do business with him again.

Motherboard

ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 Motherboard I picked this motherboard because it was recommended by many people in the PC unix community. Both Linux and FreeBSD users agree that this board is a solid performer. The BIOS also supports the booting of SCSI devices. Many systems chain you to booting from IDE drives.

I purchased the motherboard from Accurate Automation.

MicroProcessor

I went with a regular (non-MMX) Pentium 166. I didn't want to "risk" going with a non-intel processor. Since I'm not a multi-media enabled person, I skipped the MMX and saved about $50 I imagine. I knew that Linux wasn't going to use it, and I don't forsee buying any Windows NT software that will use it. Since I'm rarely CPU limited in the software I run, the 166 Pentium was at the price/performance point I desired.

Video Card

Matrox Millenium 2Mb PCI graphics accelerator People in the newsgroups were raving about this thing. At the time XFree86 didn't support it, but MetroX (a commercial X server included with RedHat Linux) did. Since then XFree86 (the free X server included with all Linux distributions) has added direct support for the Millenium. I haven't had any problems configuring this adapter under any OS.

I purchased the video card from Accurate Automation.

Memory

I went for 32Mb of parity (x36) RAM. I read somewhere that you should definitely spend the pennies to get parity DRAM in any Unix system. Although faults within a data word are increasingly rare in DRAM's these days, I'd like to know when a fault does occur rather than the computer continuing to hum along as though nothing happened. See the PC Hardware Frequently Asked Question list questions 2.20* for a more detailed discussion of why parity is a Good Thing.

I purchased the memory from Accurate Automation

CD ROM drive

Mitsumi FX1200 12X ATAPI IDE CD-ROM. I did no research on this one--but it turned out great. Thanks for the tip Rod! It's fast, it's cheap, it's wildly popular and well-supported. I looked into a SCSI CDROM drive, but quickly got sticker shock as I realized that SCSI models that were 1/3 the speed cost 3X as much!

I purchased the CD-ROM drive from Accurate Automation

3.5" HD floppy

I went with a Teac floppy drive. Dirt cheap, very reliable.

I purchased the floppy drive from Accurate Automation

Keyboard

I finally got a real IBM keyboard. I'd used these in my first job, and have never been able to find anything else with such a tactile response. This is definitely not one of the mushy $20 el-crappo-mui keyboards that are so often packaged with systems as an afterthought.

I bought it directly from IBM. Note that they sell a cheap version and an expensive one. The expensive one is what I recommend. Good luck trying to find it in their web site though...it's a jungle in there! Just call the 800 number and ask for the keyboard that costs about $100.

Monitor

Sony 200sx 17". "A leading non-profit consumer magazine" really liked the 17" Samsung Syncmaster 6Ne monitor which I purchased and took home for a week. My eyes told me that the Sony was noticeably sharper with its superior .25mm dot pitch, so I took the Samsung back and bought the 200sx. The power supply on the Sony isn't great--it takes about 2 seconds to get an image back when you switch video modes. Other than that, it's very sharp, stable and crisp. Cheap too for a 17"

I purchased the monitor from my local Best Buy (both times). Have fun getting a boxed 17" monitor in your car.

Power Supply and Case

American ProImage MP206T mid-tower. I like this one because it takes a Baby-AT size motherboard (matching the baby AT size of my Asus motherboard), looks cool, and has a whopping 10 (4 x 5 1/4" open, 3 x 3 1/2" open & 3 x 3 1/2" hidden) drive bays packed into a mid-tower case. It cost me a little more than I wanted to spend, but has worked out thus far.

I purchased the power supply and case directly from American ProImage.

SCSI host adapter

Buslogic BT-948 Multimaster UltraSCSI host adapter I picked this card based on the glowing reviews of the Linux BusLogic driver, and the fact that Mylex themselves supports Linux development!! You may want to avoid the BusLogic FlashPoint stuff. Until recently, they have been unsupported in Linux.

I picked the BT-948 Kit (KT-948) from the BusLogic line because I didn't need wide or differential SCSI--I don't plan to have more than 7 devices on my SCSI chain, and most SCSI peripherals that I can afford aren't wide or differential SCSI devices anyway. Who needs to buy special connectors to get a SCSI-II device to talk to a wide-SCSI device anyway? The "kit" includes the adapter board, the necessary SCSI cables and the driver software for various OS's.

You can find more info on the linux BusLogic driver at Dandelion Digital. Leonard N. Zubkoff wrote the BusLogic driver and has a vast amount of Linux and BusLogic information on this page. The README.BusLogic file for Linux has many notes extolling the virtues of BusLogic under Linux.

I purchased the host adapter from Computability

Tape Drive

I went with the HP Coloarado T4000S travan tape drive. It was priced right, had plenty of capacity and was a real SCSI tape drive--not one of those crappy floppy drive controller or parallel port pieces of poop.

There was a very comparable offering from Conner or Seagate, I believe. The HP legacy for reliability and performance swayed me this way in an otherwise even race. I went with Travan because it gave me the capacity I needed without the ungodly expense of DAT drives.

I purchased the tape drive from Computability

Hard Drives

Quantum Fireball 3.2 TM SCSI Based on what I've read in the newsgroups lately, I'm not sure I'd make this purchase again. Some have reported that the SCSI version of the Fireball 3.2 TM has some severe interface design bugs that cause it to perform slower than its EIDE counterparts. It's very cheap for a SCSI hard drive, but it looks like you get what you pay for. SCSI drives seem to be much more expensive than their EIDE counterparts. I'm not sure if the performance boost you typically get out of a SCSI is worth the price given my rather meager speed requirements.

In this system, I also grand-fathered 3 existing IDE hard drives from my old computer.

I purchased the hard drive from CDW.

Linux Distribution

RedHat 4.0 I'm still not sure if I did this one right. RedHat is very popular these days. The Debian distribution seems to be overtaking it in terms of popularity among certain power users though. RedHat was very responsive to my orders, but their support department was extremely slow to respond to questions.

I wasn't impressed with the RedHat installation program either. I ran into problems and learned that the error checking on the 4.0 installation program is absolutely atrocious. Other people with less complex system configurations have had great results with the installation program, though. I had this "I wanna boot from my SCSI drive" bug up my butt that caused me no end of trouble. I finally gave up and switched my system back to booting from the IDE drive.

Advice: also consider Debian Linux or perhaps FreeBSD. FreeBSD is another PC-based unix. It tends to be more stable, and doesn't suffer from the "Kernel of the month club" syndrome. On the other hand, it has a smaller user base, so support on the net for installation problems may be harder to find than support for Linux. FreeBSD, by virtue of its smaller, more controlled developer base, seems to have things more organized than the free-for-all Linux has become. If you drink Mountain Dew and thrive on the cutting edge at the expense of stability, head for Linux. If you enjoy a little less caffeine and uncertainly in your life, get FreeBSD.

I purchased my Linux distribution directly from RedHat.

Useful and pertinent linkage

• Eric Raymond's PC-Clone UNIX Hardware Buyer's Guide
• Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO
• Price Watch hardware price comparisons