From: drew@juliet.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt) Subject: Re: help with system to run unix Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1993 21:08:13 GMT
In article <25opra$ohe@news.ysu.edu> ag173@yfn.ysu.edu (Jay Hauben) writes:
>
>She has been quoted a price for a system at the upper limit of
>what she can afford. The system consists of the following
>components. Does anyone see in this system anything that would
>prevent her needs from being met? Might any of the components be
>too weak for what she wants to do? The forms of UNIX she might
>have available are Minix (which appears not to have uucp)
>and off the net Linux. She has a 2400 baud modem now and hopes to upgrade
>it and maybe buy a CD-ROM player and controller some time in the
>future when she is in a position to afford them.
>
>The system she has the quote for consists of:
>
> 2) Mid height tower case with 230 watt power supply. (Will this
> give enough power and enough VENTILATION?)
You shouldn't have any problems.
> 3) 245 MB hard drive by Seagate or Maxton. (Is either
> preferable?)
I've had nothing but problems with small Seagate drives - the old
251's suffered from stiction, my 296N was cheap at the time but
sounds like a jet airplane taking off, my ST1144A developed bad sectors
that the drive locks up when accessing (as in you have to power
cycle the system before using the drive again, a controller reset
or hard reset won't clear things up). I haven't seen any problems
on Maxtor drives, or large CDC (bought by Seagate) drives.
> 4) 128 kB cache (Might she in fact need a 256 kB cache?)
You'll see a bigger performance increase spending the money on
real memory.
> 5) 4 MB RAM expandable to 64 MB. (Should she insist on SIMM
> chips?)
Every modern system uses some form of SIMMs, 9 or 36 bits wide.
If she wants to run X, 8M is recommended, if she turns off all the
drivers she isn't using to reduce kernel bloat and doesn't run X,
4M will be useable.
> 8) Pentium Overdrive with Intel (?) chips
Modern chips are limited by memory bandwidth. To address this, chip
makers put a wider bus interface on - ie, the Pentium has a 64 bit
interface to main memory, MIPS R4000SC's have a 128 bit interface to
cache, etc. You'd be strangling a pentium if you ran it in a 32 bit
overdrive socket (most benchmarks fit in cache, but you'd see problems
in the real world). Since you'd have to replace the motherboard to get
full pentium performance, pentium upgradability is a non-issue.
> 9) 14" Acer 34T (SVGA NI) monitor.
Monitors vary greatly, even those of the same make and model. If the
shop is local, she should insist on seeing the monitor she's purchasing.
>11a) Trident 1 MB SVGA video card with a DC 009 IDE controller
> card
Trident boards are dog slow. A cheap alternative (I've seen new for
for $60) would be a TSENG et4000 based board.
>11b) Genoa IMD VESA local bus graphics card with a VLB IDE
> controller card (for about $150 more). (Is there a significant
> advantage gained for the extra money even though she doesn't
> anticipate doing much graphics?)
If she runs X (I do because it's a great way to get six command lines
on the screen at one time), she should get a 10 fold improvement in
scrolling, etc. over the trident.
A cheaper but not as fast alternative would be an ET4000 based ISA
board.
>Is there anything in the above system that might prevent her from
>successfully running UNIX or handling her DOS files? Is there
>anything she should change in order to better insure that her
>system might last for a long time?
If she wants to run X, I'd suggest going with 8M of memory, trading
the 486DX-33 for something slower like a FPU less Cyrix 486DLC or even
a 40Mhz AMD 386 as price concerns dictate. The overall performance
will be better when things run in real memory, not swap.
-- Boycott USL/Novell for their absurd anti-BSDI lawsuit. | Condemn Colorado for Amendment Two. | Drew Eckhardt Use Linux, the fast, flexible, and free 386 unix | drew@cs.Colorado.EDU Will administer Unix for food |