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Re: [LUG] A couple of questions

 

Dave wrote:
> Hi All,
>  
> I am looking to spec a machine for a LINUX MCE Core. Because it is a 
> Core I am trying to make it as powerful as I can afford but this had led 
> to a couple of questions regarding LINUX which I must profess to be 
> ignorant in and was wondering whether anyone could provide the answers 
> to. Please bear in mind I will be using Kubuntu 7.10 because that is the 
> latest version LINUX MCE will run on.

Hopefully before April 2009 they'll update it to run on 8.04.1 (April 
2009 is the Kubuntu 7.10 end of life).

> Firstly I am looking to put in 4 Gig Memory (the max for the MB) but am 
> unsure as to whether a 32 Bit LINUX can address such a large amount 
> directly and if not what happens to the rest of it; does it sit idle 
> (and wasted) or will it become a RAMDisk or similar?

32-bit Linux won't use 4GB.  It can only address up to about 3.5GB, I 
presume the rest isn't accessible.  I have 4GB Ram in my PC running 
Ubuntu 8.04.1 64-Bit and when I first boot up it uses a couple of 
hundred meg, but after a while with lots open it will eventually use 
about 3GB memory.

> Secondly I was going to get a Quad-Core Processor but again I wasn't 
> sure whether LINUX would make use of all the Processors (ditto 
> Dual-Core) or would be better saving money and using a single-core 
> Processor instead? (or at least the cheapest Dual-Core).

You should bear in mind a quad core CPU uses a lot more power (as in 
electricity).  You might find a Core 2 Duo around 2.4 or 3Ghz to be a 
better option?

AMD also have a range of low power dual core Athlons.  IIRC the Quad 
Core Phenoms (I have a Phenom X4 9500 with the TLB bug) use around 120 
Watts of power.

 From experience on my system, it doesn't seem much quicker with a quad 
core CPU than it does with a dual core.

Of course if you're going to be running video transcoding tasks etc then 
the extra cores may come in useful although looking at this...

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Hardware

It suggests a P4 2.4GHz can encode 2 streams and serve content to a 
remote frontend, so a Core 2 Duo or Athlon X2 will probably be fine.  I 
presume the content will be standard definition with maybe a bit of 
FreeSat HD chucked in for good measure?

Rob


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