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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.
>  
> 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?
>  
> 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).
>  
> Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.
>  
> Regards,
> Dave.
Hi Dave,

I am uncertain about the RAM, but I would imagine it'd be capable of 
addressing all 4GB of it without fuss.

Regarding processors, however - Linux can definitely handle multiple 
cores.  I haven't got much experience with MCE (last time I took a peek 
at it, it seemed pretty good but had a very specific set of hardware 
requirements in order to get the most out of it) but most Linux 
"distributions" (of which MCE is just one) will autodetect that you have 
multiple CPUs and install the SMP (symmetric multi processing) kernel 
automatically.

May I ask what's made you lean towards MCE over any other "media 
specific" distros?

Grant.

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