Home ›

Building the Ultimate Linux Box

Issue 91

From Issue #91
November 2001

Nov 01, 2001  By Eric S. Raymond
 in
Focusing on maximum crunching power and PC hardware whendeveloping the Ultimate Linux Box (ULB).
Troubleshooting

See “Troubleshooting the Ultimate Linux Box” on the Linux Journal web site.

Conclusion

I find it impressive that, after having specified it on a cost-is-no-object basis, the total system cost is so low. I tried to gold-plate as much of the system as possible and load on all the extras and accessories I could, and I was still unable to raise the total parts bill over $7,000 US.

If we discarded the most extravagant peripherals—the Klipsch speakers, the Radeon, and the DVD and DDS drives—the cost would drop to a quite reasonable $4,200 US or so. As Rick pungently observes, “People pay more than that for crap computers every day.” This design will be available for purchase from Los Alamos Computers as the ULB-200108.

And how fast does it build kernels? After make clean, the Ultimate Linux Box builds the ULB's 2.4.8 Linux kernel from a cold standing start (make -j3 'MAKE=make -j3' dep; make -j3 MAKE=make -j3' bzImage) in 2 minutes and 21 seconds flat. Sweeeet.

Resources

email: esr@thyrsus.com

Eric S. Raymond is a wandering anthropologist and troublemaking philosopher who happened to be in the right place at the right time and has been wondering whether he should regret it ever since.

______________________

Comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Re: Building the Ultimate Linux Box

Sime's picture
Submitted by Sime (not verified) on Sun, 02/10/2002 - 03:00.

Hi Eric - Nice article ...

Shame about the mother board though... it is apparently JUNK! If you are thinking of parting with your hard earned cash in exchange for a Tyan Thunder K7 MB you would be well advised to read ALL of this!

The next couple of paragraphs will give an insite as to why and the link(s) that follows will reveal the whole sorry mess....

TAKEN FROM:- http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1325/

We have a bit of a problem here. Before reading any further, read this thread here http://discussions.hardwarecentral.com/Forum2/HTML/010991.html, and this one here http://www.amdforums.com/showthread.php?s=e85326da9d32b72654e6d48a05f1e2...

In short, matters with the Tyan Thunder K7 are not as rosy as can be. In fact, it seems like they

Re: Building the Ultimate Linux Box

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 05/09/2002 - 02:00.

Well, yes the mother board suggested seems to be barely worth it's weight in packaging bubbles...So I still want to build an ULB---> but I'm I'm really not on top of my hardware info...Any replacement motherboards to suggest?

Re: Building the Ultimate Linux Box

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 12/11/2001 - 03:00.

I am puzzeled by your choice of components. First the CPU's and MB, AMD processors are better space heaters then CPU's, Xeon's run much cooler and use a 400MHZ FSB. Next the MB, why an integrated SCSI controller? I would use a MB with 64 bit PCI slots and 29160 or 39160 controller that could upgrade to a U320 controller when available. Next the hard drives, I would use Seagate Cheetah X15 drives, 3.6ms access time, U320 standard now, better throughput and above all faster warranty turn around. The MB would use a 860 chipset to avoid compatability issues like video timing. I dislike trouble shooting and resolving problems that should not occur. I realize that I may have angered some AMD bigots but I am a pragmatist and have fewer problems with Intel, so it is the path of least resistance. For those that wish to argue benchmark performance everthing come to a screeching halt when you need to resolve compatability problems, the score is 0 when your machine is down.

Re: Building the Ultimate Linux Box

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 11/23/2001 - 03:00.

Thank you for a well written article. Being technically disabled there is a part I don't understand.

If there is a floppy-there is ide yes/no?

If yes is there not already the 10% hit ?

Quess I would have saved a few pennies taking non scsi cd-rw and dvd-rom and a possible hit here and using both scsi channels for the hard drives with the backup chained to one. Like I said technically disabled but favor daily improvement over hit for occasional cd write.

Webcast
More Resources
How to Build an Optimal Hadoop Cluster to Store and Maintain Unlimited Amounts of Data Using Microservers

Realizing the promise of Apache® Hadoop® requires the effective deployment of compute, memory, storage and networking to achieve optimal results. With its flexibility and multitude of options, it is easy to over or under provision the server infrastructure, resulting in poor performance and high TCO. Join us for an in depth, technical discussion with industry experts from leading Hadoop and server companies who will provide insights into the key considerations for designing and deploying an optimal Hadoop cluster.

Learn More

Sponsored by AMD

White Paper
More Resources
Red Hat White Paper: Using an Open Source Framework to Catch the Bad Guy

Built-in forensics, incident response, and security with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Every security policy provides guidance and requirements for ensuring adequate protection of information and data, as well as high-level technical and administrative security requirements for a system in a given environment. Traditionally, providing security for a system focuses on the confidentiality of the information on it. However, protecting the data integrity and system and data availability is just as important. For example, when processing United States intelligence information, there are three attributes that require protection: confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Learn more about catching the bad guy in this free white paper.

Learn More

Sponsored by DLT Solutions