Installing linux

[nctnico]

No need to to assemble a Linux compatible pc yourself. There are plenty workstations or laptops from different brands which are Linux compatible (guaranteed by the manufacturer).
Some of them come with Linux pre-installed if you wish. For example Fujitsu-Siemens, Lenovo and Dell.

Not just that but the for-business PCs from HP or Dell also have much better cooling because they use custom motherboards and custom cases which provide optimal airflow. You can't do that with standard PC parts. I have stopped building my own PCs a long time ago. Money wise it doesn't compete and the end result is much quieter.

[Mr. Scram]

Not just that but the for-business PCs from HP or Dell also have much better cooling because they use custom motherboards and custom cases which provide optimal airflow. You can't do that with standard PC parts. I have stopped building my own PCs a long time ago. Money wise it doesn't compete and the end result is much quieter.

I'm yet to see an enterprise PC that can rival a properly built silent PC. HP designing its own parts leads to fun situations where you can only replace your broken HP PSU with an expensive replacement unit from HP because they use non standard outputs and inputs on the motherboard. They're usually fairly solid baseline computers which is an upgrade from the lower tiers consumer crap.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

I've never ever in all my life built nor owned nor used any Wintel 'PC'. Nor even at work. 100% Apple all my life since 1977!

[Simon]

For just shy of £1'000 I built myself a very nice machine that is silent unless I start to run all of it's dual 8 cores at 100%. HP and DELL can keep their over rated stuff.

Yes, DELL are those wonderful guys that use exactly the same power connector but change all the pins around so that you fry your motherboard with any non DELL replacement - how nice of them. My 700W silent PSU is now 10 years old and no need to replace it and it was not that expensive either.

[Mr. Scram]

I've never ever in all my life built nor owned nor used any Wintel 'PC'. Nor even at work. 100% Apple all my life since 1977!

Thanks for sharing I guess?

[nctnico]

Not just that but the for-business PCs from HP or Dell also have much better cooling because they use custom motherboards and custom cases which provide optimal airflow. You can't do that with standard PC parts. I have stopped building my own PCs a long time ago. Money wise it doesn't compete and the end result is much quieter.

I'm yet to see an enterprise PC that can rival a properly built silent PC. HP designing its own parts leads to fun situations where you can only replace your broken HP PSU with an expensive replacement unit from HP because they use non standard outputs and inputs on the motherboard. They're usually fairly solid baseline computers which is an upgrade from the lower tiers consumer crap.

Get a Dell T5510 for example. It makes the same amount of noise whether working at full load or sitting idle. I had to get used to the absense of noise in my office after I bought it. And it is not just about being quiet but also maintain low noise while working at full load AND keeping the temperatures low at all the places with hot components. Standard casings and standard motherboards are sub-optimal by definition.

[Black Phoenix]

Get a Dell T5510 for example. It makes the same amount of noise whether working at full load or sitting idle. I had to get used to the absense of noise in my office after I bought it. And it is not just about being quiet but also maintain low noise while working at full load AND keeping the temperatures low at all the places with hot components. Standard casings and standard motherboards are sub-optimal by definition.

That is a laptop not a desktop. And I think we are talking about Desktops... Plus is a Dell 5510...

[Mr. Scram]

Get a Dell T5510 for example. It makes the same amount of noise whether working at full load or sitting idle. I had to get used to the absense of noise in my office after I bought it. And it is not just about being quiet but also maintain low noise while working at full load AND keeping the temperatures low at all the places with hot components. Standard casings and standard motherboards are sub-optimal by definition.

Those are baseline goals when building a properly quiet PC. There's nothing about standard casings and standard motherboards that make them suboptimal by definition. Choosing from a vast library of available parts means one can emphasize exactly those qualities most valued instead of a one size fits all. HP obviously isn't going to drop $100 on a single cooler for anything consumer or office grade whereas the sky is the limit when building your own. There is obviously also more room to mess something up which is where prebuilts come in with a reasonably balanced package without too much fuss or effort spent. Though it should be noted prebuilts aren't always flawless either.

[nctnico]

Get a Dell T5510 for example. It makes the same amount of noise whether working at full load or sitting idle. I had to get used to the absense of noise in my office after I bought it. And it is not just about being quiet but also maintain low noise while working at full load AND keeping the temperatures low at all the places with hot components. Standard casings and standard motherboards are sub-optimal by definition.

That is a laptop not a desktop. And I think we are talking about Desktops... Plus is a Dell 5510...

No, a T5510 is a midi-tower higher end workstation.

Get a Dell T5510 for example. It makes the same amount of noise whether working at full load or sitting idle. I had to get used to the absense of noise in my office after I bought it. And it is not just about being quiet but also maintain low noise while working at full load AND keeping the temperatures low at all the places with hot components. Standard casings and standard motherboards are sub-optimal by definition.

Those are baseline goals when building a properly quiet PC. There's nothing about standard casings and standard motherboards that make them suboptimal by definition. Choosing from a vast library of available parts means one can emphasize exactly those qualities most valued instead of a one size fits all. HP obviously isn't going to drop $100 on a single cooler for anything consumer or office grade whereas the sky is the limit when building your own. There is obviously also more room to mess something up which is where prebuilts come in with a reasonably balanced package without too much fuss or effort spent. Though it should be noted prebuilts aren't always flawless either.

Why spend $100 on a cooler where (for example) Dell just adds a $2 duct which optimises the airflow to the same level. The thing is that you'll need to spend $100 just to make a pig look pretty. Don't start with a pig and life is much easier.

[Simon]

No, a T5510 is a midi-tower higher end workstation.

How much and what has it got? For under £1k I got an 8 core ryzen 16GB of DDR4 dual channel, a decent motherboard ("gamer") a graphics card and a new case. The whole thing could not be quieter. I see now why I can here the fans at 16x 100% load, it's because the CPU cooler is quite dusty now after 1 year and all fans are speed controlled on the CPU temperature.

And yes, windows is an awful OS, It's terrible. I just yanked out my nvidia card and stuffed the AMD one in and booted it up. Windows update automatically detected the need for a new driver and installed it.

[drussell]

Windows update automatically detected the need for a new driver and installed it.

Hooray for Windows Automatic Updates!

You are, of course, free to stick with Windows and all the various kinds grief that may^H^H^Hwill entail over time.

You're also free to use a free OS like Linux or FreeBSD, where if you find something you don't like, you're free to change it.  If you don't like the behavior of the installer with your particular video card, delve into the code, fix it on your system and then if you feel so inclined, share your update patches back to the others of the community like the rest of us do.

If you expect everything to work automagically "just like Windows always does for me," you're likely to be very disappointed from time to time.   On the other hand, if you run something like FreeBSD it is highly unlikely to do some bogus automatic update in the middle of the night and reboot your workstation into a brick or trick you into installing an OS you don't want and doesn't work for your workflow.  YMMV.

If you expect Linux to be Windows, you're likely looking for the wrong things in the wrong place.

I prefer something that I set up once, then sit back and read the logs. 

[Simon]

this is the problem with open source. Everyone is supposed to be able to fix the code. I explained earlier that I have neither the ability or the interest.

[drussell]

this is the problem with open source. Everyone is supposed to be able to fix the code. I explained earlier that I have neither the ability or the interest.

Absolutely not true....

You could help with documentation.  You could help maintain a project's website.  You could just help by reporting bad behavior of your particular hardware with the necessary debugging information to allow someone with the knowledge to fix it, or donate a few dollars towards someone who can fix your issues instead of paying Microsoft $129 for your next Windows license.

My point is that if you aren't even willing to go through something like one step to try booting up your machine in VESA mode to get the OS installed or whatever, you're probably best just sticking with paying for a commercial OS and their included stellar technical support.   

[Nominal Animal]

Everyone is supposed to be able to fix the code.

No, not exactly.  Everyone is supposed to be able to help fix issues, or you have to pay someone else to do it for you.

With Nvidia graphics cards, nothing helps, because only Nvidia has the information necessary to do anything about it, and they're not interested in you as a Linux user, only if you are a Windows user.

I explained earlier that I have neither the ability or the interest.

Hence my suggestions.  Now that you have a supported graphics card, give a couple of Linux distributions a go.  I recommend LXDE or XFCE desktops for a number of reasons.  Mint is definitely a good suggestion, give it a go.  Do remember, that because it is not Windows, and you have lots of Windows use under your belt, it will be different; instead, try to find out different ways of achieving your typical tasks, using different applications, consciously avoiding duplicating your Windows workflow.  There is where the jackpots can be found, if there are any for your workflows.

I have noticed that the OS discussion does go into depths that e.g. test equipment discussions do not.  At least, I haven't seen any thread where someone asks for advice in their particular situation, devolve into discussions of the various manufacturers market shares, and what they need to do to increase it.

[Simon]

Every time I say i have a probelm some smart alec says that I can just fix it myself as though I can code. This is the answer to linus torvades wondering at why linux is not desktop mainstream.

I have used linux briefly before.

[Monkeh]

And yes, windows is an awful OS, It's terrible. I just yanked out my nvidia card and stuffed the AMD one in and booted it up. Windows update automatically detected the need for a new driver and installed it.

And yet you can brick it without changing any hardware, just flipping a bit or two..

Linux can, if configured correctly, behave just the same - except it won't have to download anything. And the bit flip won't bother it.

[Mr. Scram]

No, a T5510 is a midi-tower higher end workstation.

  Why spend $100 on a cooler where (for example) Dell just adds a $2 duct which optimises the airflow to the same level. The thing is that you'll need to spend $100 just to make a pig look pretty. Don't start with a pig and life is much easier.

Those are some rather extraordinary claims. Please provide some real data and comparisons which show an air duct on a basic cooler is as effective as a properly used high end cooler.

By the way, are you familiar with Puget Systems?

[Simon]

Well i booted into ubuntu. As the wifi adapter was kaput I expect I will have to look one up that supports linux before making further progress.

[alsetalokin4017]

Not necessarily. You do have a hardwire Ethernet connection available, I imagine. So you could plug in. There will be current updates to your fresh installation that will want to be downloaded and installed and this goes faster over a hardwire connection anyway.

You may know this already but:

ctrl-alt-T opens a Terminal (console) window

To read the manual page(s) for any linux command, type
man
followed by the command, at the terminal prompt.
man man
for example.

To see if your graphics card is actually working try "glxgears" demo. Ctrl-C to quit.

[nctnico]

No, a T5510 is a midi-tower higher end workstation.

  Why spend $100 on a cooler where (for example) Dell just adds a $2 duct which optimises the airflow to the same level. The thing is that you'll need to spend $100 just to make a pig look pretty. Don't start with a pig and life is much easier.

Those are some rather extraordinary claims. Please provide some real data and comparisons which show an air duct on a basic cooler is as effective as a properly used high end cooler.

There is no point to even start a comparison. The whole purpose of a custom designed case + motherboard is to have ducting to take airflow from the case fans directly to where it is needed. There is no basic cooler because it simply isn't needed! It is entirely different way of building & designing a PC.

[Simon]

In otherwise your usual troll self, you make wild claims but never willing to back them up or explain the detail.....

[nctnico]

No, a T5510 is a midi-tower higher end workstation.

How much and what has it got? For under £1k I got an 8 core ryzen 16GB of DDR4 dual channel, a decent motherboard ("gamer") a graphics card and a new case. The whole thing could not be quieter. I see now why I can here the fans at 16x 100% load, it's because the CPU cooler is quite dusty now after 1 year and all fans are speed controlled on the CPU temperature.

The one I have is already about 4 years old. It has a quad core Xeon, ECC memory and a basic K620 desktop video card from NVidia. I don't play games so I don't need any gaming performance. IIRC the price was around 2k euro including 1TB SSD and 2TB regular hard drive. The front has 3 fans running at low speed and the grille seems to be designed to keep the dust on the outside (at least that is where the dust is collecting). Unlike my self build PCs there is no dust building up inside. Due to the ducting it pumps much less air (and dust) into the case. And it is insanely quiet. I have an external hard drive somewhere under the desk which makes more noise than the entire PC.

[Simon]

Not necessarily. You do have a hardwire Ethernet connection available, I imagine. So you could plug in. There will be current updates to your fresh installation that will want to be downloaded and installed and this goes faster over a hardwire connection anyway.

Yea, have a cable somewhere, might have to buy one again as I need a few metres not jut 1.2m

[nctnico]

In otherwise your usual troll self, you make wild claims but never willing to back them up or explain the detail.....

And there you go again  Not willing to learn anything.

[Simon]

The one I have is already about 4 years old. It has a quad core Xeon, ECC memory and a basic K620 desktop video card from NVidia. I don't play games so I don't need any gaming performance. IIRC the price was around 2k euro including 1TB SSD and 2TB regular hard drive. The front has 3 fans running at low speed and the grille seems to be designed to keep the dust on the outside (at least that is where the dust is collecting). Unlike my self build PCs there is no dust building up inside. Due to the ducting it pumps much less air (and dust) into the case. And it is insanely quiet. I have an external hard drive somewhere under the desk which makes more noise than the entire PC.

My setup is similar. the case alone was £90 but the fans are filtered and there are plenty of them so they can run low speed and push plenty of air in. With the low power consumption and high performance of the processor regular use does not require much cooling. Your hard drives were probably a substantial amount of the price.