Workstation and WOW

[klutzmonger]

Hello:

I'm looking at building a workstation for school labs, multiple VM running, and, when time, fun! Fun will be in the form of music, movies and MMOs.

I currently have an Opteron 165, 2Gb ddr, and ASUS A8N5X as my general setup on my workstation. I'm doing a general gutting of the hardware but keeping the case, and some of the HDDs and ODDs that are not Pata. I'm also going to set up a simple NAS that I found on Newegg to help with backups, and to serve my media files (pictures, songs, movies).

As additional background, I also am a technological "factotum" of sorts. I do side computer jobs, and I've worked on everything from networking, graphics, PC repair, building, anti-virus, consulting, etc. I'm trying to build a well rounded machine that can tackle most issues I may run into. Nothing like accepting a job, only to find I'm not fully prepared. I'm looking for more stable IT work probably next semester. Currently, I'm working on a farm helping a good friend during harvest. The IT farmhand

Another question, while not directly hardware related, is build related, which OS should I use? I have access to a few through my University's agreement with Microsoft (MSDNAA). I do plan on running VM for education, testing, and experimentation, but what base platform would be suggested and why? I have Windows 7 Pro, and a few releases of Windows 2008 Server including R2. I do plan on VMing Linux, but I don't feel comfortable enough yet to have that as my main OS.

CHANGES:

Memory: x2 CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M2A1333C9

Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz


List as follows please rein me in where needed:

ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

SAPPHIRE 100281-3SR Radeon HD 5870

CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX or Antec EarthWatts EA750 750W

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB

LG Black 10X Blu-ray Burner - Bulk SATA WH10LS30 LightScribe Support


NAS

Synology Disk Station DS210j

Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EADS 2TB


TIA,


klutz

[Nikon]

first off, welcome to the forums! I hope your stay here will be as enjoyable and addicting as mine is =D.

I am not too familliar with workstation builds, but i can tell you that the graphics card you pick will be a beast of a gamer.

the cpu you picked will absoultely be happiest in your machine, and should run wow and similar quite well. reading up on tomshardware showed it to be a rather significant bottleneck to cpu intensive gaming though.

g.skill memory has been having quality issues as of late, i would say go with a-data, kingston or crucial for memory. running vms definately requires alot of ram for good operation, and you know that. 16gb should be good, just get a different brand.

both of those PSUs are quality parts, and either should do just fine.
'
curious as to what flavor of linux you wish to use?

[klutzmonger]

Hey thanks for the welcome. I was actually a member previously, but my user was deleted as was my email. Not sure why (inactivity?), but any who I'm not sure which Linux distro. For a few of my classes we used Fedora 10, and that was enjoyable, but I'm open for suggestions.

Is 750watts overkill? There will be 4 hdds and 1 odd total. My original list was completed at school, and I couldn't remember what exactly I would be saving.

klutz

[Khalil]

I use ubuntu 10.4 and love it, everything works on it with the least amount of glitches so far of any Linux distro I have used to date.

[klutzmonger]

Originally Posted by Khalil I use ubuntu 10.4 and love it, everything works on it with the least amount of glitches so far of any Linux distro I have used to date.

Would it be advisable to learn more than one distro, or basically once you learn one well you've learned them all?

klutz

[Khalil]

depends on your time, I know Ubuntu and Suse but I do not have time to work on more i would.

[klutzmonger]

Ok,

Overall, does the hardware look solid enough to purchase?

CHANGE:

16GB x2 Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333


klutz

[Nikon]

good change
on the linux note, i recommend linux mint, it is very user friendly, and one of the few linux flavors that can be completely GUI controlled (no need to learn all of that linux command line stuff)

[klutzmonger]

Originally Posted by Nikon good change on the linux note, i recommend linux mint, it is very user friendly, and one of the few linux flavors that can be completely GUI controlled (no need to learn all of that linux command line stuff)

I've already delved into command line. I'm fairly comfortable with command line and I feel I should pick it up. I'm looking at career tracks that would greatly benefit with CL knowledge. I also agree with GUI. I'm a visual person, so GUI is preferable for 'normal' operation.


klutz

[Nikon]

linux mint did not axe CL, with it you will still have more complete control over the OS, but essentially everything can be handled via the GUI in mint. i feel it is one of the best flavors of linux out there.

servers and networking is where you want to go if you want to work with linux alot.

[klutzmonger]

Originally Posted by Nikon linux mint did not axe CL, with it you will still have more complete control over the OS, but essentially everything can be handled via the GUI in mint. i feel it is one of the best flavors of linux out there. servers and networking is where you want to go if you want to work with linux alot.

Yep. That's so of what I'll be delving into incrementally. Web development, web design, and networking. I'm going to be busy. I'm currently chewing through my few gen eds required after transfer. This gives me something to work toward (actual computer courses). I did complete an Associate's this year in web design. Onward and upward. Still noodling. Hands-on exposure pays off many fold in my experience.

[kilgoretrout]

If you are looking at linux with an eye toward professional employment then fedora would be best. In the enterprise/data center, Red Hat completely dominates in North America. Ubuntu is pretty much non-existent at the enterprise level. You also see some Novel/Suse and Debian stable.

Fedora is RH's testbed distro and is pretty cutting edge and therefore somewhat less stable than some other distros. However, the underlying configuration files are very close to RHEL(Red Hat Enterprise Linux) which is what you will see in a commercial environment. You can also take a look at Centos which is identical to RHEL but has RH's name and trademarks removed. Essentially, it's a free version of RHEL. For professional linux certifications, RH certification is probably the most valuable given RH's dominance in the enterprise.

Configuration in Debian and Debian based distros like Ubuntu and its derivatives, is a little different than RH configuration. If you know one you can pick up the other but the differences are just enough that it can get really annoying if you are familiar with one and not the other. Professionally, you probably want to have some familiarity with Debian configuration but you really want to know RH.

[klutzmonger]

Originally Posted by kilgoretrout If you are looking at linux with an eye toward professional employment then fedora would be best. In the enterprise/data center, Red Hat completely dominates in North America. Ubuntu is pretty much non-existent at the enterprise level. You also see some Novel/Suse and Debian stable. Fedora is RH's testbed distro and is pretty cutting edge and therefore somewhat less stable than some other distros. However, the underlying configuration files are very close to RHEL(Red Hat Enterprise Linux) which is what you will see in a commercial environment. You can also take a look at Centos which is identical to RHEL but has RH's name and trademarks removed. Essentially, it's a free version of RHEL. For professional linux certifications, RH certification is probably the most valuable given RH's dominance in the enterprise. Configuration in Debian and Debian based distros like Ubuntu and its derivatives, is a little different than RH configuration. If you know one you can pick up the other but the differences are just enough that it can get really annoying if you are familiar with one and not the other. Professionally, you probably want to have some familiarity with Debian configuration but you really want to know RH.

Thank you. That's very good, insightful information. Looks like RH will by my focus, but I will also have some Debian in there for familiarity. I'm looking at having Server 2008 R2 as my base OS and VMing the rest. Server '08 R2 can be easily configured to about any task I would need it for. I also found a few guides to set the Server 2008/R2 up as a workstation or power user.

I know from studies and limited experience that the web development arena is dominated by Linux. Most of the development done at the University I attend is done on the LAMP stack. Familiarity and further investigation will only benefit me.

klutz

[glc]

What was your previous username?

- Admin -

[klutzmonger]

Hi glc,

I noticed changes have been made. To your question: I believe it was klutz_monger. I hadn't accessed it in a long time. I attempted to retrieve it via my email address, but even that wasn't recognized by the system. I had been a member with that user since I was a sophomore in high-school (around 2001). My current email remains the same. I see many of the same members are still active - very encouraging.


klutz the formerly "underscored" monger

[glc]

Klutz_monger was active for a very short time in 2002 and only has 3 posts. Was that you? If so, I'll combine the 2 accounts.

[klutzmonger]

glc,

You're the man. Yes, that's me. I didn't post much then, and normally still do not. Typically, I just read the posts related to my question, or when a certain title catches my attention. Again, please do combine the accounts.

klutz

[glc]

Done, and thank you. We only allow one account per user and this takes care of that.

[klutzmonger]

glc,

I'm glad the admins here DO CARE. No clue how or why this issue occurred, but I'm thankful for a quick, effective resolution.

klutz

[klutzmonger]

Update:

I got my Synology 210j rocking with two large drives. I'm learning the software. I'm new to networking and whatnot but the site and forums have pretty good documentation. There seem to be many features that I'll delve into later. Right now I'm using it as a mapped drive for backups and sorting files.

My actual PC build not so good. The Case I was going to put this in is well...TOO SMALL! - Crap >< . Shopped around for a case. I have a setup in an Antec 1200, but it seems too big. My friend has a HAF 9xx, and it looked roomy, but not so tall as to give cabling issues...AND the Egg has it reduced with free shipping...yep. I'm also going for a 1Gb network, since I now have an added incentive for doing so.

klutz