dondi_2006 wrote: > thanks to all who quickly answered my question about 64 bit Fedora. > If, as you explained, the only thing missing now is Flash support and > there are no kernel/drivers issues of any kind, I guess it's OK for me. Should be the case, unless you get some weird hardware without an open source driver. You say no games, which means you don't need hardware 3D acceleration. If you find you do need 32 bit user-space stuff, you should be able to install and run it on a 64 bit system, although you might end up installing a *lot* of 32 bit libraries. Yum is good at sorting this out. Tip: have a set of 32 bit libraries that are normally disabled. Use the --enablerepo= flag to enable the ones you want when you're installing (and upgrading, if the programs are security-related, like web browsers). > I had initially thought to Pentium M for the case below, but looks like > some AMD 64 bit chip with the right chipset would be equally good or > better (just tell me if I'm wrong). To the best of my knowledge (and http://www.intel.com/products/processor_number/proc_info_table062705.pdf ) the Pentium M doesn't support 64 bit mode (yet). > As said in previous message, I will need this box for heavy openoffice > stuff, web browsing, email Thus far, practically any CPU will do the job. > plus lots of software compiling and video editing (no gaming). Depending on what you're doing, you may find AMD's architecture is better at complex stuff like compiling, while Intel's Pentium 4 is better at highly repetitive stuff like encoding and decoding video. But you should take a look at the web sites of the programs you plan to use, and see if there's any advice there. Try Google, too. Note that compiling does and video editing can benefit a lot from multiple cores. You should investigate this. > And it's very important to have it always silent, > and using as little energy as possible when not in interactive use. Here AMD's Athlon 64 wins out a lot over Intel's design. Make sure that the motherboard supports Cool'n'Quiet, and has fan speed controls. Fedora will support Cool'n'Quiet automatically, and slow the CPU down to 1 GHz when it isn't being thrashed, and drop the voltage at the same time. I have before now left my Athlon 64 running in a cold house with several fans running, and come back to find that the system has automatically *stopped* the CPU fan. It was that cool. (On my board, there's a fan speed control in the BIOS: I haven't set anything up in Fedora). Unfortunately, my particular system isn't that quiet, so I can't make many comments on reducing noise. And the motherboard wouldn't fit the case. > * MicroAtx (bigger cases would simply not fit in my current space :-( ) > * 100% Fedora Linux/FOSS compatible (BIOS included?) I haven't played with the LinuxBIOS project, and http://linuxbios.org/index.php/Supported_Motherboards doesn't throw up many suitable motherboards (and I think they're all ATX or larger). At least my Asus NF4 motherboard seems to support everything with Open Source software. Everything I need, anyway. > * lowest possible power consumption > * balanced system, that is compensate for not using the fastest possible > CPU with faster chipset, ram, drives Chipset performance is mainly due to the memory controller, which on an Athlon64 is built-in: there's only the one option. Presumably buying faster RAM and a hard disk with more on-board cache will have some benefit on performance. I haven't seen any independent figures, and doubt that the results would be particularly noticeable. > * possibility to lower clock frequency and/or suspend (SATA) drives when > nothing heavy is going on, or for regulating fan speed according to > temperature > * on board audio and video (DVI output would be nice, but not necessary) On board audio is standard these days. If you were looking at an Intel chipset, there are plenty with on-board video. There are starting to be a lot of options for AMD, too, but the chipsets are new. You may find that considering a cheap add-on graphics card gives you more options. > * at least 2 GB of RAM (which type is best?) For AMD, you're looking at DDR. I'd be tempted to get a good brand, *possibly* with ECC if the motherboard supports it, and not worry too much about ultra-fast timings (I suspect you'd get higher energy consumption without much extra performance). Hope this helps, James (on Athlon 64). -- E-mail address: james | "Minis on the other hand are just the wrong size. Too @westexe.demon.co.uk | small to work on directly and too large to put | upside down on the workbench." | -- stevo at madcelt.org
