Re: Advice on a new system
On Thu, 9 Jul 1998, Doug Thistlethwaite wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I am going to help one of the engineers at my company to build a personal
> system. He has expressed interest in learning about linux and would like to
> have a system that will dual boot in both windows 98 and linux.
As has been said, the best way to handle this is to partition for both
systems, install Windows, *then* install Linux.
> The current plans are for a K6-II 300MHz system with fast wide SCSI disks.
Nice. Should be plenty of fun. Don't skimp on RAM, though - Linux can
actually *use* all of the RAM, not waste it like Windows. For a system
like this, 64MB should be the minimum to settle for. Go for 128MB or more
while memory's so cheap.
> I am thinking of installing two drives (one for linux and the other for
> windoze). I would like to make this system very easy for the engineer
> to boot into either OS.
Two drives is a good choice. That can simplify partitioning issues a
great deal. One suggestion, though - if you can, put the Linux swap
partition(s) on a different drive from the rest of the filesystems. This
will help minimize head seeking, and anything that improves swap speed is
a win. (Hopefully you'll put enough RAM in that swapping is rare, though.)
> My questions are:
>
> 1. What procedure and order should I follow in installing the two OS'es.
Definitely Windows first. I have seen reports of Windows detecting Linux
partitions as "unused" and autoformatting them. :-/ Once Windows is
installed, you can proceed with the Linux install. (The Linux-Win95 HOWTO
should be very helpful, and still applicable to Win98.)
> 2. Recommendations on FW SCSI adapters?
Adaptec is common, and they just announced active support for Linux.
Currently, though, the drivers are reverse-engineered and some people have
had problems with them. (It's rare, but I've seen a few reports.)
Buslogic, Mylex, and DPT all have a good history of support for Linux and
the people who have DPT adapters seem to really like them. The DPT drivers
are actually written by DPT, I think.
If you want to save some money, NCR-53c8xx controllers are inexpensive
(not cheap :-> ) and give solid performance. You can get a Fast SCSI-II
controller for $53! My Fast-Wide controller cost me $100.
> 3. We are going to want to add a CD-R drive to this system. Should we
> look for a SCSI device or use the on-board IDE interface? Does the
> operation of IDE devices compromise the access speed of SCSI devices?
CD-R's should be SCSI, from what I've heard. SCSI just handles
multiprocessing a bit better, and doesn't need quite the same amount of
CPU attention that IDE does. It's critical to keep data streaming to the
CD-R when you're burning a CD, and if it gets interrupted, you have a
coaster. With SCSI, the CPU is barely involved when the drives transfer to
the CD-R, and you're free to get some work done with the CPU.
You might be able to get by with an IDE CD drive for making disc-to-disc
copies, but the CD-R should be SCSI. Since the IDE and SCSI bus are on
different interrupts, they don't really interfere with each other much.
IDE CD drives are a noticeably less expensive (though often cheaper, too)
than SCSI.
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (248) 377-7735 ray.ingles@fanucrobotics.com
"Technically, Windows is an operating system, which means that it
supplies your computer with the basic commands it needs to suddenly,
with no warning whatsoever, stop operating." - Dave Barry
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