Castor - Linux - Fedora Core 6

This machine was built to replace rigel, due to that it was running a bit low on drive space (120 GB and 250 GB), and mainly because with a microATX motherboard, there was not an easy/cheap way to add memory, since it had only 1 GB. It was also a bit slow processing under heavy loads, with a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 processor on a socket 478 motherboard. My son had outgrown his machine (an archaic AMD K6-500), so rigel was deemed its replacement.

Much research went into getting components. I had a great experience with the Sonata II (the same case rigel had been moved into), so when that went on sale at NewEgg for $50 (after rebate), it was ordered while the other parts were being considered. Eventually I settled on these:

Case: The Sonata II has a notoriously fragile door, and I didn't heed the warnings in the reviews posted by others, and snapped part of the hinge at the top of the door. A bit of Gorilla glue repaired it well enough, but this problem was quite irritating, and the door continues to feel fragile. Also, due to the sideways orientation of the hard drives in the case, and the fraility (see below) of SATA connectors, I suggest using connectors with a 90-degree angle.

Other than the problem with the door, the case, as it was the last time, was quite easy to work with, with the TAC cooling device a bit difficult to get in and out of the case; it has to be moved at a diagonal.

Update: The door, alas, continued to have issues, whereby "issues" means "falling off the case". So it was discarded, and when necessary a large book blocks the intense blue case lights so as not to interfere with the vision of pilots of nearby aircraft.

Motherboard: After using only ASUS for all previous builds, I wanted to do a build with an Intel motherboard, for the experience. One of my criteria was that it be a full-size ATX (not microATX), so that it had enough expandability. I wanted on-board graphics, but that wasn't a major desire. Because of the problems with Linux not being able to read IDE devices (because of the JMicron issue, noted here, among other places), I did not want a 965 chipset.

Intel seems primarily focused on the 975 and 965 chipset motherboards, with a few 955 ones. In the end, I was right back to ASUS, and didn't regret it for a second. The motherboard is laid out very well, and despite it being my first socket 775 build, was easy to work with. I followed the directions in the user's manual, as well as my (advanced!) copy of Building the Perfect PC, Second Edition.

CPU: Originally, I'd planned to build a socket 939 AMD system, then a 775 system with a Pentium D CPU, but the Core 2 Duo was so tempting, especially because of its low power consumption (and thus less heat). I'd wanted to spend only around $150 for a CPU, but the "low-end" Core 2 Duo, the 1.87 GHz E6300, was selling for only $180-190, so that's what I chose.

I installed the CPU, heatsink, fan, and memory prior to installing the motherboard in the case, although it is somewhat difficult, because one has to hold the motherboard up so that the fan posts can protrude through it, thus making it impossible to do on a flat surface. Removing the plastic socket guards can be fairly tricky, and it is wise to go very slowly.

Memory: Kingston is highly rated, so I chose its value RAM, a pair of 1 GB DDR2 667 modules.

Hard Disk Drive: After reading recommendations at hardwareguys.com for Seagate, two 320 GB SATA hard drives were chosen. As with every machine I've ever owned or built, the capacity seems ridiculously excessive now, but over time I've either replaced or added drives in each of those machines, from my first one, with its whopping 10 MB (yes, megabyte) drive.

Optical Disk Drive: Also based on recommendations at hardwareguys.com, I chose the Pioneer DVR-111.

Video Card: Previous experiences with embedded video have not been good. I prefer a very high resolution on a big (22") CRT, so although I'm not a gamer, I wanted a gamer-quality card. (This is also because no doubt this machine will be a Windows/gaming machine when I've moved on to a new system.) I also wanted a fanless video card, after noticing the whine of my old video card (although that problem was fixed just by a little white lithium grease). I prefer nVIDIA (or however it is capitalized), so that narrowed my choices to the 256MB and the 512MB EN7600GS, their fanless GeForce card. After waffling back and forth, I saved $40 by opting for the "lesser" card.

After installing the OS (Fedora Core 6), I was unimpressed by the graphics quality. However, after some deliberation, I remembered that nVIDIA provides its own Linux drivers, so I downloaded and installed that. Oddly, while I could run at 1920 x 1440 prior to upgrading, and despite the listed max resolution of this card as 2560 x 1600, it would only support 1600 x 1200 (although at 50 Hz). The visual quality is amazing -- it's going to be difficult using my work machine after becoming accustomed to this -- but there were problems playing video clips with MPlayer. There were errors such as:

Xlib: extension "XVideo" missing on display ":0.0". 
xvinfo: No X-Video Extension on :0.0

After some head-scratching and Googling, I learned that the problem is that the extmod module contains the missing extensions (at least the name is fairly descriptive). So that had to be added to Module section of the /etc/xorg.conf file, so that the new one now contains:

Section "Module"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "glx"
EndSection

And all is well.

Update: all is even better. nVIDIA configures the xorg.conf via Applications > System Tools > NVIDIA X Server Settings, which I was able to use in order to set the display 1920 x 1440.

Power Supply: Included with the Sonata II is the Antec Smartpower 450W. With the low consumption of the Core 2 Duo, that's plenty, even running two internal hard drives and two external ones.

Monitor: I kept my "old" monitor, a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2070. It's the best monitor I've ever owned, and keeps me firmly in the realm of CRTs. For me, LCDs just don't have the quality yet, although they're catching up.

Fedora continues to improve, and was very impressive. I even had a Kubuntu 6.10 CD burned and ready in case Fedora fell short, but it didn't. By following the suggestions at the Fedora FAQ, and the new Fedora Linux book from O'Reilly, there were no issues that took significant time to fix. My USB devices worked perfectly, my old Creative MP3 player and a new Western Digital Passport. Unlike my past two installations of Fedora (Core 3 and 5), the audio quality from XMMS is excellent. (Update: from my ongoing experience with FC 5, my guess is that the ESD/ALSA issue has been cleared up.)

The total cost of the machine was roughly $900. A "comparable" Dell is $1229.

Update (01 Dec 09): I've finally switched to LCDs, and this machine, still going strong nearly three years after being built, is now paired with a Samsung 2433BW. One of the best $300 expenses I've ever made. So good that I got another one for my machine at the office.

Tags

fedora | hardware | linux

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