Re: [ccp4bb] which Linux workstation for crystallography to buy?

[David Roberts]

I think people have answered this correctly.  As one who did this several years ago - I built my workstations with top end hardware (at the time).  I used an AMD dual core system (top end for the money - I'm OK with AMD), built it from scratch (so I bought the fastest processor available for the money at the time), loaded it with memory, got a video card that met my needs, and the rest is there.  The systems still work great, do a typical CNS run in under 5 minutes, can do a PHASER run in 10 or so minutes, so they still work fine (that's enough time to go down the hall, stretch and get coffee, and then come back and do coot).  I only have 4 Gig memory per computer - but for me that's enough. My systems are obviously no longer top of the line, but they still run great, 6 years later.  Just swap out a motherboard every now and then and we are set to go. The biggest thing you need to do is make some key decisions on what you need (and then stick with it): 1.  Do you need stereo (biggest issue - if so you need to pay attention to video cards, etc...) 2.  Do you care if you have to upgrade your system often - free linux such as fedora is very nice, but requires a lot of maintenance (which isn't hard, but you have to stay on it).  The hardware can handle it, it's just in picking your OS 3.  Are you going to run more than one monitor/display? 4.  Disk space is now incredibly cheap (has been for awhile, but this used to be a crunch).  Buy one smallish disk and use it solely for your OS (whatever OS you choose).  Then use a separate disk for data (user disk, whatever you want to call it).  You can buy several small disks ($25 each, can't go wrong here), put different systems on them (even windows), and use the bios switch as your bootloader (hit the F11 key on startup and pick the disk to boot - don't bother with a dual boot system and boot-loader as those can go bad, screwing up both systems).  Go with SATA drives, they are cheap and easy to come by now.  Try different flavors of linux this way (FC13, ubuntu, whatever - each on their own disk).  It's easy I'm sure the list is longer - but really most software will work with whatever system you get.  They all are very good now, come with packages pre-compiled, and simply work when you put them on your system.  Good luck. Dave On 10/12/2010 9:03 AM, Paul Smith wrote: Stefano, I second the previous posts.  Essential is a solid NVIDIA graphics card - quadro or geforce and not something low end.  Vendors don't matter so much, we use both Dell and Hp and both are fine (essentially the same hardware inside). Also, linux version doesn't matter.  We use both Suse and Ubuntu (and, yes, you can have a root account on Ubuntu, just use the "sudo su" command to log in as root, set a password, and Bob's your uncle). For laptop, I recommend the Dell precision portable workstation in i5/nvidia configuration. For desktop, I recommend HP proliant quad-core servers with a third-party nvidia graphics card. Avoid AMD hardware - often the linux drivers aren't stable. Feel free to contact me if you would like more specifics. --Paul --- On Tue, 10/12/10, Benini Stefano (P) <stefano.ben...@unibz.it> wrote: From: Benini Stefano (P) <stefano.ben...@unibz.it> Subject: [ccp4bb] which Linux workstation for crystallography to buy? To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Date: Tuesday, October 12, 2010, 4:28 AM Dear All,   I need to buy a Linux workstation to run crystallographic software and graphics like ccp4, mosflm, coot., etc., Could you please suggest me a good combination of hardware and  which linux operating system to install (ubuntu?)? I can spend about 1500€ Technology evolves so fast that I really want to be up to date not to be already late!   Thank you very much in advance   Stefano     Stefano Benini, Ph.D. Assistant Professor   http://pro.unibz.it/staff2/sbenini/   **************************** Bio-organic Chemistry Laboratory Faculty of Science and Technology Free University of Bolzano Piazza Università, 5 39100 Bolzano, Italy Office (room K2.11):  +39 0471 017128 Laboratory (room E.012): +39 0471 017901 Fax: +39 0471 017009 ***************************