[Bioclusters] Workstation Selection for Bioinformatics Research

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 12:09:07 -0400 (EDT)

On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, Chris Pepper wrote:

> At 2:22 PM -0400 2003/04/10, Andrew Fant wrote:
>
> >I'll go way out on a limb here and say that if you are going to want to do
> >serious visualization under Linux, you will want a NVidia video card.  I
> >know that free-software purists will object to their binary-only drivers,
> >but I have been using them on this box for 6 months now without a hitch,
> >and it has run much faster than anything that uses DRI (like the Radeon),
> >and the glx support has been far more robust than a radeon or with the
> >intel chipsets.  Not the cheapest solution, but one that you probably
> >won't regret either.
>
> 	The nVidia drivers are a PITA to install, and often mean you
> can't upgrade kernels when you want to (because they trail RH kernels
> a bit). Intel 8xx onboard video stinks.

Agreed, i8xx video is really only good for cheap home machines that are
used for internet access, or low end business machines that do email and
office automation apps.

As far as the nvidia drivers, I must disagree.  While I am not using
RedHat,  I have never had problems of lagging drivers or complex install
processes.  Gentoo actually uses newer kernel sources than RedHat 8 does,
( even includind the option of development sources for the truly warped)
and to get nvidia to work in under 2.4.20 for myself, It was a matter of
adding 2 packages which intalled cleanly and adding 1 line to a file, and
uncommenting one other line.  According to the mailing lists, people using
the development kernels do need to use a different driver version, but the
process is similarly simple.  Sometimes I think RedHat creates more
hassles for the average user than it solves.

>
> 	If you get a Dell rep to commit to supporting both OSes, or
> pay for the support, Dell's pricing is great. All I've gotten was
> sympathy, and an offer to take money for pay-as-you-go support for
> the OS Dell didn't ship.

Fair enough.  I have never bothered with commerical linux support services
from hardware vendors. Partially this is because I have been a unix admin
for 11 years and I have yet to meet an administrative GUI that didn't make
me nauseous; the other reason is that vendors tend to be VERY funny about
the config on unix boxes.  Many of the things an experienced unix user
would do with their linux workstation ( compile kernel, patch security
holes, turn off unused/unwanted programs) are used by the support
organizations as reasons to summararily close tickets at initial contact.

The other point to bear in mind for people who work in academic
institutions is that there is probably some degree of internal windows
support from the institution, and many schools also sign up with Micro$oft
for site licenses for various products.  If you buy a linux based
workstation from Dell, and are in that kind of situation, you may well be
able to install windows from the campus media under their support contract
and use your internal support mechanisms for that, avoiding the 2 OS
hassles mentioned above.