Linux OS Advice

stuie · 23 Oct 2017 at 11:48

Hi All

Probably going to have to rebuild my media server somepoint soon. Ive been running xubuntu on it for sometime now but fancy a change.

Requirements are;

Something lightweight and snappy. 99% of this will be managed via vnc/rdp.
Capable of running on oldish hardware, q6600 4gb ddr2.
Needs support for handbrake and sabnzb so idealy deb based.
Should be easy to configure. Im not a linux noob but dont want to spend days manually building kernals and building programs, ideally im hoping to perform this install in an evening.

Other than that open to anything

TheSkateyBird · 23 Oct 2017 at 18:34

Something like Debian netinst would do you fine, or Ubuntu Server 16.04 if you want something with more up to date package versions.

Steveocee · 1 Nov 2017 at 21:39

Ubuntu server would be a fairly safe bet. It's mainstream enough for most things to be installed and configured easily.

stuie · 6 Nov 2017 at 08:05

the q6600 isnt ideal but it was left over after I upgraded to my 3770k so put it to use

Steveocee · 6 Nov 2017 at 14:48

Q6600 will be fine on most modern Linux systems.

Whiffle · 8 Mar 2018 at 13:06

arfoll said:
vnc/rdp? Look into x2go if you must use a gui

Anything will run on a Q6600, although it's a bit of a shame in a server since it's so high power and doesn't have very good sleep states (T-states only afaik).

Interesting - have never come across "T-states" before.

What, exactly, is this and how do never generations of CPUs compare?

SMN · 8 Mar 2018 at 15:36

Wait until next month and clean install Ubuntu 18.04.

Hades · 9 Mar 2018 at 17:42

As above, new Ubuntu LTS release coming next month.

InfiniteNoise · 9 Mar 2018 at 21:17

Yeah, hold off if you can until 18.04 LTS release.

Though I just went and installed 16.04 on both my PC and laptop recently, I wrote a post install script that installs everything I need, so with that and restoring home folder from backup pretty much restores everything, I'm covered, it's what I love about Linux, things like post install scripts make it so much easier to get everything set up pretty much instantly after installation.

Cromulent · 10 Mar 2018 at 14:06

arfoll said:
vnc/rdp? Look into x2go if you must use a gui

Pfft. All the cool kids are doing X11 forwarding over SSH

.

Whiffle · 12 Mar 2018 at 13:14

arfoll said:
Disclaimer: I am a software engineer - I'm sure someone can explain this way better.

I recommend reading this - https://software.intel.com/en-us/ar...s-c-states-and-package-c-states#_Toc383778914. There's lots of (better) documentation on C & P states (I recommend the kernel docs to start with) but generally p-states are all about reducing power consumption during execution and c-states about reducing power consumption during idle. Sandybridge & above bring p-states (which I think intel marketed as EIST) and have more c-states (basically increasing the amount of times you can go to real sleep and increasing the speed out of it). Newer gens bring more clock gating everytime & Skylake+ have hardware p-states but the general thing is the same as far as I understand it.

Unfortunately power consumption is pretty hard to measure objectively and it doesn't make for sexy benchmarks and in the days of TDPs being SDPs and what nots it's all become a gigantic mess. If you're interested powertop on linux is very very interesting to see how efficient your setup is, for example my NAS spends about 93.7% of it's time in Package C6 (PC6).

Thanks for that - really useful.

Sao_Sin · 11 Apr 2018 at 22:28

I'd thoroughly recommend Ubuntu server. No need for a GUI as you can manage it all via SSH, you learn the command line through necessity and it is solid once you have it setup how you like. I made the leap with very little prior Linux experience and it's really not hard, especially since you can Google literally abutanyt that you get stuck on. Runs sab etc really well and you can go doso cool stuff with it