What would be your perfect Linux workstation?

Cromulent

Cromulent

Cromulent

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I'm interested in hearing about both hardware and software. So what would be your perfect Linux workstation?

I'm pretty happy with my current set up but with space being limited I can't fit in multiple monitors which really hampers my productivity. I'd probably get an AMD GPU since the open-source drivers are so much better than the open-source Nvidia drivers. In fact, I had to install the official drivers from Nvidia in order to get things working in the way that I wanted.

Software-wise my most used program for work is Visual Studio Code and I'm learning QEMU / KVM so I can try and ditch VMWare Workstation Pro which costs an arm and a leg. I'm also learning Docker and other related things. I think I probably went overkill on the hardware front when I bought this PC but I upgrade so rarely if it lasts 5 - 7 years I reckon it'll be a good investment seeing as I use it for about 12 hours every day.

OpenSUSE LEAP 15.2 is my distribution of choice at the moment but I want to switch from KDE to i3 at some point. I'm just waiting to buy a printer so I can print out the keyboard shortcut list so I can learn how to use it :).
 
whitecrook said:
laptop or desktop ? The lenovo P series laptop/poratable workstations would be high on my list of considered systems for linux based install should i ever move a way from mac os
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I was thinking more along the lines of a desktop but I'll look into those laptops. I'm more of a desktop person though as I rarely go out and am technically self-employed so I just stay at home all day. My current computer is pretty good but I do like fantasising about better ones which is why I started this thread :D.
 
whitecrook said:
laptop or desktop ? The lenovo P series laptop/poratable workstations would be high on my list of considered systems for linux based install should i ever move a way from mac os
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Thinkpad P series are great. I'd probably go with a P1 or X1E (the X1E is pretty much a clone of the P1). Fast CPU, good GPU, 64gb RAM (or 128gb?) and two SSD slots in a fairly small package. Although they are thermally limited due to the thinner chassis than a P52, etc, they are great machines. But... and it's a big but... if GPU power isn't essential, if 32gb is sufficient and only one SSD is enough then I'd probably be looking at a T14 AMD or T14s AMD with the Ryzen 4750 CPU. They are just as fast due to the fantastic Ryzen 8c/16t CPU and are small, light and have better battery life. The GPU is obviously an onboard Radeon so better open source driver support than the nvidia of the P*/X1.



Personally I'm fantastically happy with my desktop running Linux (Ryzen 3900X 12c/24t, X570 motherboard, 32gb RAM, Radeon VII GPU with 16gb VRAM and 21:9 widescreen monitor). It's rock solid stable, works out of the box with all drivers in the kernel and demolishes everything I've tried on it. I can't see me upgrading anything for a long, long time.


EDIT: I have also added a combined wifi / bluetooth PCI card (Gigabyte WB1733D-I) which again works seamlessly with all drivers in the kernel.
 
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I've been eyeing up a Dell Precision t5610 with a pair of Xeon E5-2787w v2 cpus, lately. Chuck a load of RAM, SSDs and a badass GPU in there and I'd be good to go. Machine like that should last me for donkey's years.
 
I'm kinda looking at getting both a new laptop and workstation over the coming months, I left my job back in September and started a limited company to be self-employed, it's gone well but I'm still using my personal hardware which is mediocre at best...

I've got a laptop, a small/old Dell with a dual-core intel chip that I bought refurbished for £150 back in 2019, and my 'server' which is a Ryzen 5 3600. I've got the latter setup with unraid, and using a Linux VM for the work side but also a Windows VM for personal/gaming usage, so I've assigned a paltry 3-cores (+SMT) per VM, 32Gb for windows and 16Gb for Linux which is enough for my usage.

I run Linux Mint on the laptop as I like the interface and it 'just works', then Gentoo on the VM/Server. 99% of my work is Yocto based and I've got Docker containers for building that so it doesn't matter really what the host OS is.

With the laptop I've really struggled to decide, I was looking at buying one this month before the end of the tax year (moved the company one to the end of March), but with the super-deduction stuff I'll be leaving it for now. My big issue here is for work stuff I want that Ryzen goodness but as it's largely used at home on a dock with multiple monitors (1x 2560x1440, 1x 1920x1200), and having had really bad experiences with USB-C docks I'd really like Thunderbolt... I'd kinda settled on the LG Gram 17 2021, not exactly workstation spec but 'ok'...

One of the main issues I have finding laptops is I have zero need for a GPU, yet a lot of the 'workstation' ones come with some expensive Quadro and no need to drop it even though you can configure everything else.

Proper workstation wise I'm eyeing up a Threadripper system, maybe even Threadripper Pro (for the extra mem bandwidth, not sure it's necessary though), 'enough' cores, some M2 SSD's in RAID0 for a fast store (and obviously a more reliable storage system for non-build important stuff), decent chunk of mem/bandwidth, good times :D

I'll probably go Linux Mint again on whatever laptop, not sure on the workstation, maybe go for a hypervisor/vm setup, who knows...
 
SKILL said:
I'm kinda looking at getting both a new laptop and workstation over the coming months, I left my job back in September and started a limited company to be self-employed, it's gone well but I'm still using my personal hardware which is mediocre at best...

I've got a laptop, a small/old Dell with a dual-core intel chip that I bought refurbished for £150 back in 2019, and my 'server' which is a Ryzen 5 3600. I've got the latter setup with unraid, and using a Linux VM for the work side but also a Windows VM for personal/gaming usage, so I've assigned a paltry 3-cores (+SMT) per VM, 32Gb for windows and 16Gb for Linux which is enough for my usage.

I run Linux Mint on the laptop as I like the interface and it 'just works', then Gentoo on the VM/Server. 99% of my work is Yocto based and I've got Docker containers for building that so it doesn't matter really what the host OS is.

With the laptop I've really struggled to decide, I was looking at buying one this month before the end of the tax year (moved the company one to the end of March), but with the super-deduction stuff I'll be leaving it for now. My big issue here is for work stuff I want that Ryzen goodness but as it's largely used at home on a dock with multiple monitors (1x 2560x1440, 1x 1920x1200), and having had really bad experiences with USB-C docks I'd really like Thunderbolt... I'd kinda settled on the LG Gram 17 2021, not exactly workstation spec but 'ok'...

One of the main issues I have finding laptops is I have zero need for a GPU, yet a lot of the 'workstation' ones come with some expensive Quadro and no need to drop it even though you can configure everything else.

Proper workstation wise I'm eyeing up a Threadripper system, maybe even Threadripper Pro (for the extra mem bandwidth, not sure it's necessary though), 'enough' cores, some M2 SSD's in RAID0 for a fast store (and obviously a more reliable storage system for non-build important stuff), decent chunk of mem/bandwidth, good times :D

I'll probably go Linux Mint again on whatever laptop, not sure on the workstation, maybe go for a hypervisor/vm setup, who knows...
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Have a look at Lenovo Thinkpads for laptops. Wait until they release Ryzen 5000 models though. You don't even need to pay for a Windows license as you can get it with Linux pre-installed.
 
Cromulent said:
Have a look at Lenovo Thinkpads for laptops. Wait until they release Ryzen 5000 models though. You don't even need to pay for a Windows license as you can get it with Linux pre-installed.
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I did look at Lenovo laptops, outside the (seemingly very limited) defined spec laptops the lead times are silly, like 10+ weeks... And as mentioned, although I'd love Ryzen (4 or 5000), without Thunderbolt for a proper dock solution I'm not sure it's viable...
 
SKILL said:
I did look at Lenovo laptops, outside the (seemingly very limited) defined spec laptops the lead times are silly, like 10+ weeks... And as mentioned, although I'd love Ryzen (4 or 5000), without Thunderbolt for a proper dock solution I'm not sure it's viable...
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Hmm, I thought the new models came with USB4 support which is the successor to Thunderbolt?
 
I don't believe Ryzen 5000, or the chipsets, have native USB4 at least. Not sure if Lenovo are adding it themselves? It would be good if they did, although not sure how many USB4 docks are around yet...

I mostly build on the server so really it's not that important, it'd be nice to have Ryzen over Tiger Lake but the 4 cores/8 threads of Tiger Lake would be a big jump over what I've got already :p
 
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