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[rayadagio]

A few month ago I decided to take up sport again. To keep up in spite of my weaker self I promised myself a new PC for image editing as a reward for steady work out. Now I reached the goal I set, thus I'm allowed to buy a new machine :-):-)

Within the last days I've tried to compose my future computer. It is based on an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 CPU, a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3 main-board, and a Sapphire HD 4350 1GB DDR2 PCI-Express graphic board.

Primary I thought of 4 GB RAM, which after all is four times as much as I currently use. But in another forum it was recommended to take 8 GB. Up to now I mainly used Windows. But I decided to run Linux as the standard operating system on my new computer. I'm still a beginner in Linux, so I need assistance to decide whether it is noticeably better to take 8 GB for Gimp on Linux.

Another question: Are ATI graphic chip sets supported by Linux? During installation of Linux I read about Nvidia drivers but never about ATI.

Could you give me a hand?

Thanks in advance!

[eBrnd]

Linux should be fine with 4GB, but for Windows Vista I'd recommend 8GB. Windows XP and Windows 7 should work with 4GB, too.

I'd recommend to buy 4GB now, and if you run into problems, just upgrade. That's what I did, only I started with 1GB and upgraded to 2GB when I realized 1 was not enough. 2GB is fine for me, the only thing I really need a swap partition for is using GIMP. I even had the swap partition turned off for a long time because I was messing with my partitions and hadn't thought of everything

Yes, Nvidia graphics cards work better under Linux than ATI. I had problems with my ATI card to the point where I bought an Nvidia card.
With the ATI card, I always had to turn off Compiz when I wanted to do anything that involved "advanced" graphics (3D applications, watching videos, ...) or else all I could see were flickering images. The Nvidia card works much better. It's also much faster, but I do not know whether the slowness of the ATI card was a driver problem or just the problem of having bought a low-budget graphics card.

[rayadagio]

Thank you eBrnd for your helpful advices. So as a start I will order 4GB and I will replace the graphic card by a Nvidia model (9500GT).

A further question: Which WLAN adapters are recommendable for use under Linux? (I gave up to use Ubuntu on my notebook because I failed to utilize the built in WLAN adapter. A borrowed WLAN USB stick worked fine but that one is not available anymore).

[eBrnd]

I can't tell you much about the WLAN adapters. I only know that I had some problem with my laptop, which has an Atheros chipset. But the internet gave me some advice on how to solve that.

The solution seemed to have broken the VGA output, which gave me some problems - I basically held a presentation for a bunch of students with just the text console earlier today. (my laptop has an ATI card, too)

The Geforce 9500GT is the one that I also have in my desktop PC, I'm quite happy with it!

[Rolf]

I think I'll have to upgrade too and am following this here closely.

Just now I have a AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and a Gig of RAM. More RAM would help, but I think a dual or quadcore would be better for recording. Recorder running on one core, GIMP on another. Or am I mislead?

Wifi adapters - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported can be a bit of help. I just entered the name of the card I could buy and "Linux" or "Ubuntu" into google and had a look. 

[phdemartin]

Just now I have a AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and a Gig of RAM

That's funny, I've got the same config

[rayadagio]

Thanks again, eBrnd! Nice to know that the Geforce does a good job.

Rolf, you found right the ressource I was searching for! I chose an inexpensive WLAN stick that seems to be very well suited for Linux (TP-Link TL-WN321G, less than 9 €, shipping included).

Now the composition of my new machine and a new display is completed. I sent the order just a minute ago. My sleep will be impaired in the coming nights. Funny to behave like a little kid again ;-)

[monoceros84]

Ok, you've already ordered, congrats.

But still some thoughts:
The support for wireless LAN under Ubuntu has been improved enormously. They did quite a good job on this during the last year. You even if you had problems on your notebook it might be that this would work now.
Nvidia instead of ATI was already recommended. I sold my ATI card this spring and bought an Nvidia too - and suddenly I can use GoogleEarth and my Linux is not crashing anymore from time to time

@ Rolf: You are pretty right. Recording and working with GIMP simultaneously is one of the best situations to use a dual core. I also recognize this. Even that my laptop has less CPU frequency (but a dual core) it is still responsible during hard calculations. If I start a big filter in GIMP (as USM e.g.) I can still do something else in the meanwhile. Surfing or writing a mail. On my desktop (without dual core) this filter is applied faster but in the meanwhile the PC is almost not responsible.

[Rolf]

Good news for Philippe and me (or bad - we don't need to buy something new ;-) ) - the system is fast enough for recording in HD.

Cinelerra and kdenlive are not working properly - sound is stuttering and not in sync. But both works on my notebook.  So the way is open for going to wide screen and HD.

[phdemartin]

By the way Rolf, do you know that Cinelerra have a clustering function built-in, some thing as simple as having another Cinelerra running on a second pc and bind them together to share the cpu load
http://www.assistcg.com/index.php/component/content/article/67.html

[Rolf]

Yes, but that is only for rendering. The rendering takes about 15 minutes for 10 minutes of video - so no real problem. And I don't have to babysit it.
The problem with my desktop is the performance during editing - and there a renderfarm would be no help.

[Ger]

Seems we do have similar experiences. Encouraged by MTG I tried to use a Ubuntu release 7 in the past. With release 8 I got troubles with Wlan and Lan after buying a new laptop. Release 9 has solved the problem. I do have an Atheros AR5007EG chipset.
Few laptops that you can buy do have Linux pre-installed. Now I'm using, dual boot, Linux and windows. I tried Kubuntu for a while. I do like their theme a little more. But I've to say when I changed in Ubuntu the fonts DPI (appearance => detail =>font type for instance 80DPI) it looks nicer than default.
Our Gimp has many useful features. I'm only what disappointed in it's rescale ability. RawTherapee seems to do this better. Yes Rolf, that's not open source.
BTW @Ray you've changed your website, its looks good! Nice pictures!!!

[rayadagio]

Thank you Mathias and Ger. Now I'm confident to get a WLAN connection with my new hardware and the newest Ubuntu. :-)

Unfortunately I will never get totally rid of Windows. Some software I need for professional purposes is only available for Redmond OS. Therefore I also have a dual boot machine at my office. But it is quite unconvenient to reboot to get acces to the other world. What do you think about running Windows as a virtual machine under Linux? Is there somebody who made some experience about this?

Ger, thank you for your friendly feedback! You have a good memory! :-)

[phdemartin]

Personally, I don't have any window$ partitions to boot on, but I have XP and 7 running smoothly under virtualbox.
If the software don't need a to intensive use of graphics, it can be an really good solution, you can use your application full screen seamlessly with this visualization solution.
I like to have virtualbox running on one face of the compiz cube when I work on web page or any thing that need to be tested on window$
Just apt-get it and test it, it's free, you decide later

[rayadagio]

Sounds great, Philippe! I will try this. I assume it's no problem to activate window$ (funny spelling  :-) as a guest operating system, is it?