A secondary PC for Kubuntu, any tips?

[Penalapa]

Hello everyone,

Windows has always been my main OS but I like to try different ones every so often. I usually install a Linux distro on my laptop but that also means I don't do any serious work on it. Also, Ubuntu 16.04 didn't run well on it.
That's why I'd like to build a new simple PC that runs Kubuntu that I actually use for productivity and that I can have running and use by simple switching the input on my monitor. Main reason though, I just like to build a new pc

I'm interested in building the following:

• Case: MS-TECH LC-01 (micro-ATX) - includes 400 watt psu
• Case fan: be quiet! Shadow Wings SW1 80mm low-speed
• MB: GIGABYTE GA-F2A88XM-DS2 (rev 3.0)
• CPU: AMD A10-7850K
• CPU Cooler: Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B
• HDD: ADATA Premier SP550 120GB
• MEM: Kingston HyperX 8GB DDR3-1600

For me in The Netherlands this adds up to €350,21 including shipping. (from the same store)

Any advice or tips about the build or maybe hardware incompatibility I'm not aware of?

Thanks in advance. I'm very interested in learning more about the Linux environment.

[dibl]

Radeon graphics -- yuck! Better look carefully at *buntu's radeon graphics support before you take the leap. The only GPU's that I will buy come from Nvidia or Intel. ;-)

[schnelle]

Opensource radeon drivers work great for years now and they will work even better in the future. I would not worry about that

[Penalapa]

I heard about some issues for AMD stand-alone GPU's in the new Ubuntu 16.04 update but I figured the APU would be fine in Kubuntu. Thanks for the reply.

[woodsmoke]

Welll you prolly don't want to hear this but.....
I would actually get "as powerful as can be obtained", but....a "half generation back".

The driver issues are "usually" associated with specialized cards that have specialized output for such things as certain kinds of games such as really recent first person shooters, etc.

I've watched many threads, at many distros, over the years and they are generally "why won't my XYZ card thingy, which hit the market two days ago" work with this distro! I'm GOING ELSEWHERE!

In other words think about what you really NEED now.......project to what you will really NEED in say, a year or so, or two, and consider that instead of the latest and greatest.

Now, I DO NOT do really hot first person shooters, but i do........do a lot of heavy video editing of stuff from my GoPro and I decided that I would FINALLY get out of the stone age and got a 6 x AMD FX(tm - 6100 Six Core Processor, 16 gig of ram and a Radeon card which is Gallium 0.4 on AMD TURKS DRM 2.43, LLVM 3.8.0 running open GL 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0 the X server is release number 11,803,000.

Again, this is not something that a cutting edge gamer would use, but it would be "decent" and the few games that I run do just fine.

So............again, I KNOW what it feels like to have the latest and greatest but that is the kind of system I have always run and I really don't think that I have ever posted a question about hardware not working.

Hey, good luck!

woodsmoke

[Penalapa]

Welll you prolly don't want to hear this but.....
I would actually get "as powerful as can be obtained", but....a "half generation back".

The driver issues are "usually" associated with specialized cards that have specialized output for such things as certain kinds of games such as really recent first person shooters, etc.

I've watched many threads, at many distros, over the years and they are generally "why won't my XYZ card thingy, which hit the market two days ago" work with this distro! I'm GOING ELSEWHERE!

In other words think about what you really NEED now.......project to what you will really NEED in say, a year or so, or two, and consider that instead of the latest and greatest.

Now, I DO NOT do really hot first person shooters, but i do........do a lot of heavy video editing of stuff from my GoPro and I decided that I would FINALLY get out of the stone age and got a 6 x AMD FX(tm - 6100 Six Core Processor, 16 gig of ram and a Radeon card which is Gallium 0.4 on AMD TURKS DRM 2.43, LLVM 3.8.0 running open GL 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0 the X server is release number 11,803,000.

Again, this is not something that a cutting edge gamer would use, but it would be "decent" and the few games that I run do just fine.

So............again, I KNOW what it feels like to have the latest and greatest but that is the kind of system I have always run and I really don't think that I have ever posted a question about hardware not working.

Hey, good luck!

woodsmoke

Thanks for the heads up. I'll look into some "older" hardware. Probably get a lot more bang for my buck too.

[Shabakthanai]

The only thing I might do differently is install Kubuntu 14.04 LTS. It is very stable and the widgets are great - even better than K15 and K16. I really liked the appearance of K15 & 16, so I added the stuff I liked to my K14.04 LTS 64 bit OS. Because the widgets are better, I think it might have the stability you are looking for Shab By the way, if your current machine isn't very fast, you are going to love the speed of the new box

[Penalapa]

The only thing I might do differently is install Kubuntu 14.04 LTS. It is very stable and the widgets are great - even better than K15 and K16. I really liked the appearance of K15 & 16, so I added the stuff I liked to my K14.04 LTS 64 bit OS. Because the widgets are better, I think it might have the stability you are looking for Shab By the way, if your current machine isn't very fast, you are going to love the speed of the new box

I'll check out 14.04 as well, thanks.

My Windows 10 machine is quite fast, just need to replace my 660Ti later down the line. Maybe next generation GeForce.

[Shabakthanai]

I am not saying this to bad-mouth Microsoft, but notice the difference of the environment when you are using a Linux application over that of Microsoft. Nonetheless, as you go back and forth between the two operating systems, you start noticing the basic differences of philosophies.

Of course, the fact that Linux applications are open source and save you money is nice, but after a short time getting used to Linux, you forget your lack of need for virus software, spyware, adware, and defragmenting. There are other important benefits, like not being inundated with greed by sellers trying to divert a user to other applications, having to install and use optical drives every day,or having to agree to documents too difficult to understand and unilaterally one sided, and not your side.

I have experienced in the recent past, when I retained a Windows OS in a dual-boot configuration that there are some pretty nice Windows Gurus who are helpful like our Linux specialists too, but it doesn't take long before you realize you are not burdened by those other things, the negative things, and become a dedicated Linux user.

It is like going from greed and lust and mistrust to kindness and generosity and confidence, a much better environment to work and live in.

There is a little more required of a user, but when you compare the fact that you are seconds from having the cutting edge of applications available daily, which means never having to buy the newest version, and have it with the click of a button, and there is a certain amount of self-worth appreciation that you get, because you can do more when using a computer, and self satisfaction, daily you become increasingly aware that that the long term loyalty you gave to Microsoft has to shift to Linux.

I learned the hard way that trying to make a Beta Operating System become your daily system can be discouraging. Until things become stable, the cutting-edge application is going to give you daily problems, that is until they are fixed. So I favour a dual-boot or a VM for the Beta and stick primarily with the stable long term service operating system, as is Kubutnu 14.04 LTS.

I realize K16.04 has become an LTS too, but it still seems to have a lot of plasma 5 problems to work out. I have been back-loading features I prefer in K16 to my stable K14 LTS which seems to work pretty good, so I really don't miss much that is promised in Kubuntu 16.04. I predict that it won't be very long before you replace your Windows OS with just about any Linux distribution. It is a difficult habit to breach, but one that most, who give Linux a reasonable chance and pay the price of the minimal learning curve required, do.

I'll check out 14.04 as well, thanks.

My Windows 10 machine is quite fast, just need to replace my 660Ti later down the line. Maybe next generation GeForce.

[oshunluvr]

I don't see any issues, except for agreeing with Dibl . Yes, the AMD opensource drivers have gotten better but if you were going to do more than regular desktop stuff - gaming or video editing - I might opt for nVidia. If you're not planning on working the video card super hard, you should be fine with your choice.

I reviewed the other selections and the only choice I would reconsider is the case. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but in the Micro-ATX format there are some really cool looking cases (cubes like these for example) out there. BTW, that SSD looks like a lot of bang for the buck so you should be happy there. You might consider a backup option like an external USB 3.0 drive or second internal drive. A solo drive without a backup option isn't good, although you did say this is a second unit so you could always backup over a network connection to the other PC.

I agree somewhat with the comments about version choices for Kubuntu. If you're totally new to linux, you might want to start with 14.04. It's more reliable than 16.04 is right now so you'll be dealing with less issues at the start - excepting those you cause yourself of course .

I would go so far as to suggest you plan on installing BOTH 14.04 and 16.04 since you'll have plenty of room with 120GB. One of the first things noticeable as you transition from Windows to Linux is how much smaller (in both hard drive and RAM) Linux is.

Here's my suggested "first tasks" for you:

Read up on EFI vs. GRUB booting requirements:

EFI is the new standard but most motherboard BIOSs allow using the older style of bootloading using GRUB. IMO, EFI is more complicated at first but probably better in the long run. The older style using GRUB is reliable enough, but getting long in the tooth and seems to be a source of problems for new users. Obviously, a broken bootloader means no access to your PC.

Create and keep a bootable USB thumb drive:

You will (trust me - we all have) eventually break your system bad enough to need another way to boot to it. A thumb drive that is handy and bootable will save your life. If you want to get fancy, put data recovery tools on it like photorec, testdisk, and gparted among others.

Plan your hard drive partitioning and read up on filesystems:

Re-partitioning a hard drive is a nuisance and can cause data loss. It's much better to plan well in advance and avoid re-partitioning altogether. File system selection can also make a big difference here. Unlike Windows, Linux has a multitude of choices for file systems and they all have their benefits and drawbacks.

If you start with the default file system, EXT4, you will want at least 3 or 4 partitions (along with a swap partition and an EFI partition if you decide to use EFI) and with only 120GB of space you'll need to plan carefully. You need a partition for your install and one for your home at a minimum and I always recommend an extra partition for a second install and possibly a second home (a home backup). The problem then is that you have to know in advance how much space is needed. IMO, 16GB is plenty for a Kubuntu install, so that times 2 plus 8GB for swap (EFI partitions are too small to count for much) and you'll have roughly 76-80GB left which should be enough for 2 home partitions. The advantage with this partitioning scheme is you can have both 14.04 and 16.04 installed and have a full backup of your home partition all available on the same drive.

However, if you read up on the new BTRFS file system (and read my numerous posts on this forum regarding btrfs) you'll find that you need not have separate partitions for anything other than swap and EFI. btrfs uses subvolumes rather than partitions to segregate space on a device (or multiple devices) thus you would only need the swap and EFI partitions and a single btrfs partition in the remaining space. This allows all the free space to be shared among all the subvolumes so they grow or shrink as needed. btrfs also supports snapshots (filesystem rollback) and multi-device backups - you can transmit a subvolume to another drive or another computer if it also has a btrfs filesystem on it. On the downside, btrfs is very new in the file system world so less users are comfortable using it. I know of at least 3 regular contributors on here that use it every day - myself, dibl, and greygeek - without any problems. Don't be shy of it just because it's not the default. I have used just about every file system out there over the last 20 years and I've been almost strictly btrfs for the last 6.

I know drive partitioning, boot managers, and filesystems are boring stuff, but they're the foundation on which your Linux installs will rest. Better to have a strong foundation at the beginning.

Finally; Welcome to Linux, Kubuntu and KFN!

[Penalapa]

I am not saying this to bad-mouth Microsoft, but notice the difference of the environment when you are using a Linux application over that of Microsoft. Nonetheless, as you go back and forth between the two operating systems, you start noticing the basic differences of philosophies.

Of course, the fact that Linux applications are open source and save you money is nice, but after a short time getting used to Linux, you forget your lack of need for virus software, spyware, adware, and defragmenting. There are other important benefits, like not being inundated with greed by sellers trying to divert a user to other applications, having to install and use optical drives every day,or having to agree to documents too difficult to understand and unilaterally one sided, and not your side.

I have experienced in the recent past, when I retained a Windows OS in a dual-boot configuration that there are some pretty nice Windows Gurus who are helpful like our Linux specialists too, but it doesn't take long before you realize you are not burdened by those other things, the negative things, and become a dedicated Linux user.

It is like going from greed and lust and mistrust to kindness and generosity and confidence, a much better environment to work and live in.

There is a little more required of a user, but when you compare the fact that you are seconds from having the cutting edge of applications available daily, which means never having to buy the newest version, and have it with the click of a button, and there is a certain amount of self-worth appreciation that you get, because you can do more when using a computer, and self satisfaction, daily you become increasingly aware that that the long term loyalty you gave to Microsoft has to shift to Linux.

I learned the hard way that trying to make a Beta Operating System become your daily system can be discouraging. Until things become stable, the cutting-edge application is going to give you daily problems, that is until they are fixed. So I favour a dual-boot or a VM for the Beta and stick primarily with the stable long term service operating system, as is Kubutnu 14.04 LTS.

I realize K16.04 has become an LTS too, but it still seems to have a lot of plasma 5 problems to work out. I have been back-loading features I prefer in K16 to my stable K14 LTS which seems to work pretty good, so I really don't miss much that is promised in Kubuntu 16.04. I predict that it won't be very long before you replace your Windows OS with just about any Linux distribution. It is a difficult habit to breach, but one that most, who give Linux a reasonable chance and pay the price of the minimal learning curve required, do.

I don't think I'll ever change from using Windows as my main OS. I play too many games for that to happen hehe.
Luckily I don't feel any greed, lust and mistrust yet

I don't see any issues, except for agreeing with Dibl . Yes, the AMD opensource drivers have gotten better but if you were going to do more than regular desktop stuff - gaming or video editing - I might opt for nVidia. If you're not planning on working the video card super hard, you should be fine with your choice.

I reviewed the other selections and the only choice I would reconsider is the case. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but in the Micro-ATX format there are some really cool looking cases (cubes like these for example) out there. BTW, that SSD looks like a lot of bang for the buck so you should be happy there. You might consider a backup option like an external USB 3.0 drive or second internal drive. A solo drive without a backup option isn't good, although you did say this is a second unit so you could always backup over a network connection to the other PC.

I agree somewhat with the comments about version choices for Kubuntu. If you're totally new to linux, you might want to start with 14.04. It's more reliable than 16.04 is right now so you'll be dealing with less issues at the start - excepting those you cause yourself of course .

I would go so far as to suggest you plan on installing BOTH 14.04 and 16.04 since you'll have plenty of room with 120GB. One of the first things noticeable as you transition from Windows to Linux is how much smaller (in both hard drive and RAM) Linux is.

Here's my suggested "first tasks" for you:

Read up on EFI vs. GRUB booting requirements:

EFI is the new standard but most motherboard BIOSs allow using the older style of bootloading using GRUB. IMO, EFI is more complicated at first but probably better in the long run. The older style using GRUB is reliable enough, but getting long in the tooth and seems to be a source of problems for new users. Obviously, a broken bootloader means no access to your PC.

Create and keep a bootable USB thumb drive:

You will (trust me - we all have) eventually break your system bad enough to need another way to boot to it. A thumb drive that is handy and bootable will save your life. If you want to get fancy, put data recovery tools on it like photorec, testdisk, and gparted among others.

Plan your hard drive partitioning and read up on filesystems:

Re-partitioning a hard drive is a nuisance and can cause data loss. It's much better to plan well in advance and avoid re-partitioning altogether. File system selection can also make a big difference here. Unlike Windows, Linux has a multitude of choices for file systems and they all have their benefits and drawbacks.

If you start with the default file system, EXT4, you will want at least 3 or 4 partitions (along with a swap partition and an EFI partition if you decide to use EFI) and with only 120GB of space you'll need to plan carefully. You need a partition for your install and one for your home at a minimum and I always recommend an extra partition for a second install and possibly a second home (a home backup). The problem then is that you have to know in advance how much space is needed. IMO, 16GB is plenty for a Kubuntu install, so that times 2 plus 8GB for swap (EFI partitions are too small to count for much) and you'll have roughly 76-80GB left which should be enough for 2 home partitions. The advantage with this partitioning scheme is you can have both 14.04 and 16.04 installed and have a full backup of your home partition all available on the same drive.

However, if you read up on the new BTRFS file system (and read my numerous posts on this forum regarding btrfs) you'll find that you need not have separate partitions for anything other than swap and EFI. btrfs uses subvolumes rather than partitions to segregate space on a device (or multiple devices) thus you would only need the swap and EFI partitions and a single btrfs partition in the remaining space. This allows all the free space to be shared among all the subvolumes so they grow or shrink as needed. btrfs also supports snapshots (filesystem rollback) and multi-device backups - you can transmit a subvolume to another drive or another computer if it also has a btrfs filesystem on it. On the downside, btrfs is very new in the file system world so less users are comfortable using it. I know of at least 3 regular contributors on here that use it every day - myself, dibl, and greygeek - without any problems. Don't be shy of it just because it's not the default. I have used just about every file system out there over the last 20 years and I've been almost strictly btrfs for the last 6.

I know drive partitioning, boot managers, and filesystems are boring stuff, but they're the foundation on which your Linux installs will rest. Better to have a strong foundation at the beginning.

Finally; Welcome to Linux, Kubuntu and KFN!

Thank you for all the information, I'll have to do some studying to get a hold of everything. Shoutout to your Q6600, that was my CPU of choice in my first-built PC. That PC was incredibly unstable though haha, still have nightmares about it.
I know there are many nice macro-ATX cases but the MS-TECH one has small dimensions (important for me because it's a second system) and includes a power supply so it keeps cost down quite a bit.

[oshunluvr]

Too bad you had a bad experience with your Q6600. Mine's still flying along overclocked to 3GHz. Yours might have been the less desirable B3 stepping version. Mine is the G0 stepping version which was considered more reliable. I had mine at 3.4GHz for the first couple of years then some locking started randomly occurring. It started to happen often enough that I backed down to 3GHz and it's been stable going on 4-5 years. I'm water cooled so I can run at those speeds without damage or my fans sounding like a helicopter taking off . It runs 24/7 without issue.

Actually, I've been salivating for an upgrade to a new Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake CPU but this one won't die! It's hard to sell the wife on $1000 computer bucks when this one runs fine...

[Penalapa]

Too bad you had a bad experience with your Q6600. Mine's still flying along overclocked to 3GHz. Yours might have been the less desirable B3 stepping version. Mine is the G0 stepping version which was considered more reliable. I had mine at 3.4GHz for the first couple of years then some locking started randomly occurring. It started to happen often enough that I backed down to 3GHz and it's been stable going on 4-5 years. I'm water cooled so I can run at those speeds without damage or my fans sounding like a helicopter taking off . It runs 24/7 without issue.

Actually, I've been salivating for an upgrade to a new Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake CPU but this one won't die! It's hard to sell the wife on $1000 computer bucks when this one runs fine...

I'm not sure it was the CPU acting up. I had BSOD issues, graphic issues, hdd issues, all kinds of issues. Even my cd-rom eject button had to be pressed 20+ times before it would open.
Graphical issues persisted even after getting a new gpu. And I had to get a new gpu because my 1 year old gpu died on me. So yeah... quite unstable system :P

In the end I thought perhaps it was my MB causing all these issues but rather than buying old tech new, I built a budget PC on the latest chipset ect and that system worked like an absolute dream. My third and current build ditto.

[oshunluvr]

I had some instability appear for a while - random restarts. Started happening in the daytime but not at night. I realized during the day the room got warmer so I suspected heat was the culprit. Since I was using water cooling for my CPU, GPU, and North and South bridges at the time I didn't suspect those devices and they all registered well within allowable temps anyway. Did some sleuthing and I discovered my power supply was barely adequate - I had added several hard drives just before the instability appeared. My final deduction was that as long as the PSU was well cooled it provided enough power. As the room temps rose, the PSU became less efficient and eventually caused the system to reboot. I upgraded to a 1000 watt high efficiency PSU and all that went away immediately!

At least I didn't have to go about swapping parts until I guessed right. Funny part is now with these new CPUs and SSDs instead of hard drives a 1000 PSU is total overkill. Better too much than too little I guess...

Sorry, seems we've veered a bit off topic