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thanx heaps 4 that. 8-) <BR>
<BR>
cheers<BR>
<BR>
David.<BR>
<BR>
On Mon, 2007-05-07 at 23:20 +0800, Patrick Coleman wrote:
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">On 5/7/07, David Buddrige <<A HREF="mailto:dbuddrige@bigpond.com">dbuddrige@bigpond.com</A>> wrote:</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">></FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> Hi all,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">></FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> I am currently helping a friend spec out a computer which is to be used for</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> creating video productions. The plan is to run a Linux based system</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> utilising the various Free/OSS tools available for this task. Given the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> task at hand, we are spec-ing it out with as much RAM, the best CPU,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> video-card and sound-card we can afford. A question came up as to how much</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> RAM is Linux capable of using [also whether it is capable of fully utilising</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> quad-core CPU's. We could for example stick 6 GB of RAM into this machine</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> [the motherboard we're looking at has slots to allow for this] but I am not</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> able to say at the moment [for certain] whether Linux is capable of using</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> this much RAM - particularly using a bog-standard distro. If we were to</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> load it up with the latest fedora, would [fedora] be capable of making use</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> of 6GB RAM?</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Hi David,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">I'm not familar with Fedora, but linux < 2.6.12 has a CONFIG_NOHIGHMEM</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">option (where you choose between having <1GB, 1-4GB or 4-64GB of</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">memory). I imagine fedora won't ship with this set to 'enormous', so</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">you may have to install a separate kernel package (probably named</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">along the lines of kernel-x.x.xx-highmem). Apparently the worst that</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">will happen if you get it wrong is that you will only see, say, 4GB of</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">the 6GB of memory.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">linux >= 2.6.12 apparently (I don't have sources handy to check) deals</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">with this automatically; you don't have to set the CONFIG_HIGHMEM</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">option in the kernel. If Fedora therefore ships with a linux kernel ></FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">2.6.12 (which it should do) there should be no issues with the memory.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> Also, if we put in a CORE 2 Quad Q 6600 [as per</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> <A HREF="http://www.ple.com.au/?p=extremeint">http://www.ple.com.au/?p=extremeint</A> ] would it be able to</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> use all 4 cores</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Yep, should just work. If it doesn't automatically you may have to</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">install the fedora SMP (ie. multiprocessor, named along the lines of</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">kernel-x.x.xx-smp) kernel.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> [I'm not up-to-speed with whether a quad core system</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> actually comprises 4 cpu's or a single cpu with 4 internal processing units</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> or something].</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">A quad core CPU contains four actual CPUs wacked onto one chip. I'm</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">not completely sure if they share the same cache or not - I don't</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">think so (wasn't that why 'hyperthreading' sucked?), but I could be</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">wrong.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> I've done a bit of a google on this but while it seems there are at least</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> configurations out there that can utilise as much as 64GB of RAM, I don't</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> know if you have to do some special configuration to allow linux to utilise</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> this kind of hardware, or whether a bog-standard distro will recognise and</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> use it?</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">It should do by itself if > 2.6.12 and is an SMP kernel; at worst if</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">it doesn't and there isn't a preconfigured fedora package you will</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">have to recompile a custom kernel.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Cheers,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Patrick</FONT>
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