Raven
Raven was a desktop computer. I think I donated it to the high school in Fresno where my brother in law works.
History
11-11-2011 I took the RevoDrive out for a long time, its performance is really not stellar. Today I decided to put it back in since it is just gathering dust.
Fall 2010 upgrade with RevoDrive 120GB SSD and 2TB Caviar Black
2010 Nov 17 -- OH! Raven changed so MUCH today. 3 way boot setup; Windows 7 Ultimate, Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop, and Ubuntu 10.10 Server on SSD
Fall 2009 upgrade with Patriot 32GB SSD Spring 2009 - initial build
Hardware
- Shuttle SX48P2 Deluxe case and motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E8500 @ 3.16GHz
- 8GB DDR3 1066 memory
Drives
- WD Velociraptor 300, WDC WD3000HLFS-01G6U3, FwRev=04.04V05, s/n WD-WXL608035725
(which replaced this one that died under warranty WD Raptor 10K RPM SATA, WDC WD3000HLFS-01G6U0, s/n WD-WXLY08084357)
- OCZ REVODRIVE 120GB, FwRev=1.20, s/n OCZ-GYY134R2861260WR Nov 2010
- Caviar Black 2TB, WDC WD2001FASS-00W2B0, FwRev=05.01D05, s/n WD-WMAY00310595 Nov 2010
I used to use this, it's not installed anywhere right now.
- Patriot "Warp V2" 32 GB SSD, SATA I/II, 2.5" s/n MK050943085B30039 Fall 2009
The case includes a fingerprint scanner, bluetooth and a wifi card. I pulled the wifi card (which has a USB interface) and use it somewhere else now.
Software
It is currently running 11.10 Ubuntu.
I often use it to run VirtualBox so that I can use ESRI ArcGIS.
I did a Ubuntu Server install to get the RevoDrive going, then did
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop to make it back into a desktop sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback to allow GNOME instead of Unity
I need synaptic, and this got it going again
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface toolkit-accessibility false
Other packages I needed
ubuntu-restricted gnome-tweak-tool wine gimp emacs23 gnome-sushi cairo-dock avant-window-navigator
Changing themes, fonts, other settings requires the gnome tweak tool and wine provides nice MS fonts that can be used in Gnome UI in addition to letting me run SketchUp
Then I more or less followed these outdated instructions: http://www.howtoforge.com/mac4lin_make_linux_look_like_a_mac
In gnome_tweak-tool, change settings
Fonts:
Default: Trebuchet MS Bold Doc: Aquabase Medium Monospace: Monospace Window title: Lucida Grande Semi-bold
Theme:
Cursor theme: Mac4Lin_Cursors_1.0 Keybinding theme: Emacs Icon theme: Mac4Lin_Icons_v1.0 Window Theme: Mac4Lin_GTK_Aqua_v1.0
Disable or change more settings see /etc/xdg/autostart
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/things-to-tweak-after-installing-ubuntu.html
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/gnome3 sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extensions-user-theme
Install Java 7 from Oracle and remove openjdk
sudo apt-get remove openjdk-6-jre openjdk-6-jre-headless openjdk-6-jre-lib
If using Gnome 3, How to get the buttons back in the title bar.
Drive configuration
See also SSD optimizations
RevoDrive is at /dev/sda and /dev/sdb
/dev/md0 is the / partition for Ubuntu 11.10 Server; I used the Server edition and then added the desktop software, it was the easiest way to get it to install on a software RAID 0 configuration.
/dev/sdc (Velociraptor 300GB) 1 Windows 7 boot 2 Windows 7 3 /boot (cant boot directly to revodrive) 4 ext 5 swap 6 Ubuntu 11.10 Desktop edition
/dev/sdc1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sdc2 206848 515123199 257458176 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sdc3 515124225 516168449 522112+ 83 Linux /dev/sdc4 516168511 586067264 34949377 5 Extended /dev/sdc5 516168513 532956374 8393931 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sdc6 532956438 586067264 26555413+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdd (Caviar Black) 1 spare /boot 2 spare / 3 ext 5 swap 6 /home
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdd1 2048 417688 207820+ 83 Linux /dev/sdd2 417689 67521193 33551752+ 83 Linux /dev/sdd3 67523240 3907029167 1919752964 5 Extended /dev/sdd5 67523242 101097043 16786901 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sdd6 101099092 3907029167 1902965038 83 Linux
root@raven:~# fdisk -l -u -c Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7297 cylinders, total 117231408 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xee864337 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 2048 117226304 58612128+ fd Linux raid autodetect Disk /dev/sdb: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7297 cylinders, total 117231408 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x53634d5c Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 2048 117226304 58612128+ fd Linux raid autodetect Disk /dev/sdc: 300.1 GB, 300069052416 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders, total 586072368 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00017b2c Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sdc2 206848 515123199 257458176 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sdc3 515124225 516168449 522112+ 83 Linux /dev/sdc4 516168511 586067264 34949377 5 Extended /dev/sdc5 516168513 532956374 8393931 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sdc6 532956438 586067264 26555413+ 83 Linux Disk /dev/sdd: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00074249 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdd1 2048 417688 207820+ 83 Linux /dev/sdd2 417689 67521193 33551752+ 83 Linux /dev/sdd3 67521194 3907029167 1919753987 5 Extended /dev/sdd5 67523242 101097043 16786901 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sdd6 101099092 3907029167 1902965038 83 Linux Disk /dev/md0: 120.0 GB, 120037441536 bytes 2 heads, 4 sectors/track, 29306016 cylinders, total 234448128 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 65536 bytes / 131072 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000
The wild dance of Windows 7
It took 3 or 4 tries to get both Windows 7 and Ubuntu living happily on the same system. It was a wild dance.
Okay. So I have to install Windows 7 natively because performance of ESRI ArcGIS 10 under VirtualBox sucks. To work under Windows the RevoDrive would have to be configured in a fake raid (BIOS) configuration making it unusable in Linux and defeating TRIM. So I can't (won't) use the RevoDrive in Windows.
Linux will be given the entire RevoDrive.
At some point the system stopped booting from my Linux USB stick. It keeps stopping with an error and leaving me at the initramfs prompt. It turned out I had to type 'exit' (twice) and then it would boot just fine.
At another turn, someone (Windows 7 installer I think) overwrote the partition table on the 2.0 TB drive, effectively wiping my home partition. I was unhappy with this! When the operating systems were sorted out, I was VERY glad that I documented the partitions above, I was able to recreate the partition table and recover everything that I thought I had lost.
I tried using VirtualBox under Windows 7 to access raw partitions with limited success. Of note, I must run the command shell (cygwin bash) as Administrator to get access to the drives.
VBoxManage.exe internalcommands listpartitions -rawdisk '\\.\PhysicalDrive0'
gives appropriate results (no sharing errors.)
$ /cygdrive/c/Program\ Files/Oracle/VirtualBox/VBoxManage.exe internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename RawDisk0.vmdk -rawdisk '\\.\PhysicalDrive0' Oracle VM VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.2.10 (C) 2005-2010 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved. RAW host disk access VMDK file RawDisk0.vmdk created successfully.
Note also you have to run VirtualBox as Administrator too to use raw partitions.
It also took me many long hours of booting and adjusting settings in the Linux grub configuration trying to get the RevoDrive to work as / partition until I gave up and installed Ubuntu Server and it worked on first try.
Once again all is well in Linuxtown, for now...