Laysan

Laysan is my current desktop computer.

This is by far the fastest (and quietest) computer I have ever used or owned.

I had intended to build a server, then it got turned into my desktop instead. The server ended up being built later. See server

Hardware

Motherboard: ASUS P8B-M LGA 1155 Intel C204 Micro ATX Server Motherboard

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 Sandy Bridge 3.2GHz LGA 1155 80W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80623E31230

RAM: 8GB x 2 Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) ECC Unbuffered Server Memory Model KVR1333D3E9SK2/8G

Drives:

• /dev/sda Samsung 840 Pro 256GB
• /dev/sdb Data storage on a 2 TB WDC Caviar Black (SATA 2) WD2001FASS-0 SerialNo=WD-WMAY00310595

Before 2014-Apr-26:

• /dev/sda Data storage on a 2 TB WDC Caviar Black (SATA 2) WD2001FASS-0 SerialNo=WD-WMAY00310595
• /dev/sdb Operating system and home directory on an OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SATA III] MLC (SSD) SerialNo=OCZ-670MWZY36F81947M

DVD burner: TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222BB

Video: PNY VCQ2000D-PB Quadro 2000D 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 Workstation Video Card I wanted a workstation video card, as I want to do some OpenGL programming, and I work with ArcGIS software. This is the only component in this build that I would change; I would get a high end gaming board instead of a low end workstation board.

Monitor: Acer 23" and Starlogic 15" (in portrait mode).

Keyboard: IBM PS/2 Model M SpaceSaver (built in 1987) and Apple Bluetooth Keyboard Yes, 2 keyboards... one keyboard for BIOS and one for every day.

Audio: This motherboard has no integrated audio so I use a NuForce UDAC 2 and a pair of Acoustic Research powered speakers.

Other: bT878 video capture card, an Osprey 210, see Digital Video.

Case: Fractal Design Define Mini Black Micro ATX Silent PC Computer Case w/ USB 3.0 support and 2 x 120mm Fractal Design Silent Fans

Power supply: SeaSonic S12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

Software

Operating system

2015-Mar-14 Upgraded from Ubuntu 13.04 to Xubuntu 14.10, then added Cinnamon

2014-Apr-26 Installed Windows 8.1 on Samsung drive. Hmmm, if I run Linux I can use a linux fs on the Black drive but if I boot into Windows, I can't. I could add another hard drive but I packed them already for our big move.

2013-Sep-10 Installed Ubuntu Raring 13.04 MY OH MY UNITY IS STILL AWFUL

up to Sept 9, it was Linux Mint 15, an excellent choice

Operating system is split between a 256GB SSD and a 2TB HD. I had a RAID 0 setup with 2 SSD's but the (considerable) speed bump was not worth the pain to configure and maintain it.

On RAM fs are /tmp, /var/tmp, /var/run, /var/lock

Since the system has 16GB of RAM I am not worried about swap space. I put it in a swapfile on the 1TB drive.

echo vm.swappiness = 0 > /etc/sysctl.d/swappiness.conf

# Make a 4 GB swapfile
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swapfile1 bs=1024 count=4096k
sudo mkswap /var/swapfile1
sudo chmod 0600 /var/swapfile1

cat /etc/fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
# 
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=b7dd27fe-b81f-42f7-9047-9c12c3225db7 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /boot was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=995d224f-c168-4b2f-824d-0992c39d9789 /boot           ext4    defaults        0       2
# /home was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=a45024f6-04ae-4e20-985a-3a4ec03dcfdd /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
# /var was on /dev/sda3 during installation
UUID=afdab032-6ff9-4f6f-8cc4-ab94caf85efa /var            ext4    defaults        0       2
# 
# swap on HD in file instead of partition
/var/swapfile1 none swap sw 0 0
#
# Move things to RAM DISK for speed
tmpfs /tmp     tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0 
tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0

Drivers

NVidia driver: This time around I successfully installed the driver directly from the Ubuntu Software Center. Much easier than downloading it from NVidia and installing manually.

Unfortunately it does not work in Makerbot Desktop. Updating drivers DID NOT HELP.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO INSTALL DRIVER FROM Nvidia site. Instead follow instructions found here to get a version that is newer.

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2014/12/install-nvidia-340-65-ubuntu-1504/

add-apt-repository -y ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
apt-get update
apt-get install nvidia-349

As of 2015 April 09 Version 349 is a beta driver! More exciting. Oh go for it! I did 'apt-cache search nvidia' to find it.

I don't want to talk about what happened with the NVIDIA version (from nvidia.com). Well. Cinnamon crashed. The monitor resolution for the 15" was forced to 640x480. I could not force in the correct resolution.

Packages

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-get remove empathy abiword
apt-get install build-essential qgit subversion \
 emacs virtualbox nvidia-current \
 qgis gpsbabel-gui \
 synaptic nautilus-dropbox \
 pidgin python-xmpp \
 gimp inkscape libreoffice \
 openscad

Did not find these in 14.10

 google-talkplugin google-chrome-stable \

Still don't like Unity - so currently I install Xubuntu and then put Cinnamon on top!

add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-nightly
apt-get install cinnamon

I had to adjust the theme settings to get it to look right, and I had to type in the command cinnamon-settings to get at the control panel for Cinnamon. I added a theme by unzipping it in ~/.themes. I am using Elune. I selected the Humanity (Ubuntu) icons.

Extras

• Adobe Flash
• Android SDK
• Eagle 6.5 ftp://ftp.cadsoft.de/eagle/program/latest/
• Komodo http://activestate.com
• Makerware http://www.makerbot.com/support/new/Desktop/Using_MakerBot_Desktop/01-Getting_Started/How_to_Install_MakerBot_Desktop_for_Linux
• Microchip MplabX
• MySQL 5.7 (to get the new spatial extension)
• Oracle Java in /opt/oracle/
• PostgreSQL
• Spark (XMPP client)