SMP Linux Development system

[ndruw]

I'm going to be going to college in about a year, (going into CIT or CIS) and I've been playing around with a couple programming languages lately....

I was just wondering - what would be a decently powered rig (is 2 dual-cores too much?) for doing simple compiling to the compiling I will be doing in college for projects, as well as being able to run a vmware machine or 2 every once in awhile.

Secondly, since i plan on dual-booting to Windows (Strictly for Dreamweaver/Flash), I was wondering that if I go with 4-cores ( 2x2, or 1 four-core processor), will Windows XP support them all? I know it only supports 2 processors, but does that hold true for its multicore support as well?

 

[Dan_D]

I'm going to be going to college in about a year, (going into CIT or CIS) and I've been playing around with a couple programming languages lately....

I was just wondering - what would be a decently powered rig (is 2 dual-cores too much?) for doing simple compiling to the compiling I will be doing in college for projects, as well as being able to run a vmware machine or 2 every once in awhile.

Secondly, since i plan on dual-booting to Windows (Strictly for Dreamweaver/Flash), I was wondering that if I go with 4-cores ( 2x2, or 1 four-core processor), will Windows XP support them all? I know it only supports 2 processors, but does that hold true for its multicore support as well?

There are no x86 4 core processors currently available. The only options are single core CPU's, dual CPU's, (single core), dual core CPU's and dual dual core CPU's.

Processor support when it comes to multi-processing or dual cores is a matter of licensing as it's been decided by Microsoft. All NT kernel based OS's support SMP in all it's forms with x86 processors, but Microsoft has configured each OS to support only a certain amount of processors. Licensing is determined by the processor socket. Extra cores or logical processors are supported by all NT based OS's. Which includes the entire XP and Server 2003 family.

Windows XP Home Edition supports 1 physical processor, but supports multiple logical processors. You could actually run a dual core Xeon and use it's hyperthreading and it will see all four logical processors.

Windows XP Professional supports 2 physical processors, and as many logical processors as you can get into those sockets right now. Which would be a maximum of eight total. Dual core CPU's with Hyperthreading support would give you that max of 8.

Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition supports 4 physical processors, and Enterprise supports 8 physical.

 

[defakto]

If all your planning is compiling, unless you're doing some heavy, read scientific/os/game/major project development dual core would probably be a tad overkill.

 

[Zinn]

If all your planning is compiling, unless you're doing some heavy, read scientific/os/game/major project development dual core would probably be a tad overkill.

i don't think so. for compiling and working, nothing beats dual core. Dual dual core is overkill, yes, but having the extra threading really makes a difference if I want to compile two things and work simultaneously.

And if you're gonna run VMware it's a no brainer. windows XP pro will be fine for you in any case, unless you want four dual core CPUs and 16 gigs of ram.

 

[defakto]

He specifically asked if two dual cores was too much. So I didn't think he would confuse my answer with a single dual core being too much.

 

[Dan_D]

i don't think so. for compiling and working, nothing beats dual core. Dual dual core is overkill, yes, but having the extra threading really makes a difference if I want to compile two things and work simultaneously.

And if you're gonna run VMware it's a no brainer. windows XP pro will be fine for you in any case, unless you want four dual core CPUs and 16 gigs of ram.

He could always use Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for the extra ram, but yeah for four cores he'd need Windows Server 2003 Standard.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Oh man, my "going away to school" computer was a $400 athlon 800 set up

Anyways, yes, the windows liscense is based on socket, so theoretically winxp pro could handle 2 quad-core cpu's, but not four single core cpu's (cuz that makes sense, right? ). Also, if you plan on using 4gb of ram you want to go with winxp x64 - even though theoretically winxp can handle up to 4gb, some of that ram is eaten up by the agp aperature and such; check out this thread. There's another thread somewhere in the memory forum that explains this in great detail but I can't seem to locate it - it's not stickied for some reason.

 

[Xipher]

I really don't think you would need a 2 Proc Dual core setup for the basic programs you would do initially. Even the bigger programming assignments I have done, I haven't had any problem compiling them on my laptop (1.6GHz Centrino, 1GB RAM).

 

[movax]

That is really overkill for college-level coding work...P4 3.2 under Windows compiles large DirectShow projects speedily, and P4 2.8 under Fedora 5 compiles speedily via gcc as well. Spend the cash on video cards so you can play games instead of class

 

[mwarps]

That is total overkill for CIT/CIS. If you were an SE or CS major, I'd say a Dual Core chip is good, but you're not even there. You don't need anything more than a desktop computer with a mid-grade CPU. Spend your money elsewhere or get a CS/SE degree.

 

[uOpt]

I highly doubt that a SMP system will do you any good for compiling the small projects you do in college.

If on the other hand you want to become a performance-oriented programmer then it is a must. In that case you must not start programming on single-core systems these days, it'll wreck your brain for the future.

 

[402blownstroker]

I highly doubt that a SMP system will do you any good for compiling the small projects you do in college.

That is true. But to have a good future in the CS field, you do not limit yourself to just those projects. I did several large projects on my own before I graduated. A SMP system will help a lot with compiling. Plus it will give experience with DS computing and multi threading apps. I can not see one with a SMP not looking into those topics.

Keith

 

[hokatichenci]

You can write multithreaded applications on a single core machine, that isn't a problem. Seeing a real performance benefit helps with some stuff, and even some things can be multi-threaded single-core and still perform better than a single-threaded app (take web crawling for instance). Having a fast system in college helps a lot, I've found though that most of my limitations during software design was RAM, since a lot of the heavier duty projects might require a lot of data being stored in memory. So whatever you get, make sure to get plenty of ram.

And of course if you are going to use Gentoo Linux, I highly suggest dual-dual-core. (ba-dum-dum)

Also, if you plan on doing any real testing work a 2nd machine might also help a lot. I've got a total of 8 machines in my apartment plus 2 colocationed off campus not to mention a bunch of other workstations and sometimes I don't think its ever enough. But having systems dedicated to say apache and another for different dbs helps a lot.

 

[ndruw]

I highly doubt that a SMP system will do you any good for compiling the small projects you do in college.

If on the other hand you want to become a performance-oriented programmer then it is a must. In that case you must not start programming on single-core systems these days, it'll wreck your brain for the future.

this will most likely be used for more than just the school projects, I like to work on little projects of my own on occassion

 

[mikeblas]

Oh man, my "going away to school" computer was a $400 athlon 800 set up

Mine was a PC's Limited 286/12. It's certainly not SMP, but I don't think it "wrecked my brain".

Anyways, yes, the windows liscense is based on socket, so theoretically winxp pro could handle 2 quad-core cpu's, but not four single core cpu's (cuz that makes sense, right? ).

Would you rather Microsoft made the licensing more expensive?

This thread provides many of the details.