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Uprading from Gentoo to Ubuntu, 32-Bit to 64-Bit, Single Core to Quad Core
After my old Computer died quite unexpectedly, I had to buy a new one.
This article is telling of my experiences with upgrading from good old Gentoo to Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, from only one core to four cores, from 32-Bit to 64-Bit, from KDE 3.5 to KDE 4 and a lot of other things.
Uprading from Gentoo to Ubuntu, 32-Bit to 64-Bit, Single Core to Quad Core
Comparison
Assembly
Applications benefiting from a Quad Core
Problem: Booting Ubuntu 8.10 on Gigabyte GA-P45-DS5
Problem: KDE 4.1 invertEnabled
Problem: Can't read DVD
Problem: jackd "hw:0 already in use"
Observations
Old Computer:
CPU: AMD Athlon 2500+ (1.83 GHz)
Cores/CPUs: 1
RAM: 1 GB
Mainboard: Abit NF7-S
Graphics Card: GeForce TI4400
Operating System: Gentoo
Computer Case: No-Name
CPU Cooler/Fan: Arctic Cooling?
New Computer:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 (2.3 GHz)
Cores/CPUs: 4
RAM: 8 GB
Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-P45-DS5
Graphics card: Zotac GeForce 9600 GT
Operating System: Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex
Computer Case: Antec Sonata III
CPU Cooler/Fan: Intel Boxed Cooler
After not having built a PC for more than 5 years I was a bit worried about what has changed in the meantime. Well, the answer is: not much. The Antec Sonata III 500 case came with a lot of screws which was put in a bag inside the case. To get to it you have to open the side panel by pulling the plastic door handle forward and then pulling the panel sideways (like you would open a door). It takes quite some force to open it, which is why I was afraid to break something at first.
Once you got it open you can see the numerous drive bays. Four of them even have "silicone grommets to absorb hard drive vibrations". The case comes with enough special screws to mount 4 hard drives.
Another thing that changed is the CPU socket and the way you install it and the CPU cooler. I carefully followed the instruction of the hardware installation guidebook. What surprised me though was (again) the force that you have to apply to the CPU socket lever after you have inserted the CPU. I think it even made a frightening noise when pushing the lever, but in the end it was all ok
The CPU Cooler installation sounded a lot easier and more comfortable than 5 years ago when you had to use a screw driver to push the bracket in place. Nowadays you only push down 4 push pins until you hear a click sound. I thought I would break the mainboard because I had to push down extremly hard to make them click. But also this time it was fine in the end. After installing the RAM, the graphics card, the hard drive and the dvd-drive the computer booted without any problems.
GIMP
GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, also tries to make use of multiple cores. The option can be found under Edit -> Preferences -> Environment.
dvd::rip (transcode)
dvd::rip is a dvd ripper GUI that uses transcode to do most of the dirty work. Although dvd::rip itself doesn't have an option to use multiple cores, you can add command line parameters for transcode to make it work faster. If you have a quad core and you want transcode to use 4 threads you would add e.g. -u 1000,4 as a parameter.
Read about it here. Using all 4 cores I could achieve a framerate (encoding to xvid) of 90fps compared to only 30fps when using 1 core.
Blender
Blender is destined to make use of multiple cores. When rendering, a picture usually is divided into serveral parts. With only a single core each part is rendered one after another. With e.g. four cores blender can render 4 different parts of the picture. That's a huge speed up. You can adjust the number of threads in the scene tab.
After the successful assembly I tried booting the KUbuntu 8.10 Intepid Ibex Live CD. Unfortunately that was less successful. After leaving the Live CD Menu booting suddenly stopped with the following error messages:
ata1: softreset failed (device not ready)
ata2: softreset failed (device not ready)
ata3: softreset failed (device not ready)
The numbers after ata changed (up to ata7 or ata8) everytime I think.
It took me quite a while to figure out what the problem was. Ubuntu 8.10 obviously has an issue with the extra SATA chip that Gigabyte put on the GA-P45-DS5. The only solution I could find so far is to disable the "Onboard SATA/IDE Device" option in the BIOS.
The downside of this is of course that you now can't use those additional SATA ports anymore AND the only PATA/IDE port is disabled as well. You can also read about other people having the same probleme here
My Mainboard came with BIOS version F7, so I tried updating to F12 but to no avail. By the way those annoying .exe BIOS files can be extracted by using the unrar app.
KDE 4 comes with a lot of effects. One of them is called "Invert" which "inverts (negates) the desktop colors". I'm a curious person so I had to try that effect. The screen turned black immediately and although I expected it to return to it's previous working state (because I didn't click to keep the settings), it did not! Even after killing KDE with ctrl+alt+backspace, which made me believe it wouldn't save any kde settings, the screen was black again after restarting KDE.
So I opened ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc because I found a setting called kwin4_effect_invertEnabled=true in it. I changed it to false, but it didn't help at all. Fortunately my system was brand new so I didn't care about any previous settings and deleted the whole ~/.kde directory. That was the only solution I could find.
When I first tried to rip/copy a dvd to my hard disk it didn't work. I got the following error:
libdvdread: Invalid IFO for VMGM (VIDEO_TS.IFO)
The solution was to execute "/usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh". Read about it here.
I recently bought a usb midi keyboard, which btw works excellent in LMMS without doing anything, and I wanted to use JACK. But I couldn't start the jack server "jackd". It always gave me the error:
hw:0 already in use
The solution was to restart alsa by executing "sudo /sbin/alsa force-reload". Read about it here.
RAM
Finally having more than just 1 GB of RAM is a relief. I don't have to worry about those 60+ tabs in Opera anymore. Right now it's using about 800 MB and there's still plenty left. Also I don't have to worry anymore about leaving windows open like blender, lmms, firefox, opera, pidgin, x-chat, amarok and multiples instances of okular (the new kpdf btw).
CPU
Having 4 cores also makes a big difference. With my old single core CPU the whole system got slower when I watched youtube videos. Java ads with slideshows in it also had a bad effect. Now I don't have to care anymore because even if one core is busy, then there's still 3 cores left to use.
Another great thing is the PWM controlled CPU and GPU fan. They both change their RPMs according to usage and/or temperature. When the PC boots the GPU fan is running at full speed and is terribly loud. But once KDE starts and the nvidia driver is loaded it gets really quiet. That was quite surprising when I first noticed it.
LAN
Before buying the new mainboard I did some research. One thing that made me worry was the 2 x Realtek 8111C chips. People reported having problems with them. Fortunately that is now a thing of the past and the kernel that comes with (K)Ubuntu 8.10 does a great job.
Case
The Antec Sonata III 500 case comes with a "rear 120mm Tricool fan with 3-speed control". That's nice, although you have to change the speed setting yourself, so it's not automatically controlled with PWM. The control itself is on a short cable. I wonder how they expect people to change the setting for the fan because the case itself doesn't have a hole to relocate the control outside.
Graphics Card
The 9600GT does a good job. That's pretty much all I can say because compared to my old 4400 it's like a race car compared to a turtle. 3D FPS like Nexuiz or Sauerbraten run like a charm and run even better with the KDE effects turned off!
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