Phoronix Test Suite on Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 (draft in progress)

A bunch of Dell desktops landed in my possession about last week. That is now a total of four-(4) machines that I can pick and choose from for my ultimate gaming and workhorse :-)

Machines:
Dell Dimension XPS Gen4
Dell Dimension 9200 (2)
Dell Precision 470

Now these machines are about four-(4) years old and I have absolutely no plans on upgrading them except for possibly RAM and hard disk space. My main interest is which of them houses a better graphics card; secondary would be the

Graphics Cards:
ATI Radeon
nVidia 7900 GS
...

Processors:
Intel Xeon
Intel Core 2 Duo
...

My initial tests using Windows were inconclusive, and most of the tests I saw required a purchase. I don't plan to test for the rest of my life or monetize this, so a free version is preferred. This is were I stumbled upon PTS.

After burning the Desktop Live version which was noted to be a pre-release, the final decision was since Ubuntu Jaunty desktop was already installed then just install PTS from the repositories. Boy was I wrong, it is now taking a little more than just a few clicks and root password! The sizes of the test packages are enormous particularly since the test we are after is phoronix-test-suite install gaming. Detailed below is my progress to get this going.

Package
The repository package for PTS is outdated at version 1.0. Thats not what we need so need to install from Phoronix-Test-Suite.com downloads particularly the Ubuntu .deb package.

Dependencies:
Make sure that the system is prepped to have all the compiling environments just in case: sudo apt-get install build-essential

We'll need the basic PHP packages and extensions that will allow us to save the results in the future as .PDF or .PNG
sudo apt-get install php5-cli php5-gd php-fpdf php5-ming

The Demo Live DVD has all the GUI front-ends needed, it doesn't seem to be the case with the downloadable v2.0 update. We'll need to install PHP-GTK, There is an unofficial .DEB installation and that also should work according to some reports. You can also try: sudo apt-get install php5-gtk2

If all else fails you can install PHP-GTK by hand. NOTE: It may be needed to run Step #5 and edit php.ini to get the everything working after all.

In case that doesn't work there's also a good install flow here, just make sure to also visit the official download to fix the login issues when using CVS.

OK, so far this is where I am at and will update as things progress.

One issue that seemed to pop out was that due to the huge amount of downloads of the same stuff for several systems it may make sense to consider having a cacheing proxy installed in your network path. This led me down an alternate idea of speeding up and securing my network with Squid Proxy.

So far the downloads have taken 24-hours using AT&T UVerse speeds, 256-bit AES PLC, and an old 3Com hub.

Remote Access: Dell DRAC5

Out-of-Band (OOB) Remote Access isn't really new, its just a better version of remote control that covers all events including hardware monitoring which is the common limitation when remotely managing servers in locations (ie. data centers and honeypots) that have limited manpower or technological capacity.

I've been playing wth HP Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) before and have tried even the desktop version that Hewlitt Packard co-manufactured with Intel in the DC7700P series, some 2 years ago.

Right now, some learning was required when differentiating the installation of Dell's DRAC5 particularly between the PowerEdge 1950 and the PowerEdge 2900 (which isn't the same body as a PE2950). The realization is that DRAC5 pertains to the same card but depending on your server model its going to be a different set of DRAC cables. Why don't they just ship with both configurations in the first place?

Old Becomes New P4

I recently purchased a Shuttle XPC system and upon inspecting found that the included chip and speed was actually an Intel P4 3.2GHz -- but upgradeable.

The Dell XPS Gen 4 that my colleague Bruce was using and about 3-years old I noticed was similarly using a P4 3.2GHz.

The bunch of hardware I got from the office which was to be sent for disposal due to age to my surprise were also P4's but using the older 3.0GHz speed.

The larger casing I'd already tested and used previously as the FreeNAS case, works fine. The uATX/micro-ATX casings however both require a new PSU (and I'm almost sure thats why they got sent to the trash bin). These systems are more than 4-years old and thus were eligible for disposal.

Looking for a P4 TFX 12v power supply is a chore I discovered. Not many supply them anymore and I'm still mulling the decision to get a couple of these to complete those systems. Eventually they'll probably go up on Craigslist or maybe eBay.

Here are some sources I found for the PSU:
(1) Enhance ENP-2224B_2G - the original PSU used
(2) Acbel TFX/260W and 300W
(3) Memory4Less - also has the Acbel PSU
(4) Sparkle Power - has the Flex ATX and TFX options