Computing

[beero1000]

Anyone else have computers/tech as a hobby?

I'm in the middle of upgrading from my consumer tower home server to a 4U Supermicro rackmount. With 36 drive bays, two Xeons, and 192GB of RAM, I should have an overkill amount of oomph to play around with.

Next up is migrating my ZFS pools over, getting my jails up and running, and figuring out how to minimize the decibel level and power draw. Maybe planning on getting some sort of smart home system plus home security video recording set up later.

 

[rousseau]

I had to laugh at 192 GB of RAM. I guess you're doing some heavy duty data processing?

I'm not nearly as deep into it as some of my peers in the software industry, but I do have an interest in it. Everything we own is pragmatic and suited to our needs (which isn't much). I do basic programming which both my four year old Lenovo laptop (6gb RAM), and new PC (8gb RAM I believe) can handle. Outside of that we're just browsing and word processing so no great need for a beefy system.

The PC has an i7 processor and substantial RAM so it's pretty fast, but my laptop is starting to drag. Just waiting for it to die before I buy a new one (when I'll probably upgrade substantially).

Some of my friends have tried to talk me into building a custom PC in the past, but these people are mostly gamers who care about their specs. Outside of cost-savings, it's easy enough for me to walk into a computer store, and walk out with something that'll do. So I guess you could say I'm not quite a hobbyist, but only because I don't need a lot to get an appropriate ROI.

Next thing I'll probably do if my employer ever makes working from home the norm is get a nice set of dual monitors on my PC.

 

[beero1000]

I had to laugh at 192 GB of RAM. I guess you're doing some heavy duty data processing?

It's a possibility. I've been browsing some r/homelab over at reddit and daydreaming about hypervisors...

Also, ZFS recommends 1GB RAM per TB of disk space, so it's better to have it than not. They also recommend you keep your pools below 80% of capacity. I'm well over both on my old machine, so I went a little overboard in speccing out the upgrade. I'm going to start with 2 x RaidZ2 6x6TB, and with 36 drive bays the overkill on the RAM was worth it if only for futureproofing the overkill on pool size. The ebay prices on used servers are pretty fantastic though, it wasn't nearly as expensive as it might seem.

I'm not nearly as deep into it as some of my peers in the software industry, but I do have an interest in it. Everything we own is pragmatic and suited to our needs (which isn't much). I do basic programming which both my four year old Lenovo laptop (6gb RAM), and new PC (8gb RAM I believe) can handle. Outside of that we're just browsing and word processing so no great need for a beefy system.

The PC has an i7 processor and substantial RAM so it's pretty fast, but my laptop is starting to drag. Just waiting for it to die before I buy a new one (when I'll probably upgrade substantially).

Of course, I don't technically "need" any of this. We are in the hobby forum after all. It just lets me play around writing scripts, setting up systems, and getting the networking to $!@#$#@ work properly. I enjoy fiddling with the settings and getting things running smoothly.

Some of my friends have tried to talk me into building a custom PC in the past, but these people are mostly gamers who care about their specs. Outside of cost-savings, it's easy enough for me to walk into a computer store, and walk out with something that'll do. So I guess you could say I'm not quite a hobbyist, but only because I don't need a lot to get an appropriate ROI.

Even the cost savings aren't that great any more. There are a ton of pre-built systems that are priced really well. Unless you want a weird form factor (my sister and I built a fanless mini-ITX computer for her over the summer - think a full power desktop crammed into a 190x190x60mm case) or want a high end gaming system, you'll only save a bit by building it yourself.

Next thing I'll probably do if my employer ever makes working from home the norm is get a nice set of dual monitors on my PC.

Dual monitors are a great upgrade.

 

[Kharakov]

I do some stuff, but I do so with the idea that the only skill set I can develop that I might be able to make money with is... computational/tech stuff.

So I did that Petrie Illusion thing the other day, which was simple serendipity. I think that if there are good 3d printers, the Petrie illusion bugs could be sold... of course my situation has been deliberately manipulated so that I develop these things without ever getting a return for anything I do, which makes all of my efforts foolish. I don't have access to 3d printers, or the ability to get access to them, because I aligned myself against the corrupt (which was foolish, but I hate them, so no turning back, and yes, I'm well aware of how it looks to say these things, if you're one of those who is comfortable in your complacency to corruption: he's crazy! Of course the system that allows me access to all these things isn't corrupt! Go fuck yourself. ).

Petrie Illusion Bugs:

Show

 

[beero1000]

Replication is ongoing...

I'm successfully resisting (for now) the urge to investigate why the transfer isn't going at the full gigabit bandwidth. There shouldn't be a CPU or hard disk bottleneck...

 

[Val]

I've been known to knock about a couple of lines of code.

I could fill up 192GB of RAM in a heartbeat.

 

[Malintent]

Replication is ongoing...

I'm successfully resisting (for now) the urge to investigate why the transfer isn't going at the full gigabit bandwidth. There shouldn't be a CPU or hard disk bottleneck...

guessing you have other devices utilizing the network such that no single device gets the full bandwidth.

I have been building computers since the largest commercially available hard drive was around 80 MB... and programming them even longer.. .since before hard drives existed (you had a boot floppy disk, and a data floppy disk... and you like it!)
today, I create individual media files that are larger than that, lol.

Are you doing some bitcoin mining with all that beef?

My last build was my VR rig... loving it.

 

[beero1000]

Replication is ongoing...

I'm successfully resisting (for now) the urge to investigate why the transfer isn't going at the full gigabit bandwidth. There shouldn't be a CPU or hard disk bottleneck...

guessing you have other devices utilizing the network such that no single device gets the full bandwidth.

Probably. I'm still managing not to 'fix it til it's broken'. 70% saturation will have to be good enough.

I have been building computers since the largest commercially available hard drive was around 80 MB... and programming them even longer.. .since before hard drives existed (you had a boot floppy disk, and a data floppy disk... and you like it!)
today, I create individual media files that are larger than that, lol.

Are you doing some bitcoin mining with all that beef?

My last build was my VR rig... loving it.

I'm trying (for now) to keep my electricity bill on the reasonable side of things. We'll see how that pans out. Drawing 350W with all the disk activity of the replication, was ~260W at idle. I'm estimating that's already going to come out to around $1 per day. Add mining to that and I'd need to work out the ROI.

 

[Malintent]

0.000143 bitcoins per day to break even.

Your rig might be able to pull 0.00001 per day.

you would have to be able to predict future value to know if it would be worth it in the long run.

I'm guessing maybe not, if you are weighing the electricity bill against it.

If it were to process in idle time only (such that the full cost of electricity is not overhead), it might be worthwhile, though.

 

[Kharakov]

If you're corrupt you should be able to throttle and increase the speed of your system outside of the standard, posted parameters (and you'll lie about not being able to), so you should get a greater return than, say, a good person.

Bitcoin, along with every other type of currency, belongs to the cheaters and the gamers who keep the dream alive so the cheaters can prosper without threat (ohh, look, winners, means that my losses are because of luck even though I did the same thing, doy, me too stupid to know the system is corrupt).

Ohh, I didn't play the game because I've seen evidence that it is corrupt and speak openly about it "you're too negative", and the gamers the cheaters fooled think they won fairly, the ones they bought are cheaters too, so both side with the cheaters and say "you can't win because you didn't play the game". Fucking sell out pieces of shit. Fuck them. Fuck you if you are one.

 

[beero1000]

0.000143 bitcoins per day to break even.

Your rig might be able to pull 0.00001 per day.

you would have to be able to predict future value to know if it would be worth it in the long run.

I'm guessing maybe not, if you are weighing the electricity bill against it.

If it were to process in idle time only (such that the full cost of electricity is not overhead), it might be worthwhile, though.

Yeah, that's what I figured, but I hadn't even worked out the hash rate. I'm of the opinion that bitcoin is still on a bit of a bubble so not gonna try unless something crazy happens.

If I'm going to do anything in idle time, it would be something productive. Maybe folding@home or primecoin.

If you're corrupt you should be able to throttle and increase the speed of your system outside of the standard, posted parameters (and you'll lie about not being able to), so you should get a greater return than, say, a good person.

Bitcoin, along with every other type of currency, belongs to the cheaters and the gamers who keep the dream alive so the cheaters can prosper without threat (ohh, look, winners, means that my losses are because of luck even though I did the same thing, doy, me too stupid to know the system is corrupt).

Ohh, I didn't play the game because I've seen evidence that it is corrupt and speak openly about it "you're too negative", and the gamers the cheaters fooled think they won fairly, the ones they bought are cheaters too, so both side with the cheaters and say "you can't win because you didn't play the game". Fucking sell out pieces of shit. Fuck them. Fuck you if you are one.

Ooookkaaayyy. :backsawayslowly:

 

[Kharakov]

:rabid:

Do you do any GPU based computing?

I'm wondering what the floating point precision for folding@home is, although I see that there are GPGPU branches of it, which makes me think that it must be <=32 for those applications, despite the multiprecision float code developed for GPUs (multiprecision float on GPU is significantly slower than native float precision).

 

[Malintent]

I don't. I work on a computer all day, auditing IT processes. When I go home I operate at the consumer level and downplay my knowledge so no one asks me for help with their Gateway2000 P5 running Windows ME. Despite building myself a machine recently, it has been quite a while up until then. I had an Alienware Alpha to play Steam games on for the longest time.

 

[beero1000]

:rabid: View attachment 14154

Do you do any GPU based computing?

I'm wondering what the floating point precision for folding@home is, although I see that there are GPGPU branches of it, which makes me think that it must be <=32 for those applications, despite the multiprecision float code developed for GPUs (multiprecision float on GPU is significantly slower than native float precision).

I haven't. For folding@home, I think the standard is single precision and there's a setting for higher precision when necessary.

 

[Val]

What am I missing here? My understanding is that the payback for mining is the amount of work units you can complete, not a function of supposed performance vs actual performance. How does overclocking make you a cheater?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I just got 2 shiny new 2 TB Toshiba hard disks. My Mageia Linux OS just reached end of supported life so I am looking at taking a crack at loading Gentoo. Or perhaps Suse Tumbleweed. Perhaps run a minimum rolling Linux distro OS that can support Xen hypervisor. My biggest problem is I like KDE 4 and don't like KDE 5. Which KDE 4 is soon going to end of life. So I might have to migrate to Enlightenment.
Other projects down the line. A small mini-system I can use as a fire wall running PFSense. Setting up a local cloud system perhaps. Mirrored RAID. Hardened kernels. Way down the line, learning to set up a basic SELinux hardened system. And no systemd.

 

[Kharakov]

What am I missing here? My understanding is that the payback for mining is the amount of work units you can complete, not a function of supposed performance vs actual performance. How does overclocking make you a cheater?

It only makes you a cheater when you have access to the super-overclock modes of chips because you're one of the corrupt.

 

[beero1000]

I just got 2 shiny new 2 TB Toshiba hard disks. My Mageia Linux OS just reached end of supported life so I am looking at taking a crack at loading Gentoo. Or perhaps Suse Tumbleweed. Perhaps run a minimum rolling Linux distro OS that can support Xen hypervisor. My biggest problem is I like KDE 4 and don't like KDE 5. Which KDE 4 is soon going to end of life. So I might have to migrate to Enlightenment.
Other projects down the line. A small mini-system I can use as a fire wall running PFSense. Setting up a local cloud system perhaps. Mirrored RAID. Hardened kernels. Way down the line, learning to set up a basic SELinux hardened system. And no systemd.

I've been using Antergos on my desktop for the last few years and really like it. Running pfsense on a dell r210ii for the last 6 months and it's been working well.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I partitioned my hard disks with three partitions for three systems. For now, I might run Rosa because it has KDE 4.X. And then I can have a leisurely install of Gentoo which can be bitchy to get going. Once it is up it is a rolling distro so I won't have to fight the usual end of life stuff with point release distros. I am tired of that. Rosa is a Mandriva derivation, which I have used Mandrake/Mandriva for years. So Its a comfortable ecosystem. Gentoo has a steep learning curve and it is time consuming to get going. Best take that in easy bites over time. Or instead of Rosa, I might try Devuan. Decisions, decisions....

 

[rousseau]

It's a possibility. I've been browsing some r/homelab over at reddit and daydreaming about hypervisors...

Also, ZFS recommends 1GB RAM per TB of disk space, so it's better to have it than not. They also recommend you keep your pools below 80% of capacity. I'm well over both on my old machine, so I went a little overboard in speccing out the upgrade. I'm going to start with 2 x RaidZ2 6x6TB, and with 36 drive bays the overkill on the RAM was worth it if only for futureproofing the overkill on pool size. The ebay prices on used servers are pretty fantastic though, it wasn't nearly as expensive as it might seem.



Of course, I don't technically "need" any of this. We are in the hobby forum after all. It just lets me play around writing scripts, setting up systems, and getting the networking to $!@#$#@ work properly. I enjoy fiddling with the settings and getting things running smoothly.

Some of my friends have tried to talk me into building a custom PC in the past, but these people are mostly gamers who care about their specs. Outside of cost-savings, it's easy enough for me to walk into a computer store, and walk out with something that'll do. So I guess you could say I'm not quite a hobbyist, but only because I don't need a lot to get an appropriate ROI.

Even the cost savings aren't that great any more. There are a ton of pre-built systems that are priced really well. Unless you want a weird form factor (my sister and I built a fanless mini-ITX computer for her over the summer - think a full power desktop crammed into a 190x190x60mm case) or want a high end gaming system, you'll only save a bit by building it yourself.

Next thing I'll probably do if my employer ever makes working from home the norm is get a nice set of dual monitors on my PC.

Dual monitors are a great upgrade.

I guess I should re-phrase in that everything I'm interested in doing with my computer(s) can be handled with relatively benign specs, so it's hard to justify an outlandish system. The PC we bought a few months back was actually a machine to allow my fiancée to better help with our wedding (before that she was on a dated laptop). Even so it's a great computer and more than capable of handling everything I do.

The last thing I've been thinking about you had mentioned to me in another thread, actually. Some sort of computer system that I can hook into my TV to beef up the 'smart' capabilities. To date I've been streaming the odd thing through an Android Box, but I think I could get much better results with something a little more robust.

edit: although now that I think of it, my PC is within reach of my Samsung TV so I could probably just string a HDMI cable between the two when needed