Hello Don, My dying tower has 16 GB RAM. I almost never check the RAM usage. Here is the output of the free command I ran just now on the tower: ... user@debian:~$ free -m total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 15874 2753 333 5081 12788 7710 Swap: 0 0 0 user@debian:~$ ... I don't know much about linux memory management. But I have read that linux live will put some dynamic stuff in RAM. When Debian 11 live crashes, the LED on the USB flash drive stick with the Debian live on it, keeps flashing forever. And the mouse becomes unresponsive. Maybe this has something to do with swap file activity ?? The 2 TB SATA drive on the dying tower is already at 51% usage. * * * * * * I decided to go with 32 GB RAM on the new Dell tower as a way to pamper myself. Likewise for the 4 TB disk drive. Might as well spend the money on myself, rather than leaving it to my heirs :) Steve Petrie apetrie@aspetrie.net 416-233-6116 -------- Original Message -------- SUBJECT: Re: [GTALUG] Thanks For Responses -- Buying A Dell Optiplex Tower PC And A Dell Monitor. DATE: 2025-02-17 13:36 FROM: Don Tai <dontai.canada@gmail.com> TO: GTALUG Talk <talk@gtalug.org> My laptop has 12G ram, but I notice I hardly ever go above 6G. Do you think you need that much? 4T disk is..eye rolling for me. On Mon, 17 Feb 2025 at 13:31, Steve Petrie via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

Hello GTALUG,

Thanks to GTALUG members: William Park, D. Hugh Redelmeier, Ron / BCLUG and Howard Gibson for your responses to my message subject "Seeking Recommendations For New Desktop PC -- To Run Debian Linux;". My apologies if I missed any names.

* * * * * *

I have settled on a Dell Optiplex Tower Model 7020 Plus and a Dell Monitor:

Dell Tower: -- 32 GB RAM -- 4 TB SATA Hard Drive -- No Windows 11

Dell Monitor: -- 21.4 inch -- HDMI

Prices before taxes:

Dell Optiplex Tower: CAD $2,021.89 Dell Monitor: CAD $119.99 ========= CAD $2141.88

No doubt GTALUG members will be choking on their Cheerios, at the pricing.

* * * * * *

The Asrock motherboard on my present self-built (7 years ago) tower is dying. And I am never going to build another PC. So, I have decided to pillage my bank account, buying a new PC with twice the RAM and twice the disk capacity on my dying tower.

Only downside is Dell's predicted delivery date for the tower: Tuesday, March 18, 2025. But could be sooner.

So, I just have to hope that my current dying tower survives for another month. The motherboard problems show up at boot time. I'm keeping he Debian 11 running 24/7 and only powering down if / when Debian crashes. Which it occasionally does for some mysterious reason.

I already have a USB flash drive with Debian 12 live ready to boot on the Dell.

* * * * * *

I will report my experience with the Dell tower in due course.

Steve Petrie

apetrie@aspetrie.net 416-233-6116

--- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

From: Don Tai via talk <talk@gtalug.org>

It is more desirable to have chips in your computer than chips on your desk, because the latter will, very quickly, disappear!

I didn't understand this. What are the "chips on your desk"?

Hello Hugh, The Dell tower has: -- M.2 2230 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD Class 35 -- processor Intel(R) Core(tm) i7 14700 vPro(R) (33 MB cache, 20 cores, 28 threads, up to 5.4 GHz Turbo) * * * * * * I already have a USB flash memory stick ready with Debian 12 on it. I followed this Debian web page to prepare the USB stick: https://d-i.debian.org/manual/en.amd64/ch04s03.html 4.3. Preparing Files for USB Memory Stick Booting using this .iso: debian-live-12.9.0-amd64-gnome.iso I am taking to heart your comment: You really really should have an NVMe SSD ... Perhaps I could install Debian 12 to the NVMe SSD on the new Dell tower ?? I will do research on this subject. * * * * * * You mention my motivation in buying Dell: more well known brand with better support (but not for desktop Linux) If my current dying tower weren't dying I wouldn't be buying a new tower. You mention: I'm not sure why you asked for advice. I asked for advice because GTALUG has rescued me more than once in the past. And I thought perhaps a member might suggest a PC configuration that would meet my technical and vendor needs. Steve Petrie apetrie@aspetrie.net 416-233-6116 -------- Original Message -------- SUBJECT: Re: [GTALUG] Thanks For Responses -- Buying A Dell Optiplex Tower PC And A Dell Monitor. DATE: 2025-02-17 23:17 FROM: "D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk" <talk@gtalug.org> TO: Steve Petrie via talk <talk@gtalug.org>

From: Steve Petrie via talk <talk@gtalug.org>

I have settled on a Dell Optiplex Tower Model 7020 Plus and a Dell Monitor:

Dell Tower: -- 32 GB RAM -- 4 TB SATA Hard Drive -- No Windows 11

You really really should have an NVMe SSD. It's not expensive and it is a significant speed improvement. You can easily add one after you get the computer but I take it that you don't want that challenge. If you feel cheap, a 512GB SSD is generous and inexpensive. You didn't even mention the processor. It does matter, but not as much as some think. You seem to be paying four times as much as I did for my Bee-Link Mini PC, with almost no advantage and several disadvantages.. (I'm assuming that you are not plugging in a PCIe card.) Disadvantages: - more physical space. - more noise. - more power consumption. - much slower disk Advantages: - more room for a 3.5" drive - easier to repair (but you don't seem to do that) - more well known brand with better support (but not for desktop Linux) Choking on my Cheerios indeed. I'm not sure why you asked for advice. --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

Hello Hugh, You're a fount of wisdom !! Looked at the Dell web page you used but it's not reflective of the configuration I am planning to buy To bump the NVMe SSD to M2 2280 2TB PCIe NVMe SSD Class 40 adds $851.80 to the price. Too much for me. * * * * * * I'm going offline now, to get my VISA card fixed so VISA won't try to send me a text message when I try to pay for the tower. This ancient linux-er has only an ancient landline phone so no text messaging for me. Steve Petrie apetrie@aspetrie.net 416-233-6116 -------- Original Message -------- SUBJECT: Re: [GTALUG] Thanks For Responses -- Buying A Dell Optiplex Tower PC And A Dell Monitor. DATE: 2025-02-18 10:59 FROM: "D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk" <talk@gtalug.org> TO: Steve Petrie via talk <talk@gtalug.org>

From: Steve Petrie via talk <talk@gtalug.org>

The Dell tower has:

-- M.2 2230 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD Class 35 -- processor Intel(R) Core(tm) i7 14700 vPro(R) (33 MB cache, 20 cores, 28 threads, up to 5.4 GHz Turbo)

Ah, that is useful information. While 256GB is a useful capacity, choosing 1TB makes more sense in a computer like your new one. Unless Dell adds a horrible mark-up. NVMe implies PCIe circuitry with an M.2 socket. PCIe is correct but confusing. 2230 is quite an odd size for a desktop. 2280 is normal. 2230 is more common in thin-and-light laptops where space is at a premium. 2280 leaves more space for chips and for cooling. They are probably less expensive because this is the size of the vast majority of SSDs. It is quite normal for an NVMe socket to support multiple sizes. I tried to configure your machine on <https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/dell-desktops-workstations/optiplex-tower-plus/spd/optiplex-7020t-plus-desktop/s014do7020mtpca_vp> Odd: - Adding WiFi forced the RAM from 32 GiB to 16 GiB. What sane reason could there me for this. - this page didn't let MS Windows 11 Pro be left out. Even MS Office 365 was manditory (but it could be a 30-day trial) - there are three M.2 2230/2280 sockets for solid state drives plus one m.2 2230 for a WiFi/BlueTooth card. There's more odd stuff. --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 04:35:44PM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:

Highway robbery.

No kidding.

I don't know about this "class" thing. Apparently it is a Dell invention.

Here's a random amazon.ca 2T NVMe drive. Good brand, good price. <https://www.amazon.ca/Crucial-T700-Gen5-NVMe-CT2000T700SSD3/dp/B0C3K7MTSY> It is $289.99.

There are probably cheaper and better ones. For example, this one is cheaper at $163.99: <https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0C3VCD5Z8/ref=sspa_dk_detail_1>

I think I paid about $350 for my 4TB Samsung 990 Pro during black friday. I am definitely not complaining about the speed. And yes Dell's class is meaningless nonsense. Apparently a class 40 is a typical mainstream SSD. A class 50 would be a high performance one supposedly. -- Len Sorensen

On Thu, Feb 20, 2025 at 08:00:53PM -0800, Ron via talk wrote:

That is a shockingly good storage device - it's PCIe Gen5 with 12,400 MB/s speeds: more than twice the theoretical maximum of a SATA port.

SATA max is 6Gbps not 6GBps. So it is more than 16 times faster than SATA's theoretical max. NVMe makes sata look absolutely pathetic. -- Len Sorensen

On Sun, Feb 23, 2025 at 11:59:51AM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:

Warning: I'm feeling explainy today, even though nobody asked. You can skip this.

It is very easy to swap B and b and not even notice. Worse, bits sometime means data-including-overhead but Bytes usually excludes some overhead. So simply dividing b/s by 8 may not give you B/s. Old example: 110 b/s serial was 10 seven- or eight-bit characters/second.

I believe in the case of SATA it is about 10 bits per byte due to encoding overhead of 8b/10b encoding, to allow clock recovery from the data.

Not only that, this is a speed difference that you can actually feel in every-day operations on your personal computer.

Note: the limit of a disk protocol is not usually the bottleneck, the device itself is.

SSD's have performance that is rather hard to understand because they are using a very odd medium (flash memory) and disguising this with a layer of firmware to emulate an older odd medium, the hard disk.

One name for this firmware is the "Flash Translation Layer" but its complicated function is called "Wear Levelling". One side-effect is called "write amplification". (All this firmware is proprietary and we must infer its structure from its behaviour.)

The most observable surprise is that most modern SSDs can accept write requests at quite a rate but if a sequence of writes fills the SSD's cache, the write throughput drops drastically. The most likely example I can think of occurs when you backup to an SSD.

Pet idea:

Most flash is TLC or QLC: each flash cell stores 3 or 4 bits. I can buy a 1T NVMe drive for about $100. I would like to be able to run it (or part of it) in SLC mode (1 bit per cell). This would reduce the capacity by a factor of 3 or 4 but make the drive very fast and perhaps increase durability.

I think that this should be easy for the drive manufacturers. The firmware already use some flash in pseudo-SLC mode to implement the cache (for speed reasons).

I know some eMMC chips allow you to configure pSLC on some part while leaving other parts for capacity. It does hugely increase durability since the tolerance between the voltage for 0 and 1 becomes much much larger than it is when you have 8 or 16 voltage levels to tell apart. -- Len Sorensen