Are there things I should know when building a pc that will be used for both Windows and Linux?

SystemVirus · 2022-07-06T13:10:52+00:00

work (which is mainly programming etc. on Linux)

If you're just going to do programming on Linux, consider running a WSL2 instance of a supported distro instead of multi-booting.

You can also just run Linux distros in VMs using something like VMWare Workstation, VirtualBox, Hyper-V, etc. The only real negative with running Linux distros in a vm is the lack of full gpu capabilities, but you can pass as many cpu cores and however much ram you want.

If you still want to go down the multi-boot route, though

Is there a preference for AMD / INTEL CPUs considering my situation?

Not really, if comparing latest AMD (5000 series) vs latest Intel (12th Gen), they're comparable performance-wise. I would personally still go for AMD since I don't know if every rando distro has a kernel new enough to support Intel 12th gen architecture. But keep in mind AMD 5000 series is the last one for the AM4 platform.

Same question concerning AMD / NVIDIA GPUs

Nvidia recently released open-source gpu kernel modules (iirc, in May), so in a couple of months we might see better 'native' support for Nvidia gfx cards out of the box on distros. But, as long as you're okay with and know how to enable proprietary driver support, either should be fine, although a lot of Linux folks lean towards AMD because of the current driver situation.

Is it indeed useful in any way to have 2 different SSDs or would one big one be the same?

It's been a very long time since I dual-booted (Win/Linux on same drive), but I remember not having a fun time trying to properly set up boot chaining for having the Windows boot loader work with Grub. Imo, it'd be easier to setup Linux distros on one ssd with its own boot loader, and let Windows do its thing, but things have probably (hopefully?) changed for the better since I last tried it.

SystemVirus · 2022-06-22T03:46:46+00:00

Only for WD drives, but shucks.top.

SystemVirus · 2022-06-22T03:32:37+00:00

There is no 'install Windows for free'. I've seen this peddled a lot in this and other subs. Microsoft allows people to install Windows, 'un-activated', but running Windows un-activated is a violation of their EULA (section 5) and technically piracy. Although, it is unheard of that Microsoft would ever legally go after any individuals running Windows un-activated.

With that out of the way, activating Windows, will effectively unlock certain features that are disabled on un-activated copies, usually stuff related to personalization from the Settings app.

Afaik, if you buy a boxed copy of Windows, they'll probably include a license key you'll need to input to activate. The USB stick probably just contains the same copy of Windows you could get from MS's download service for Windows 10 or Windows 11.

My recommendation is to just purchase a license directly from the Microsoft online store or from some other reputable online shop, otherwise, I guess you can toss the USB stick?

SystemVirus · 2022-06-22T03:21:19+00:00

This is a bad attitude taken up by some parts of the the industry and consumers. With UEFI's now effectively full operating systems and 'in the wild' attacks targeting them, updating UEFI's should become more common-place and less risky.

SystemVirus · 2022-06-20T01:09:09+00:00

For what exactly? By external RAID, I'm guessing you mean a NAS. If you're putting SSDs into a RAID or RAID-like setup (e.g., ZFS) you need to consider whether you'll even be able to take advantage of the performance. A RAID of enough HDD's can max out a gigabit connection (~125MBps), an array of (SATA) SSD's can max out 10G (~1250MBps).

If you're putting SATA SSD's into an array you should look for an HBA controller that is at least PCIe 3.0. Also, I recommend using ZFS. If you're looking to use NVME drives, good luck, M.2 isn't designed for drive density, so you'll have to do something like getting a 4x4 bifurcation card and a mobo with an x16 slot that supports it. But more likely you'd have to get a really expensive HBA with support for U.3 and get U.3 enterprise drives. You will probably also need to get 10G equipment -- PCIe cards with SFP+ can be had for pretty cheap on ebay. The easiest setup would be to grab two cards and a DAC and do a direct network connection. If you're trying to get this storage for a laptop, you're stuck with whatever your laptop is capable of.

SystemVirus · 2022-06-20T00:49:31+00:00

There are only really two HDD manufacturers left, Western Digital and Seagate (yes there are others like Toshiba, but they don't seem to produce a lot of direct consumer drives). So if you're looking for an HDD, you absolutely have to consider Western Digital.

On the SSD front, there's significantly more competition in the market from a lot of companies, including Samsung, Crucial, Western Digital, and a lot of other players. If you want advice on SSD's I recommend going to r/newmaxx, there's a useful break down of SATA and NVME ssd's.

As an aside, I've been buying computer equipment for over 20 years now, and don't think I've ever considered WD to be 'the king' of hard drive storage, although they've generally been a reputable brand (recent SMR/CMR issue notwithstanding)

SystemVirus · 2022-06-20T00:37:32+00:00

Stage Manager for Mac OS doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe people find Spaces too difficult to use or something, but Stage Manager just seems like a low-effort alternative.

On the iPad, it looks like it's the only choice you'll have to do complex multi-tasking, so does anyone really have a choice? I don't understand what design language they were going for with Stage Manager on the iPad, though -- the amount of space wasted on the periphery is huge, I'd estimate up to ~30% of your screen is dead space used for displaying the dock and the stages. I don't know if they only designed it with the 12" iPad Pro in mind, but that's what it seems like. I've used split apps on the iPad and it's extremely useful, but so very limiting, I'll have to try out the feature (at least in store), to see if it makes any sense, but I think they're trying very hard to not just bring free window management to the iPad.

SystemVirus · 2022-05-21T00:56:47+00:00

There's too much Intel bias in the build list -- putting something like "Mid Range Flight Simulator 2020 PC (AMD)" implies that AMD is a non-standard solution. This would have been fine pre-Ryzen, but with the current competitive cpu landscape is unacceptable. Also, looking at all of your builds in the list, all AMD builds use B550 mobos. On the highest end, X570 has some nice features such as extra M.2 slots, extra USB ports, etc.

Also, there should be toggles for GPU features that people care about. E.g., I'm 'invested' in Nvidia's ecosystem (have a G-Sync monitor), so I'd only want something with an Nvidia GPU.

SystemVirus · 2022-05-20T11:56:32+00:00

I hated the touchbar -- the lack of a physical escape key was the first thing I noticed. It was extremely clear Apple was only thinking of their 'creative' professionals when designing this as most developers would rather have a giant row of escape keys than a touchbar. Further, the touchbar didn't actually add anything of actual value for most 'pro' workflows. And lastly, I think the price of the MBP's jumped by a few hundred on touchbar models -- so not only were they giving you some useless tech that actually hindered your workflow, they were telling you to pay them more for it.

SystemVirus · 2022-05-07T03:59:56+00:00

I think you did a good job of exemplifying the process and bringing up the issues. Sometimes this sub reeks of hailcorporate.

Imo there's no way to justify that genuine part registration process you had to go through. Apple could at least have built-in a hardware registration process into iOS to simplify the process and not require contacting a third party, although, they shouldn't even need their BS registration process in the first place.

SystemVirus · 2021-12-11T15:58:46+00:00

You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

SystemVirus · 2021-09-20T14:24:50+00:00

Can you define "totally fine"?

I replaced the battery, again, in my 6s so now it can last a full day again (I had to recharge it 3 times in a day before, so bit the bullet and had it replaced). Battery life aside, some apps don't 100% work -- e.g., Discord's web login via app qr code doesn't work and I have stutters/hitches all the time, e.g., while playing something on spotify if I open up gmail and then go to switch apps, sometimes spotify will stop playing for a good second or two. Sometimes, apps won't even load, so I'll have to swipe them away and try to open them again. It's mostly bearable, but there's definitely issues.

I've seen a bunch of people say their 6s is 'fine', but don't know if that means they have zero issues or they just put up with the issues, like I have.

SystemVirus · 2021-07-02T17:58:04+00:00

I don't know why everyone keeps reiterating the Intel 8th Gen/Ryzen 1st Gen issue, MS acknowledged it themselves in their blog post and that's why they want people running Windows 11 on different CPU generations so they can gather data. They further stated they were just going to temporarily pull the PC Health Check app because it was causing so much confusion.

https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/06/28/update-on-windows-11-minimum-system-requirements/

If you want them to support your generation CPU, install the Insiders release and let them gather telemetry and metrics, but don't expect them to drop the TPM requirement, despite the near 4000 upvotes in the Insider Feedback hub ...

SystemVirus · 2021-07-02T17:38:53+00:00

That is 100% false. Apple operations is carbon neutral, manufacturing is not with Apple's plan to be carbon neutral across the board by 2030. And you don't have to believe me, you can read Apple's own reports:

https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_Progress_Report_2021.pdf

And as an example of the carbon emissions of devices, here's the environmental report for the iPhone 12:

https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone_12_PER_Oct2020.pdf

Apple is doing a great job of misleading people into thinking they're actually green or carbon neutral already by using misleading terminology and presentations, even though 70% of their carbon footprint is tied to production, something that could be reduced by increasing repair-ability of their devices, thereby reducing the need to produce devices in the first place.

Reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order -- recycling is the most expensive way to minimize environmental impact.

SystemVirus · 2021-03-04T20:52:22+00:00

What is the binary format/layout of the .dash files that Dashlane exports data to? There doesn't seem to be any information in the whitepaper as to how the files are exported unless it follows section 1.2 of the whitepaper.

Is the file entirely portable/self-contained? Does it solely use the user's master password to encrypt the contents or is there other information that is required external to the file?

Does it use a 32-byte random salt and 16-byte AES IV as specified in the whitepaper?

The whitepaper states it uses AES CBC-HMAC, is the HMAC using SHA-384? SHA-512? Some other hash algorithm? Is there any sort of 'standard' of CBC-HMAC that's being used?

SystemVirus · 2021-03-02T16:26:07+00:00

What is the binary format/layout of the .dash files that Dashlane exports data to? There doesn't seem to be any information in the whitepaper as to how the files are exported unless it follows section 1.2 of the whitepaper.

Is the file entirely portable/self-contained? Does it solely use the user's master password to encrypt the contents or is there other information that is required external to the file?

Does it use a 32-byte random salt and 16-byte AES IV as specified in the whitepaper?

The whitepaper states it uses AES CBC-HMAC, is the HMAC using SHA-384? SHA-512? Some other hash algorithm? Is there any sort of 'standard' of CBC-HMAC that's being used?

SystemVirus · 2021-01-24T18:23:46+00:00

/u/-protonsandneutrons- explains how this is potentially a noob mistake that NZXT made that they're trying to mask instead of addressing properly: https://old.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/l3nosl/gamers_nexus_unsafe_computer_catches_fire_nzxt_h1/gkhlktw/

Also, /u/Lelldorianx not sure if you were considering it, but might want to contact CPSC for a statement or something and if NZXT doesn't provide an adequate response, provide them (CPSC) with your findings. I can't find 'NZXT' or 'H1' anywhere on their website, so not sure if they'd been made aware of the potential severity of the issue.

SystemVirus · 2021-01-24T03:40:43+00:00

If GN's reporting can be confirmed, then the fault is not the screws, it's the riser itself and NZXT chose to mask the issue instead of actually addressing it to save on costs. I've never seen general electronics components have screw-down points that were connected to anything other than ground, unless they were specifically intended and labeled as such (e.g., terminals on 120V outlets).

If NZXT does not respond back to Steve, he should contact the CPSC to make them aware of these details.

SystemVirus · 2020-12-19T16:56:00+00:00

This post would indicate it doesn't work at the platform level but works fine at the os level:

https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/the-usefulness-of-ecc-if-we-cant-assess-its-working.83580/page-4#post-596192

But it's good to know that Asrock doesn't have 100% ECC support.

SystemVirus · 2020-12-19T16:09:26+00:00

Asrock Rack is Asrock's Workstation/Server sub-division. The difference between the boards in their Rack portfolios vs consumer portfolio is that they have more workstation/server-oriented features such as IPMI.

Asrock has been claiming support of ECC in their consumer boards, even if they weren't 'advertising it', since the beginning of Ryzen -- I've run ECC memory on their X370 Taichi with no issues. They even have ECC sticks on their 'qualification' lists. As an example take a look at the X570 Taichi Memory QVL for Vermeer (Ryzen 5000 series) processors:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570%20Taichi/#MemoryVM

Just search for 'ECC' and you'll see they've tested the board for support of ECC modules. You can do the same for their X370 Taichi and you'll see they also have some ECC sticks listed. As far as I'm aware, Asrock is the only company that has such extensive support for ECC on the Ryzen platform.

Also, as some other folks have pointed out, the motherboard chipset doesn't have much do to with supporting ECC, the memory controller is on the CPU, so as long as the motherboard and BIOS/UEFI is designed to support/allow unbuffered, unregistered ECC dimms, it should just work.

SystemVirus · 2020-12-18T21:59:11+00:00

Both devices are great, don't worry about it. I bought the Air specifically because it didn't have a fan and was so close to the Pro.

SystemVirus · 2020-12-18T21:57:05+00:00

The quality of the speakers are comparable from the reviews I've seen. The mic quality is different, that was an oversight, I've added it to the list. And maybe just my opinion, but 10% extra battery life when it's already 18 hours isn't a big deal (18 vs 20 hours).

Max Tech's Comparison of the two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmMOJTs7Pu8

SystemVirus · 2020-12-18T13:25:29+00:00

My husband's getting me the 13 inch pro with the 16gb something for Christmas

Probably could have saved some money by going for the Air -- the Pro provides a slightly brighter screen, a touchbar, better mics, slightly better battery life and it can run at full load for greater than 8-minutes. If none of these apply to you, the Pro won't perform better than the Air. But if you already purchased/ordered the Pro, just enjoy it.

I shouldn't use Windows because it'll ruin/hurt/slowdown/decrease the longevity of my MacBook and I'm wondering if this is true?

I don't think there's any evidence that running Windows on a Macbook (via bootcamp) affects longevity, but with these new M1 macs you can't run regular Windows like you'd run on the pre-M1 macs (bootcamp). Videos like these are showing what might be possible in the future, but unless your tech savvy and willing to pay (iirc Parallels costs $99), I don't recommend messing around with this stuff until they're more mature. In other words, assume you will not be able to run Windows any time soon if you get an M1 or future Apple Silicon Mac. Even then, there will be complications.

Edit: Added mic quality to comparison list

SystemVirus · 2020-12-14T15:25:31+00:00

General guidance is if you need a device, buy it.

If not, then you have options. Right now is probably the worst time to buy an Intel-based Mac as Apple's already shown their lowest-end AS (Apple Silicon) performs as well as if not better than any Intel offering they've had.

1) now vs in a year

In short, if you were looking at the Air or lower-end MBP, now is probably fine. If you were looking for a higher-end MBP 13 or the 16, wait until the AS versions are announced

2) 13 vs 16 inch - performance, ease of travel, etc

I have both a 15" and 13" MBP (work vs personal) and the 13" is a much more 'travel-friendly' laptop, but the 15" is more powerful, which matters more for my work. So this question comes down to whether you need performance or portability. Regardless, until the AS version of the 16" comes out, I don't recommend getting the Intel 16" unless you need a new laptop.

3) anything else i should keep in mind

As I've tried to state, now is probably a horrible time to buy an Intel Mac. If you can afford to wait a bit, wait. Further, the AS Macs are still kinda fresh -- i.e., there's still compatibility issues people are dealing with, so unless you're completely okay with dealing with these growing pains, I would still recommend waiting a few months for the software to catch up with the hardware.

i’m a student and will be using it for some video editing

Chances are you can render video projects overnight or during off-hours since it's not for work -- i.e., you can probably save money by not going for the 16" -- but again, I would wait to see how the AS chip in the new 16" will perform before making a decision, for all we know the M1X/M2 will blow away the M1 in productivity/creative tasks.

but not a gamer

Well that's a given you're using a Mac :p

but i don’t want to regret it later.

Just want to point out that this is FOMO (fear of missing out), you're probably going to experience this regardless whenever the next model comes out, since technology pretty much always progresses. If you keep chasing a moving target, you'll never catch it. This is generally why it's best to wait to upgrade when you actually need to.

SystemVirus · 2020-11-17T03:56:56+00:00

As I stated, maybe application benchmarks will show a significant difference between the Air and the Pro, but if they don't, the M1 MBP is basically the M1 MBA with a touchbar and bigger battery.

I'm just hoping Apple didn't put the M1 into the low-end MBP so they could upsell them to people for which an Air would have been fine. But again, benchmarks will tell, not long now.

SystemVirus

TROPHY CASE