Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Wolfgang Kunz]

>I recently built a new server out of an Intel Dualcore Atom
>motherboard
>(D945GCLF2D), it needs some kernel patches from Erik to get
>everything to
>work cleanly but it is now great. I added two 500Gb SATA disks
>mirrored for storage.

Interessting idea. Do you use a fossil only configuration and
mirroring with fs(3)?

Only are that there are only too two SATA ports. No space for
extensions in the future.

Thanks

Wolfgang

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Steve Simon]

> Interessting idea. Do you use a fossil only configuration and
> mirroring with fs(3)?

I use fossil and venti with everything mirrored with fs(3) - each partition.
I have two 7500 RPM "Enterprise grade" disks (i.e. better than average reliability)
from two different manufacturers, the idea is one will die first :-)
I created three seperate fs config partitions on the disks so I can have full mirroring,
only disk1 or only disk2 so when one disk dies I sould be able to carry on after just
chosing a different option at bootup (from plan9.ini).

> Only are that there are only too two SATA ports. No space for
> extensions in the future.


Thats correct, the newer cards have more sata slots but two is OK for me,
one each for the disks and a PATA slot for my DVDRW for long term backups.

I can give you the disk config info when you come to that stage, I was planning to
write it up as it was a bit of a pain copying the venti arenas from my old server
(it need a 50 line script rather than a single command).

-Steve

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Venkatesh Srinivas]

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 01:01:43PM +0000, Steve Simon wrote:
>> Interessting idea. Do you use a fossil only configuration and
>> mirroring with fs(3)?
>
>I use fossil and venti with everything mirrored with fs(3) - each partition.

Hi!

An alternate configuration, which takes more memory, but might offer
a bit more in the way of survivability, would be to not use fs for venti. Instead,
run one venti daemon per disk, with independent arenas/indexes. Insert a little
Venti proxy between fossil and your daemons; it should try reads on each
venti until one returns a block; it should issue writes to all of them.

Good luck,
-- vs

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[erik quanstrom]

>
> An alternate configuration, which takes more memory, but might offer
> a bit more in the way of survivability, would be to not use fs for venti. Instead,
> run one venti daemon per disk, with independent arenas/indexes. Insert a little
> Venti proxy between fossil and your daemons; it should try reads on each
> venti until one returns a block; it should issue writes to all of them.

why would that be more survivable?

- erik

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Venkatesh Srinivas]

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 10:22:49AM -0500, erik quanstrom wrote:
>>
>> An alternate configuration, which takes more memory, but might offer
>> a bit more in the way of survivability, would be to not use fs for venti. Instead,
>> run one venti daemon per disk, with independent arenas/indexes. Insert a little
>> Venti proxy between fossil and your daemons; it should try reads on each
>> venti until one returns a block; it should issue writes to all of them.
>
>why would that be more survivable?

When an fs mirror is out of sync, which mirror holds the right data? Fs has no
way of knowing. Venti at least has the block hashes.

Imagine cutting power after a first disk in a mirror has data written but
subsequent ones don't? With fs, disaster. (well, sorta. devfs always reads from
the first device in a mirror first, and writes to the devices in order as well.
you might get lucky, but you wouldn't know about errors until you have to hit
the second device. at which point its too late.)

Venti deals with incompletely written blocks; the arenas and index structures
are still workable. The situation is even recoverable - a proxy could notice
that one of the backends failed to return a read, so it rewrite the data from
an other copy (which it can verify) to the failed one.

Also, the isolation granted by writing data to two venti daemons is nicer than
scribbling blocks to both disks; you can bring down either back-end venti while
the system is running. You can even move one of the pairs to a remote system.
If disks are removable in your configuration, you can even grow the available
space live.

-- vs

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[erik quanstrom]

> Venti deals with incompletely written blocks; the arenas and index structures
> are still workable. The situation is even recoverable - a proxy could notice
> that one of the backends failed to return a read, so it rewrite the data from
> an other copy (which it can verify) to the failed one.

what are you using as a venti proxy?  or is this more theoretical?

how do you protect against lossage in the fossil cache?

- erik

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Venkatesh Srinivas]

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 12:24 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
>> Venti deals with incompletely written blocks; the arenas and index structures
>> are still workable. The situation is even recoverable - a proxy could notice
>> that one of the backends failed to return a read, so it rewrite the data from
>> an other copy (which it can verify) to the failed one.
>
> what are you using as a venti proxy?  or is this more theoretical?

When I ran this on real h/w, I used Inferno's vcache, which works
as-is. I have a binary (but have lost the source) for a Plan 9
equivalent, but cooking one up again should take only a few hours; its
job is really simple.

> how do you protect against lossage in the fossil cache?

I don't, any more than fossil+fs does.

> - erik

-- vs

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[erik quanstrom]

On Mon Jan 11 03:29:06 EST 2010, woku@hush.com wrote:
> >I recently built a new server out of an Intel Dualcore Atom
> >motherboard
> >(D945GCLF2D), it needs some kernel patches from Erik to get
> >everything to
> >work cleanly but it is now great. I added two 500Gb SATA disks
> >mirrored for storage.
>
> Interessting idea. Do you use a fossil only configuration and
> mirroring with fs(3)?
>
> Only are that there are only too two SATA ports. No space for
> extensions in the future.

i hate to disagree, but i would not recommend that motherboard.
perhaps i remember the pain of that motherboard more keenly.
or perhaps i do not remember all the fixes.  iirc, mp interrupts were
broken, among other things.

these products are *well* worth the extra cash.  you get 2 pcie
slots, 4 sata ports and a buch of other goodies for a few dollars
more.  also, if you can afford a few extra $, it makes sense to get
a sata cdrom.  mixing ide/ahci isn't much fun on ich7r.  you
can work around that with ftp://ftp.quanstro.net/other/9atom.iso.bz2.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=supermicro+atom&x=0&y=0

- erik

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Steve Simon]

> i hate to disagree, but i would not recommend that motherboard.

Sorry, I have corrected myself privately but not here yet.

The Intel D945GCLF2D looks like a nice board but I agree the broken MP
tables are a deal breaker for plan9 (unless acpi support can sidestep
the issue one day).

I bought a SUPERMICRO X7SLA-H to replace it on Erik's reccomendation and
it works very well.

There are some newer mini-itx cards from supermicro which also look
interesting but I have no experience of them:

	http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/ATOM

Appologies for my bad memory.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[erik quanstrom]

> There are some newer mini-itx cards from supermicro which also look
> interesting but I have no experience of them:
>
> 	http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/ATOM

i'm trying to get one to test.  fortunately, this thing has an
82574 nic.  which should work just fine.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Wolfgang Kunz]

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:31:19 +0100 Akshat Kumar
<akumar@mail.nanosouffle.net> wrote:
>On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 10:00 AM, Frederik Caulier
><aediks@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello Wolfgang
>>
>> You might want to get in touch with user 'Capso' on the
>> #plan9@irc.freenode.org channel. AFAIK he is running a Ken FS
>setup.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> F. Caulier
>
>That's just me. Feel free to drop me a mail or visit IRC.
>
>I'm running the traditional Ken FS, sans Erik's mods.
>
>kfs is very different from Ken FS and I also use that on
>a standalone computer outside of the home network,
>that's too old and slow to be usable with fossil hoggin'
>up all the resources. kfs does the job finely there.

Many thanks for your answer. I am very thankfull for every
help with Ken FS.

Regards,
Wolfgang

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Wolfgang Kunz]

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:14:19 +0100 erik quanstrom
<quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
>fs was removed from the cd but there's a version in
>/n/sources/extra.
>
>kfs and fs(3) are different fileservers.  you can also use the
>source in
>contrib quanstro/fs.  i run 4 fileservers (plus one for testing)
>based on this.  all but one use aoe for storage.  but you can use
>ahci or ide disks as well.  you will need to add il back into your
>kernel.  (in the contrib package.)

Many thanks for your help. I was able to compile the 9askafs kernel
and make the 9askafs.iso. The cd boots on a notebook, loads the
kernel
and then I got:

panic: no nvr
cpu 0 exiting

I think my plan9.ini is not correct ("nvr=" is missing).

I have not changed anything in the mkfile. I just do the first
steps and I am happy to come so far today.

I found these too files for the kernel (il):

il.c
ip.il.h

I hope these files are the right one for the kernel. Tomorrow I
will
look how I configure a kernel in Plan9.

Many thanks for your help!

Regards,
Wolfgang

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[erik quanstrom]

>
> On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:14:19 +0100 erik quanstrom
> <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
> >fs was removed from the cd but there's a version in
> >/n/sources/extra.
> >
> >kfs and fs(3) are different fileservers.  you can also use the
> >source in
> >contrib quanstro/fs.  i run 4 fileservers (plus one for testing)
> >based on this.  all but one use aoe for storage.  but you can use
> >ahci or ide disks as well.  you will need to add il back into your
> >kernel.  (in the contrib package.)
>
> Many thanks for your help. I was able to compile the 9askafs kernel
> and make the 9askafs.iso. The cd boots on a notebook, loads the
> kernel
> and then I got:
>
> panic: no nvr
> cpu 0 exiting

the fileserver can be a bit gruff if unconfigured.  :-)

you'll need an nvr file and plan9.ini entry like this
	nvr=ph0"9fat"!fs.nvr
(old style: nvr=hd!0!9fat!fs.nvr) — assuming that you have
an ata disk with a 9fat partition with a fs.nvr file in it.
you can create this with the plan 9 install cd.  the fs
can't create this for itself.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Wolfgang Kunz]

>> After reading many mails here I plan to run a fossil only
>> fileserver. So far I understand the "Ken" dedicated fileserver
>> has gone.

>ken's fs works for me.

I am very interested in the old dedicated Ken fileserver. So
far I understand you there are ways to run Ken fileserver today?
When this is possible I would like to ask where I can find the
sources of fs or a boot disk or so on?

I found fs(4) and fs(8) in the manual. But there seems no fs in
/sys/src/fs.

There are kfs and fs(3) too. I hope I don't currently confound the
different fileserver and filesystems.

Regards,
Wolfgang

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Frederik Caulier]

Hello Wolfgang

You might want to get in touch with user 'Capso' on the
#plan9@irc.freenode.org channel. AFAIK he is running a Ken FS setup.

Best regards,
F. Caulier

On 1/11/10, Wolfgang Kunz <woku@hush.com> wrote:
>>> After reading many mails here I plan to run a fossil only
>>> fileserver. So far I understand the "Ken" dedicated fileserver
>>> has gone.
>
>>ken's fs works for me.
>
> I am very interested in the old dedicated Ken fileserver. So
> far I understand you there are ways to run Ken fileserver today?
> When this is possible I would like to ask where I can find the
> sources of fs or a boot disk or so on?
>
> I found fs(4) and fs(8) in the manual. But there seems no fs in
> /sys/src/fs.
>
> There are kfs and fs(3) too. I hope I don't currently confound the
> different fileserver and filesystems.
>
> Regards,
> Wolfgang
>
>
>
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Akshat Kumar]

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 10:00 AM, Frederik Caulier <aediks@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Wolfgang
>
> You might want to get in touch with user 'Capso' on the
> #plan9@irc.freenode.org channel. AFAIK he is running a Ken FS setup.
>
> Best regards,
> F. Caulier

That's just me. Feel free to drop me a mail or visit IRC.

I'm running the traditional Ken FS, sans Erik's mods.

kfs is very different from Ken FS and I also use that on
a standalone computer outside of the home network,
that's too old and slow to be usable with fossil hoggin'
up all the resources. kfs does the job finely there.


Best,
ak

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[matt]

>
>I'm running the traditional Ken FS, sans Erik's mods.
>
>
"sans" is French for "without" hence serif & sans-serif, is that what
you meant ?

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[erik quanstrom]

> >
> >I'm running the traditional Ken FS, sans Erik's mods.
> >

pedants would point out that it is unlikely this is
"traditional" ken fs.  it is much more likely to be geoff's
reform 63-bitized version.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Akshat Kumar]

Hi Matt,

On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 4:49 AM, matt <maht-9fans@maht0x0r.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm running the traditional Ken FS, sans Erik's mods.
>>
>
> "sans" is French for "without" hence serif & sans-serif, is that what you
> meant ?

Yes.

Erik's observations are also correct (it's "Geoff's reform 63-bitized version").


Best,
ak

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[erik quanstrom]

On Mon Jan 11 12:54:02 EST 2010, woku@hush.com wrote:
> >> After reading many mails here I plan to run a fossil only
> >> fileserver. So far I understand the "Ken" dedicated fileserver
> >> has gone.
>
> >ken's fs works for me.
>
> I am very interested in the old dedicated Ken fileserver. So
> far I understand you there are ways to run Ken fileserver today?
> When this is possible I would like to ask where I can find the
> sources of fs or a boot disk or so on?
>
> I found fs(4) and fs(8) in the manual. But there seems no fs in
> /sys/src/fs.
>
> There are kfs and fs(3) too. I hope I don't currently confound the
> different fileserver and filesystems.

fs was removed from the cd but there's a version in /n/sources/extra.

kfs and fs(3) are different fileservers.  you can also use the source in
contrib quanstro/fs.  i run 4 fileservers (plus one for testing)
based on this.  all but one use aoe for storage.  but you can use
ahci or ide disks as well.  you will need to add il back into your
kernel.  (in the contrib package.)

- erik

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Wolfgang Kunz]

>I have an MSI G31TM-P21 + q8200
>
>
>http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&prod_no=183


Nice board. I could get it for 50$. So far I can see this board has
the ICH7 chip. So AHCI is not working on this board? I am not sure
if this is important.

Thanks!

Wolfgang

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[erik quanstrom]

> >http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&prod_no=183
>
>
> Nice board. I could get it for 50$. So far I can see this board has
> the ICH7 chip. So AHCI is not working on this board?

i belive that page says ich6.

ich6 is not ahci capable.  the contrib version of the ahci
driver should support all intel ahci.  i haven't had a chance
to test the nm10 tiger point southbridge yet, though.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Federico G. Benavento]

I don't care whether ahci works or not, I only cared if the system
was Plan 9 capable and it is, the good thing is that everything
except audio is well supported by Plan 9.



On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 6:33 AM, Wolfgang Kunz <woku@hush.com> wrote:
>
>>I have an MSI G31TM-P21 + q8200
>>
>>
>>http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&prod_no=183
>
>
> Nice board. I could get it for 50$. So far I can see this board has
> the ICH7 chip. So AHCI is not working on this board? I am not sure
> if this is important.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Wolfgang
>
>
>



--
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Wolfgang Kunz]

Hello,

>this isn't a complete list of supported ahci or marvell
>parts.  i don't know about jmicron support.  i tried
>to add it without having any hardware to test.  i have
>always chosen other hardware over jmicron.  it seems
>to benchmark poorly and be unnecessarly incompatable.
>
>i have not done systematic benchmarking of the
>various parts.  however ..
>
>1.  unless one needs more ports than the motherboard
>offers, i would stick with on-board ports.

That makes sense for me. Perhaps I could save money and
use the onboard network chip too (most RELTEK)? Then I
could invest more money in the board and the CPU.

>2.  note that the marvell 88sx card is pci-x but will
>function properly in a pci slot.  the marvell 88se64*
>parts are a pci-e option.

I saw that this cards are really expensive. As you said
the onboard controller are a better choise.

>3.  if you set up a venti+fossil fileserver, you will have
>a quite seeky load and the performance of the controller
>should not be a big factor.  but the performance of the
>disks will be.

After reading many mails here I plan to run a fossil only
fileserver. So far I understand the "Ken" dedicated fileserver
has gone.

So disks >= 7200 u/min are ok?

>> For network cards the intel gbe cards seems to be the best?
>
>yes.  the 82563 and 8257[12456] are particularly good.

I could get a 82574L (PCIe) (Desktop pro CT - EXPI9301CT) for 30$.
Would this be a good buy?

Regards,

Wolfgang

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[erik quanstrom]

> >1.  unless one needs more ports than the motherboard
> >offers, i would stick with on-board ports.
>
> That makes sense for me. Perhaps I could save money and
> use the onboard network chip too (most RELTEK)? Then I
> could invest more money in the board and the CPU.

some 8169 parts are pretty good.  but there is a wide
variation.  some have pretty lackluster performance.

> >3.  if you set up a venti+fossil fileserver, you will have
> >a quite seeky load and the performance of the controller
> >should not be a big factor.  but the performance of the
> >disks will be.
>
> After reading many mails here I plan to run a fossil only
> fileserver. So far I understand the "Ken" dedicated fileserver
> has gone.

ken's fs works for me.

>
> So disks >= 7200 u/min are ok?
>

you may wish to spend a little extra money (or get
a smaller disk) and get "enterprise" sata disks.

> >> For network cards the intel gbe cards seems to be the best?
> >
> >yes.  the 82563 and 8257[12456] are particularly good.
>
> I could get a 82574L (PCIe) (Desktop pro CT - EXPI9301CT) for 30$.
> Would this be a good buy?

that's a very good deal.

- erik

[9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Wolfgang Kunz]

Hi,

I am new to Plan9. After testing Plan9 in Xen on NetBSD I want to
create a native Plan9 fileserver on it's own hardware. I would like
to
ask about the recommended hardware for doing that? The fileserver
is
for about 5 users and 500 GB of data.

Which disk controller should I use for best performance and
driver support?

AHCI based:
SB600
IHC9
Jmicron JMB363 (supported?)

Marvel based:
Marvell 88SX6081

For network cards the intel gbe cards seems to be the best?

Which CPU should I use? Can Plan9 use multicore processors?
Is it right that Plan9 runs in 32 bit modus (no need for a 64 bit
processor)?

How much memory should I put in the fileserver maschine?

If possible I would like to ask which hardware the other Plan9 user
are using.

Regards,
Wolfgang

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Steve Simon]

> If possible I would like to ask which hardware the other Plan9 user
> are using.

I recently built a new server out of an Intel Dualcore Atom motherboard
(D945GCLF2D), it needs some kernel patches from Erik to get everything to
work cleanly but it is now great. I added two 500Gb SATA disks mirrored
for storage.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[erik quanstrom]

> Which disk controller should I use for best performance and
> driver support?
>
> AHCI based:
> SB600
> IHC9
> Jmicron JMB363 (supported?)
>
> Marvel based:
> Marvell 88SX6081

this isn't a complete list of supported ahci or marvell
parts.  i don't know about jmicron support.  i tried
to add it without having any hardware to test.  i have
always chosen other hardware over jmicron.  it seems
to benchmark poorly and be unnecessarly incompatable.

i have not done systematic benchmarking of the
various parts.  however ..

1.  unless one needs more ports than the motherboard
offers, i would stick with on-board ports.

2.  note that the marvell 88sx card is pci-x but will
function properly in a pci slot.  the marvell 88se64*
parts are a pci-e option.

3.  if you set up a venti+fossil fileserver, you will have
a quite seeky load and the performance of the controller
should not be a big factor.  but the performance of the
disks will be.

> For network cards the intel gbe cards seems to be the best?

yes.  the 82563 and 8257[12456] are particularly good.

> Which CPU should I use? Can Plan9 use multicore processors?
> Is it right that Plan9 runs in 32 bit modus (no need for a 64 bit
> processor)?

plan 9 can use multicore processors.  but it does not recognize
the hyperthreads on core i[357] and atom processors.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Hardware for Plan9

[Federico G. Benavento]

I have an MSI G31TM-P21 + q8200


http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&prod_no=1833


On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 1:59 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>> Which disk controller should I use for best performance and
>> driver support?
>>
>> AHCI based:
>> SB600
>> IHC9
>> Jmicron JMB363 (supported?)
>>
>> Marvel based:
>> Marvell 88SX6081
>
> this isn't a complete list of supported ahci or marvell
> parts.  i don't know about jmicron support.  i tried
> to add it without having any hardware to test.  i have
> always chosen other hardware over jmicron.  it seems
> to benchmark poorly and be unnecessarly incompatable.
>
> i have not done systematic benchmarking of the
> various parts.  however ..
>
> 1.  unless one needs more ports than the motherboard
> offers, i would stick with on-board ports.
>
> 2.  note that the marvell 88sx card is pci-x but will
> function properly in a pci slot.  the marvell 88se64*
> parts are a pci-e option.
>
> 3.  if you set up a venti+fossil fileserver, you will have
> a quite seeky load and the performance of the controller
> should not be a big factor.  but the performance of the
> disks will be.
>
>> For network cards the intel gbe cards seems to be the best?
>
> yes.  the 82563 and 8257[12456] are particularly good.
>
>> Which CPU should I use? Can Plan9 use multicore processors?
>> Is it right that Plan9 runs in 32 bit modus (no need for a 64 bit
>> processor)?
>
> plan 9 can use multicore processors.  but it does not recognize
> the hyperthreads on core i[357] and atom processors.
>
> - erik
>
>



-- 
Federico G. Benavento

[9fans] Hardware for plan9

[Ryan]

Hey,

I'm looking to set up a plan9 box.  Yes, just one.

I'd like to build a cheap system that I am pretty sure will not cause
me too many hassles just trying to set it up.  Recommendations? 
Motherboard, processor, video card, hard drive?  IT'd be nice to get
to learn about good namespaces instead of trying to make DMA go or
some such.

Thanks,
Ryan

Re: [9fans] Hardware for plan9

[matt]

just select components from the hardware list :

http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Supported_PC_hardware/index.html


some of the laptops on that list are pentium 1 class, $80 a pop on ebay

m

Re: [9fans] Hardware for plan9

[David Cantrell]

On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 03:11:04PM +0000, Ryan wrote:

> I'm looking to set up a plan9 box.  Yes, just one.

So am I, cos I just read the article in Sysadmin magazine :-)

I see that Lucent Orinoco wireless cards are supported (both being from
Bell Labs I find this quite surprising :-) and the machine I'm intending
to use doesn't have anything else weird in it.  The only thing that
might give me trouble is that it has a PCMCIA floppy and no CDROM.

Here's hoping I can boot off the floppy, then unplug it, plug in a
network card, and do a network install.

I assume that 16Mb RAM is sufficient for basic use?

--
David Cantrell

Re: [9fans] Hardware for plan9

[Jim Choate]

Hi Ryan,

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Ryan wrote:

> I'm looking to set up a plan9 box.  Yes, just one.
>
> I'd like to build a cheap system that I am pretty sure will not cause
> me too many hassles just trying to set it up.  Recommendations?
> Motherboard, processor, video card, hard drive?  IT'd be nice to get
> to learn about good namespaces instead of trying to make DMA go or
> some such.

Dell OptiPlex GX1, you should be able to find them for less than $100.

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