Linux Mint v20.1 on my new Dell Precision 7810 and Core i7 PC

I decided to look at something modern today - the latest Linux versions.

I read about the release of Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon in January, and decided to install it as an upgrade to Linux Mint 19.3 (Tricia) on my 2012 Core i7 PC.

This PC has been my Linux PC since I replaced it in 2016 with my Alienware 15 R3 that I am still using today with Windows 10 for gaming and demos :-)

I have upgraded the Linux PC from 12.04LTS through to now the latest Linux Mint 20. This machine has 12GB of memory, 3.2Ghz Core i7 CPU (4 Cores), Nvidia Geforce 680GTX and 2x1TB SATA3 hard disks.

I have enjoyed learning a lot about Linux on this machine over the years, and these days it is getting a bit slow and showing it's age. It is one of the reasons why I run Linux Mint rather than Ubuntu on it.

I enjoy my Amiga and PC mod collection under Linux, which I play through Open Cubic Player, Schismtracker and Milkytracker. I have collected this music from my Amiga and DOS 6.22 PC eras in the 1980's and 1990's to the present day.

I used to compose mods myself using Protracker on the Amiga in the 1990's then moved to Impulse Tracker on the PC, and a few years ago I purchased the very excellent Renoise Tracker, and use it under Linux and also MacOS and Windows 10 too. 

Renoise is an excellent product and recommended!

I converted my Impulse Tracker (IT format) modules I wrote to MP3 a number of years ago. Some of these can be listened to on my Soundcloud channel - the link for it is here.

The upgrade broke Steam (Linux), PlayOnLinux, AmiKit XE, and a bunch of games I had installed via Steam (Windows) - frustrating. I should have done a clean install but I spent a lot of time on the setup and didn't want to redo it. Heh, looks like I will have to anyway..

It is now 2021 and my Core i7 PC is 10 years old and showing it's age. I decided rather than rebuild on a fresh image, it was time to move Linux to a new PC and repurpose the Core i7 PC for something else (maybe).

An important consideration for the new PC is that I didn't want to spend too much money on it, but I wanted it to be able to play more modern Linux games and demos using a decent gaming graphics card, which rules out most inexpensive laptops in the market straight away. 

I did a bit of research on this, and decided to buy a Dell Precision 7810 workstation. The reason is because they high end workstations, are less than 5 years old, fully support Ubuntu and Red Hat Linux with Dell supplied Linux images, and are relative inexpensive second hand - around 25% of the original cost of the machines. Also, I have never owned a Workstation style PC before, so why not? :-)

I tracked one down on Ebay and paid $740 including shipping to a local Australian seller for a Dell Precision 7810 with the following specs:

• 2x 6-core Intel Xeon E5-2620 v3 CPUs, for a total of 12 physical cores and 24 logical cores (hyper threaded)
• 32GB memory, 
• SATA controller with RAID 0/1/5/10 support, 1TB SATA Hard drive running Windows 10 Pro for Workstations 64bit.
• Nvidia Quadro K620 2GB graphics card.

This new system has 3 times the number of cores, and almost 3 times the amount of memory of my old Core i7 PC!

The weak link in this new PC setup as supplied is the hard disk (not SSD) and the low end Quadro K620 graphics card. I plan to work on fixing that! Traditionally these systems are used as AutoCAD workstations with the Nvidia Quadro cards the supported cards of choice, and are specced to maximise multi-CPU performance for applications like AutoCAD that support multi-cores optimally.

Switching the Quadro graphics card to a gaming graphics card will make it work better for me, as I am less interested in running professional products like AutoCAD and more interested in Linux applications, demos, and games.

Here is the Dell Precision 7810 workstation after I unboxed it.

This is the rear view. It is interesting to me that this workstation still has a serial port, PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 mouse ports on them. Other modern PC's no longer include these:

Opening up the case it is easy, with a simple quick release mechanism on the side of the system:

Like a server, workstations include lots of instructions inside the case cover on how to upgrade and location of components in the system itself.

Close up shot you can see the PCI-e ports and single PCI port:

You can also see a onboard USB port. This would be for any require Dongles for software, or indeed to use for running VMWare ESXi or other hypervisor from USB without the need for a hard disk.

I had a spare 256GB SSD from an old non-working laptop which I plan to use to load the Linux system onto. The 1TB non-SSD disk included with the system has Windows 10 installed on it.

The intention is the dual boot the system, with Linux as the default. It was at this point I released the system didn't include an additional hard disk drive sled to mount the SSD on, but given it is an sealed SSD unit and not a fixed disk, connecting it directly without the drive sled is not a big deal until I can order an additional drive sled. They are easily obtainable on Ebay or elsewhere.

There are three SATA ports free and available to add additional drives, but the cables for the second hard disk are already there, just not hooked to anything, so I connected them up.

Here is a close up of the Nvidia Quadro K620 video card. This is definitely NOT a gaming card, but it is well supported by Linux. 

The intention is to upgrade it to use my Nvidia Geforce 1080 GTX card I currently use in the Advanced Graphics Amplifier module on my 5 year old Alienware 15 gaming rig when I replace it later this year. This workstation has been upgraded with the higher rated PSU and can run the higher graphics card - the additional power supply plugs needed are there and ready to connect to the new card.

Moving on, I booted the system and took a peek at the boot mode menu - my SSD is picked up, and I see the BIOS is set to Legacy mode boot rather than UEFI boot.

I booted into the Windows 10 setup to begin with, as delivered on the PC. I could see the machine had been imaged and generalised.

I set to work updating the BIOS and other firmware on the PC, and the Windows drivers too of course. I do this first under Windows 10 as the Dell updater software works much easier with Windows than dealing with the Linux way...

Here is the BIOS being upgraded to the latest version, released in late 2020.

With that done, I burned off the Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon ISO to DVD and booted off the DVD into the Live Linux Mint environment. Yes, I know I could have written it to USB, but I wanted to test the DVD drive worked, and pleased to say it worked fine:

Having established that is working, I set to work installing Linux Mint 20.1 onto my 250GB SSD:

For those curious, the Dell wireless keyboard and mouse I am using on the new Linux PC actually came from an older Dell PC my father owned and played his favourite games on for years. He gave it to me in late 2020 after Xmas to use/strip for parts, and it included this keyboard and mouse.

My father tragically passed away from Motor Neuron Disease in late January this year, only six months after being diagnosed with it. It has been a rough few months watching him getting sicker and sicker, and the last few weeks very hard for me and my family. It is nice to focus on something else at the moment.

This Dell keyboard and mouse therefore has some meaning for me as the last thing he gave me, so I will be keeping them. I think of him every time I use it.

Let's get back to the build.

With the install done, I found that the system still booted straight into Windows 10, even though I installed Linux as a dual boot with Windows 10!

I realised I needed to change the boot drive to the 250GB SSD, since it appears Linux installed the GRUB boot loader onto that drive. So, I went into the Precision 7810 BIOS to alter the boot settings:

Now it is changed to use the 250GB SSD first, then the Windows 10 fixed HDD, then DVD and USB boot drives.

 

Now my new Dell Precision 7810 system boots into Linux 20.1 Cinnamon directly, and I could get to work installing software and customising it, which is the fun part :-)

 

 

Here is a close up of the Start menu in Linux Mint. I love the classic layout, unlike the clunky single icon width scrolling menu thingy in Ubuntu 20. I prefer this simple to navigate layout in Linux Mint 20.1.

 

 

You can install a lot of software via Software Manager, which provides a nice uncluttered interface to navigate the many thousands of titles available. 

 

 

 

In addition you can download many other titles across the internet of course. I installed CrossOver, which allows you to run Windows applications under Linux, using Wine, PlayOnLinux, etc ,without needing to do all that pesky configuration for each program you want to install. 

 

CrossOver is a subscription based product, but saving the time needed to research all that stuff just to run MS Office on Linux is worth it in my opinion.

I installed Putty and the Windows version of Steam under Linux as a tester. Works well.

 

 

Having a 4K monitor on this Linux PC gives me a lot of real estate to play with on the screen, that's for sure. My old PC ran 1080p, so having so much space takes some getting used to.

 

 

Since I buy my music normally, I don't have much need for streaming services like Spotify, but I decided to set it up on this Linux PC, just "because I can"...

 

 

As a huge fan of music modules, of course these needed to be on this machine too, and I quickly loaded Schismtracker, Cubic Player and Milkytracker to play them:

 

 

I was pleasantly surprised how fast the Quadro K620 card is - my expectations were quite low.

 

I tried a few games like Freedroid RPG and Neverball, and soon had them running simultaneously at 1080p alongside a video at the same time on this enormous 4K screen! Still have room to spare!

 

LibreOffice is installed by default on Linux Mint 20.1, and as MS Office replacements go, it is quite nice.

 

I can't really play the more demanding games and demos yet, as I need the 1080GTX gfx card in this machine, which will come later this year (hopefully).

In the meantime, I plan to muck around with Retro system emulators like Amiga, C64, DOSBox, MAME and also VirtualBox on this Linux machine, so stay tuned for that!

New Silicon Graphics Octane has arrived!

I finally own a Silicon Graphics system! These machines were so expensive when they were new, but nowadays you can pick them up quite cheaply. I picked up an Octane system from a Australian seller, and I now have it working. Let's take a closer look at this amazing system.

These systems cost a fortune when they were for sale. Seriously.

Back in 1998 these systems were selling for $20,000 for the entry level 225Mhz R10000 model with 128MB memory and 4GB SCSI disk! 

They used a 64bit MIPS R10000/R120000 or R14000 processor which ran a 64bit Irix Unix OS. In 1998! My PC, Mac and Amiga were 16 bit computers at that time.

Higher models like the 250Mhz model sold for $40,000.

Check out this old article from C|Net about it: 

https://www.cnet.com/news/sgi-to-slash-workstation-prices/

Just wow. With those kind of prices (and me bring a Uni student at that time), it was just a fantasy to ever see, let alone own one of these machines.

I remember going to an electronics show in Perth at the time, when they had the Octane and O2 on display running Maya and AutoCAD, and the sales guys were very keen to stop young obviously poor people like me having a go on it. I just looked from a distance and dismissed it as something I would never be able to afford.

Now, in 2020, the world has changed. High end workstations are much cheaper now, running on Intel 64bit hardware. Still 64bit after all these years. Shows how far ahead of the pack SGI was back then. These SGI systems were basically servers in their design philosophy, but as an end-user workstation!

SGI lost it's core customer base in the early 2000's when Maya was ported to much cheaper Intel PC's could no longer compete as they lost their performance advantage as MIPS eventually fell behind. They tried selling 64bit Intel systems (without the amazing MIPS based architecture) but no longer had the advantage over their other competition who sold cheaper systems. They sunk completely back in 2009, HP bought what was left and I believe are no more in 2020.

But the amazing hardware SGI released survives, and fortunately due to it's niche original user base (which is no longer interested in these systems), they are very cheap to buy compared to their original pricing. This one cost AUD$800. Maybe I paid too much, but it is quite a system for the money, and I can finally see what the fuss was all about back then...

It arrived well packaged. It took me a long time to unpack it, which I was very grateful for as the system appeared to survive the trip with no damage. 

The top half of the front case opens on a funky plastic hinge which I can see would be quite fragile. When opened you can see the two external facing slightly taller than normal 3.5 inch bays (I believe the missing cover bay originally used to house an optional SCSI Tape drive for backups), and the power button.

 

I was originally looking for the lower end O2 system, which is kind of the "baby" SGI machine, but it is much slower, and doesn't feature the same amazing internal setup of the Octane.

I could only find them overseas, and the cost was not much different to this Octane (once I negotiated the price) so I went for this.

This system is a R12000 MIPS system running at 400Mhz (Single processor), with 2GB memory (amazing for a machine in 1998), and an EMXI graphics card module installed. This is the highest spec graphics card you can put in the Octane 1. There is a VPro module for the later Octane 2 and the higher end Onyx SGI workstations. That Onyx system used to cost $75,000 and up. Wow, really.

One limitation of the Octane system is the lack of 5.25 bays, which means the CDROM/DVD cannot be mounted internally. I will need to trace a SGI SCSI DVDROM/CDROM external drive to connect to it. This drive needs to be a Toshiba drive for compatibility to the CD format used on SGI OS CD's, which can't apparently be booted from on PC CDROM drives. This is a bit pricey and hard to find too. I actually have a suitable spare Toshiba internal CDROM drive from my Amiga system which should be compatible, but need to track down a suitable external SCSI CDROM case to put it in. 

For now I plan to rely on network connectivity to get software and data from my other systems onto this one.

There are two quick release buttons on the top of the case that then allow you to lower the front case, revealing the internal SCSI SCA connector backplane in the Octane.

There is one SGI 73GB SCSI drive installed in the lower bay using a Drive caddy/sled. Much like servers, these are designed to be easily swappable, but it does mean locating a SGI drive caddy/sled if I want to add additional drives, which I would like to do. I'll keep an eye out for one.

Not sure what the connector at the bottom right is for yet...I don't have a manual unfortunately. 

Here is a closeup of the easily removable SGI drive caddy/sled with the 73GB SCSI disk inside. 

Turning the system around to the back, you can see the very unique SGI 8 port Crossbar switch backplane design. The mainboard, graphics cards and other modules are house in a caddy and connect to one of these ports, and can be completely swapped out easily by pulling the modules out from the rear. The Case itself does not need to be opened. The mainboard has a handle to assist with it given the size of it.

This main motherboard module in the Octane has Digital SPDIF audio ports in/out, RCA ports in/out, Coaxial digital in/out - nice:

The system is made in Switzerland according to the label on the back. How rare is that! 

It also has a external 68 pin SCSI port connector, network port, a port I am not sure what it is for, 2 PS/2 ports for keyboard/mouse and two serial ports at the bottom.

In the middle section is a PCI riser cage, which is an option you can install in the Octane to have PCI cards in it.

On the right side is the EMXI graphics card module, which has a proprietary DB-13W3 Display connector, which I needed to buy an adapter for to output to standard VGA out:

I hate proprietary connectors. Apple love them, and use them to charge whatever they like for converters that should not be necessary. SGI did the same thing with this connector. 

Here is the 13W3 to VGA converter I bought:

I took the PS/2 Compaq keyboard and mouse from my neighbouring 1Ghz Pentium 3 PC to use on the Octane temporarily as below. I have located an original Silicon Graphics keyboard and mouse and they are on their way to me soon!

In the meantime I powered on and the machine rumbles to life. Certainly isn't quiet but not server noisy either.

Welcome to Octane, indeed:

The lights on the front change from POST red to orange and display the initial boot menu:

Close up of the Boot menu:

After booting up and logging into the machine as root, the IRIX 6.5 desktop appears, with the SGI System Manager application, top processes and small console window open and ready for me to run stuff.

My Octane system's configuration:

The Icon Catalog view is nice. Shows the launch icons for various programs, divided into multiple tabs at the bottom which you can easily switch between:

I configured the network settings to get the SGI Octane online. Fortunately the Irix focused websites have carefully continued using older HTML standards so they work with the very old web browsers included with Irix.

I set to work downloading Irix software form the internet to try out on my machine:

I also received a separate SGI Software library CD set containing the full Irix 6.5.21 CD set, which will enable me to re-install the system from CD.

One issue is that I don't have a SCSI CD drive. The intention is to setup the FTP install option which allow you to install the OS on the Silicon Graphics Octane over the network. It needs a specially prepared Ubuntu machine to make this work. I plan to try this when I have another SCSI disk to experiment on.

I tried my first installation, some software called Cosmo Create 1.0.3. To install on Irix, commercial software uses the System Manager, which has a Software manager tool to install software:

I next got the options to install with the setup of Cosmo Create - the install window is great and has all the info you need:

Installation underway:

There is a few license agreements to agree with - here for Adobe Reader 4.0:

Install completed successfully:

Now I can see the program icons in the Icon Catalog window, but it complains on launch that I need to set some parameters to be able to run as root it wasn't immediately obvious how I supposed to do that:

Eventually I worked it out:

Yeah I know, I shouldn't run as root, etc etc. Just wanted to play with it quickly and I haven't setup another user on the machine yet.

I tried to install OpenOffice on the Octane:

Unfortunately it needs GNU tar and some other dependencies, like a number of other games and demos I tried to run...

I will play more with it later - I have run out of time this weekend.

It is really great to finally have an Silicon Graphics Octane system:

As mentioned I will explore this machine in more detail soon. I plan to get another SCSI hard disk and attempt an install from scratch so I can learn how to build one of these machines myself. 

I still have a lot to learn, but that is the best part right of playing with new systems like this, right? :-)