Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Recommended PC?

[Eric Blossom]

On Fri, Aug 18, 2006 at 04:57:47PM -0700, Bob Collins wrote:
> I am just starting out with Gnu Radio and want to purchase and/or
> build a PC that will cause me the fewest extraneous problems. I figure
> that those of you using Gnu Radio may have opinions on the matter but
> I was unable to find anything in the archives.
>
> For the RF-IF, I plan on getting Matt Ettus's USRP. (By the way, I
> design with FPGAs.)

Good, we can use more of those ;)

> Now for the questions:
> 
> 1) Laptop or Desktop: I would prefer to use a laptop but not if it
> adds to the pain.

I use both.  For traveling, demos, etc I run on my laptop.  I have two
that I'm very happy with: An older IBM X31 (1.4 GHz Pentium M) and a
newer Lenovo (nee IBM) X60 (a 1.8 GHz Core Duo).  I've got 2GB of RAM
in the X60.  I'm running Mandriva on the X31, SuSE on the X60.

Regarding desktops, I use a dual Opteron 248 running SuSE, but also
have a P4 and a dual Athlon that I test on sometimes.

> 2) Processor: 32bit or 64bit, AMD or Intel --- any land mines here?
> The FAQ talks about speed (1 to 2+ GHz); is this outdated?

I love the 64-bit AMD's.  Very fast, twice as many registers, support
the underdog that's building better processors, etc.  I haven't yet
tested on one of the EM64T's.  The 3 GHz P4's also fly.  The only way
to go wrong is to get one with a crippled cache.  Do _not_ get a
Celeron!

> 3) USB interface: to minimize the bottleneck, the motherboard or USB
> PCI card must not constrain the bandwidth further.

Pretty much all of the builtin USB controllers I've seen lately work
fine. 

> 4) Linux distribution: I am currently using Ubuntu but is another
> choice going to cause fewer problems?

Ubuntu is perfect.  There are lots of satisfied users on the list.

> 5) Anything else I missed?

Don't think so.  Regarding speed, I generally buy the fastest thing
available that's just below the knee in the curve where the pricing
goes nuts.

> Thanks,
> 
> -- 
> Bob Collins
> Sunnyvale CA USA

Eric