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• How many layers are between my program and the hardware?

  - by sub

  I somehow have the feeling that modern systems, including runtime libraries, this exception handler and that built-in debugger build up more and more layers between my (C++) programs and the CPU/rest of the hardware. I'm thinking of something like this: 1 + 2 OS top layer Runtime library/helper/error handler a hell lot of DLL modules OS kernel layer Do you really want to run 1 + 2?-Windows popup (don't take this serious) OS kernel layer Hardware abstraction Hardware Go through at least 100 miles of circuits Eventually arrive at the CPU ADD 1, 2 Go all the way back to my program Nearly all technical things are simply wrong and in some random order, but you get my point right? How much longer/shorter is this chain when I run a C++ program that calculates 1 + 2 at runtime on Windows? How about when I do this in an interpreter? (Python|Ruby|PHP) Is this chain really as dramatic in reality? Does Windows really try "not to stand in the way"? e.g.: Direct connection my binary < hardware?

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• Robotic Arm &ndash; Hardware

  - by Szymon Kobalczyk

  This is first in series of articles about project I've been building  in my spare time since last Summer. Actually it all began when I was researching a topic of modeling human motion kinematics in order to create gesture recognition library for Kinect. This ties heavily into motion theory of robotic manipulators so I also glanced at some designs of robotic arms. Somehow I stumbled upon this cool looking open source robotic arm: It was featured on Thingiverse and published by user jjshortcut (Jan-Jaap). Since for some time I got hooked on toying with microcontrollers, robots and other electronics, I decided to give it a try and build it myself. In this post I will describe the hardware build of the arm and in later posts I will be writing about the software to control it. Another reason to build the arm myself was the cost factor. Even small commercial robotic arms are quite expensive – products from Lynxmotion and Dagu look great but both cost around USD $300 (actually there is one cheap arm available but it looks more like a toy to me). In comparison this design is quite cheap. It uses seven hobby grade servos and even the cheapest ones should work fine. The structure is build from a set of laser cut parts connected with few metal spacers (15mm and 47mm) and lots of M3 screws. Other than that you’d only need a microcontroller board to drive the servos. So in total it comes a lot cheaper to build it yourself than buy an of the shelf robotic arm. Oh, and if you don’t like this one there are few more robotic arm projects at Thingiverse (including one by oomlout). Laser cut parts Some time ago I’ve build another robot using laser cut parts so I knew the process already. You can grab the design files in both DXF and EPS format from Thingiverse, and there are also 3D models of each part in STL. Actually the design is split into a second project for the mini servo gripper (there is also a standard servo version available but it won’t fit this arm).  I wanted to make some small adjustments, layout, and add measurements to the parts before sending it for cutting. I’ve looked at some free 2D CAD programs, and finally did all this work using QCad 3 Beta with worked great for me (I also tried LibreCAD but it didn’t work that well). All parts are cut from 4 mm thick material. Because I was worried that acrylic is too fragile and might break, I also ordered another set cut from plywood. In the end I build it from plywood because it was easier to glue (I was told acrylic requires a special glue). Btw. I found a great laser cutter service in Kraków and highly recommend it (www.ebbox.com.pl). It cost me only USD $26 for both sets ($16 acrylic + $10 plywood). Metal parts I bought all the M3 screws and nuts at local hardware store. Make sure to look for nylon lock (nyloc) nuts for the gripper because otherwise it unscrews and comes apart quickly. I couldn’t find local store with metal spacers and had to order them online (you’d need 11 x 47mm and 3 x 15mm). I think I paid less than USD $10 for all metal parts. Servos This arm uses five standards size servos to drive the arm itself, and two micro servos are used on the gripper. Author of the project used Modelcraft RS-2 Servo and Modelcraft ES-05 HT Servo. I had two Futaba S3001 servos laying around, and ordered additional TowerPro SG-5010 standard size servos and TowerPro SG90 micro servos. However it turned out that the SG90 won’t fit in the gripper so I had to replace it with a slightly smaller E-Sky EK2-0508 micro servo. Later it also turned out that Futaba servos make some strange noise while working so I swapped one with TowerPro SG-5010 which has higher torque (8kg / cm). I’ve also bought three servo extension cables. All servos cost me USD $45. Assembly The build process is not difficult but you need to think carefully about order of assembling it. You can do the base and upper arm first. Because two servos in the base are close together you need to put first with one piece of lower arm already connected before you put the second servo. Then you connect the upper arm and finally put the second piece of lower arm to hold it together. Gripper and base require some gluing so think it through too. Make sure to look closely at all the photos on Thingiverse (also other people copies) and read additional posts on jjshortcust’s blog: My mini servo grippers and completed robotic arm  Multiply the robotic arm and electronics Here is also Rob’s copy cut from aluminum My assembled arm looks like this – I think it turned out really nice: Servo controller board The last piece of hardware I needed was an electronic board that would take command from PC and drive all seven servos. I could probably use Arduino for this task, and in fact there are several Arduino servo shields available (for example from Adafruit or Renbotics).  However one problem is that most support only up to six servos, and second that their accuracy is limited by Arduino’s timer frequency. So instead I looked for dedicated servo controller and found a series of Maestro boards from Pololu. I picked the Pololu Mini Maestro 12-Channel USB Servo Controller. It has many nice features including native USB connection, high resolution pulses (0.25µs) with no jitter, built-in speed and acceleration control, and even scripting capability. Another cool feature is that besides servo control, each channel can be configured as either general input or output. So far I’m using seven channels so I still have five available to connect some sensors (for example distance sensor mounted on gripper might be useful). And last but important factor was that they have SDK in .NET – what more I could wish for! The board itself is very small – half of the size of Tic-Tac box. I picked one for about USD $35 in this store. Perhaps another good alternative would be the Phidgets Advanced Servo 8-Motor – but it is significantly more expensive at USD $87.30. The Maestro Controller Driver and Software package includes Maestro Control Center program with lets you immediately configure the board. For each servo I first figured out their move range and set the min/max limits. I played with setting the speed an acceleration values as well. Big issue for me was that there are two servos that control position of lower arm (shoulder joint), and both have to be moved at the same time. This is where the scripting feature of Pololu board turned out very helpful. I wrote a script that synchronizes position of second servo with first one – so now I only need to move one servo and other will follow automatically. This turned out tricky because I couldn’t find simple offset mapping of the move range for each servo – I had to divide it into several sub-ranges and map each individually. The scripting language is bit assembler-like but gets the job done. And there is even a runtime debugging and stack view available. Altogether I’m very happy with the Pololu Mini Maestro Servo Controller, and with this final piece I completed the build and was able to move my arm from the Meastro Control program.   The total cost of my robotic arm was: $10 laser cut parts $10 metal parts $45 servos $35 servo controller ----------------------- $100 total So here you have all the information about the hardware. In next post I’ll start talking about the software that I wrote in Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4. Stay tuned!

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• How to diagnose and fix Kernel Panic Fatal Machine Check error?

  - by 0x4a6f4672

  I have got a new Samsung Series 7 laptop with dual boot setup for Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.10. A fine machine comparable to a Macbook Pro. The Ubuntu installation was quite a hassle, but with the help of Boot Repair finally it seemed to work. Or so I thought. Windows 8 starts fine, but if I want to start Ubuntu regularly the following Machine Check Exception error occurs, quite similar to this one [Hardware Error] CPU 1: Machine Check Exception: 5 Bank 6 [Hardware Error] RIP !inexact! 33 <00007fab2074598a> [Hardware Error] TSC 95b623464c ADDR fe400 MISC 3880000086 .. [similar messages for CPU 2,3 and 0] .. [Hardware Error] Machine Check: Processor context corrupt Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal Machine Check Rebooting in 30 seconds Kernel panic does not sound good. Then it starts to reboot, and the second boot trial often works. Is it a Kernel or driver problem? The laptop has an Intel Core i7 processor. I already deactivated Hyperthreading in the BIOS, but it does not seem to help :-( I also disabled the Execute Disable Bit (EDB) flag in the BIOS. EDB is an Intel hardware-based security feature that can help reduce system exposure to viruses and malicious code. Since I disabled it, the error did occur less frequently, but it still appears occasionally :-( It seems to be the same error as described here and here. Maybe a Samsung specific Kernel problem? A similar error also happens on a Samsung Ultrabook Series 9 (which seems to be kernel bugs 49161 and 47121). At my Samsung Series 7, it still occurs for instance during booting on battery after "Checking battery state". Perhaps anyone else has an idea? These Kernel Panic errors are reallly annoying..

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• Kernel Panic Fatal Machine Check

  - by 0x4a6f4672

  I have got a new Samsung Series 7 laptop with dual boot setup for Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.10. The Ubuntu installation was quite a hassle, but with the help of Boot Repair finally it seemed to work. Or so I thought. Windows 8 starts fine, but if I want to start Ubuntu regularly the following error occurs, quite similar to this one [Hardware Error] CPU 1: Machine Check Exception: 5 Bank 6 [Hardware Error] RIP !inexact! 33 <00007fab2074598a> [Hardware Error] TSC 95b623464c ADDR fe400 MISC 3880000086 .. [similar messages for CPU 2,3 and 0] .. [Hardware Error] Machine Check: Processor context corrupt Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal Machine Check Rebooting in 30 seconds Kernel panic does not sound good. Then it starts to reboot, and the second boot trial often works. Is it a Kernel or driver problem? The laptop has an Intel Core i7 processor. I already deactivated Hyperthreading in the BIOS, but it does not seem to help :-(

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• When should I decline to make a requested change?

  - by reuscam

  I work on the software side of a company that provides custom hardware with software running on top of it. Often times the hardware is not engineered well. In those cases, I am often asked first to troubleshoot the problem - of course the symptom is always "your software crashed" or something along those lines. Just recently we had another one of these incidents where power on a USB line is not reliable, and it causes a USB device to fail. This causes a usability problem in one of our applications. I have been asked by upper management to handle this better - continually monitor the USB device, and if it disappears, then reboot, or try to reset it. Doing either of these is not guaranteed to fix anything. Ultimately, the real fix is to correct the reliability of the device from the hardware side. I could improve performance, but not to 100%, and of course I would be using my already limited time to bloat code and add yet another device monitoring thread. So with all that said, how do I make a good decision about when to say that this needs to be a hardware fix, and only a hardware fix? Can I approach this quantitatively, and come up with some sort of definitive yes/no test? I'm sure its not that easy.

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• Software RAID to hardware RAID, can it be done?

  - by gtaylor85

  Can it be done ... well. (For the record, I did not set this server up.) In my server there are 4 disks. 3 of them are in a software RAID5, and 1 has the OS installed. I want to buy a RAID controller, 4 new HDs and set up a hardware RAID5. If possible, I'd like to just image the current setup, and use it to build my new one. My questions are: Can I image a 3 disk RAID5 to 4 disk RAID5? Are there problems with this? What is considered best practice for your OS. To have it on a separate disk like it currently is, or to install it on the RAID5? Thank you. I can clarify anything. I'm not sure what other info might be pertinent.

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• How to figure out if hardware is slower than it should be?

  - by paldepind

  I'm pretty sure that my computer is slower than it should be and it has been that since a got it. For instance it lags a lot in Counter Strike Source. And yes I've installed all the newest drivers. And it doesn't matter what OS I uses. I've tried both Windows, Linux and FreeBSD and it's slow in all of them. So what could this be? Is there something wrong with the hardware? And if, then what could it be?

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• IIS - Script for repeated hacks on a website

  - by dodegaard

  I currently have a site that is armored by ELMAH as its reporting mechanism. Each time someone hits a URL that is incorrect it notifies me or logs to the system. This is annoying for someone fat-fingering the URL with a misspelling but great when a hacker is trying to crack a site of mine. Has anyone ever written a script for IIS 7 on Win 2K8 that blocks an IP based on repeated attempts to hit a website? I've looked at Snort and other IDS systems but if I could get a script that could be linked to my ELMAH system it might be the perfect thing. PowerScript, etc. is what I was thinking. Hints and recommendations are wonderful and if you think a true intrusion detection system is recommended give me your ideas. Thanks in advance.

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• How do I configure hardware raid in a Poweredge 2850?

  - by Eric Fossum

  I just bought a Dell Poweredge 2850 from Craigslist and for the most part I'm happy with it's $300 price-tag, but I cannot figure out where to configure the embedded hardware raid... I've seen online you should hit <CTRL-M>, but while booting my box never says that. I have <CTRL-A> (I think) for an LSI Logic config, but that seems to just program SCSI and verify drives on my SCSI-A and SCSI-B. Anyone have a clue where this RAID config is?

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• Recommendation for hardware upgrade: thin clients? Or...?

  - by Alex C.

  I work for an animal shelter in Upstate New York. We have about 50 machines running XP Pro. They're connected to a Windows network with a domain. About half of these computers are used for nothing more than using two web-based apps -- one to keep track of our animals, the other to process credit cards. Having a full-blown desktop PC seems like overkill for this purpose. The PCs are three-to-five years old, and I'd like to come up with a plan to upgrade the hardware. Our donations are down (not surprising, given the economy), so cost is a big factor. Can people recommend some options? Some sort of thin client, maybe?

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• Partner WebCasts: EMEA Alliances and Channels Hardware Webinars, July 2012

  - by rituchhibber

  Dear partner Oracle is pleased to invite you to the following webcasts dedicated to our EMEA partner community and designed to provide you with important news on our SPARC and Storage product portfolios. Please ensure you don't miss these unique learning opportunities! 1. How to Make Money Selling SPARC! 3PM CET (2pm UKT), Tuesday, July 10, 2012 The webcast will be hosted by - Rob Ludeman, from SPARC Product Management, and Thomas Ressler, WWA&C Alliances Consultant. Agenda: To bring our partners timely, valuable information, focused on increase in their success during selling SPARC systems. The webcast will be focused and targeted on specific topics and will last approximately in 30 minutes.You can submit your questions via WebEx chat and there will be a live Q&A session at the end of the webcast. REGISTER NOW 2. Introduction to Oracle’s New StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library 3pm CET (2pm UK), Thursday, July 12, 2012 This webcast will help you to understand Oracle's New StorageTek SL150 Modular tape library which is the first scalable tape library designed for small and midsized companies that are experiencing high growth. Built from Oracle software and StorageTek library technology, it delivers a cost-effective combination of ease of use and scalability, resulting in overall TCO savings. During the webcast Cindy McCurley, from Tape Product Management will introduce you to the latest addition to the Oracle Tape Storage product portfolio, the SL150 Modular Tape Library. This 60 minutes webcast will cover the product’s features, positioning, unique selling points and a competitive overview on StorageTek. You can submit your questions via WebEx chat and there will be a live Q&A session at the end of the webcast. REGISTER NOW Delivery Format This FREE online LIVE eSeminar will be delivered over the Web and Conference Call. Note: Please join the call 10 minutes before the scheduled start time. We look forward to your participation. Best regards, Giuseppe Facchetti EMEA Partner Business Development Manager, Oracle Hardware Sales Sasan Moaveni EMEA Storage Sales Manager, Oracle Hardware Sales

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• Oracle Key Vault - Hardware Security Modul für TDE und mehr

  - by Heinz-Wilhelm Fabry (DBA Community)

  Anfang August hat Oracle ein neues Produkt namens Oracle Key Vault (OKV) zum Einsatz freigegeben. Es handelt sich dabei um ein Hardware Security Modul (HSM) - also um ein Stück Hardware zum Speichern von Schlüsseln, Passwörtern und Dateien, die Schlüssel und Passwörter enthalten. Oracle Datenbank Installationen nutzen die zuletzt genannte Form des Speicherns von Passwörtern und Schlüsseln in Dateien für Oracle Advanced Security Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) und external password stores. Die Dateien werden in den Versionen 10 und 11 der Datenbank als Wallets bezeichnet, in der Version 12 als Keystores. Allerdings gibt es auch schon seit der Datenbankversion 11.2 beim Einsatz von TDE die Möglichkeit, statt der Wallets / Keystores HSMs einzusetzen. Da Oracle selbst kein eigenes HSM Produkt anbieten konnte, haben Unternehmenskunden dann auf Produkte anderer Anbieter zurückgegriffen. Das kann sich mit OKV nun ändern. Abhängig vom Bedrohungsszenario kann die Entscheidung gegen den Einsatz von Wallets / Keystores und für den Einsatz eines HSMs durchaus sinnvoll sein, denn ein HSM bietet mehr Sicherheit: Eine Betriebssystemdatei kann leichter gestohlen (kopiert) werden, als ein HSM, das in der Regel als speziell gesicherte Steckkarte in einem Rechner eingebaut ist oder als eigenes Gerät geschützt in einem Rechenzentrum steht. ein HSM kann anders als ein Wallet / Keystore systemübergreifend verwendet werden. Das erlaubt eine gemeinsame Nutzung von Schlüsseln - was wiederum zum Beispiel den Einsatz von TDE auf RAC Installationen perfekt unterstützt. ein HSM kann von mehreren Anwendungen genutzt werden. Das erleichtert das Konsolidieren und Verwalten von Passwörtern und Schlüsseln. Im aktuellen Tipp wird als Einführung in das neue Produkt dargestellt, wie OKV für TDE genutzt werden kann.

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• ATI Catalyst driver 12.8 is not using hardware acceleration on Precise

  - by Jack Wright

  I've been using Ubuntu and ATI Catalyst for years. On my clean install of Ubuntu 12.04 I've noticed that Catalyst 12.6 and then 12.8 are not actually using my HD5750 GPU for hardware acceleration - high CPU usage, zero GPU load. Everything installed correctly with no hassles, fglrxinfo and vainfo are correct as per this HowTo for Precise. I have an Ubuntu 10.04 with Catalyst 12.6 installation on the same hardware which does use the GPU - low CPU usage, high GPU load when transcodeing video files or playing video content. The VA-API drivers are not installed on the 10.04 build. They are not mentioned in this HowTo for Lucid. fgl_glxgears frame rates on Precise are a fifth of the rates on Lucid. LUCID jw@Kworld:~$ fgl_glxgears Using GLX_SGIX_pbuffer 16867 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3373.400 FPS 12523 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2504.600 FPS 13763 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2752.600 FPS PRECISE jw@NewWorld12:~$ fgl_glxgears Using GLX_SGIX_pbuffer 12905 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2581.000 FPS 3230 frames in 5.0 seconds = 646.000 FPS 517 frames in 5.0 seconds = 103.400 FPS 518 frames in 5.0 seconds = 103.600 FPS 6489 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1297.800 FPS This is glxgears running in fullscreen. In Lucid (10.04) I can't see the gears, they are spinning so fast, but in Precise (12.04) they are really sluggish. Has anyone else noticed a problem like this? Cheers, Jack.

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• Threading models when talking to hardware devices

  - by Fuzz

  When writing an interface to hardware over a communication bus, communications timing can sometimes be critical to the operation of a device. As such, it is common for developers to spin up new threads to handle communications. It can also be a terrible idea to have a whole bunch of threads in your system, an in the case that you have multiple hardware devices you may have many many threads that are out of control of the main application. Certainly it can be common to have two threads per device, one for reading and one for writing. I am trying to determine the pros and cons of the two different models I can think of, and would love the help of the Programmers community. Each device instance gets handles it's own threads (or shares a thread for a communication device). A thread may exist for writing, and one for reading. Requested writes to a device from the API are buffered and worked on by the writer thread. The read thread exists in the case of blocking communications, and uses call backs to pass read data to the application. Timing of communications can be handled by the communications thread. Devices aren't given their own threads. Instead read and write requests are queued/buffered. The application then calls a "DoWork" function on the interface and allows all read and writes to take place and fire their callbacks. Timing is handled by the application, and the driver can request to be called at a given specific frequency. Pros for Item 1 include finer grain control of timing at the communication level at the expense of having control of whats going on at the higher level application level (which for a real time system, can be terrible). Pros for Item 2 include better control over the timing of the entire system for the application, at the expense of allowing each driver to handle it's own business. If anyone has experience with these scenarios, I'd love to hear some ideas on the approaches used.

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• How do I know what hardware to buy to meet my needs?

  - by Darth Android

  While Stack Exchange does not permit shopping recommendations, it doesn't provide any general advice to consider when buying hardware. So, instead of just telling those that ask what to buy that it's not allowed, let's tell them how to figure out what they need. When looking forward to build a computer, how do I know what to buy? How do I find out if a given CPU will be enough for a certain game or application that I want to run? How do I find out if a given graphics card will be enough for a certain game or application? What is important when looking at motherboards? How much memory do I need? How do I know how much wattage I need for a power supply? What size case do I need? What relevant standards do I need to read up on and be aware of? PCI, PCIe, SATA, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, etc... What "gotchas" do I need to be on the lookout for? Please keep responses generation-agnostic to ensure they will be helpful to our future users. :)

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• PC power supply & normal range for voltages reported in BIOS hardware monitor?

  - by Chris W. Rea

  I'm trying to diagnose whether my computer has an ample power supply. Sometimes when I play a video-intensive game, both monitors lose the video signal, even though the computer remains on and sound playing. A theory I have is: the video card isn't getting sufficient power. I can't imagine it's overheating because the machine is well-ventilated and the video card isn't hot to touch when this happens. Anyway, in my PC's BIOS there's a Hardware Monitor page, and among other voltages reported (such as CPU, DRAM, South Bridge, etc.) I can see the following values: 3.3V 3.152V 5V 4.944V 12V 11.872V Are those the voltages used by peripherals? What voltage should I be referencing if I want to know what my video card (PCI Express) is consuming? What is the normal range of values reported for those? My values above appear to be under by approximately 4.5%, 1.1%, and 1.1% respectively. Is that cause for concern? How else should I be determining if my power supply is "right-sized" for my PC and video card, or am I perhaps barking up the wrong tree?

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• Important hardware components to avoid bottlenecks/improve speed on a laptop?

  - by joelhaus

  Looking for a powerful general use (including web development) laptop running Windows. Price points seem to be all over the place. Many less powerful machines are priced much higher than machines with better specs. How does one navigate this market? Are there any unpublished/under-publicized specs/bottlenecks you look for? Understanding that hardware improves over time, is there an efficient ratio that can be used (or something similar, like Windows Experience Index?) which will indicate how powerful a system is? Thanks in advance! P.S. Here is an example from a laptop released on September 17, 2010. Can anyone pick apart these specs? Is there missing information you would be looking for? OS: Win 7 Display: 16.4" LED backlit Processor: Intel Core i7-740QM, 6MB L3 Cache RAM: 6GB DDR3 1333MHz (8GB max.) Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M (1 GB of dedicated DDR3) HDD: 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive Removable Disc: Blue-ray with DVD±R/RW Misc: webcam/mic/speakers/bluetooth (via Sony Vaio VPC-F137FX/B)

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• What hardware would I need (approx) to run ESXi server?

  - by mr.b

  Hi, I am considering to purchase off-the-shelf commodity hardware in order to build server that will host virtual machines using ESXi server. Intended purpose for this server is NOT mission critical tasks. It will have to run perhaps 20-50 Windows XP/Vista/7 virtual machines (in total, but closer to 20 figure). Each guest would have to have 1-2 GB of ram, and probably two-three times more disk space than guest OS needs with clean install and all updates applied (that would be around 6-8 GB for XP, and i believe closer to 10-15 for win7). Those guests will act as a test ground for a new product that is network management software, thus guests will idle most of their time once initially loaded, but if I give them some task to complete, they should be able to perform reasonably well. Now, from what I have learned... CPU is usually not much of an issue (6 cores would do it), memory should not be lacking, but doesn't have to be sum of all guests, because of overcommitment... That leads me to IO, which is, as it seems, the bottleneck. Since I have very little experience with ESXi (and ESX, too) server, I'd like to ask: How much memory could I save by overcommitment, and how does it affect performance? Is 6-core cpu enough to run above described system? Would it be possible to run entire server off two (or even one) SSD drives (to host system virtual disks, with few additional HDDs (2-3) in RAID 0 to be used as secondary storage? I read somewhere that ESXi allows having something like "master image", essentially virtual machine that is "deployed" many times, so that disk space can be saved by having only differences stored by specific guests, instead of copying around whole virtual disks. Is this true, and how can this help me? Are there any other things I need to take into consideration when building this off-the-shelf solution? I should probably mention here that I'm fully aware of issues like SPOF regarding power supply, raid 0, etc, but since it's only a testing ground and not a production system, it's not so important for me. Thanks, B.

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• When buying hardware, what sites do you trust for information? [closed]

  - by Matt Dawdy

  I won't ask "what laptop should I buy" since the information is likely to change very quickly. However, I am about to buy a laptop, and I honestly don't know where to begin researching this based on my needs. I am hoping that asking about specific sites that do reviews/recommendations that this will still be on topic. I read the 6 guidelines for subjective questions and believe that this question scores favorably. I'm starting a new job in a few weeks, and they want to know what specific laptop to purchase. I'd like to get the most for their money and get a machine that will not need to be replaced in a year. When looking at a site like Dell, it's hard to get a full picture of the performance of a laptop. Does it work with a docking station, and if so, what kinds of video outs are on it? Will it work well when compiling several large projects in .Net? Has anyone had any issues with the machine getting flaky when dragging it from work to home and back all the time? etc. So, if people would enter in their preferred sites they use when researching hardware, and why they prefer that site (x is great for laptop comparisons, y is great for gaming machine reviews, etc) the I hope that this can be a question with valuable answers to others than just myself.

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• Is anyone else using OpenBSD as a router in the enterprise? What hardware are you running it on?

  - by Kamil Kisiel

  We have an OpenBSD router at each of our locations, currently running on generic "homebrew" PC hardware in a 4U server case. Due to reliability concerns and space considerations we're looking at upgrading them to some proper server-grade hardware with support etc. These boxes serve as the routers, gateways, and firewalls at each site. At this point we're quite familiar with OpenBSD and Pf, so hesitant at moving away from the system to something else such as dedicated Cisco hardware. I'm currently thinking of moving the systems to some HP DL-series 1U machines (model yet to be determined). I'm curious to hear if other people use a setup like this in their business, or have migrated to or away from one.

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• XP Mode (Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7) no longer requires hardware virtualisation - hurrah !

  - by Liam Westley

  Windows Virtual PC (aka XP Mode) When XP Mode was released, it insisted on hardware virtualisation being present on your CPU and enabled in the BIOS.  Given that Windows Virtual PC was based on an improved Virtual PC 2007, which provided hardware virtualisation as a user selectable option, I did wonder why on earth Microsoft thought this was a good idea.  Not only do many people not have a CPU with hardware virtualisation support, some manufacturers don't provide a BIOS option to enable this setting, especially on laptops - yes Sony, Toshiba and Acer, I'm looking at you. Dumb and dumber This issue became a double whammy; not only was Microsoft a bit dumb on not supporting Windows Virtual PC without hardware virtualisation, your hardware manufacturer was also dumb in not supporting the option in the BIOS. Microsoft update to Windows Virtual PC Belatedly, Microsoft has seen the problem with this hardware virtualisation requirement and has now released a new version of Windows Virtual PC that works without hardware virtualisation.  This is really good news for those with older (or limited) CPUs and rubbish BIOS firmware. You can details of how to download the new versions of XP Mode here, http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2010/03/18/windows-virtual-pc-no-hardware-virtualization-update-now-available-for-download.aspx And there is also an explanation of why the hardware virtualisation requirement was in place for previous releases, http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2010/03/18/windows-virtual-pc-now-without-the-need-for-hardware-virtualization.aspx

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• How can I troubleshoot flash player/hardware conflict?

  - by sparthikas

  OBJECTIVE: Have a web browser on my Ubuntu install that can play youtube and hulu videos. Also would like to understand problem so that I can fix it again if I change software. Workarounds welcome, technical understanding and solution preferable. SYMPTOMS: Flash does not run - cannot make the right-click menu appear, an empty box is where video should be, changes to black box when hovering over other links. The "The Adobe Flash plugin has crashed" message does not appear with its sad lego face. cannot activate proprietary graphics driver - causes system to reboot to a prompt. SOLUTIONS TRIED: Replaced OS (tried slackware 13.37, fedora 17, linuxmint 13 maya, gentoo, lubuntu, and even winXP. lubuntu confirmed to work, don't remember how much tweaking, if any, this required. Slack, fedora, mint, and gentoo all failed to run flash just like ubuntu) many reinstalls of flash player via different methods, including cleaning up old installs first, also tried gnash and lightspark. replaced graphics card (replaced HIS IceQ Radeon HD 4670 AGP with older GeForce 5700 LE no change in problem) flash does successfully work on winXP installation with Catalyst AGP hotfix driver applied, however I consider windows wholly unacceptable for web browsing due to lack of security. Lubuntu install also works, however I do not want to be tied down to just using Lubuntu on this computer. SYSINFO: Have latest versions of Ubuntu, Firefox, and Flash on fresh Ubuntu install. Using Gigabyte 7s748 motherboard with Athlon XP 2800+ and 3 GB of RAM with Radeon HD 4670 AGP card, also a Dell soundblaster live series sound card (due to malfunction of onboard sound on motherboard) Wired internet connection, Maxtor 6Y120L3 HDD, Sony DVD RW AW-Q170A, Dell M993s monitor. NOTES: I do not know if the graphics driver issue and the flash troubles are linked. Substitution of older graphics card having same flash troubles seems to suggest they aren't. My troubleshooting method is rather reductionist, consisting mainly of "replace things until you find out what was causing the error by process of elimination" only it seems that this must be a conflict which arises when software decides how to configure itself on my hardware. That is, I know the hardware can run Flash, and I know that on other systems the same software can too, but somehow the combination fails. Consequently I feel out of my depth. I will keep trying things off and on, but I have spent probably about 30 man-hours in the last 4 months working on this problem with no joy other than the lubuntu workaround. Any help will be appreciated, I will be checking back and posting updates. Any pertinent questions regarding me or my computer will be answered, outputs from config files can be accessed and posted (IDK which ones or what parts to post).

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• Virtual PC and hardware-assisted virtualization (VT-x) problem

  - by Vesa Huovi

  I've installed Microsoft's Virtual PC on Windows 7, but when I try to start a virtual machine I get the following error message: '<Virtual machine name' could not be started because hardware-assisted virtualization is disabled. Please enable hardware virtualization in the BIOS settings and try again. If hardware virtualization settings is already enabled, you may have to disable Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) setting in BIOS or update the system BIOS. However, if I download and run the Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool, it gives the following positive message: This computer is configured with hardware-assisted virtualization. This computer meets the processor requirements to run Windows Virtual PC. If this computer runs a supported edition of Windows® 7, you can install Windows Virtual PC. I've also used the MSR Walker in the third-party utility CrystalCPUID to examine MSR 0x3a on both processors on my system, and it's 0x5 (0x4 = VT enabled, 0x1 = VT lock), as expected. Does anyone have any ideas of what else to check? Thanks.

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• Cool Linux keyboard, X86 hardware ultimate geek sound machine

  <b>Handle With Linux:</b> "A keyboard running Linux on common hardware, at least the operating system. This is really a very Cool device."

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• REGISTER NOW! Oracle Hardware Sales Training: Hardware and Software - Engineered to Be Sold Together

  - by Cinzia Mascanzoni

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} You can now register for Oracle’s EMEA Hardware Sales Training Roadshow: "Hardware and Software - Engineered to be Sold Together!" The objective of this one-day, face-to-face, free of charge training session is to share with you and your Oracle peers the latest information on Oracle’s products and solutions and to ensure that you are fully equipped to position and sell Oracle’s integrated stack. Please find agenda, schedule, details and registration information here. The EMEA Hardware Sales Training Roadshow is intended for Oracle Partners and Oracle Sales working together. Limited seats are available on a first-come-first-serve basis, so kindly register as early as possible to reserve your seat.

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