Will mint run with 2 Xeon processors

[lsemmens]

I was looking at a local auction house for a replacement laptop and noticed that they are offering some servers with twin Xeon E5620 Quad Core processors and 24Gb Ram. I'm half considering purchasing one as my media server. Could I use it as a normal PC? Any tricks/traps for the unwary user?

[silvatech]

Kernel definitely has the drivers to run those processors. While my servers are under centos. Where can get into issues with it even in windows is on any video you may need. As well most time those servers are designed for running servers and not anything to do with displaying much at all.

[catweazel]

I was looking at a local auction house for a replacement laptop and noticed that they are offering some servers with twin Xeon E5620 Quad Core processors and 24Gb Ram. I'm half considering purchasing one as my media server. Could I use it as a normal PC? Any tricks/traps for the unwary user?

It will run sweetly and it will be very, very fast. You may need to drive some Ramset "TruBolt Xtrem" seismic-certified, torque-controlled expansion anchors into 2 foot thick concrete and chain it down.

Beware of the form factor. If they're rack-mountable then you might not be able to get connectors to hook the thing up.

[lsemmens]

Thanks folks, sounds promising. Because I have NO experience with anything other than laptops and desktops is the motherboard usually capable of handling normal expansion cards. i.e. Video cards or other expansion cards?? Obviously I cannot be more specific until I actually bid on one. I'm just trying to decide if it's worth my effort, They are not rack mount so that may be a plus.

[catweazel]

Thanks folks, sounds promising. Because I have NO experience with anything other than laptops and desktops is the motherboard usually capable of handling normal expansion cards. i.e. Video cards or other expansion cards?? Obviously I cannot be more specific until I actually bid on one. I'm just trying to decide if it's worth my effort, They are not rack mount so that may be a plus.

If it's a tower then it should be fine. A rack mount might be a waste of money.

[sdibaja]

I was looking at a local auction house for a replacement laptop and noticed that they are offering some servers with twin Xeon E5620 Quad Core processors and 24Gb Ram. I'm half considering purchasing one as my media server. Could I use it as a normal PC? Any tricks/traps for the unwary user?

Yes. It should be fine. These $10,000 machines come off lease and are sold at super bargain prices.

I have a HP z620 that runs any distro that I have run across.

I have tried Arch, Windows, Mint, Ubuntu, Mint, Gentoo, Debian, CentOS, FreeBSD, etc... I have had No glitches that are not apparent in other hardware. Some distros are funky/buggy no mater what machine they are installed on.



having multiple disk bays, tool-less, is a huge advantage.
The only drawback is power consumption, and the heat it creates... so it gets suspended when not in use.

[lsemmens]

Thanks, if they go for a song, I'll be the one singing! I hope.

[all41]

I had one of these workstations.

The shock was actually seeing it in person after unpacking---huge.
Even after reading the specs the dimensions didn't really sink in.
Also somewhat noisy.
Mine also had 24gb ram (6x4). It ran Quiana (at the time) very well.

[WharfRat]

I inherited an old dell Precision 490 workstation with two Xeon processors and and all Linux derivatives worked just fine

[all41]

I inherited an old dell Precision 490 workstation with two Xeon processors and and all Linux derivatives worked just fine

I couldn't remember the model number untill you mentioned it--but yes--I had a 490 as well.
I have single Xeon workstations performing equally well when using as a PC.