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Built new MiniPC. Load CentOS 7.1 or Fedora 22

Crashdamage

Crashdamage

Android Expert
Finally decided it's time to replace my ancient workstation. No more tower with 2-3 HDs spinning, this time I got a Shuttle barebones MiniPC, actually a model intended for commercial use. Stuffed with Intel, a Samsung 500GB SSD and 16GB RAM it will pack a good punch for a book-size box.

Parts are on the way. So I've gotta decide - CentOS 7.1 or Fedora 22? I like both, but don't want to load both. I used CentOS 4 + 5 long ago, then went to Fedora 15 and have stayed with it. I'm on Fedora 20 now.

Part of me says "Go for ultimate stability and long-term support! Through freakin' 2024!". Hmmm...I do plan on using the little bugger for a long time.

But another little voice is saying "Remember how you missed not getting the latest and greatest stuff?". Well, yeah, I did get kinda tired of manually updating software.

Decisions, decisions...
 
Don't know if you've made your decision yet, but I'm a big CentOS fan for servers. Not so much for desktops, though.
 
If it was going to be used for a server it would be CentOS, no question. I'd just do a minimal headless install and it would hum along doing it's job for years.

But this little Shuttle box is my new desktop replacement. I don't do games or heavy video processing so it will be powerful enough. And since I don't do much of that stuff, Fedora's edge in that sort of software didn't really give it an edge.

It got down to asking myself if I really wanted to deal with the hassles CentOS throws at ya trying to use it for a daily driver desktop. Old libraries causing software to require manual update gyrations, no GUI package manager (I'm getting old and lazy), etc.

In the end, I've decided to stay with Fedora instead of going back to CentOS. The long-term support just didn't outweigh the disadvantages. Fedora has been pretty good to me. I just wish it had longer support.
 
Decision made to stay with Fedora, now I've gotta decide: Swap or no swap?

As I said earlier I'm building a new Shuttle MiniPC that will have Fedora 22, 16GB RAM and a Samsung 500GB mSata SSD.

I keep hearing about how swap space and heavy read/writes are bad for SSDs and how swap should be moved to a HDD or skip swap altogether to prolong SSD life. No HDD so that's out. But with 16GB RAM I'm seriously thinking going no swap.

I'm also thinking I'll move Firefox's cache to RAM to reduce read/writes. I think with 16GB loaded there's enough the little bugger still won't run out of RAM and start killing processes.

Partitions in a no-swap scheme will be like this or close to it:

500GB SSD
Primary partition
/boot = 1GB
Extended partitions:
/var = 20GB
/ = 50GB
/home = 400GB (approx)
Unassigned = 30-40GB (approx)

Again, if I'm crazy I'd appreciate knowing why before I do this in the next few days.
 
I just read an article about reliability of SSD's in the data center. My take on the whole thing is that while intensive read/writes will degrade SSD's faster than a spinning platter, at the workstation level, you're probably not going to see much variation either way. The benefits of the SSD far outweigh the risk, and as long as you keep your data backed up, you should be fine,
 
But do you think going with no swap and moving Firefox's cache to RAM is a mistake? I'm not going to be doing RAM-intensive stuff like video editing so I'm thinking it should be fine. But I don't want to get everything loaded and find it's running out of RAM and having to start killing processes.

I guess the only way to know for sure is build the dang thing and see what happens.
 
Honestly, with 16 GB or RAM and a decent SSD i don't think you'll see a difference between a swap partition and handling swap in RAM, unless you are running huge database applications (Like you would on an enterprise server). Even if you do see a degradation with RAM based swap, how hard would it be to bum the RAM to 24 or 32 GB?
 
The more I think about it the more I think going no swap and moving Firefox's cache to RAM is the way to go. For my relatively simple use I think the 16GB RAM is enough to keep it out of trouble. But 24-32GB RAM is not an option. 16GB maxes out the little Shuttle.

Backup is my middle name. I keep multiple backups of everything, in multiple locations both local and cloud. I have backup of backups of backups of backups.
 
For anyone curious, here's how this little project turned out. Very good, actually. This is some posts aout it from the Fedora Forum:

"As I said earlier I'm building a new Shuttle MiniPC that will have Fedora 22, 16GB RAM and a Samsung 500GB mSata SSD.

I keep hearing about how swap space and heavy read/writes are bad for SSDs and how swap should be moved to a HDD or skip swap altogether to prolong SSD life. No HDD so that's out. But with 16GB RAM I'm seriously thinking going no swap.

I'm also thinking I'll move Firefox's cache to RAM to reduce read/writes. I think with 16GB loaded there's enough the little bugger still won't run out of RAM and start killing processes.

Partitions will be like this or close to it:

500GB SSD
Primary partition:
/boot = 1GB
Extended partitions:
/var = 20GB
/ = 50GB
/home = 400GB (approx)
Unassigned = 30-40GB (approx)

Again, if I'm crazy I'd appreciate knowing why before I do this in the next few days. Has anyone here tried something like this?"

Nobody said i was crazy, so I went for it.

"I put the little Shuttle DS81 together no problems. Really makes a nice mini-workstation. VERY quiet and good construction.

I chose an Intel 4690S 3.2GHz i5 Haswell 65W low-power CPU. I nearly went with an Intel 4790S 3.2GHz i7 CPU, but for my purposes I just couldn't justify the price difference. And I think I made the right choice.

The 16GB of Kingston RAM maxed out that. SSD is a Samsung 850 EVO 500GB mSata. I thought the Shuttle would have the BIOS set for a SSD out of the box, but no, I had to change it. No big deal.

I was still debating between installing Fedora 22 and CentOS 7.1 so I had a multiboot USB 3.0 stick with a live CD of each on it plus a netinstall of each. Both live CD versions ran fine but neither netinstall versions would load properly. Scratch doing a netinstall.

As I kinda knew I would, I went with Fedora 22 Workstation, installed from the Live version. I used the partitions I laid out in my previous post, very simple and NO swap file.

I've had very limited time with it but so far results are good, very good. The little Shuttle is plenty quick. Lotsa extra room in all partitions. And the decision to skip having a swap space appears to be correct. I haven't yet moved Firefox's cache to RAM, but that won't add much to the load in RAM.

I had to see if going no-swap was gonna work. So this morning I loaded it up a bit. I had 2 big downloads running - Insync and Dropbox downloading and syncing about 90GB of files, while surfing with Firefox, the system monitor running and 2-3 other things open. The itty bitty thing was just crusin' actively using at most about 3GB RAM and 25% of CPU. Nowhere near needing a swap space. Running smooth and fast.

Swap - naaah. Don't need it."

Since then i've optimized the SSD to reduce wear and increase speed by moving the Firefox cache to RAM, enabling the noatime option and a couple of other tweaks.

Bottom line on this: For about $700 I built a killer miniature PC. Ultra quiet, solidly built, plenty of SSD storage, about the size of an average book, uses very little power and is surprisingly capable and quick The little thing really flies with Fedora 22 and the Cinnamon desktop loaded. I couldn't be more pleased.
 
Don't need to, it:s not a laptop, it's a MiniPC that runs 24/7. But yeah, to hibernate a laptop you must have a swap.
 
I never have. I guess it would keep from starting over, but I've always closed everything and logged out.

Can't believe how cool this little box is. It packs a good punch for the size. I should have done this earlier. Prices coming down on SSDs really helped make it affordable.
 
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