Difference between revisions of "MAS PC specifications email template"

From MCEWiki
 
Line 1: Line 1:
MAS should run without difficulty on any modern PC, but note the following:
+
MAS should run without difficulty on any modern PC that has a standard PCI slot and can run Ubuntu 8.04.  In particular, MAS now supports 64-bit and multi-core machines.  We have run MAS on fairly weak machines (1 GHz single core w/ 1GB RAM), but during detector characterization phases users will probably prefer a much more powerful desktop machine with lots of speed and graphics support.
  
- a 32-bit processor is sufficient, and even if the PC has a 64-bit processor we will have to run it in legacy 32-bit mode.
+
Note also that MCE data can take up quite a bit of disk space; 1024 channels of 400 Hz will pile up at 1.6 MB/s.  If your data rate is comparable to this then your system should have at least 500 GB of space for MCE data.
  
- although multi-core/multi-CPU processors are probably not going to cause us any trouble, this remains untested.
+
Again, each MCE requires a PCI slot for the fibre-optic interface board! Some new motherboards do not have standard PCI slots, as PCI-express is becoming more popular.
 
 
- there must be a free PCI slot for the fibre-optic card that communicates with the MCE.  
 
 
 
Any processor speed greater than 1 GHz or so should run without difficulty, and it is probably possible to go even lower in speed if necessary.  We regularly run with 1 GB of RAM and something like 500 GB of hard disk space.  The hard drive(s) can be SATA or IDE.  Since we use a modern linux OS (2.6 series kernel) it is fine to use USB devices (mice, keyboards, hard drives...) in the system.
 

Revision as of 15:55, 8 June 2009

MAS should run without difficulty on any modern PC that has a standard PCI slot and can run Ubuntu 8.04. In particular, MAS now supports 64-bit and multi-core machines. We have run MAS on fairly weak machines (1 GHz single core w/ 1GB RAM), but during detector characterization phases users will probably prefer a much more powerful desktop machine with lots of speed and graphics support.

Note also that MCE data can take up quite a bit of disk space; 1024 channels of 400 Hz will pile up at 1.6 MB/s. If your data rate is comparable to this then your system should have at least 500 GB of space for MCE data.

Again, each MCE requires a PCI slot for the fibre-optic interface board! Some new motherboards do not have standard PCI slots, as PCI-express is becoming more popular.