F21 Workstation Hardware Requirements

[Pete Travis]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 09/01/2014 07:19 AM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 1, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Bastien Nocera <bnocera at redhat.com
<mailto:bnocera at redhat.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hey Pete,
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     >
>     > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>     > Hash: SHA1
>     >
>     > I'm working on the release notes here - should there be any special
>     > hardware recommendations for Workstation?  The 'requirements[1]'
drafted
>     > are deliberately open-ended, because Fedora can be stripped down or
>     > built up to run *something* on most any modern machine. 
Workstation is
>     > a specific thing though, and while LLVMpipe can [often?] get
gnome-shell
>     > running, it isn't a great experience. Maybe not the UX context
you want
>     > Workstation to be used in.
>     >
>     > Thoughts?
>
>     Can we split that into a "minimum" and "recommended" variants?
>
>     The minimum would be what's mentioned in "minimum system
configuration" plus the
>     mention of "CPU accelerated graphics" and minimum resolution.
>
>     The recommended would be what's currently in "Minimum Hardware for
Accelerated Desktops".
>     Possibly with 2GB of RAM (so that integrated graphics don't impact
us quite as much).
>
>     Does that make sense?
>
>     Cheers
>     --
>     desktop mailing list
>     desktop at lists.fedoraproject.org
<mailto:desktop at lists.fedoraproject.org>
>     https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
>
>
> Hey
> I think 2GB is a good "recommended" value, and that 1GB should be the
"minimal". From my tests in VMs, 1GB is barely usable (I assume that 1GB
on actual hardware with non-integrated graphics would be a bit faster,
but still).
> However, "hardware accelerated graphics" shouldn't be in the minimal -
people will still run Workstation on VM platforms where it's
unavailable, eg. KVM/spice, we don't want them to think it's impossible
to run our own OS on our own virtualization platform.
> I think it would make more sense for "Hardware accelerated graphics"
to be in the recommended section.
>
> --
> -Elad Alfassa.
>
>

When I was originally drafting the Hardware Requirements copy, I tried
to stay away from the minimum/recommended distinction.  It isn't easy to
draw a line and say "on this side you will have a great experience, and
on this side you will have a merely functional experience, and across
this other line it probably won't run at all."  I think users can
generally understand "more is better", and make an appropriate judgment
based on explanation of the factors involved and available options. 
Following that line of thinking, we could say *suggest* at least 2GB of
RAM, with a caveat that less RAM might be a compromise some could find
acceptable, and more RAM would be better.

WRT the actual figure, systems that are preconfigured with 2GB of RAM
are probably going to be mid/high Pentium 4 era systems, or low/mid
range Core2Dou era systems with i915 -ie 4 years or more out of
production.  A suggest/recommend of 4GB RAM would put you in the area of
modern low-end systems and older mid/high end systems.  Looking at RAM
in isolation, 4GB is probably excessive, but the class of system that
comes with <4GB OOTB may generally not be able to deliver an
"acceptable" experience.

Just food for thought - the stated hardware recommendations for
Workstation can of course be whatever the Workstation group deems
appropriate.

KVM/QXL/Spice is effectively hardware acceleration; I'll elaborate on
that further in the thread.



- -- 
- -- Pete Travis
 - Fedora Docs Project Leader
 - 'randomuser' on freenode
 - immanetize at fedoraproject.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJUBLmAAAoJEL1wZM0+jj2Zf5UH/2ttgGmOnB4ILWDGO3qrvO/b
/R/mgPrZFAXheri7GDWIsqtvYa2Od5S1kGnzS6bR3MH/pa5qKtZ+I1068wew3RsK
T5eGubjc2NODetKRbDI1j2D/MAOtufc3+T9GT4V4xjHrGyMQTSwsBc+HTG/1Vme9
SiYc1VljwjNZjzT8+/o3FbhTzS+zJs6YE6+fDr8c8YnQtCIbM+yXYZ7h+e1heReq
MAlNgDXxoTl0jT4QlTIw9VLG/NQq93+mAFn5VJRuCh959bxOjLrn2M6XK/Zkw/zJ
WjTdqkfk/R5a5RwsmxKRi/qtGrMIn2CBafPUmxJNhEkI/Z3SPSeZVRgrZCXfdm4=
=eB1s
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/desktop/attachments/20140901/b7e531a8/attachment.html>