Which Linux to install for old workstation

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I’ve inherited an old workstation that I plan to use with a commercial program (Ansys HFSS) and Julia (of course). The workstation consists of

  • 2 x Xeon E5-2643 v4 CPUs
  • 256 GByte DDR4-2400 ECC RAM
  • NVIDIA Quadro P1000 GPU
  • NVIDIA Quadro GV100 GPU

The Linux distributions supported by Ansys for the next few years include

  • RHEL 8.10 Enterprise
  • Rocky Linux 9.4, 9.6 (“Blue Onyx”)
  • SUSE Enterprise and Desktop 15
  • Ubuntu 22.04 (“Jammy Jellyfish”)

I’m not sure which of these to choose. I would prefer to avoid RHEL since it is non-free. Is there a particular reason to choose any of these over the others? If it matters, my previous experience is with Manjaro.

Thanks for any insights on this.

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I would go for Ubuntu, because it uses the apt package manger, which is very good (better than those used by RHEL or SUSE).

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, also known as Jammy Jellyfish, has an end-of-standard-support date of April 2027.

And Ubuntu offers free online kernel updates (for private use).

Your mileage might vary.

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I use Ubuntu 22.04 and am very satisfied with it - works perfectly with Julia. Like you, my first thought would also be to put RHEL at the bottom of the list due to their refusal to opensource it, but I have no experience with any of the other 3 options in your list.

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Nice machine!

Ubuntu was my choice on a single E5-2690v4. It worked very well (F90 development) and it took me from 16.04 through to 20.04 without a problem.

D.

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I have hopped across a few different distros over the years, and have settled on OpenSUSE for the past 5+ years and been happy with it.

It’s pretty well put together as an OS, they run the Open Build Service that’s used by a lot of projects across distros and so they have excellent software infrastructure, and the community has been pretty helpful and informative from my interactions on the forums as well.

To my understanding, SUSE Enterprise is basically the same OS as openSUSE Leap but with enterprise-level support (eg. longer period of updates), so that would be my recommendation.

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I’ll second the SUSE Enterprise recommendation. I’ve been using openSUSE for something like twenty years. It’s a rock-solid distribution, and is/was much easier to configure compared to Redhat and Ubuntu due to YAST, its unified system configuration GUI. But it’s been a few years since I test-ran other distributions, so maybe they’ve caught up.

Julia runs on openSUSE just fine. I install the binary tarballs. Haven’t tried juliaup yet as the tarballs work perfectly for me.

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What a candy!

I mean the machine. Could this be an HP Z640 or Z840? And is there perhaps another one to inherit and potentially ship to Europe?

To be a bit more serious, I have to admit that the list of supported OSs looks somewhat inconsistent. For instance, if Rocky “Blue Onyx” is supported, then probably the corresponding RHEL version is supported as well. Also, stating that RHEL is non-free might not be entirely accurate. As far as I know, there is still a no-cost offering of RHEL available through the Red Hat Developer program. I hope you don’t mind me pointing this out; to be honest, I really don’t know which OS supports Ansys HFSS.

I don’t have much experience with SUSE. I have tried it a few times, but I found it a bit more server-oriented. I recall some articles mentioning that SUSE recently announced plans to fork and maintain a RHEL-compatible distribution.

Choosing between Fedora and Debian based distros, in my opinion, is a matter of personal preference, especially for workstations. Basically, Fedora-based distros like RHEL and Rocky tend to be more secure with longer release cycles. While Debian is also very secure and stable, Ubuntu is more targeted towards personal users and small to medium-sized enterprises.

For some reasons, I prefer Podman over Docker, and I really like TOOLBX; thus, in general, I lean towards Fedora. At the same time, on my workstation, which, compared to yours, is quite ancient, I run a slightly older version of Ubuntu due to GPU compatibility issues and native support for MicroK8s. Also, I use input-leap to share my keyboard and mouse across computers, so I prefer Xorg over Wayland because currently Wayland does not support clipboard functionality for this kind of software.

The main thing I would focus on is support for your GPU drivers, and then compatibility with your preferred software.

Moreover, one tip that comes to mind when reading your post, is related to the fact that as far as I know, some of these workstations can be quite noisy. If that bothers you and you have a good network connection, you might want to try Amazon DCV (formerly NICE DCV) or HP Anyware (formerly Teradici). These are excellent RDP clients, and in most cases, you should be able to move the machine to another room and still use its full potential.

P.S.
I wasn’t kidding about my willingness to inherit such a machine, if it is possible, please let me know! :wink:

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RHEL is in fact completely open source. It is Linux after all.
What the subscription does is entitle a system to use the binary packaged updates. So Redhat are selling a service - support and binary updates.

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Thanks for your comprehensive reply.

No, it was custom-ordered from a place called @Xi Computer Corp. that specializes in high-end workstations.

Sorry, this is a one-of-a-kind (once in a lifetime?) opportunity. I was fortunate to be offered the machine on indefinite loan at no cost.

Great advice, which I intend to follow.

This was my fear as well, along with excessive heating. But when I was offered the workstation, I was given a demonstration, and it was remarkably quiet. The person offering the machine explained that it had a liquid cooling system for the CPUs. From the original invoice:

2x Corsair® H75 Silent Liquid CPU Cooling System Radiator with 12cm Fan for Quiet
Extreme Performance with superior thermal conveyance for Two installed CPUs - Not
suitable for rackmounts.

Of course, I didn’t witness the machine being used under heavy computational loads, so we’ll see…

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I’d go with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, it’s stable, user-friendly, and works well with Julia. APT makes installing packages easy, and support lasts until 2027. If you prefer something more enterprise focused, openSUSE Leap is also a solid choice.

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I’d be curious to know, what leads you to this conclusion?

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I used Suse in the past, and then I switched to Ubuntu. With SUSE I often had library conflicts after upgrading, not so with Ubuntu. But that is a long time ago, the SUSE package manager might also be improved since then.

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You’re welcome. By the way, that’s the first time I’m hearing about Xi Computer Corp. You’ve got a pretty cool computer there.

If you’re looking for a performance oriented distro, I’d give CachyOS a try. Usually, the speed gain is not more than 10%, but in some cases, it can increase dramatically. With Broadwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures, you should be good to go. Running Ansys HFSS should be doable too, though probably not straight out of the box.

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For what it’s worth, I’ve been running openSUSE for around 3 years now, and have yet to run into a library conflict. Overall, I’d rate my current experience as better than apt :slight_smile: (and I like the extra features like a better dependency resolution and snapshot integration).

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A quote from RHEL source code is not freely available anymore : “RHEL’s source code is still available to IBM Red Hat customers, but the license prohibits its redistribution.”

To me that is “source code available” not “open source”.

but whether or not it is open source, Rocky, SUSE and Ubuntu seem way more committed to the spirit of open source.

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A good choice for an older workstation would be Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or openSUSE Leap. They’re reliable, actively maintained, and run Julia well. Pairing them with a lightweight desktop like Xfce can help with performance. They also follow open-source principles more closely than RHEL-based options.

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