OpenSuse 42.3 on Dell Precision 7720 Xeon
I am really, really hard on my equipment.
Even without portability, I tend to max out my CPUs, RAM, and hard drives most of the day, often 24x7. So they tend to burn out within 6-12 months, and so I am one of those few people that buying the extended coverage is worthwhile.
Then with portable devices like laptops, when I need the horsepower of higher-end workstations and servers at my fingertips, I really burn them out, but also unfortunately tend to bump and drop many of them.
Since the early 90s, I have had to buy a new laptop about every 12-18 months.
But then this Asus ROG laptop, that was a floor model at Best Buy, close out item, became the single best laptop I have every owned!
After one of the best laptops I've ever owned, with the Asus ROG for 5+ years.
Now this Dell Precision 7720 laptop might be the worst I've owned in quite a while, at least for the price, in years. :-( (though I have had far worse).
It's performance sucks for the price!
It may be partially my fault, at least for the battery life.
Dell's website claimed it would have great battery life for a workstation, but I went with the XEON processors instead of the i7, and battery life under windows is maybe an hour, and under linux about 20-30 minutes! T
his is a brand new laptop, it is not bad batteries. It runs hot as heck.
The Asus ROG was super cool, it was bulky but hat let it have effective cooling. This Dell is "regular" form factor for a 17", and way too hot. I doubt it is going to last very long alas, before they will have to replace the CPU / motherboard.
Under multiple flavors of Linux I have been unable to get the dedicated GPU AMD WX 7100 to work, and so only able to use the built-in graphics to get by. :-( Some of this may be just too bleeding edge.
I tried OpenBSD 6.x, but alas, not even close, I couldn't get it to even complete the install, let alone configure drivers. I really don't like the LEAP branch of OpenSuSe. And so I am looking, after all these years, to dump Suse, but can't stand Ubuntu or its variants. I will start checking out other distros, but will limp along on OpenSuSe 42.3 for now, until I find something that everything "just works" as it did for so many years with OpenSus, but is no longer the case.
Hardware information from Dell:
Computer Model Precision 7720
Shipping Date 7/10/2017
210-AKJX : Mobile Precision 7720 XCTO BAS E
391-BDHT : 17.3" UHD IPS Narrow Border (3 840x2160) Wide View with Camer a and Mic
658-BBRB : Waves Maxx Audio
658-BBMQ : Enable Low Power Mode
640-BBES : Dell Precision Optimizer
379-BCRK : Intel Core Xeon E3-1505M v6 (Q uad Core Xeon 3.00GHz, 4.00GHz Turbo, 8MB 45W)
346-BCFD : Palm Rest with Smart Card and without finger printer
580-AFTU : Keyboard, US-English backlit
328-BCKZ : System Shipment Material, 7720
401-AAGM : No Additional Hard Drive
817-BBBB : No FGA
780-BBFE : No RAID
556-BBDZ : No Mobile Broadband
452-BBDB : Dell Docking Spacer for Latitude
450-AFXO : 240W AC Adapter
451-BBUV : 6 Cell (91 Whr) Long Life Cycle Polymer Battery
490-BDKJ : Thermal pad Type-B for AMD Graphic Card
490-BDKI : Radeon Pro WX 7100 w/8GB GDDR5
555-BDFW : Intel Dual-Band Wireless-AC 82 65 Driver
580-AFTO : Keyboard, Lattice for 106key K B
555-BDGG : Intel WiFi Link 8265 2x2 802.1 1ac + BT 4.2
330-1838 : 6-Foot, 3-Pin Power Cord,Mobil e Precision, US
328-BCLB : Dell Precision Ship Material, 7720 (TPM Enabled)
338-BLET : Intel Core Xeon E3-1505M v6 wi th Thunderbolt 3
387-BBDO : No Energy Star
70-ADHP : 16GB (2x8GB) 2400MHz DDR4 Non- ECC SDRAM
400-AJBL : 1TB 7200 rpm SATA Hard Drive, MPWS
Hardware based on Linux output:
cat version
Linux version 4.4.87-25-default (geeko@buildhost) (gcc version 4.8.5 (SUSE Linux) ) #1 SMP Wed Sep 13 07:19:13 UTC 2017 (3927ef5)
lsb_release -a
LSB Version: n/a
Distributor ID: openSUSE project
Description: openSUSE Leap 42.3
Release: 42.3
Codename: n/a
cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 158
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1505M v6 @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 9
microcode : 0x48
cpu MHz : 3655.611
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 0
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 22
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch ida arat epb pln pts dtherm hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1
bugs :
bogomips : 5999.86
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 158
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1505M v6 @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 9
microcode : 0x48
cpu MHz : 3681.709
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 1
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 2
initial apicid : 2
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 22
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch ida arat epb pln pts dtherm hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1
bugs :
bogomips : 5999.86
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
processor : 2
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 158
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1505M v6 @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 9
microcode : 0x48
cpu MHz : 3700.477
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 2
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 4
initial apicid : 4
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 22
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch ida arat epb pln pts dtherm hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1
bugs :
bogomips : 5999.86
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
processor : 3
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 158
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1505M v6 @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 9
microcode : 0x48
cpu MHz : 3400.148
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 3
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 6
initial apicid : 6
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 22
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch ida arat epb pln pts dtherm hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1
bugs :
bogomips : 5999.86
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
processor : 4
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 158
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1505M v6 @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 9
microcode : 0x48
cpu MHz : 3699.711
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 0
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 1
initial apicid : 1
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 22
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch ida arat epb pln pts dtherm hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1
bugs :
bogomips : 5999.86
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
processor : 5
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 158
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1505M v6 @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 9
microcode : 0x48
cpu MHz : 3593.733
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 1
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 3
initial apicid : 3
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 22
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch ida arat epb pln pts dtherm hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1
bugs :
bogomips : 5999.86
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
processor : 6
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 158
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1505M v6 @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 9
microcode : 0x48
cpu MHz : 3684.773
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 2
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 5
initial apicid : 5
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 22
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch ida arat epb pln pts dtherm hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1
bugs :
bogomips : 5999.86
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
processor : 7
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 158
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1505M v6 @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 9
microcode : 0x48
cpu MHz : 3400.121
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 3
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 7
initial apicid : 7
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 22
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch ida arat epb pln pts dtherm hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1
bugs :
bogomips : 5999.86
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 16314444 kB
MemFree: 8855028 kB
MemAvailable: 11621288 kB
Buffers: 333372 kB
Cached: 3815216 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 3894184 kB
Inactive: 2958400 kB
Active(anon): 2707880 kB
Inactive(anon): 1370204 kB
Active(file): 1186304 kB
Inactive(file): 1588196 kB
Unevictable: 48 kB
Mlocked: 48 kB
SwapTotal: 16777212 kB
SwapFree: 16777212 kB
Dirty: 196276 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 2704156 kB
Mapped: 1237428 kB
Shmem: 1373964 kB
Slab: 415584 kB
SReclaimable: 334100 kB
SUnreclaim: 81484 kB
KernelStack: 12464 kB
PageTables: 66840 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 24934432 kB
Committed_AS: 9249492 kB
VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed: 0 kB
VmallocChunk: 0 kB
HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB
AnonHugePages: 944128 kB
HugePages_Total: 0
HugePages_Free: 0
HugePages_Rsvd: 0
HugePages_Surp: 0
Hugepagesize: 2048 kB
DirectMap4k: 419828 kB
DirectMap2M: 10997760 kB
DirectMap1G: 5242880 kB
lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 5918 (rev 05)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Skylake PCIe Controller (x16) (rev 05)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 591d (rev 04)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Skylake Processor Thermal Subsystem (rev 05)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H USB 3.0 xHCI Controller (rev 31)
00:14.2 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H Thermal subsystem (rev 31)
00:15.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H Serial IO I2C Controller #0 (rev 31)
00:15.1 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H Serial IO I2C Controller #1 (rev 31)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H CSME HECI #1 (rev 31)
00:17.0 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation SATA Controller [RAID mode] (rev 31)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H PCI Express Root Port #2 (rev f1)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H PCI Express Root Port #3 (rev f1)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev f1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H LPC Controller (rev 31)
00:1f.2 Memory controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H PMC (rev 31)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device a171 (rev 31)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H SMBus (rev 31)
00:1f.6 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (5) I219-LM (rev 31)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Polaris10]
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Device aaf0
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Device 24fd (rev 78)
03:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS525A PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)
lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0a2b Intel Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:568c Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0a5c:5832 Broadcom Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
lshw -C display
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Ellesmere [Polaris10]
vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: 00
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm pciexpress msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=amdgpu latency=0
resources: irq:130 memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:d0000000-d01fffff ioport:e000(size=256) memory:ec000000-ec03ffff memory:ec040000-ec05ffff
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Intel Corporation
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 04
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pciexpress msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:129 memory:eb000000-ebffffff memory:80000000-8fffffff ioport:f000(size=64)