The Obsidian Series 250D "Screenwriter's Blues" Linux Build Log

We’ve demonstrated how powerful an Obsidian 250D build can be with our custom liquid cooled “God Lives Underwater” system. If you’re going to pull out all the stops and try to cram as much powerful hardware as you conceivably can into a single system, the 250D will let you do that, but what about more specialized, purpose-built machines? Where budget isn’t necessarily your top priority so much as just choosing the right hardware for the job?

As it turns out, the 250D is also fantastic for a more specific task. I moonlight as a…we’ll say very independent filmmaker. But I haven’t been able to really sit down and focus on writing for myself for some time, and my primary rig with three 24” monitors and two GTX 780s in SLI makes it hard to find the discipline to work for myself. I needed to create something that would take me out of that space and allow me to focus solely on the task of screenwriting, and since I’m a huge geek, that naturally means building another machine.

But we’re talking about something specialized: it’s just as important to measure what this machine can’t do as what it can. The last thing I need is Steam running in the background or even the temptation to load up another game or chat client or what have you. As it turns out, while 2014 will not be the year of Linux on the desktop, Ubuntu Linux at least offers the potential to create a task-oriented system that lets me focus on what’s important.

I didn’t need to go bargain basement, but I wanted to order only what I needed. With that in mind, this is the parts list I went with:

• AMD A4-4000 APU (Richland, 3GHz dual-core, Radeon HD 7480D)
• Gigabyte F2A88XN-WIFI (A88 chipset, mini-ITX)
• Corsair 60GB Force LS SATA 6Gbps SSD
• 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3-1600
• Corsair RM450 450W 80 Plus Gold Quiet PSU
• Obsidian Series 250D Enclosure

Not pictured, but almost more important, is the keyboard I chose to invest in: the Vengeance K70 with Cherry MX Blue switches. I continue to maintain that the Cherry MX Blue is the ideal mechanical switch for writing because the tactile response and audible click when it actuates just feel and sound like work being done.

Note that I’m using the stock cooler that comes with the A4-4000, and that I’ve removed the side intake from the 250D. We want to minimize noise as much as possible, and the A4-4000 isn’t really going to be pushed particularly hard. We’re not gaming, we’re not rendering video, we’re just running Firefox and CeltX on Ubuntu. As a result, the system’s pretty silent.

Where things took a turn is where they always do: actually getting Linux to run properly. The fly in the ointment is that I’m using two 1080p panels that have been rotated to portrait and placed on a dual-monitor stand. Since we’re again talking about specializing for writing, portrait mode for the current draft and previous draft is ideal. This should’ve been easier to put together, but Catalyst Control Center is buried in menus, while the main display configuration dialogue would simply spit out errors whenever I tried to set up the display rotations. The open source Gallium3D driver is also an absolute mess, resulting in substantial artifacting; you’re pretty much required to use the closed source driver from AMD, and that’s ignoring the nightmarish task that is installing…well…anything in Linux.

After a tremendous amount of work, I was able to get things running the way I wanted them to. Heaven help me, I hope never to see the command “sudo” again.

The next problem was that Linux, in general, was incredibly sluggish. This owed less to the underlying hardware and more to the sad, sorry state of drivers on the platform. Moving windows was unpleasant, and the fact that there’s a VSync toggle for the desktop speaks volumes.

Ultimately I was able to get everything running, but the dirty secret is that it just wasn’t enjoyable at all to use. Linux was so fraught and required so many compromises that I wound up formatting and installing Windows 7 instead, and the resulting system ran much, much smoother. This is essentially the key to Microsoft’s foothold: most of the time, it just works, and it works logically.

What I’m left with is a fantastic little workstation dedicated to its one specific task that functions beautifully, and I was able to practice at least a little restraint and not install anything I didn’t need. I’ve been able to get work done and get some of my writing mojo back, and hopefully soon I can start putting that Film degree to good use again.