[KDE/Mac] Apple Mac server (was Another round of success)

[Bradley Giesbrecht]

On May 29, 2015, at 12:31 AM, Ben Cooksley <bcooksley at kde.org> wrote:

> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 5:34 PM, Ian Wadham <iandw.au at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
> 
> Hi Ian,
> 
>> 
>> On 27/05/2015, at 8:47 AM, Aleix Pol wrote:
>>> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 11:55 AM, Mario Fux <kde-ml at unormal.org> wrote:
>>>> So does anybody know a good source for new Apple hardware for KDE? Please tell
>>>> us if you've an idea.
>>> 
>>> Ben sent an e-mail to the board last week about that. I think you were
>>> CC'd. I (we) asked him to send us a couple of alternatives so we can
>>> make up our minds.
>>> 
>>> Personally, I don't have a doubt that we want the problem solved,
>>> question is whether there's an affordable way to do so, but it's
>>> barely the Board's job to research what are the different alternatives
>>> we've got, IMHO.
>> 
>> I was passing the local Apple Store today and went in to do a bit of tyre
>> kicking. IMO the Apple Mini would be good for the job, if it is powerful
>> enough to handle whatever the workload will be (which I do not know).
> 
> Compilation of software is the primary workload for a CI node.
> From what I have seen thus far, yes - Mini's would do fine.

The current "OSXBUILDER" is running in a VirtualBox VM guest on a Mac Mini:

https://build.kde.org/computer/OSXBUILDER/

Host Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Host Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz
Host Number of Processors: 1
Host Total Number of Cores: 2
Host Memory: 16 GB DDR3
Host Storage: 2.5 TB "Fusion" Drive, 500 GB SSD + 2 TB HDD

Guest Processor: 1 Processor
Guest Memory: 3 GB
Guest Storage: 200 GB, 98 GB used

There are 4 or 5 other guest vms running (mostly idling) at any given time, the KDECI jobs are by far the heaviest load.

I would expect a low end off the self Mini without virtualization would perform as well or better then the above vm guest.
The cost of the memory and disk upgrades I'm estimating to be $350 US so for KDE I think multiple Mini's would be the better option if one Mini was not enough.

That said, the "Fusion" drive is nice, the OS takes care of joining the disks and moving data to the SSD that most benefits performance. I am not aware of any Fusion control parameters exposed but the performance is very good from my experience.

A stock middle tier Mini cost $699 US and upgrading to a Fussion drive raises the cost to $899 US.

>> It's a monitor-less box, but it can use any monitor if/when necessary,
>> however it might need an adapter, for an extra $30 or so.
> 
> Monitor's aren't needed, as long as the graphical session can run
> without one being attached.

It can and does with OSXBUILDER mentioned above.



I volunteer to help configure any Mac hardware KDE deploys.


Regards,
Bradley Giesbrecht (pixilla)