What Linux Distro? Intel Q6600

[russellhq]

I've just ordered a new system that includes an Intel Q6600 processor and intend to run it with Linux. It will be used solely for video/audio processing tasks, working with HD and SD video, h264/divx/DVD etc...

I've been using PCLinuxOS on my old system and have and some degree of sucess.

I've got a few questions that hopefully some of you can answer.

Firstly, what distro of Linux has most features for video/audio processing ie.. codec libs etc. Learning a new distro is not a concern so please don't suggest PCLinuxOS just beacuse that's what I've used before.
Should I go for the 32bit or 64bit version of the distro I choose.

Some problems I've had with PCLinuxOS are:
1) Not all apps are in the repository and thus need downloaded manually and usually compiled. This was a major learning curve that I had to endure!
2) Could not copy/paste to command line. Was a real pain typing everything every time!
3) Did not know where installed programs went, you never get told! Eventually figured out that if you just type the name in command line it works regardless of what dir you are in. Also, that the program name is case sensitive (What's the point of that?)
4) Always had to login as root, programs just threw up errors when I tried to operate them as a standard user.
5) Other stuff i can't remember!

It's been an experience but I want to stick with it.

[microchip8]

recommending a distro is hard as this is based on personal preferences, to me openSUSE is very slick and polished and processes audio/video without a problem (mplayer/x264/divx/xvid etc). All audio/video packages can be installed from the Packman repository without the need to compile things. Though I usually always compile my audio/video apps with custom optimized CFLAGS for my processor. As for choosing 32-bit or 64-bit, I'd go with the 64-bit version as it processes video faster than the 32-bit one (at least here). The best 64-bit implementation is delivered by openSUSE, there is currently no distro around that beats the tight 64-bit integration of openSUSE...

I'd suggest you try out other distros too and pick the one you like the most/feel comfortable with

[russellhq]

What processor do you use and would you suggest I do the same for mine? Would that improve encoding speeds?

[microchip8]

What processor do you use and would you suggest I do the same for mine? Would that improve encoding speeds?

I'm still on an older Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4 GHz) processor. Some CFLAGS that I use for x264/xvid are


-O3 -march=k8 -mtune=k8 -finline-functions -funroll-loops -fexpensive-optimizations -freorder-blocks

you should use -march=core2 -mtune=core2 (if your GCC supports it)

it will usually give you 1-3% speed improvements (haven't really tested though)

[russellhq]

When would I use those and what do the following do?

-O3
-finline-functions
-funroll-loops
fexpensive-optimizations
-freorder-blocks

[microchip8]

When would I use those and what do the following do?

-O3
-finline-functions
-funroll-loops
fexpensive-optimizations
-freorder-blocks

i use those on x264 and xvid... from the man page

-finline-functions

Integrate all simple functions into their callers. The compiler heuristically decides which functions are simple enough to be worth integrating in this way.

-funroll-loops

Unroll loops whose number of iterations can be determined at compile time or upon entry to the loop

-fexpensive-optimizations

Perform a number of minor optimizations that are relatively expensive.

-freorder-blocks

Reorder basic blocks in the compiled function in order to reduce number of taken branches and improve code locality

-finline-functions is by default turned on if you use -O3 but i have a habit of always specifying it again