25 Nov
2003
25 Nov
'03
5:19 a.m.
Am 25 Nov 2003 13:04 meinte John Lawson:
I wanna set up a small, dedicated server at home... to
do several things,
not the least of which is allow a private gateway so L33T folks can play
with my 11/44 on-line. I also have a weather station whose data I wish to
collect and make available (for the Ham radio SkyWarn group here in NV).
As well.. there are some files to make available for FTP.... I'm
thinking of a Webcam on top of my antenna tower... etc etc.
:)
I intend to buy older computers to do the WX stuff,
another for a
dedicated Webcam, and maybe a radio VHF packet and RTTY gateway. All this
would be stitched together via ethernet / cat 5 / etc. I have pretty
decent cable-modem service right now - if they ever get around to pulling
DSL in I'll switch to that... so that would be the 'outside world'
connection.
So the question is: cheap used PC with X-GB drives
for the server - what
software would be also simple to get up and running w/out needing to go to
a year's worth of school... preferrably something in the Linux world...
what is the minimum platform specs that would run this server software:
proc speed, RAM size - HD space?
Most of the stuff can done with a single 300 MHz Pentium class PC.
Right now, I'd almost suggest buying a new PC. THere's an incredible
cute new board from VIA (*1), see
http://www.viavpsd.com/product/epia_MII_spec.jsp?motherboardId=202
or with even two LAN ports:
http://www.viavpsd.com/product/epia_cl_spec.jsp?motherboardId=181
The speed is good (As long as you don't want to play 3D Games), size
is extrem compact, and due the single voltage power supply (MII)
extrem simple to use in your own specialized 'appliance' Except
Memoryy, everything is already on board, an the price is quite
acceptable.
As OS, a Linux isn't the worst choice. If you prefer a good experiance
on DAU-Level (*2), SuSE might be your choice. Theire setup is still
the most simplified of all distributions I know, but still offerong
a full figured system. If, only if your technical experience is a
little bit above DAU (is that true for you?), Debian might be a good
choice. you need some basic unix knowledge for setup, but on the long
run its update mechanics are superiour.
More important will be the tools you have to combine and write to have
your stuff runining.
Gruss
H.
*1 - BTW: don't miss their newest craze: PC-Bots!
http://www.via.com.tw/en/robotics/pcbots.jsp
*2 DAU, German Term for Duemster Anzunehmender User (Stupidest Credible
User), a play on words with GAU (Groester Anzunehmender Unfall), the
abrevation used to describe the worst case accident/scenario for a
nuclear power plant - after all, aren't the DAUs our worst case scenario?
--
VCF Europa 5.0 am 01./02. Mai 2004 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/