28 Sep
2012
28 Sep
'12
10:18 a.m.
On Fri, 28 Sep 2012, Mouse wrote:
It wouldn't be the first, second, third, or even tenth time I've seen
someone spec a machine much larger than required so that they could use
it for their own purposes.
I don't doubt that for a moment.
But I do doubt that there is "just no way" that such a spec-out could
happen any other way.
For a lesser machine, quite possibly, but an 8-core Xeon and _96GB_ of
ram? No way. Actually, for me, the 96GB of ram is the thing that really
puts it over the top.
With Apache the gold standard when it comes to public facing web servers,
and with constantly changing links and the need for reducing support
emails, who in their right mind /doesn't/ use Apache along with stuff such
as mod_rewrite these days?
>>>> Eight core Xeon with 96 gigs of RAM...
There is just no way someone is going to spec a machine that large
for such a small task without some other background motive.
I disagree. [...]
A modern Linux
or BSD distribution typically expects gobs of memory
(1GB+) but I've found most will run well with 128MB so long as swap is
available [...]. [...] a 486 based system will simply not have enough
physical memory available (generally no more than 32MB) and it would
craw to a halt with a modern OS while trying to swap stuff out to disc
while serving up pages via Apache.
Perhaps, if you insist on running apache. Unless you actually need some
of its more complex features, using apache for static content is a bit
like using a Saturn V to launch a paper airplane. I found 32M plenty usable for NetBSD until I pushed
one machine to 4.0.1
and tried to self-host; the compiler was so bloated it thrashed itself
to death. At 64M there was no problem. (That's approximately the point
at which I stopped trying to "upgrade" my machines, not entirely
coincidentally.)
Which i486 boards are you aware of that support 64MB of cachable ram?
Pretty much any Intel Pentium or AMD K5 can easily support 64MB or 128MB
of ram but just finding a Socket 3 based system with support for 64MB of
cachable ram would be a major challenge.
I suppose if you have time to hand-build and tune the OS and stock
services for each machine you admin you could make it "work" with 32MB of
ram, but outside of embedded applications, 32MB just doesn't cut it today.
Even then, this still wouldn't solve the latency problems though. Again,
as much as I like the i486, it just isn't going to be able to keep up as a
modern webserver.