25 Nov
2003
25 Nov
'03
7:04 a.m.
This is more-or-less on-topic, I theenk...
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?
Cheerz
John
25 Nov
25 Nov
8:19 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/
12:57 p.m.
On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Hans Franke wrote:
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
Hans, why would you suggest he buy something new for this application when
you know full well there are plenty of old PCs out there that will do the
job just fine and will cost nothing. A Pentium-90 system with 64MB RAM
would be overkill for even this, and those are as common as dirt.
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.
You can find a real small Pentium board with the same specs. In fact,
Pentium SBCs (single board computers) are real easy to get also. I have a
stack of them.
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.
Which is unfortunate because in my opinion Debian just sucks otherwise. I
prefer SuSE also.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
26 Nov
26 Nov
9:54 a.m.
Am 25 Nov 2003 15:57 meinte Vintage Computer Festival:
On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Hans Franke wrote:
> 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
Hans, why would you suggest he buy something new for
this application when
you know full well there are plenty of old PCs out there that will do the
job just fine and will cost nothing. A Pentium-90 system with 64MB RAM
would be overkill for even this, and those are as common as dirt.
Because the true cost is more than just the board? Take allone
the task of finding Disk drives that work with old computers,
large enough to hold for example the webcam pictures, and other
stuff, not to talk the Linux system - serious, the time when you
could install a full figured Server on a 100 MB drive is gone.
I still have such a system (486-133) running at home to serve
an old style mud, but even back then I had to do the setup by
hand to have enough free space ... Today, below a Gig nothing
is realy doable - except you make the installation of the sys
your task, instead of using it as a tool.
These new boards are quite cheap and allow a hassle free
installation and operation. To me, the idea is to have an
invisible, reliable appliance to manage such tasks. Think
of it like a gender changeer box ...
> 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.
You can find a real small Pentium board with the same
specs. In fact,
Pentium SBCs (single board computers) are real easy to get also. I have a
stack of them.
Now, they are extremly expensive in contrast. The great idea
about the VIA board is the price and the fact that everything
is on board.
> 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.
Which is unfortunate because in my opinion Debian just
sucks otherwise. I
prefer SuSE also.
Well, I got convinced by a friend. Debian is eventualy the most
stable dist around. Not that I like it, but it has it's merits.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 5.0 am 01./02. Mai 2004 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
1:47 p.m.
On Wed, 26 Nov 2003, Hans Franke wrote:
You can get Pentium SBCs on eBay for dollars (or Euros if you
prefer...US$1.16 to the Euro means I'm drinking rather heathily these days
;)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
Because the true cost is more than just the board?
Take allone
the task of finding Disk drives that work with old computers,
large enough to hold for example the webcam pictures, and other
stuff, not to talk the Linux system - serious, the time when you
could install a full figured Server on a 100 MB drive is gone.
I still have such a system (486-133) running at home to serve
an old style mud, but even back then I had to do the setup by
hand to have enough free space ... Today, below a Gig nothing
is realy doable - except you make the installation of the sys
your task, instead of using it as a tool.
Don't be silly. First of all, a very simple minimal installation on less
than a gig is not that difficult. Second, one can always find a cheap PII
or even Celeron system (especially if one is an electronics recycler :)
Third, you can fit a large (1GB+) hard drive into a 486 without much
hassle.
These new boards are quite cheap and allow a hassle
free installation
and operation. To me, the idea is to have an invisible, reliable
appliance to manage such tasks. Think of it like a gender changeer box
Overkill...
You can find a
real small Pentium board with the same specs. In fact,
Pentium SBCs (single board computers) are real easy to get also. I have a
stack of them.
Now, they are extremly expensive in contrast. The great idea
about the VIA board is the price and the fact that everything
is on board. 
1:57 p.m.
On Wed, 26 Nov 2003, Hans Franke wrote:
Because the true cost is more than just the board?
Take allone
the task of finding Disk drives that work with old computers,
large enough to hold for example the webcam pictures, and other
stuff, not to talk the Linux system - serious, the time when you
could install a full figured Server on a 100 MB drive is gone.
I still have such a system (486-133) running at home to serve
an old style mud, but even back then I had to do the setup by
hand to have enough free space ... Today, below a Gig nothing
is realy doable - except you make the installation of the sys
your task, instead of using it as a tool.
Unless you use a system less bloated than
the average Linux distro,
of course. Which means zapping the totally useless graphic user
interface, for one, and most of the totally useless packages they
all deliver.
--f
2:24 p.m.
On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 11:57, Fred N. van Kempen wrote:
On Wed, 26 Nov 2003, Hans Franke wrote:
To continue this slightly off-topic thread :-)
Linux systems don't have to be big. I have two (an iPAQ and mini-itx)
that are fully functional Linux systems running off 32MB (yes M not G)
"disks". The iPAQ runs off the internal memory and the mini-itx
boots off a 126MB USB key which is current partitioned down to 32MB.
To make a very nice file server, just add some hard drive for the
data....
Take a look at www.handhelds.org for more in the iPAQ and
http://www.8ung.at/spblinux/ for how to get Linux on a USB key.
--
Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)kerberos.davies.net.au
Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the
Australia | air, the sky would be painted green"
Because the true cost is more than just the
board? Take allone
the task of finding Disk drives that work with old computers,
large enough to hold for example the webcam pictures, and other
stuff, not to talk the Linux system - serious, the time when you
could install a full figured Server on a 100 MB drive is gone.
I still have such a system (486-133) running at home to serve
an old style mud, but even back then I had to do the setup by
hand to have enough free space ... Today, below a Gig nothing
is realy doable - except you make the installation of the sys
your task, instead of using it as a tool.
Unless you use a system less bloated
than the average Linux distro,
of course. Which means zapping the totally useless graphic user
interface, for one, and most of the totally useless packages they
all deliver. 
7:03 p.m.
On Wed, 2003-11-26 at 17:14, Huw Davies wrote:
Linux systems don't have to be big. I have two (an
iPAQ and mini-itx)
that are fully functional Linux systems running off 32MB (yes M not G)
"disks". The iPAQ runs off the internal memory and the mini-itx
boots off a 126MB USB key which is current partitioned down to 32MB.
To make a very nice file server, just add some hard drive for the
data....
Take a look at www.handhelds.org for more in the iPAQ and
http://www.8ung.at/spblinux/ for how to get Linux on a USB key.
Not to mention Tom's Root Boot diskette... http://www.toms.net/rb/ The
most Linux on a floppy...
Or Damn Small Linux... http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ 50 Meg ISO with a
GUI, web browser, ftp client, mp3 player, spreadsheet, email client,
word processor, file mamnger, yadda yadda yadda...
Or Linux-BBC... (Bootable Business Card CD sized)
http://www.lnx-bbc.org/
Etc...
7:33 p.m.
Depending on what you're doing, you can do a lot better. I have a embedded
product that uses a 386EX/25 with 8MB of memory, 2MB of FLASH (boot ROM), and
a 32MB CF card. 7MB of the CF card is used for the system, the remaining
space it for data logging.
And 7MB is *huge*. Linking against uClibc and switching to busybox, I can
get it down to around 3MB.
The application uses a GPS, cellphone, OBD-II interface, and uses PPP +
TCP/IP to talk to a host for data transfer. I *might* be able to do
development on the target platform, but I've never bothered to try. Why
compile 10K lines of code on a 25 Mhz 386 when you've got a 2.4Ghz Athlon
sitting next to it?
But it's usable for some tasks. I've run a boa as a webserver over a nailed
up PPP link to demonstrate what can be done (not that I consider it
particularly amazing, but these days it's not a real *nix box until it either
handles mail or runs a web server...)
--jc
On Thursday 27 November 2003 01:03 am, Andrew Prince wrote:
On Wed, 2003-11-26 at 17:14, Huw Davies wrote:
Linux systems don't have to be big. I have
two (an iPAQ and mini-itx)
that are fully functional Linux systems running off 32MB (yes M not G)
"disks". The iPAQ runs off the internal memory and the mini-itx
boots off a 126MB USB key which is current partitioned down to 32MB.
To make a very nice file server, just add some hard drive for the
data....
Take a look at www.handhelds.org for more in the iPAQ and
http://www.8ung.at/spblinux/ for how to get Linux on a USB key.
Not to mention Tom's Root Boot diskette... http://www.toms.net/rb/ The
most Linux on a floppy...
Or Damn Small Linux... http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ 50 Meg ISO with a
GUI, web browser, ftp client, mp3 player, spreadsheet, email client,
word processor, file mamnger, yadda yadda yadda...
Or Linux-BBC... (Bootable Business Card CD sized)
http://www.lnx-bbc.org/
Etc...
27 Nov
27 Nov
2:02 a.m.
regarding small Linux distros:
One of my Linux-crazed friends has been maintaining his Crash
Recovery Kit distro, which can do more than its name suggests.
I keep it on one of those small creditcard-sized CDR's :)
It is now comkplete enough to serve as a base system.
Check it out at http://www.crashrecoverykit.org/
No affiliation, etc... he's just a good friend, and I prefer
OpenBSD over Linux, soo ;)
Cheers,
Fred
--
Fred N. van Kempen, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Collector/Archivist
Visit the VAXlab Project at http://www.pdp11.nl/VAXlab/
Visit the Archives at http://www.pdp11.nl/
Email: waltje(a)pdp11.nl BUSSUM, THE NETHERLANDS / Sunnyvale, CA, USA
4:07 a.m.
On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Fred N. van Kempen wrote:
regarding small Linux distros:
One of my Linux-crazed friends has been maintaining his Crash Recovery
Kit distro, which can do more than its name suggests. I keep it on one
of those small creditcard-sized CDR's :)
It is now comkplete enough to serve as a base system.
Check it out at http://www.crashrecoverykit.org/
No affiliation, etc... he's just a good friend, and I prefer OpenBSD
over Linux, soo ;)
I once had a functioning NetBSD (1.4.1, if memory serves) system running
quite well on a pair of 2.88MB floppies. It actually worked pretty well.
Peace... Sridhar
4:53 a.m.
Yes, I believe I remember actually seeing that in action a year or so ago.
I was interesting, well, that and messing with Sridhar's terminals and
vaxen and getting to poke around a Next =)
-John Boffemmyer IV
john at boff-net dot dhs dot org
-------------------------------------------
At 10:07 AM 11/27/2003, you wrote:
On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Fred N. van Kempen wrote:
----------------------------------------
Founder, Lead Writer, Tech Analyst
and Web Designer Boff-Net Technologies
http://boff-net.dhs.org/index.html
---------------------------------------
regarding small Linux distros:
One of my Linux-crazed friends has been maintaining his Crash Recovery
Kit distro, which can do more than its name suggests. I keep it on one
of those small creditcard-sized CDR's :)
It is now comkplete enough to serve as a base system.
Check it out at http://www.crashrecoverykit.org/
No affiliation, etc... he's just a good friend, and I prefer OpenBSD
over Linux, soo ;)
I once had a functioning NetBSD (1.4.1, if memory serves) system running
quite well on a pair of 2.88MB floppies. It actually worked pretty well.
Peace... Sridhar 
4:25 a.m.
No affiliation, etc... he's just a good friend,
and I prefer
OpenBSD over Linux, soo ;)
Hmmm... I guess I may as well add my 2p... A GUI-less install of FreeBSD
would be my bias. The ACCRC just got one of my machines that had been
running several versions of FreeBSD over the last 7 years... it was a 32MB
Pentium 133, 1GB hard disk (but the root partition was only 32MB). If you
don't install X, it's got a very small footprint. Install the conserver
port to get communications server functionality. --Patrick
5:07 a.m.
On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Fred N. van Kempen wrote:
Check it out at http://www.crashrecoverykit.org/
It's actually:
http://www.crashrecovery.org
Very nifty!
And BTW, Linux is considered "classic" now, so it's kinda sorta on topic
:)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
25 Nov
25 Nov
8:22 a.m.
On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, John Lawson wrote:
This is more-or-less on-topic, I theenk...
Not
strictly, but since its intent is to support ontopic issues,
we'll forgive ya :)
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.
Cool. This indeed is stuff "old" computers can handle fine.
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?
Well, I stay far away from Linux, but do use
OpenBSD for that kind
of stuff, either on DEC gear (VAX, MIPS, Alpha, Intel) or on PeeCee
hardware, if I must. My internal servers are fast VAXen (3100 and
4100 models) on OpenBSD, the (new) webserver is a fast DEC Intel-
based server (1206), but also under OpenBSD. Works like a charm,
and it's fully in line with the guidelines I set up for my network.
--f
--
Fred N. van Kempen, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Collector/Archivist
Visit the VAXlab Project at http://www.pdp11.nl/VAXlab/
Visit the Archives at http://www.pdp11.nl/
Email: waltje(a)pdp11.nl BUSSUM, THE NETHERLANDS / Sunnyvale, CA, USA
8:36 a.m.
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?
Am I correct in guessing that one thing that you're going to need is a fair number of
Serial Ports? If so, I'd recommend looking at either a Sun Sparc 20, or Sun Ultra 2.
Both are dual processor (actually if you get the right processors you can sqeeze four into
the Sparc 20), and you should be able to get an Aurora Serial card and breakout box. We
used to use Sparc 2's at work, and in some cases had two S-Bus Expansion boxes driving
a total of 96 serial ports, the systems were our console servers in the Computer Rooms.
Zane
--
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
7577
days inactive
7579
days old
15 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
freddyboomboom＠comcast.net -
Hans.Franke＠mch20.sbs.de -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
huw.davies＠kerberos.davies.net.au -
jcwren＠jcwren.com -
john_boffemmyer_iv＠boff-net.dhs.org -
jpl15＠panix.com -
patrick＠evocative.com -
vance＠neurotica.com -
vcf＠siconic.com -
waltje＠pdp11.nl