29 Nov
2003
29 Nov
'03
2:49 a.m.
Let's see if this goes through, last two didn't...
Now I know this falls under the 10 year category except for the video card
and SCSI card: I'm slapping together (finally) a P200 (not even MMX) Linux
box with a classic AMD 10Mbit PCI NIC (Sridhar got me hooked on 'em and
they certainly are tanks), an old AT motherboard with most likely a serial
mouse to keep it as classic as possible and a 250 watt p/s. Running the
beast will be an old 2GB IDE Maxtor I dug up, an old 4x IDE CD-ROM
(Toshiba?) and then 2 Seagate 4/4.5GB half-height drives I have laying
around, attached to a Diamond Fireport 20/40 (non-ultra). For video, it'll
have a PCI Jaton TNT2m64 32MB so I can at least get decent color when I'm
messing with some of the graphical stuff. I'll be using a 14 year old
(still works fine) clickity Ultra 2000 AT keyboard with the beast. Oh,
sound will be one of the original full length Creative Sound Blaster 16's
with Daughter Card (dated 1990?).
The big question is: should I go with Slackware or GenToo Linux as my OS?
This unit will be doing a little web serving and will become my email
server since friend's server is unreliable lately (Win2k on a college dorm
network - obviously off when it goes home with the guy at breaks). I know
some are suggesting NetBSD, but I'm looking to make this thing easy enough
so my gf can tinker with it and get converted from her eeewh, XP OS, while
making it not so much of a chore to do a basic config and get serving up
and running.
Any thoughts would be appreciated. Oh, also, I may be tossing in dual PCI
16/4 Madge/IBM Token Ring NICs to a Bay Networks 504 unit with Fiber ports
and NMM just for ha-ha's and something to hobby with in the future. I also
have a 3COM 12 port RJ45 Token unit, a DCA Microchannel/ISA Token card?
(unable to find details on) and the old IBM 8228 MAU with a lot of 6ft
Vampire to DB9's if anyone's looking for one, shipping and it's yours (I
remember someone on the list was looking a few months back, but I forget who)
-John Boffemmyer IV
PS: "A Linux box isn't a Linux box until you get it serving to the Internet
from something that is barely big enough to have the
Ethernet line plugged
into it." - I rather like that quote, you'll never
see Windoze doing that.
Whoever had recently said that should suggest it to Linus T. =)
29 Nov
29 Nov
7:29 a.m.
The big question is: should I go with Slackware or
GenToo Linux as my
OS?
IMO: no. (Well, you did ask.)
I know some are suggesting NetBSD, but I'm looking
to make this thing
easy enough so my gf can tinker with it [...]
I'm not convinced that adminning one Unix (Linux) is really that
different from adminning a different Unix (NetBSD) to someone not
accumstomed to either. (Admittedly, I'm _not_ "someone not accumstomed
to either", so I'm not really as competent to speak on the subject as I
might like.)
Unless you have some definite reason to think that Linux would be
easier for her to tinker with than NetBSD, I don't really see any
reason to reject it out of hand.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
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X Against HTML mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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9:08 a.m.
On Sat, 29 Nov 2003, der Mouse wrote:
Agreed.
Indeed. Especially since NetBSD's administration is *consistent*. Can't
say the same thing for Linux.
Peace... Sridhar
The big
question is: should I go with Slackware or GenToo Linux as my
OS?
IMO: no. (Well, you did ask.) I know some
are suggesting NetBSD, but I'm looking to make this thing
easy enough so my gf can tinker with it [...]
I'm not convinced that adminning one Unix (Linux) is really that
different from adminning a different Unix (NetBSD) to someone not
accumstomed to either. (Admittedly, I'm _not_ "someone not accumstomed
to either", so I'm not really as competent to speak on the subject as I
might like.)
Unless you have some definite reason to think that Linux would be easier
for her to tinker with than NetBSD, I don't really see any reason to
reject it out of hand. 
1:44 p.m.
The key here to me, is that you specified you are going to run "services",
and that you are concerned with reliability because "your friends server
isn't stable".
FreeBSD, or any of the XBsd's, are definitely the choice over linux there,
given those two statements. No, I'm not trying to start any wars - if
someone disagrees with me, please back it up - as I will here.
The strong point of FreeBSD or any of the variants (open, net, BSDI, etc.)
are the tcp stack and the VM system. These are exactly the areas where Linux
falls short. This isn't an opinion, it's a fact. The VM system in Linux has
always been severely challenged, swapping when it shouldn't for example.
From what I have heard, recently, Linux has redone most
of the VM. Wonder
why. The VM in BSD has been around for decades, as has it's
networking code.
Linux can't claim that. I prefer code that not only works well, but has been
around for many many years.
Why is this important you may ask? Well, because you want to run server
based services like mail and web serving. Couple that with the fact you are
using (comparatively, no denigration intended) a low powered machine to do
it. If the thing is swapping when it shouldn't, you've just cut the nu*s off
the machine and any hopes for acceptable performance.
Linux does have it's strong points. It supports many more devices (brands,
manufacturers, etc.) and it does so more quickly when new devices come out.
However, this is due to the development paradigm. Just about anyone can
throw together a driver, and get it included in some Linux distro. FreeBSD
has a tight (closed) development team. So the plus of linux is - if you got
some hot new scsi controller that just came out on the market yesterday,
chances are it will work with Linux. Of course, some 12 year old kid may
have written the driver, and he may not have thought to turn on something
like oh... say DMA in his driver. But it will "work". FreeBSD on the other
hand is MUCH slower to support new devices. But when it does, rock solid.
There are a lot of other things to elucidate differences here, but I won't
go into great length - but here's one other small point. How quickly does
linux come out with new kernel releases. They suffer from "kernel of the
week" syndrome. I frequently here some linux fen say "Oh, yeah, that problem
is a bug (in linux), it's fixed in kernel version 2.4.3.4.1.0.9.2.3. Geeze.
Nothing like letting the end users find all your bugs. Sounds like another
more well known OS manufacturer. FreeBSD generally has one release per year.
Imagine that. Code that works. No, FreeBSD is NOT bug free. But it's a
better scenario in that regard.
You also say you want to expose the S/O to something other than XP. Great.
Put Gnome or KDE on the FreeBSD machine. No worries there, works just fine.
I would beg to differ that FreeBSD is hard to install, even for a novice.
But I will definitely ceed that the install isn't as user friendly as Linux.
Linux is doing a great job of making the installation easy. However, the
"tough" parts of installing freebsd are very definitely things you don't
want to miss out on. You'll need to learn them eventually either way. Hummm
what other big name OS tried so hard to make things easy that they hid too
many things from the end user.
And yes, I will admit I'm biased. I'm a FreeBSD zealot. But not because it's
what all the other geeks are running, it's for sound technical reasons.
Regards,
Jay West
2:49 p.m.
Server software...
For setting up a simple home server - very limited audience - weather
station, webcam, PDP11 port(s) attached to [Big_Bad_World] via cable modem
(someday DSL if they ever buld it out to the Sticks where I live)
What version of Free BSD would Y'all recommend? I found 5.1 on sale at
Compusa - but it was a closeout and none were left ($49.95)
If I download it from somewhere - I'd like to partition this laptop to
get a feel for it. That brings up the Question of idiot-proof partitioning
utilities - because if it can be broken - I'll break it first.
Cheers and Best of the Season!
John
3:02 p.m.
John Lawson declared on Saturday 29 November 2003 11:49 pm:
Server software...
For setting up a simple home server - very limited audience - weather
station, webcam, PDP11 port(s) attached to [Big_Bad_World] via cable
modem (someday DSL if they ever buld it out to the Sticks where I
live)
What version of Free BSD would Y'all recommend? I found 5.1 on sale
at Compusa - but it was a closeout and none were left ($49.95)
That's easy. Get the newest version from:
http://www.freebsd.org
...which appears to be version 5.1. You can either download an ISO from
their website, or buy a copy from one of their venders listed under the
"Getting FreeBSD" link.
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCS
Information Technology at Purdue
Research Computing and Storage
http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/
3:17 p.m.
If you have a CDROM burner, http://www.linuxiso.org is your friend. They
have most distributions there. But I'd still suggest Gentoo.
--jc
On Saturday 29 November 2003 23:49 pm, John Lawson wrote:
Server software...
For setting up a simple home server - very limited audience - weather
station, webcam, PDP11 port(s) attached to [Big_Bad_World] via cable modem
(someday DSL if they ever buld it out to the Sticks where I live)
What version of Free BSD would Y'all recommend? I found 5.1 on sale at
Compusa - but it was a closeout and none were left ($49.95)
If I download it from somewhere - I'd like to partition this laptop to
get a feel for it. That brings up the Question of idiot-proof partitioning
utilities - because if it can be broken - I'll break it first.
Cheers and Best of the Season!
John
3:27 p.m.
If you are doing something mission critical, go with 4.9. If you want all
the latest & greatest, go with 5.1.
Jay
----- Original Message -----
From: "J.C. Wren" <jcwren(a)jcwren.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 11:17 PM
Subject: Re: On Topic? Looking for opinions...
If you have a CDROM burner, http://www.linuxiso.org is
your friend. They
have most distributions there. But I'd still suggest Gentoo.
--jc
On Saturday 29 November 2003 23:49 pm, John Lawson wrote:
> Server software...
>
> For setting up a simple home server - very limited audience - weather
> station, webcam, PDP11 port(s) attached to [Big_Bad_World] via cable
modem
> (someday DSL if they ever buld it out to the
Sticks where I live)
>
> What version of Free BSD would Y'all recommend? I found 5.1 on sale at
> Compusa - but it was a closeout and none were left ($49.95)
>
> If I download it from somewhere - I'd like to partition this laptop to
> get a feel for it. That brings up the Question of idiot-proof
partitioning
utilities -
because if it can be broken - I'll break it first.
Cheers and Best of the Season!
John
6:18 p.m.
New subject: Pippin on eBay
FYI, there's an Apple/Bandai Pippin up on eBay now with a buy-it-now
price of $65.00. This is the seldom seen grey U.S. model. These
typcically sell for at least $200. Nice set of accessories with it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=294&item=306…
59
I have no involvement in this auction (and I'd be interested except I
already have two!!)
-W
3:25 p.m.
I have a subscription to FreeBSD, so I automatically get the full 4 CD set
each time they cut a release. I can download it quickly enough, and often do
(I keep an install image on a bootable USB flash pen drive). I only have the
subscription to support the effort so to speak.
But for your use, why buy it? Just download for free. Or, you can download
just the install floppies, boot them, and it will install "across the
internet". Or I can send you a cd set.
Jay
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Lawson" <jpl15(a)panix.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 10:49 PM
Subject: Re: On Topic? Looking for opinions...
Server software...
For setting up a simple home server - very limited audience - weather
station, webcam, PDP11 port(s) attached to [Big_Bad_World] via cable modem
(someday DSL if they ever buld it out to the Sticks where I live)
What version of Free BSD would Y'all recommend? I found 5.1 on sale at
Compusa - but it was a closeout and none were left ($49.95)
If I download it from somewhere - I'd like to partition this laptop to
get a feel for it. That brings up the Question of idiot-proof partitioning
utilities - because if it can be broken - I'll break it first.
Cheers and Best of the Season!
John
2:57 p.m.
The VM in BSD has been around for decades,
This actually depends. NetBSD replaced their VM subsystem with Chuck
Cranor's UVM system. This happened sometime between 1.3 and 1.4, which
is years ago, but not yet decades ago. (I don't know about Free or
Open; I don't run them - Free because I have too varied a collection of
hardware, Open because I don't trust anything Theo has been near.)
But yes, I do agree with the basic point that the BSDs are, in general,
stabler than the Linuces.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
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X Against HTML mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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6:42 p.m.
On 2003.11.30 05:57 der Mouse wrote:
NetBSD replaced their VM subsystem with Chuck
Cranor's UVM system. This happened sometime between 1.3 and 1.4,
which is years ago, but not yet decades ago. (I don't know about
Free or Open;
OpenBSD has imported UVM some time ago. AFAIK FreeBSD still has the
old
MACH VM from the 4.4BSD times but highly modified and tuned.
But yes, I do agree with the basic point that the BSDs
are, in
general, stabler than the Linuces.
IMHO NetBSD is the most sane Unix on the planet.
Inside (source) and
outside (use, administration).
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
5:27 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Jay West once stated:
The key here to me, is that you specified you are going to run "services",
and that you are concerned with reliability because "your friends server
isn't stable".
FreeBSD, or any of the XBsd's, are definitely the choice over linux there,
given those two statements. No, I'm not trying to start any wars - if
someone disagrees with me, please back it up - as I will here.
The BSDs are a bit more stable and require less of a footprint than Linux,
but if it's learning you are going for, there are more books about Linux
than the BSDs.
And depending upon the age of the equipment, you may not want the latest
version of Linux as the 2.4 series is quite a bit bigger (significantly)
than 2.0. Up until about six months ago I was running a production server
(about a dozen websites, plus email) on a 486 (33Mhz, 20MB RAM, 17G drive
space) with no problem (using RedHat 5.2 with Linux 2.0.39).
Why is this important you may ask? Well, because you
want to run server
based services like mail and web serving. Couple that with the fact you are
using (comparatively, no denigration intended) a low powered machine to do
it. If the thing is swapping when it shouldn't, you've just cut the nu*s off
the machine and any hopes for acceptable performance.
I never had that much of a problem with Linux 2.0 with 20M of RAM serving
up websites and email. It didn't swap much and it was only when my friend
wanted to do more than just simple webserving that we switched to a more
modern machine.
-spc (But I've heard good things about the BSDs ... )
11:20 p.m.
On Sat, Nov 29, 2003 at 09:44:49PM -0600, Jay West wrote:
The key here to me, is that you specified you are
going to run "services",
and that you are concerned with reliability because "your friends server
isn't stable".
FreeBSD, or any of the XBsd's, are definitely the choice over linux there,
given those two statements. No, I'm not trying to start any wars - if
someone disagrees with me, please back it up - as I will here.
The strong point of FreeBSD or any of the variants (open, net, BSDI, etc.)
are the tcp stack and the VM system. These are exactly the areas where Linux
falls short. This isn't an opinion, it's a fact. The VM system in Linux has
always been severely challenged, swapping when it shouldn't for example.
Well, according to http://bulk.fefe.de/scalability/ if you want to run
*BSD on x86, it should be FreeBSD. If you are not nailed to *BSD, Linux
might actually be the better choice. It simply depends on a few things:
- what prior experience one has,
- what kind of knowledge environment (friends with experience and so
on) one can use,
- what you actually want to do with the box,
- personal preferences,
From what I have heard, recently, Linux has redone
most of the VM. Wonder
why. The VM in BSD has been around for decades, as has
it's networking code.
Linux can't claim that. I prefer code that not only works well, but has been
around for many many years. Why is this important you may ask? Well, because you
want to run server
based services like mail and web serving. Couple that with the fact you are
using (comparatively, no denigration intended) a low powered machine to do
it. If the thing is swapping when it shouldn't, you've just cut the nu*s off
the machine and any hopes for acceptable performance.
Right. One should try to keep the working set (the collection of memory
pages that are constantly in use - most likely core parts of the
web- and mailserver processes for a web/mail server) out of swap. The
working set however, is just a part of used memory. So, as long as the
working set fits nicely into RAM, using swap is not that bad.
Linux does have it's strong points. It supports
many more devices (brands,
manufacturers, etc.) and it does so more quickly when new devices come out.
However, this is due to the development paradigm. Just about anyone can
throw together a driver, and get it included in some Linux distro. FreeBSD
has a tight (closed) development team. So the plus of linux is - if you got
some hot new scsi controller that just came out on the market yesterday,
chances are it will work with Linux. Of course, some 12 year old kid may
have written the driver, and he may not have thought to turn on something
like oh... say DMA in his driver. But it will "work".
Deliberate misrepresentation of the Linux kernel development model, how
nice. Yes, any 12 year old can write a kernel driver and get it included
in his own distro - but he can do the same with his own FreeBSD variant,
although in both cases he is probably the only user of that. Yes,
anybody can write a Linux kernel driver - but to get it accepted into
the mainline kernel, he has to get this driver past the relevant
maintainer for that subsystem (say, SCSI) and then past Linus. And Linus
is well known for his "keep this crap out of the kernel" attitude. If,
however one doesn't run the mainline kernel but a kernel based on the
mainline kernel with a random collection of patches ... well, life is
hard. If some random patch isn't in the mainline kernel, then there are
most likely rather good reasons for it (like its author being laughed
off the linux-kernel mailinglist).
FreeBSD on the other
hand is MUCH slower to support new devices. But when it does, rock solid.
Then some evil h4x0rs got into the FreeBSD kernel sources sometime
between 4.2 and 4.9 and quietly buggered up PCMCIA. FreeBSD 4.9 does not
work with PCMCIA hardware that FreeBSD 4.2 supported and ran well on.
There are a lot of other things to elucidate
differences here, but I won't
go into great length - but here's one other small point. How quickly does
linux come out with new kernel releases. They suffer from "kernel of the
week" syndrome. I frequently here some linux fen say "Oh, yeah, that problem
is a bug (in linux), it's fixed in kernel version 2.4.3.4.1.0.9.2.3. Geeze.
Release early and release often. Yes, this is also a philosophical
question.
Nothing like letting the end users find all your bugs.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the PC hardware spectrum being as
extremly diverse as it is and hardware vendors not always cooperating
(like "duh, those interface specs are secret!!") it is just plainly
impossible for the kernel developers to have access to all the variants
of hardware "out there". User feedback and support is extremly important
for further development of the kernel.
Sounds like another
more well known OS manufacturer. FreeBSD generally has one release per year.
Imagine that. Code that works. No, FreeBSD is NOT bug free. But it's a
better scenario in that regard.
That is open for discussion - a long and most likley fruitless
discussion ;-)
You also say you want to expose the S/O to something
other than XP. Great.
Put Gnome or KDE on the FreeBSD machine. No worries there, works just fine.
I would beg to differ that FreeBSD is hard to install, even for a novice.
You are right - as long as one does everything right from the start.
Last time I tried, the installer was not restartable (i.e. "forget what
I told you, try again from position 0") - that is annoying.
But I will definitely ceed that the install isn't
as user friendly as Linux.
Linux is doing a great job of making the installation easy. However, the
"tough" parts of installing freebsd are very definitely things you don't
want to miss out on. You'll need to learn them eventually either way. Hummm
what other big name OS tried so hard to make things easy that they hid too
many things from the end user.
Nice try. You can, however, get an arbitrarily hard install. If you
want, you grab Gentoo - whose install CD drops you in a rootshell after
booting, assuming you know and can do what needs to be done (setting up
the root partition, LVM, logical volumes, filesystems, ... ) to get a
selfbooting running system. Oh, and it leaves you a tarball of a very
basic system containing just enough to set up the environment and start
compiling the operating system core environment.
And yes, I will admit I'm biased. I'm a
FreeBSD zealot. But not because it's
what all the other geeks are running, it's for sound technical reasons.
Then please keep to the technical reasons and cut the FUD, okay?
Regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
30 Nov
30 Nov
12:34 a.m.
On Sun, 30 Nov 2003, Alexander Schreiber wrote:
Well, according to http://bulk.fefe.de/scalability/ if
you want to run
*BSD on x86, it should be FreeBSD.
Did you see the news item referenced at the top of that web page?
http://bulk.fefe.de/scalability/#netbsd2
-> [Nov 1 2003] I got an email suggesting that I re-check NetBSD. The
-> results are nothing short of astonishing. In two weeks time the
-> NetBSD team made dramatic improvements.
->
-> * socket: previously O(n), now O(1).
-> * bind: greatly improved, but still O(n). Much less steep, though.
-> * fork: a modest O(n) for dynamically linked programs, O(1) for
-> statically linked.
-> * mmap: a bad O(n) before, now O(1) with a small O(n) shadow.
-> * touch after mmap: a bad strange graph in 1.6.1, a modest O(n) a
-> week ago, now O(1).
-> * http request latency: previously O(n), now O(1).
->
-> Congratulations, NetBSD! NetBSD now has better scalability than
-> FreeBSD.
-brian.
12:57 a.m.
On Sun, Nov 30, 2003 at 09:34:42AM -0500, Brian Chase wrote:
On Sun, 30 Nov 2003, Alexander Schreiber wrote:
Yes, he was also rather enthusiastic about NetBSDs response. My
limitation was "on x86" - one of the (unstated) reasons being that, if
necessary, one can run Linux binaries using the Linux emulation of
FreeBSD (comes in handy for running commercial/non-free binary only
stuff for Linux). If the platform limitation is lifted to "must be able
to differentiate ones from zeros", my favourite *BSD would be NetBSD,
because it runs on such a wide range of plattforms, has a very small
footprint and a nicely consistent admin interface.
But on x86 I would most likely try FreeBSD first.
Regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Well, according to
http://bulk.fefe.de/scalability/ if you want to run
*BSD on x86, it should be FreeBSD.
Did you see the news item referenced at the top of that web page?
http://bulk.fefe.de/scalability/#netbsd2
-> [Nov 1 2003] I got an email suggesting that I re-check NetBSD. The
-> results are nothing short of astonishing. In two weeks time the
-> NetBSD team made dramatic improvements.
->
-> * socket: previously O(n), now O(1).
-> * bind: greatly improved, but still O(n). Much less steep, though.
-> * fork: a modest O(n) for dynamically linked programs, O(1) for
-> statically linked.
-> * mmap: a bad O(n) before, now O(1) with a small O(n) shadow.
-> * touch after mmap: a bad strange graph in 1.6.1, a modest O(n) a
-> week ago, now O(1).
-> * http request latency: previously O(n), now O(1).
->
-> Congratulations, NetBSD! NetBSD now has better scalability than
-> FreeBSD.
7692
days inactive
7693
days old
16 comments
13 participants
participants (13)
-
als＠thangorodrim.de -
jcwren＠jcwren.com -
jkunz＠unixag-kl.fh-kl.de -
john＠boff-net.dhs.org -
jpl15＠panix.com -
jwest＠classiccmp.org -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
pat＠computer-refuge.org -
patrick＠evocative.com -
spc＠conman.org -
vance＠neurotica.com -
vaxzilla＠jarai.org -
wayne.smith＠charter.net