> I have a headless Linux machine. It is an embedded 386sx33 from
> Advantech. Woo - Woo 386 I know, but it's just a toy for me to
> play with Linux in a fashion that I may use it someday. ( plus it
> was a freebee left over from a project many years ago that was
> headed for the trash bin )
My main household LAN server is an old 386DX33.
It does mail/POP, uucp, web, backup PPP/masquerading,
AMANDA backups (for all my desktop systems), NFS
(read-only), local web mirror, etc.
> As you can guess I'm not running x-windows! The performance is
> actually not bad. Small programs compile fairly quickly. Of
> course if I do a kernel compile, I kick it off and go to
> bed... :-)
Mine does occasionally run X --- it has a 2Mb STB
Powergraph video card, so it actually runs X faster
than a 486DX2/66 with dumber VLB card.
However, I certainly wouldn't use it for day-to-day
operations under X. A P100 with about a 2 to 4 Mb and
32Mb of RAM and a 17" monitor capable of 1024x768 (by
at least 256 coloors) is the absolute minimum I'd suggest
for real X use (800x600 is tolerable for brief periods
--- but I'd never use this for most general purpose
applications).
> My setup has no keyboard nor video card. The cpu is in a custom
> two slot per side passive AT backplane ( two slots wide, but 4
> slots total ). This is so it can fit in a 3" tall 17" rack mount
> - backplane positioned vertically. The only other card in there
> is a ne2000 clone ethernet card. I believe that it is running
> slackware 2.0.27 if memory serves. I bought a small footprint
> power supply for $8 from bgmicro. The whole thing would fit in a
> shoebox.
It would be neat to hear of a cheap box like this
available pre-assembled (for about $100 to $150).
I can already get $200 barebones mini-towers (just
add hard drive, monitor and keyboard). If this
box came with a small HD and Linux pre-installed
(with working serial patches) I'd even pay $250 or
$300 for it.
> I can telnet and ftp to it from either my os/2 warp connect
> machine or my windoze 98 machine. This works just fine.
> I did make the serial console patch to see the kernel messages.
> It compiled fine, but I never got it to work. Things were working
> fine otherwise so I didn't spend much time on figuring this out.
> Perhaps this serial port contention is the reason.
> Other than an embedded machine, other thoughts for use of this
> machine: remove hard disk, install etherboot rom in ne2000 card,
> for a diskless unit. Put this unit in small-small enclosure and
> have it as lan print server for my home network. Perhaps a
> sansdisk would be a better solution so don't need to have a tftp
> server.
Another thing I'd like to see "pre-assembled."
> I also have more serious projects in mind. Mostly for a data
> logging project that I orginally developed a prototype running
> OS/2. 1) OS/2 is not free, 2) OS/2 is picky about having a video
> card ( at least I haven't discovered a way around this ), 3) I
> wanted to learn something about unix and Linux, 4) I don't have
> the source code for OS/2 in case I design a custom cpu card for my
> project.
> One thing of interest that I did was "clone" my Linux hard drive.
> I didn't seem to find how to do this in any how-to, just bits and
> pieces. I wrote down how to do this procedure style in case I
> forgot it. If anyone is interested I can post this ( if I can
> find it anyway :-)
Hmmm.
dd if=$RAWPARTITION | rsh $OTHERHOST dd of=$TARGETPART
(assuming you've created to partitions of the same size
and that you want to dupe the filesystem on a remote
system).
There are several other methods --- though all of them
that I know of require that you create a set of
partitions on the other drive (remote system or locally
installed) first. If the two drives can be configured
to use the same geometry you can actually use something
like:
dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb
... (for a couple of IDE drives, for example).
... if the the target drive supports "autotranslation"
as most IDE drives do, and it's at least as large as
the source drive you can easily make them use the same
geometry (so far as the host systems are concerned).
> For now this is just a hobby for me. I would be interested
> hearing what others have done.
My 386 was my primary workstation (and concurrently
acting as a server for my wife's Pentium II and my
father's 486DX2/66) for many years. Actually I've
been using it since I lived in L.A., then when I moved
to Oregon, and now through one rental house and into
the house that my wife and I are now buying --- for
over 10 years.
It started as a DOS system, then running DESQview and
(occasionally) MS Windows 3.0 when it first came out.
I installed SLS Linux on it (I don't remember the version
--- but that was an early Linux FTP and floppy distribution ---
using a 0.95 or so kernel). I later re-installed using
an early Slackware, and again, years later, a copy of
Red Hat 3.03. It now runs Red Hat 4.2 with many manually
installed tarballs and RPMs.
It still has DOS installed on it (still boot up on that
IDE drive in DOS and runs LOADLIN to get into Linux).
However, it almost never runs DOS (not even under dosemu
--- though that is installed and works).
Over the years I've added many components. It started
with 4Mb, was upgraded to 16Mb and later to 32Mb. It now has
a SCSI adapter (Adaptec 1542C) with a couple of hard disks,
a 4mm DAT auto changer, a CD-ROM and a CD-R, and a
magneto optical drive. In short the SCSI chain is full.
It has an ethernet card QuickPath multiport IDE controller
with 4 serial ports, two parallel ports etc. (Oh yeah! It's
a print and fax server, too). Almost every IRQ is in
use (though I think I'll disable the parallel port IRQs
if I need to add anything else).
I eventually built a Pentium 150Mhz workstation (with
64Mb, a 4Mb video card, and about 15Gb of disk space).
The main reason I did it was that I switched from elm
to emacs mh-e and from tin to Gnus. Emacs is a bit
slow on a 386 (but usable). Gnus threading is just to
slow (hours to thread a busy mailing list rather than
a few minutes on the Pentum). (I still work primarily
from text mode).
I still use the 386 as a server, since it really doesn't
need any more power than that. Character mode services
just don't need much power. Some the money I could have
spent on faster processors, new motherboards, etc, went
to upgrading the old one. (More went to building a
down payment for a house in the Silicon Valley).
I still suggest that slower, less powerful systems be
used for departmental servers etc. You can have *lots*
of systems with lots of failover and lots of shelf spares
for less than you'd spend on newer systems. So your new
systems can go to your users --- particularly your power
users.
--
Jim Dennis (800) 938-4078 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Proprietor, Starshine Technical Services: http://www.starshine.org
