Re: Penderel (Was IQfC)
On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 10:24:03AM +, Lusercop wrote: On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 10:20:17AM +, Greg McCarroll wrote: It is probably just me, but I hate to see a computer not used to its full potential and penderel is sitting unloaded for much of the day. You could do what I do with the unused CPU time on colon, and donate it to one Nicholas Clark and his bleadperl smoketests. (obviously you wouldn't necessarily want to do those, but something similar may be possible). Smoking CPAN might be worthwhile. When I asked Jos, I think that his answer was that CPANPLUS has pretty much all the functionality needed build in. Nicholas Clark -- INTERCAL better than perl? http://www.perl.org/advocacy/spoofathon/
Re: Penderel (Was IQfC)
On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 10:20:17AM +, Greg McCarroll wrote: It is probably just me, but I hate to see a computer not used to its full potential and penderel is sitting unloaded for much of the day. You could do what I do with the unused CPU time on colon, and donate it to one Nicholas Clark and his bleadperl smoketests. (obviously you wouldn't necessarily want to do those, but something similar may be possible). -- Lusercop.net - LARTing Lusers everywhere since 2002
Re: Penderel (Was IQfC)
At 18/11/2002 10:20 [], Greg McCarroll wrote: I think Penderel is one of london.pm's most underused assets. Its got a reasonable processor (AMD-K6/350), 1/2gig of memory and 25gig of free disk, which by my standards makes it a useful little machine. We probably can't use too much bandwidth on it, but is there not some other ways we can use it? It is probably just me, but I hate to see a computer not used to its full potential and penderel is sitting unloaded for much of the day. It could sit and chug on SETI units... ;-) But I agree, there must be something the box could be doing... /joel -- S. Joel Bernstein :: joel at fysh dot org :: t: 020 8458 2323 Nobody is going to claim that Perl 6's OO is bolted on. Well, except maybe for certain Slashdotters who don't know the difference between rational discussion and cheerleading... -- Larry Wall
Re: Penderel (Was IQfC)
On Mon, 18 Nov 2002, Greg McCarroll wrote: It is probably just me, but I hate to see a computer not used to its full potential and penderel is sitting unloaded for much of the day. Personally, I think that this is the wrong way to look at this. I prefer instead to think that we have the extra resources should we need it to do anything. There's no law that say we have to consume all of our resources. I'd prefer for someone to come up with an interesting project and then that they had the resources to do it on penderel, rather than the other way round, where someone goes out looking for things to simply consume the resources. Don't think that I'm saying that you shouldn't do something with penderel (infact I think that if you can come up with a great project it would be wonderful) but I'm just saying I think you're coming at it from a point of a problem that I think doesn't exist. Extra capability is good. If memory serves, in the past running distributed.net clients and their ilk caused instability in the box (I believe at the time this was attributed to heating issues.) Given that our website and mailing list run on this box (which, as Dave Cantrell points out don't need to be up all the time, but do require someone to get back up every time they fall over) I'd rather see the sacrifice machine stability without providing some tangible benefit. Just my two pence worth. Mark. -- s'' Mark Fowler London.pm Bath.pm http://www.twoshortplanks.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ';use Term'Cap;$t=Tgetent Term'Cap{};print$t-Tputs(cl);for$w(split/ +/ ){for(0..30){$|=print$t-Tgoto(cm,$_,$y). $w;select$k,$k,$k,.03}$y+=2}
Re: Penderel (Was IQfC)
On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 10:20:17AM +, Greg McCarroll wrote: I think Penderel is one of london.pm's most underused assets. Its got a reasonable processor (AMD-K6/350), 1/2gig of memory and 25gig of One of the more recent possible, and certainly very real older reasons it is/was unused is that its hardware was tolerant of heavy use. A mailing list and website might not be a big deal but oh boy do people make a noise when they disappear. A useful duty penderel does is providing shell accounts for travelling mongers and I've tried to be quick helpful setting these up with a punt to Alex to collect some kind of donation to the hardware. It is probably just me, but I hate to see a computer not used to its full potential and penderel is sitting unloaded for much of the day. I'll install a distributed.net client immediately! :-) At the end of the day, the box has been around for ages, people know it's there, and they can email root for an account if they want it. I wouldn't personally lament that its disk or CPU wait states aren't begging for mercy 24x7. I'm curious why Alex asked the question and what kind of answer he'd like to see, or what thoughts he has on it... Paul -- Paul Makepeace ... http://paulm.com/ If you exploded into a thousand tiny pieces, then don't bend over in the Monastery. -- http://paulm.com/toys/surrealism/
Re: Penderel (Was IQfC)
* Paul Makepeace ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 10:20:17AM +, Greg McCarroll wrote: I think Penderel is one of london.pm's most underused assets. Its got a reasonable processor (AMD-K6/350), 1/2gig of memory and 25gig of One of the more recent possible, and certainly very real older reasons it is/was unused is that its hardware was tolerant of heavy use. A mailing list and website might not be a big deal but oh boy do people make a noise when they disappear. Well if we do not want to put more load on the box, should we be appealing for hardware cash in exchange for accounts. Why not get t-shirt cash in exchange for accounts. Hell, you could even do a deal where you get a free account if you buy 5 shirts and sign the AUP (which we should have). Greg -- Greg McCarroll http://www.mccarroll.org.uk/~gem/ jabber:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Penderel (Was IQfC)
On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 01:51:44PM +, Greg McCarroll wrote: * Paul Makepeace ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 10:20:17AM +, Greg McCarroll wrote: I think Penderel is one of london.pm's most underused assets. Its got a reasonable processor (AMD-K6/350), 1/2gig of memory and 25gig of One of the more recent possible, and certainly very real older reasons it is/was unused is that its hardware was tolerant of heavy use. A mailing list and website might not be a big deal but oh boy do people make a noise when they disappear. Well if we do not want to put more load on the box, should we be I think the issue is simply that there isn't a demand for it. Hardly surprising considering that most people probably have their own computers and network connections. appealing for hardware cash in exchange for accounts. Why not get t-shirt cash in exchange for accounts. Hell, you could even do a deal This is already in effect in fact. You can dig thru' the archives if you like, or persuade Alex to re-post it :-) Heck it may be on the site even. I'd do all this myself if I could persuade galeon to stay up for more than about three nanoseconds *grumble* where you get a free account if you buy 5 shirts and sign the AUP (which we should have). Don't be bad, thanks. If you don't know what bad probably means you probably shouldn't have an account. Paul -- Paul Makepeace ... http://paulm.com/ What is the color yellow? Tappa, tappa, tappa! -- http://paulm.com/toys/surrealism/
Re: Penderel (Was IQfC)
Penderel is stable now, since putting in bits donated kindly by (oops, can't remember, sorry, kind person). There's a pending hardware upgrade too, which I paid for in advance of receiving suggested 20 quid donation for some extra accounts (5 quid for the unwaged/otherwise poor). I'll drop in the new motherboard and chip Real Soon Now. An AMD 1700+ I believe. I bought it a long time ago but the motherboard was faulty. I have long since returned to the tcr computer fayre, and replaced it for a working one. It's just not inside the computer... I offer a vague feeling that I won't get all my money back, in return for not having to document the process. If someone else wants to manage it more professionally they should feel free. There are some limits on bandwidth but the deal was that we (state51) give you (london.pm) some bandwidth and you do some interesting community things with it. The reason for my question is that I think it could be used more but don't have many good ideas myself. An installation of subversion would be a very good thing, which was mentioned on IRC earlier. alex
Re: Penderel (Was IQfC)
* alex ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: An installation of subversion would be a very good thing, which was mentioned on IRC earlier. Well I'd like to see someone take ownership of this task, which may provide the foundation of a project i'd like to see happen. The project is stolen almost entirely from gnat and its the idea of mentoring within the Perl community. Basically I'd like to see people in London.pm who are or feel they are less experienced with Perl get teamed up with people who have more experience to work on small open source works. I'd like this to happen on a 1 to 1 basis and I'd like it to use subversion on Penderel as the repository as opposed to yet another doomed SF project. Thoughts? G. -- Greg McCarroll http://www.mccarroll.org.uk/~gem/ jabber:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Penderel ssh
On Fri, Jun 07, 2002 at 08:44:24AM +0200, Newton, Philip wrote: I don't know, but for some reason I have this mental image of mail to root landing in a file on the mail spool on the box and sitting there for an indefinite time until someone logs in as root (which probably doesn't happen This would definitely be a very sloppy set-up. root should always be in /etc/aliases or its equivalent. In fact under some circumstances MTAs won't even deliver to root's mail spool as they'll be too low a privilege. Further, doing ordinary non-system admin tasks like reading mail as root is a sloppy practice. (OTOH, a published alternative admin address would be useful for when penderel is b0rken... sending email to root at brokenbox is not going to do a lot of good :) You can probably guess at least three of them :-) There is also a mailing list sysops but that's more for internal use but certainly no-one would object to questions or suggestions there. Sending to the list about penderel issues is not a terribly effective route. A) 297 other people don't want to know about it B) a chat list isn't read as high priority as people's inbox. Paul -- Paul Makepeace ... http://paulm.com/ If the car doesn't start in the rain, then there will be much jubilation in the streets tonight. -- http://paulm.com/toys/surrealism/
Re: Penderel ssh
Paul Makepeace wrote: On Fri, Jun 07, 2002 at 08:44:24AM +0200, Newton, Philip wrote: (OTOH, a published alternative admin address would be useful for when penderel is b0rken... sending email to root at brokenbox is not going to do a lot of good :) You can probably guess at least three of them :-) Probably... but when something is b0rken I don't necessarily want to dig through my mail archive hoping that I've kept some emails from them so that I can look up their addresses. (And at home I don't have my london-list spool available at all.) Cheers, Philip -- Philip Newton [EMAIL PROTECTED] All opinions are my own, not my employer's. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Re: penderel update
alex wrote: perl 5.8.0 rc1 is on penderel (london.pm.org) now in /usr/local/bin/perl5.8.0 A propos penderel -- the motd says that there's a local CPAN copy; however, the directory has weird permissions something like 640 (IIRC), which is not terribly useful since people who aren't uid/gid cpan can't read anything under there. Is the motd premature or are the permissions wrong? Cheers, Philip -- Philip Newton [EMAIL PROTECTED] datenrevision GmbH Co. OHG http://www.datenrevision.de a gedas company TEL +49-40-797 007-37 Cuxhavener Str. 36, D-21149 Hamburg FAX +49-40-797 007-10
Re: penderel update
On Mon, 2002-06-03 at 09:28, Newton, Philip wrote: A propos penderel -- the motd says that there's a local CPAN copy; however, the directory has weird permissions something like 640 (IIRC), which is not terribly useful since people who aren't uid/gid cpan can't read anything under there. Is the motd premature or are the permissions wrong? oops, thanks for pointing that out... permissions are fixed, and i've symlinked it in to /usr/local/CPAN downtime for system shining is still scheduled for tomorrow (tuesday). cheers, alex
Re: penderel
On Sun, 2002-05-19 at 11:39, Dave Hodgkinson wrote: alex [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: i have bought a mobo + cpu (athlon 1800+) + fan for 140 quid from the tcr computer fair. i have a spare psu that i'll put in too, just in case penderel's psu is what's been mucking up all the hardware. Then get a decent, new 350W mother. if you have one to contribute i'd be more than happy to put it in for you. alex
Re: penderel
alex [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: i have bought a mobo + cpu (athlon 1800+) + fan for 140 quid from the tcr computer fair. i have a spare psu that i'll put in too, just in case penderel's psu is what's been mucking up all the hardware. Then get a decent, new 350W mother. -- David Hodgkinson, Wizard for Hirehttp://www.davehodgkinson.com Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com All the Purple Family Tree news http://www.slashrock.com Interim Technical Director, Web Architecture Consultant for hire
Re: penderel
On Sat, 2002-05-18 at 01:56, the hatter wrote: It's ok, a kind (not to mention handsome, witty and modest) donor has given some random AGP card to the cause. cheers hatter! and for the network card too. i have bought a mobo + cpu (athlon 1800+) + fan for 140 quid from the tcr computer fair. i have a spare psu that i'll put in too, just in case penderel's psu is what's been mucking up all the hardware. i'm hoping i'll be able to recoup most of that 140 quid in return for new shell account holders. so if you want a shell on penderel, blech and i agreed on a contribution of 20 pounds waged, or 5 pounds unwaged. this is rather cheap, to get as many people involved with london.pm.org as possible. i'll send a more explantory mail around about it once the machine is upgraded. cheers alex
Re: penderel
On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 02:47:24PM +0100, David Cantrell wrote: On Tue, May 14, 2002 at 09:52:16PM +, the hatter wrote: I'll happily donate one of my favourite 3C905s which I seem to be accumulating. And I'd assume you want AGP graphics, rather than PCI ? It's a server. It needs not graphics, other than the bare minimum that broken PCs require before they'll boot. A shitty old Tseng ISA card would be sufficient. Do not put an ISA card in a machine. Generating ISA interrupts causes bus slow-down IIRC and quite frankly any piece of hardware that is 10yr old probably isn't something you want to be messing with. AGP cards starting at 30q leaves no excuse for this recycling. Paul -- Paul Makepeace ... http://paulm.com/ What is abecaderian? Exactly! -- http://paulm.com/toys/surrealism/
Re: penderel
On Thu, 16 May 2002, Paul Makepeace wrote: On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 02:47:24PM +0100, David Cantrell wrote: It's a server. It needs not graphics, other than the bare minimum that broken PCs require before they'll boot. A shitty old Tseng ISA card would be sufficient. Do not put an ISA card in a machine. Generating ISA interrupts causes bus slow-down IIRC and quite frankly any piece of hardware that is 10yr old probably isn't something you want to be messing with. AGP cards starting at 30q leaves no excuse for this recycling. It's ok, a kind (not to mention handsome, witty and modest) donor has given some random AGP card to the cause. Should anyone actually want an ISA graphics card, I quite possibly have one lying around, along with the worlds stock of ISA network cards. the hatter
Re: penderel
On Tue, May 14, 2002 at 09:52:16PM +, the hatter wrote: I'll happily donate one of my favourite 3C905s which I seem to be accumulating. And I'd assume you want AGP graphics, rather than PCI ? It's a server. It needs not graphics, other than the bare minimum that broken PCs require before they'll boot. A shitty old Tseng ISA card would be sufficient. -- David Cantrell|Degenerate|http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david Perl may be the best solution for processing a text file, but asking a group of Perl Mongers clearly isn't -- aef, in #london.pm
Tseng ISA cards (was Re: penderel)
David Cantrell wrote: A shitty old Tseng ISA card would be sufficient. Oooh. Fond memories. My first computer had an ET4000 which I ran at 800x600. Cheers, Philip -- Philip Newton [EMAIL PROTECTED] All opinions are my own, not my employer's. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Re: Tseng ISA cards (was Re: penderel)
On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 04:29:46PM +0200, Newton, Philip wrote: My first computer had an ET4000 which I ran at 800x600. Lucky bastard. My first computer did 80x25 :-) A
Re: Tseng ISA cards (was Re: penderel)
On Wed, 15 May 2002, Andy Wardley wrote: On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 04:29:46PM +0200, Newton, Philip wrote: My first computer had an ET4000 which I ran at 800x600. Lucky bastard. My first computer did 80x25 :-) My first computer still does 40x25 (unless you counted the quarter-block 'graphics' which doubled that). the hatter
Re: Tseng ISA cards (was Re: penderel)
On Wed, 15 May 2002, Newton, Philip wrote: David Cantrell wrote: A shitty old Tseng ISA card would be sufficient. Oooh. Fond memories. My first computer had an ET4000 which I ran at 800x600. My first computer had LEDs /J\
Re: Tseng ISA cards (was Re: penderel)
On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 07:47:38PM +0100, Jonathan Stowe wrote: On Wed, 15 May 2002, Newton, Philip wrote: My first computer had an ET4000 which I ran at 800x600. My first computer had LEDs This 'ere puter has five LEDs. FIVE. Bloody luxury! -- David Cantrell|Degenerate|http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it-- Agatha Christie
Re: Tseng ISA cards (was Re: penderel)
On Wed, 15 May 2002, David Cantrell wrote: On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 07:47:38PM +0100, Jonathan Stowe wrote: On Wed, 15 May 2002, Newton, Philip wrote: My first computer had an ET4000 which I ran at 800x600. My first computer had LEDs This 'ere puter has five LEDs. FIVE. Bloody luxury! I had to push the bits through snowstorms every day -- uphill both ways of course -- and if I wanted a display I had to figure out the configuration of the bits by sticking my finger in a specially mounted socket: OUCH! meant one, no ouch meant zero. But Ada Lovelace helped me program it, so it was okay. Hubba hubba. :) -- Chris Devers[EMAIL PROTECTED] Apache / mod_perl / http://homepage.mac.com/chdevers/resume/ More war soon. You know how it is.-- mnftiu.cc
Re: Tseng ISA cards (was Re: penderel)
Andy Wardley wrote: On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 04:29:46PM +0200, Newton, Philip wrote: My first computer had an ET4000 which I ran at 800x600. Lucky bastard. My first computer did 80x25 :-) Well, OK. I should have qualified that with my first peecee. My first computer did 40x25 natively in four colours^Wshades of green, though you could also go 80x25 with two (and 20x25 with sixteen, if you felt that way). 'Tweren't really a text mode, though; it always ran in graphics mode. I think it was something like 640/320/160 x 200 pixels depending on the mode (the graphics primitives gave 400 lines, but there were physically only 200). Cheers, Philip -- Philip Newton [EMAIL PROTECTED] All opinions are my own, not my employer's. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Re: penderel
On 14 May 2002, alex wrote: you could help by bringing a graphics card or network card to the technical meeting, if you have one spare. I'll happily donate one of my favourite 3C905s which I seem to be accumulating. And I'd assume you want AGP graphics, rather than PCI ? I suspect I can liberate one of those too, it does require me remembering to throw it in with the barcode readers some time in the next couple of days though. the hatter
Re: penderel
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], David Cantrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Any OS, however, that doesn't run well in 128Mb is a broken OS in my opinion, and that 128Mb should include X. Yes, Mac OS X, I'm criticising you twice in the same sentence there. Although, to be fair, it does sound like their memory management needs more than a little work... URL: http://www.darwinfo.org/devlist.php3?number=14964 ...but I have 512M and staring at the spinning beachball of death happens a lot more often than is reasonable. My current favourite is opening a directory containing 5 700M .mov/.avi's in Graphic Convertor's browser and the G4 swapping for nigh on 10 minutes (thrashing the disk!), then kernel panicking. The World's Most Advanced OS, indeed. Perhaps not The World's Most Useful OS though. Bah, must stop ranting about OSX before 8am. -- rob partington % [EMAIL PROTECTED] % http://lynx.browser.org/
Re: penderel
Dominic Mitchell [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Not to mention the fact that Solaris runs like crap on all pre-Ultrasparc hardware. I think Solaris 8 doesn't even run on pre-Ultra hardware (or is supported on?) If you desperately wanted a Sun operating system, you could go for SunOS 4.1.4, but that's been unsupported for nearly 10 years now. Debian or NetBSD would be a far better choice, for the same reason that you wouldn't try to run windows XP on a Pentium 90. NetBSD or OpenBSD are probably best for a lowend Sparc and the closest to the traditional BSD-based SunOS 4. According to the (possibly biased and probably outdated) NetBSD/Sparc FAQ Why is NetBSD so much faster than SparcLinux on sun4c? The memory management hardware on sun4c machines (SPARCstation 1, 1+, 2, IPC, IPX, SLC, ELC and clones) is not handled particularly well by Linux. Until Linux reworks their MMU code NetBSD will be very much faster on this hardware. YMMV -- Steve Mynott [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: penderel
On 10 Apr 2002, Clive Hills wrote: On Wed, 2002-04-10 at 18:10, Steve Mynott wrote: I think Solaris 8 doesn't even run on pre-Ultra hardware (or is supported on?) In fact Solaris 8 runs quite happily (FSVO happy) on sun4m and sun4d hardware. In fact the beta refresh of Solaris 9 will run on sun4m too which is handy since I don't have any sun4u hardware at home at the moment. I knew sol8 did, but if 9 seems to as well, then I'm both slightly surprised, and rather happy. Any idea what the minimum ram necessary is ? or how much have you got, and does it seem to have any big speed problems in places that you'd attribute to lack of memory ? the hatter
Re: penderel
On Wed, 2002-04-10 at 18:20, the hatter wrote: I knew sol8 did, but if 9 seems to as well, then I'm both slightly surprised, and rather happy. Any idea what the minimum ram necessary is ? or how much have you got, and does it seem to have any big speed problems in places that you'd attribute to lack of memory ? I've only got 64Mb of ram on the SS5/170 that I'm running 9 on and it seems no better and no worse than Solaris 8 on that platform. As always I'm sure that it would be happier with at least 128Mb. I was quite surprised that 9 ran on sun4m as the first beta was sun4u only but the beta refresh doesn't have that restriction. Shame they dropped Solaris 9/x86 though. Regards Clive -- Clive Hills | Unemployed Solaris/Linux sysadmin | e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Crayford| Universe/Reality/Pick DBA | t: 01322 550166 Kent UK | Looking for work in City/West End | t: 07997 013387
Re: penderel
On Wed, Apr 10, 2002 at 07:16:07PM +0100, Clive Hills wrote: I've only got 64Mb of ram on the SS5/170 that I'm running 9 on and it seems no better and no worse than Solaris 8 on that platform. As always I'm sure that it would be happier with at least 128Mb. AIUI, 2.6 ran nicely in 64Mb, 7 was bearable, but 8 unacceptably bad. Those are for running as a workstation with X and stuff, so on a server, 64Mb may be acceptable. Any OS, however, that doesn't run well in 128Mb is a broken OS in my opinion, and that 128Mb should include X. Yes, Mac OS X, I'm criticising you twice in the same sentence there. I was quite surprised that 9 ran on sun4m as the first beta was sun4u only but the beta refresh doesn't have that restriction. I am rather surprised that they're still supporting older Sparcs. It's jolly decent of them. Don't suppose you know if they still support 4c and 4d machines do you? Shame they dropped Solaris 9/x86 though. This must be a definition of shame that I'm not familiar with. Solaris for x86 is nasty. Taking it out and shooting it is more humane than it deserves. Now, I'm normally pretty harsh in my criticism of x86 bitty- boxes, but Solaris for x86 is so awful that it defiles even those abominations. -- Lord Protector David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david WARNING! People in front of screen are stupider than they appear -- Tanuki the Raccoon-dog, in the Monastery
Re: penderel
On Wed, 2002-04-10 at 20:36, David Cantrell wrote: AIUI, 2.6 ran nicely in 64Mb, 7 was bearable, but 8 unacceptably bad. Those are for running as a workstation with X and stuff, so on a server, 64Mb may be acceptable. Well I'm not using it as a workstation, it'd be unbearably slow with any amount of memory (yes I have used SS5's as workstations but that was then and this is now). Any OS, however, that doesn't run well in 128Mb is a broken OS in my opinion, and that 128Mb should include X. Yes, Mac OS X, I'm criticising you twice in the same sentence there. I reckon about 256Mb minimum for Mac OS/X 10.1 but then I have 384Mb in my Powermac G3/300 and it's all needed if I have to run a Classic app like Microsoft Office 98. I am rather surprised that they're still supporting older Sparcs. It's jolly decent of them. Don't suppose you know if they still support 4c and 4d machines do you? Neither 8 or 9 run on sun4c. I've run Solaris 8 on a sun4d box (SS1000E) so I'm sure it runs on sun4d , I've no idea I'm afraid about the 9 beta. Regards Clive -- Clive Hills | Unemployed Solaris/Linux sysadmin | e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Crayford| Universe/Reality/Pick DBA | t: 01322 550166 Kent UK | Looking for work in City/West End | t: 07997 013387
Re: penderel
the hatter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bring it along tonight (or give us a URL for it) and we can do some statistically significant research on the matter. Research? -- http://www.the-anathema.org Free Tibet! With purchase of second Tibet of equal or greater value. Limit two Tibets per customer. - ModernHumorist.com
Re: penderel
On Thu, Apr 04, 2002 at 12:44:05PM -0500, anathema wrote: the hatter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bring it along tonight (or give us a URL for it) and we can do some statistically significant research on the matter. Research? I think that may be a euphemism... :-) -- David H. Adler - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.panix.com/~dha/ Take myself, subtract films, and the remainder is zero - Akira Kurosawa
Re: penderel
Greg McCarroll wrote: Assumption 3 : People still want to use the server. Yes, as far as I'm concerned. Assumption 4 : No one is doing intel specific work on it. Not really. I do have binaries and *.so lying around (such as Perl XS stuff) but it shouldn't be anything a recompile wouldn't cure (at least I hope not). I was thinking of maybe installing a new perl of my own anyway (it's 5.7.2 or something like that at the moment), or perhaps I'll just use the system perl (which will be, what -- 5.6.1? 5.8.0? something else?) If the above assumptions are true, I propose we strip Penderel of its scsi drive (9gb) and flog Penderel on ebay to some lucky punter. We can then buy a scsi housing (if we have enough cash left over we could also buy an ups, if not lets buy drinks for the people who have helped admin it) and put said 9gb drive into it. Sounds good -- especially the bit about buying drinks for the current admins. If possible, do that in addition to the UPS thingy. Thoughts? * Who would be the new admin(s)? * If the money from flogging penderel isn't enough, are you going to solicit contribution/shares/whatever the way you did a while back for the original penderel? Cheers, Philip -- Philip Newton [EMAIL PROTECTED] All opinions are my own, not my employer's. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Re: penderel
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Greg McCarroll wrote: Ok, so it may be hearsay but i believe Penderel has had more problems, so I have a proposal, but lets start with the assumptions i am making ... [snip assumptions] If the above assumptions are true, I propose we strip Penderel of its scsi drive (9gb) and flog Penderel on ebay to some lucky punter. We can then buy a scsi housing (if we have enough cash left over we could also buy an ups, if not lets buy drinks for the people who have helped admin it) and put said 9gb drive into it. Then we will take Dave's SS10 and install sparc linux [1] on it and attach the 9gb drive, so the internal SS10 drive (4Gb) will do / and the (9Gb) will do /home. We are currently at about 5Gb disk usage in home, but i'd be amazed if we really need more than 9Gb of space on the machine - unless someone is intending to use it as a backup server. Could you not mount the HD internally ? Research indicates the SS10 can take two drives internally. I admit my reasearch is probably incomplete. Thoughts? JFDI and beers all round ! Simon. -- I'm a one-man idiot
Re: penderel
On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 12:10:24PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: admin it) and put said 9gb drive into it. Then we will take Dave's SS10 and install sparc linux [1] on it and attach the 9gb drive, so the internal SS10 drive (4Gb) will do / and the (9Gb) will do /home. We are currently at about 5Gb disk usage in home, but i'd be amazed if we really need more than 9Gb of space on the machine - unless someone is intending to use it as a backup server. Thoughts? Good idea. I don't think that anyone's tested 5.7.3 on Sparc linux yet. There are plenty of people testing on x86 Linux, and enough on Solaris. (Let alone really test. Where really has all sorts of combinations of 64 bit integers, long doubles, 64 bit pointers, perl malloc etc) (I don't think that this was quite the sort of thought that Greg was soliciting) Nicholas Clark
Re: penderel
On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 01:37:24PM +0200, Newton, Philip wrote: Greg McCarroll wrote: Assumption 4 : No one is doing intel specific work on it. but it shouldn't be anything a recompile wouldn't cure (at least I hope not). I was thinking of maybe installing a new perl of my own anyway (it's 5.7.2 or something like that at the moment), or perhaps I'll just use the system perl (which will be, what -- 5.6.1? 5.8.0? something else?) 5.005, as that's what debian-stable uses. I'd put a later version in /usr/local * Who would be the new admin(s)? I assume the same as now. Once the machine is set up, it's no different from any other Linux box to admin. In the unlikely event that any Sparc- specific problems do arise, then I'm already one of the admins anyway. -- David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david Pressure was growing last night for the global war on terror to be broadened to take in a wide range of other 'rogue emotions' including horror, shock and a general feeling of bewilderment about the state of the world.-- The Brains Trust
Re: penderel
On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 12:10:24PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: Ok, so it may be hearsay but i believe Penderel has had more problems, so I have a proposal, but lets start with the assumptions i am making Thoughts? Will the new box be named Yorke? -- mike It's tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time, it's tricky
RE: penderel
Although I've a) never contributed anything b) prob not 'up' enough to contribute anything c) have never bin to a social/tech meeting I can a) donate an external SCSI if wanted HTIOU D -Original Message- From: greg Sent: 03 April 2002 12:10 To: london.pm Cc: greg Subject: penderel Ok, so it may be hearsay but i believe Penderel has had more problems, so I have a proposal, but lets start with the assumptions i am making ... Assumption 1 : Penderel is a sick puppy, it has something wrong with the mobo or memory or whatever. Assumption 2 : We can't be bothered constantly sending brave soldiers like Paul M (x2), Jo, Alex, etc. (sorry if i have forgotten anyone) to persuade it to work. Assumption 3 : People still want to use the server. Assumption 4 : No one is doing intel specific work on it. Assumption 5 : Dave Cantrell's kind offer still stands. Assumption 6 : State 51 are still happy to host. If the above assumptions are true, I propose we strip Penderel of its scsi drive (9gb) and flog Penderel on ebay to some lucky punter. We can then buy a scsi housing (if we have enough cash left over we could also buy an ups, if not lets buy drinks for the people who have helped admin it) and put said 9gb drive into it. Then we will take Dave's SS10 and install sparc linux [1] on it and attach the 9gb drive, so the internal SS10 drive (4Gb) will do / and the (9Gb) will do /home. We are currently at about 5Gb disk usage in home, but i'd be amazed if we really need more than 9Gb of space on the machine - unless someone is intending to use it as a backup server. Thoughts? Greg [1] which has been demonstrated to be stable on plough and we have experience of. p.s. please try and avoid bringing this down into a debate over linux vs bsd, or /usr vs /var partitioning etc. -- Greg McCarroll http://217.34.97.146/~gem/ Visit our website at http://www.ubswarburg.com This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. This message is provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any securities or related financial instruments.
Re: penderel
On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 01:37:24PM +0200, Newton, Philip wrote: not). I was thinking of maybe installing a new perl of my own anyway (it's 5.7.2 or something like that at the moment), or perhaps I'll just use the system perl (which will be, what -- 5.6.1? 5.8.0? something else?) I'd suggest that the system perl (/usr/bin/perl) be left to the mercy of the distribution, and that multiple /usr/local/perl5.* installs are probably going to scratch the widest selection of itches[1]. Of course then there's still the question of which perl to link mod_perl against, if that's deemed desirable. [1] I'll cough to a slight amount of bias since this is typically how I run my machines. -- Richard Clamp [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: penderel
Mike Jarvis wrote: Will the new box be named Yorke? That would tend to reduce confusion, wouldn't it? Or we'd have to talk about old and new penderel... and from what I gather on the list, PO has rather fallen out of favour as a meeting place now anyway, hasn't it? Cheers, Philip -- Philip Newton [EMAIL PROTECTED] All opinions are my own, not my employer's. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Re: penderel
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Greg McCarroll wrote: If the above assumptions are true, I propose we strip Penderel of its scsi drive (9gb) and flog Penderel on ebay to some lucky punter. We can then buy a scsi housing (if we have enough cash left over we could also buy an ups, if not lets buy drinks for the people who have helped admin it) and put said 9gb drive into it. Then we will take Dave's SS10 and install sparc linux [1] on it and attach the 9gb drive, so the internal SS10 drive (4Gb) will do / and the (9Gb) will do /home. We are currently at about 5Gb disk usage in home, but i'd be amazed if we really need more than 9Gb of space on the machine - unless someone is intending to use it as a backup server. I've got a spare 18GB SCA drive which the SS10 might like as its internal disk (another one is destined for my SS20, and another is already happily rehomed in random other sun kit of a friends) if now might be a good time to mention it. If you're interested, I can bring it along tomorrow night. the hatter
Re: penderel
On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 04:41:15AM -0800, Paul Makepeace wrote: Paul (who definitely would like to see a more maintainable OS running there *psst* debian *psst* :-) Which reminds me of a question... I have a Redhat box at work (not my choice of distribution). What's the Redhat equivalent of apt-get update; apt-get upgrade? [ie I want all the lastest bugs, rather than the good old fashioned bugs] This is Deadrat 7.2, if that makes a difference. (Or do I live dangerously and install a nicer OS on the spare 3G partition, using the same /home?) Nicholas Clark
Re: penderel
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Simon Wilcox wrote: Could you not mount the HD internally ? Research indicates the SS10 can take two drives internally. I admit my reasearch is probably incomplete. Assuming it's the same in that respect as an SS20, then yes, 2 internal bays, though you need the sun-style mountings to wrap round the generic drive, so that it seats and locks properly. If there's already a big IDE drive that was overlooked, then we might just have to make use of several of the offers of HDs to get the same capacity in scsi-only. Not trying to start a holy war, but I agree with whoever suggested not putting debian on it, simply because it's crusty old sparc hardware - you can get a much faster peecee for close to no money, which will make the changeover trivial, or you can run solaris with its good breeding on sparc, which loves the hardware. the hatter
Re: penderel
Simon Wilcox [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Could you not mount the HD internally ? Research indicates the SS10 can take two drives internally. I admit my reasearch is probably incomplete. Make sure that there's plenty of ventilation in that case, they can get rather warm. Hot disks == good doorstops. -Dom -- | Semantico: creators of major online resources | | URL: http://www.semantico.com/ | | Tel: +44 (1273) 72 | | Address: 33 Bond St., Brighton, Sussex, BN1 1RD, UK. |
Re: penderel
On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 04:41:15AM -0800, Paul Makepeace wrote: Quite honestly, I think you could be underestimating the hassle involved with a reinstall and copy-over onto a different architecture. I've gone from Irix to Linux, from Deadrat to Deviant, with mostly no problems. Just takes a bit of time. I like to have both boxes off the public network whilst doing it, so that stuff like mail spools isn't changing underneath me as I copy data from one to t'other. My suggestion -- if you really want to use a new machine -- would be to build a complete new machine, have both online simultaneously and transition services piecemeal. Yes, that's what I prefer to do. I still like to take both boxes offline for transferring certain services, like mail. Doing the whole lot in one go is doable but unpleasant. It *requires* good documentation of the old machine, to make sure all the right packages get installed on the new one. -- David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david Us Germans take our humour very seriously -- German cultural attache talking to the Today Programme, about the German supposed lack of a sense of humour, 29 Aug 2001
Re: penderel
On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 01:03:12PM +, the hatter wrote: or you can run solaris with its good breeding on sparc, which loves the hardware. Thankyou for volunteering to admin it. -- Grand Inquisitor Reverend David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david Educating this luser would be something to frustrate even the unflappable Yoda and make him jam a lightsaber up his arse while screaming praise evil, the Dark Side is your friend!. -- Derek Balling, in the Monastery
Re: penderel
Nicholas Clark [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 04:41:15AM -0800, Paul Makepeace wrote: Paul (who definitely would like to see a more maintainable OS running there *psst* debian *psst* :-) Which reminds me of a question... I have a Redhat box at work (not my choice of distribution). What's the Redhat equivalent of apt-get update; apt-get upgrade? [ie I want all the lastest bugs, rather than the good old fashioned bugs] up2date -- Dave Hodgkinson, Wizard for Hire http://www.davehodgkinson.com Editor-in-chief, The Highway Starhttp://www.thehighwaystar.com Interim Technical Director, Web Architecture Consultant for hire
Re: penderel
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Richard Clamp wrote: I'd suggest that the system perl (/usr/bin/perl) be left to the mercy of the distribution, and that multiple /usr/local/perl5.* installs are probably going to scratch the widest selection of itches[1]. Now this would be a top idea. I don't test my modules against old versions of perl because I don't have the tuits to install them. However, if some kind soul feels like installing them on a box that I have an account on then that'd be wonderful. I don't need hosting. I don't need shell access or mail forwarding. What I *do* need however is a box that has lots of perls set up (and maintained) by clueful people to test stuff against. Later. Mark. -- s'' Mark Fowler London.pm Bath.pm http://www.twoshortplanks.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ';use Term'Cap;$t=Tgetent Term'Cap{};print$t-Tputs(cl);for$w(split/ +/ ){for(0..30){$|=print$t-Tgoto(cm,$_,$y). $w;select$k,$k,$k,.03}$y+=2}
Re: penderel
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, David Cantrell wrote: On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 01:03:12PM +, the hatter wrote: or you can run solaris with its good breeding on sparc, which loves the hardware. Thankyou for volunteering to admin it. That's no problem at all[0]. Just get the box to me some time, I'll config it all at home (which is currently drowning in old 19 sun monitors, if anyone wants one) and drop it off at state51 or at work, whichever is less hassle. Anyway, I'm sure most of the current admin-folk would like some experience on a real OS. the hatter [0] Some conditions may apply
Re: Penderel - Thread herding, Was: penderel
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Greg McCarroll wrote: [internal mounting] [offers of scsi bits and bobs] [ventilation] We could sort all of those bits, if we pull out the existing smaller disk and replace it with a single, larger one, using the cradle from the existing one, and thus no ventilation problems (which may be an issie with 2 disks, as they're mounted one on top of the other, in a case just about high enough to do so) [buying a new pee cee] a new PC may be close to no money, but not exactly no money, as opposed to this SS10 that is no money, bar the usual beer tax I'm actually vaguely surprised that we can't between us come up with a fairly nippy and nice peecee. Just on my own, I could blag a case (1U, or normal midi tower), a motherboard, a P3, small amounts of ram, floppy, cd, some HD or another, network cards, etc, etc. I'd be surprised if there wasn't someone on here who could find some bigger dimms or a larger HD, or more HDs. [solaris vs. debian] lets not do this debate at all, linux admin experience is in the most supply in this group, so lets just go with it and debian is the best distro for non-pee cee architectures (bar YD on macs) I'll bow to your superior knowledge of linux on non-peecee thingies though, though given that you only need a small amount of sysadmins, I'm not convinced that there's much value in having more cooks waiting by the kitchen doors. [ups + money] lets see if we find a mug^H^H^H person of excellent taste to buy the beast first and see how much cash we raise Coincidentally, I might even be able to do a good deal on a recycled UPS (subject to small donations to the cake fund) the hatter
Re: Penderel - Thread herding, Was: penderel
* the hatter ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: We could sort all of those bits, if we pull out the existing smaller disk and replace it with a single, larger one, using the cradle from the existing one, and thus no ventilation problems (which may be an issie with 2 disks, as they're mounted one on top of the other, in a case just about high enough to do so) sounds good, now it just remains to do this all hd herding and for someone to commit to spending a few hours transferring the system over (don't look at me, i'm just the catalyst) [buying a new pee cee] I'm actually vaguely surprised that we can't between us come up with a fairly nippy and nice peecee. Just on my own, I could blag a case (1U, or we'd most likely end up back here, in my experience of cobbled together pc's they tend to need a lot of scrutiny of parts and a fair amount of love - otherwise you end up with strange mobo/memory/hd problems [solaris vs. debian] though, though given that you only need a small amount of sysadmins, I'm i'm also guessing the people who are in the building have more linux admin experience than solaris, anyway its a good solution, we dont need to find a license, debian has all the joys of auto update so we wont get haxxored, etc. etc. [ups + money] Coincidentally, I might even be able to do a good deal on a recycled UPS (subject to small donations to the cake fund) lets leave this issue until we have sold penderel Greg -- Greg McCarroll http://217.34.97.146/~gem/
Re: Penderel - Thread herding, Was: penderel
On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 02:56:02PM +, the hatter wrote: I'm actually vaguely surprised that we can't between us come up with a fairly nippy and nice peecee. You're new here aincha :-) lets not do this debate at all, linux admin experience is in the most supply in this group, so lets just go with it and debian is the best distro for non-pee cee architectures (bar YD on macs) I'll bow to your superior knowledge of linux on non-peecee thingies though, though given that you only need a small amount of sysadmins, I'm not convinced that there's much value in having more cooks waiting by the kitchen doors. The value is in that these sysadmins aren't being paid. Sometimes they go on holiday without having the decency to hire - out of their own pockets - a temporary replacement. Sometimes they go out and get drunk instead of slaving over a hot terminal. Sometimes they just can't be arsed and decide to play GTA3 instead. Having a redundant array of inexpensive sysadmins is a Good Thing. -- Lord Protector David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david The test of the goodness of a thing is its fitness for use. If it fails on this first test, no amount of ornamentation or finish will make it any better, it will only make it more expensive, more foolish. -- Frank Pick, lecture to the Design and Industries Assoc, 1916
Re: Penderel
Neil Ford wrote: If you do decide to replace the motherboard and processor, I have a spare case with processor, mobo, memory and CD that could be used as a staging post whilst new components are fitted to pendrel. Intel or AMD? Cheers, Philip -- Philip Newton [EMAIL PROTECTED] All opinions are my own, not my employer's. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Re: Penderel
On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 05:36:13PM +0200, Newton, Philip wrote: Neil Ford wrote: If you do decide to replace the motherboard and processor, I have a spare case with processor, mobo, memory and CD that could be used as a staging post whilst new components are fitted to pendrel. Intel or AMD? AMD K62 350 if my memory serves me correctly. Unfortunately all the higher spec kit has already been reallocated. Neil. -- Neil C. Ford [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: penderel
the hatter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anyway, I'm sure most of the current admin-folk would like some experience on a real OS. Mee-ow! :) -- http://www.the-anathema.org Free Tibet! With purchase of second Tibet of equal or greater value. Limit two Tibets per customer. - ModernHumorist.com
Re: penderel
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, anathema wrote: the hatter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anyway, I'm sure most of the current admin-folk would like some experience on a real OS. Mee-ow! :) Less miaw, more get off my bridge. But really, any clueful linux admin is capable of fixing most problems on solaris, and of figuring out the majority of others just by using their powers of observation, it's rare to need a proper, dyed-in-the-wool sun engineer type to fix a borken box. And what aspiring sysadmin would turn down the chance to get some experience on a new platform ?. I like linux (so much so that I build a PLC using it, which still runs predominantly on linux) and had no desire to use solaris commercially though, until we could afford big sun kit, and needed the power and scalability. But I don't run linux on my sun boxen, or on my psion, and have no desire to run solaris (or epoc, for that matter) on my x86 hardware. Though if through some magic, I could replace all my x86 hardware with sun hardware of equal power, I'd do it in an instant, and run linux on some of them. God(dess) how I hate having to fiddle with ibm-compat hardware, it is to hardware what windows is to OSs, in terms of weird incompatabilities and unhelpful error reporting. the hatter
Re: penderel
the hatter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip sun stuff My only real experience with Sun boxen has been in porn. Did you know hexdrivers could do that? -- http://www.the-anathema.org Free Tibet! With purchase of second Tibet of equal or greater value. Limit two Tibets per customer. - ModernHumorist.com
Re: penderel
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, anathema wrote: the hatter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip sun stuff My only real experience with Sun boxen has been in porn. Sounds like a sound recruitment strategy, little will attract people to new technologies than good, wholesome, life-giving porn. the hatter
Re: penderel
On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 11:48:50PM +, the hatter wrote: On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, anathema wrote: the hatter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip sun stuff My only real experience with Sun boxen has been in porn. Sounds like a sound recruitment strategy, little will attract people to new technologies than good, wholesome, life-giving porn. Mmm... porn... dha, well *someone* had to say it... -- David H. Adler - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.panix.com/~dha/ They would have done better with an axe! - George Westinghouse on the first electric chair demo
Re: penderel
On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 09:10:28PM -0500, anathema wrote: David H. Adler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My only real experience with Sun boxen has been in porn. Sounds like a sound recruitment strategy, little will attract people to new technologies than good, wholesome, life-giving porn. Mmm... porn... You've see the porn, sweety. Would it work as recruitment stuff for Sun engineers? :) I appear completely unable to come up with an appropriate way to answer that in a public forum. That, of course, could be considered a yes. :-) dha -- David H. Adler - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.panix.com/~dha/ This is Mace's planet. We Just Live here.
Re: penderel uptime
For those that are interested in the state of penderel's health, now you can check online! http://london.pm.org/uptime.txt -- on a five minute cron. http://london.pm.org/cgi-bin/uptime.pl -- runs the job and goes to /uptime.txt http://london.pm.org/uptime.pl.txt -- source (comments?) Of course, this doesn't tell you if the mailing list software breaks but so far apart from occasional archive problems (which you can see by looking at the archives[1]) it hasn't AFAIK failed in any way. (Ergo, it won't, ever :-) Paul [1] London.pm Archives: http://london.pm.org/pipermail/london.pm/ -- Paul Makepeace ... http://paulm.com/ What is jimi hendrix? Well if you don't know by now, then I'll not tell you. -- http://paulm.com/toys/surrealism/
Re: penderel uptime
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Paul Makepeace [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: For those that are interested in the state of penderel's health, now you can check online! http://plig.net/smokeping/smokeping.cgi?target=World.blech.lpm It doesn't graph the uptime because I don't have SNMP read access to penderel, but if someone sets up access, I can graph the uptime too. -- rob partington % [EMAIL PROTECTED] % http://lynx.browser.org/
Re: Penderel
David Cantrell wrote: So penderel is back after dieing yet again. I suggest that we replace it with a machine which is actually engineered to be reliable... I would suggest this beast of a machine: http://www-ccs.cs.umass.edu/%7Eshri/iPic.html -- *claw claw* *fang* *shred* *rip* *ad hominem* *slash* (more attacks will require consultancy fees.) -Nix.
Re: Penderel
On Thu, Jan 24, 2002 at 02:43:40PM +, David Cantrell wrote: So penderel is back after dieing yet again. I suggest that we replace it with a machine which is actually engineered to be reliable, not something which is designed to run Windows for half an hour between BSODs. Bearing in mind that we really don't push the machine anywhere near its limits, I suggest a small Sun box. I'll be happy to donate one. If it can make use of the existing 40GB IDE drive, and you can get it to state51 (or come to some other agreement about hosting), and can look after it once it's installed (or make sure it's running an OS that other people are happy to admin, and find people to help), make it so. -- :: paul :: husk