Hey John, I just wanted to follow up with a bit more hard info. I thought I'd refresh on the current state of RedHat and Mandrake (more-or-less) on a system as close to yours as I can get my hands on. I tried doing an install of each on an old Zenith P120 desktop with 32MB RAM. I did quick and dirty installs of:
* RedHat 7.1 (2 CDs) * Mandrake 8.1 (3 CDs) * Debian 2.2r3 (2 CDs) Here are some quick impressions: GENERAL Old gear could probably use a good cleaning before embarking on this adventure. These two old dogs have been sitting under my desk for some time, and apparently under a few other desks before my time. I had CD read errors on both, and a good cleaning is DEFINITELY recommended to minimize disruptions. PCI NICs tend to be auto-detected far more easily. Consider spending $15 on a generic RTL8139 clone if you don't have PCI boards on hand. It's nicest when networking "just works". NIC detection tended to be the most problematic area for all installs. MANDRAKE 8.1 On 32MB, the install defaults to the text-mode (which is still GUI with buttons, lists, etc.) I installed a custom configuration of what I thought would be a fairly general workgroup server bundle of packages. Naturally, this is open to debate, but it's what I went with for this casual test. The list I selected was: * Internet Station * Configuration * Console Tools * Documentation * Web/FTP Server * Mail/Groupware/News Server * Network Computer Server (NFS/SAMBA) This bundle came to 301MB. While the install was slow, it was not unbearable. Text mode is VERY MUCH recommended, both for reliability and speed. Mandrake did fail to recognize the old ISA 3COM Etherlink II NIC, but plugging through the list of 5 or 6 3Com NICs eventually yielded the right one (3C503). After that, the board configured using DHCP just fine. Although I de-selected KDE, Gnome and all other X packages, the server still booted up in a simple X configuration. It wasn't exactly speedy, but was usable. I wound up in an xterm session, and was able to toggle to a text login (Ctrl-Alt-F1) and work from there. Editing /etc/inittab to boot into CLI-only mode worked as expected (the file is well documented, once you know where to find it). I did have to add my Windows username to the smbpasswd file (smbpasswd -a name), but after that, was able to access the Samba server simply (Start->Run->\\sambaserver) and log in. Copying a 1.5MB file was not noticeably slow on a 10Mbps shared hub. I only had CDs, so can't speak to the documentation. I can only say that my general impression is that Mandrake installs well on a 32MB system. With well supported network boards (PCI), it would have been painless. Adding a user to smbpasswd wasn't intuitive, but from my experience with Samba, I know that it's well documented. Again, I'm not sure how well it's highlighted in the Mandrake docs. Their free online "university" might well cover this, so perhaps go through that BEFORE doing an install. REDHAT 7.1 Here again, I selected a fairly general set of packages for a small workgroup server (as always, open to debate): * No firewall (internal server) * Mail/WWW/News Server * DOS/Windows Connectivity * Network Workstation * Dialup Workstation * Samba Server * Web Server * Utilities This bundle came to 415MB. Again, TEXT mode install is recommended with 32MB to reduce problems, and speed things up (relatively speaking, it's still not "fast"). Keep in mind this is a slightly older version of RedHat (current is 7.2). A few surprises: 1. I could NOT get it to recognize the old ISA 3Com Etherlink II NIC. I replaced it with an equally old ISA SMC Ether EZ NIC, and THAT was auto-detected on the next reboot. 2. Samba was NOT automatically enabled. This may be per design (again, no manual at hand). I noticed RedHat has a FULL set of manuals in PDF format available on their website. The Customization Guide seems to be the one with the goodies on server stuff. Note: It has a nice section on RAID as well. The answer (easy once you know it :) is to use "chkconfig" to add samba to the list of services automatically started for the selected runlevel in /etc/inittab (text mode is 3 in RedHat, X is 5). This is described in the Customization Guide. I used "chkconfig --level 3 smb on" and the system restarted with Samba running. DEBIAN 2.2r3 "Potato": Just for fun, I decided to toss my favorite Distribution into the mix. I used a set of 2.2r3 CDs that I'd downloaded. This is NOT the current "stable" release, but it's what I had handy. 1. I booted the rescue RESCUE diskette, and inserted the ROOT floppy as prompted. 2. Manual partitioning is required. I created a 128MB swap, with the rest of my 1.5 GB as a single ext2 partition. (Not necessarily recommended, but I wasn't going to spend a lot of time on this.) 3. PCMCIA errors are issued on boot. This is NORMAL, and the install prompts you to remove PCMCIA support later if appropriate. 4. I selected the 2 CDs as my software source. I selected non-US, non-free & contrib software, and a Simple software install, selecting the following bundles: * Dialup * IMAP * Newbie Help * Samba Although the installer itself didn't say as much, disk space consumed after installation was 129MB. The install was positively speedy compared to either RedHat or Mandrake. (It's worth noting that APT is a VERY powerful alternative installation method for those with high-speed network connectivity. Using APT, a debian install can be performed with 2 floppies by pulling all other packages down via HTTP or FTP. This doesn't add much to the install time on a fast link.) Network installation would probably have been frustrating for a newbie. After reboot, a MANUAL load of the NIC module was required (insmod 3c503). I then had to edit (create) /etc/modutils/network with the line "alias eth0 3c503", run update-modules, and edit /etc/network/interfaces to include the line "iface eth0 inet dhcp". Again, a well supported PCI NIC would ease this step considerably. Samba fired up on boot, but you must edit /etc/smb.conf to change "read only = no" under the [homes] for users to be able to write to their home directories. This is well documented in the smb.conf file, but not particularly intuitive. This "Debianism" is for security I suspect. OVERALL IMPRESSIONS: The "big two" commercial packages do more for you in terms of auto-partitioning of hard drives. This CAN be an intimidating step for a newbie, especially when you're on your own late at night, so this is an important consideration. It's not HARD, just NEW, and when you're stuck this early on, things aren't fun. The "big two" ATTEMPT to do more in terms of network configuration. Using PCI NICs narrows the differences considerably. Success is dependent on having SUPPORTED hardware. An install of any of these distributions on unusual, tricky or unsupported hardware is likely to be frustrating. A test install on a system with a generic NIC and IDE hard drive might be worthwhile to get a feel for how things SHOULD work. Getting Samba and other services running requires a bit of post-install work. Good documentation on this process will be ESSENTIAL. RedHat offers downloadable PDF manuals, and very good online documentation. Mandrake ups the ante with their online University web-based training. Debian introduces you to the command line and manpages right away, taking more of an "into the fire" approach. The advantages of any of these are open to long and heated debate. All three work adequately on a 32MB system. A P120 is double the speed of John's P66, but Samba isn't particularly CPU-intensive. As an unscientific test, I dragged roughly 50MB of files from my Win2K workstation, and sent them to the Debian system via Samba. The copy progressed at a speed that was typical of what I see on a 10Mbps shared network. Throughout, the CPU utilization stayed below 20% (as shown via top). Not surprisingly, X introduces overhead, and should be avoided on a low-end server. And of course, more of RAM or CPU or disk space is a good thing. I'd lean towrads RAM first, then CPU and disk. The approach of selecting bundles of software rather than individual packages introduces a LOT over overhead and installs packages that are probably NOT necessary. However, they do suffice for getting a system up and running with relative ease, and with good odds of success. Debian is very good at letting you selectively uninstall packages later without breaking the whole system. OK, that's enough fun for a Monday. Let me know if you have any specific questions. - Bob To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
