[Novalug] VDQ : what to do with an old P2

[William Warren]

samba was a cinch to setup using webmin under centos..:)

Kevin Kitts wrote:
> I forgot to mention one other quick note. I can't remember the exact 
> steps but there is an inittab file and if you change the intial run 
> state to 3 instead of 5 - then you will have just a command line 
> environment running. Since this is a server that sits in a wiring closet 
> you don't really need all the GUI stuff. Of course, if you want to go 
> into gu just type "init 5" and do you admin/gui then go back to command 
> line.
> 
> Also, I've found that in most PCs you can disable the server from 
> checking to see if a keyboard exists (it is a BIOS option). Linux won't 
> care if a monitor or mouse is attached. So my server has only 2 
> connections to it: ethernet and power. I've also experimented with doing 
> "init 5" and then using VNC to do any remote/gui/admin needed remotely - 
> works pretty well.
> 
> For me, samba was a bit hard to get working - hardest part of the 
> project. Command line samba seems to work better than the SAMBA gui 
> tools supplied by the various distros...
> 
> Kevin
> 
> On 1/10/07, *Ed T. Toton III* <bones at necrobones.net 
> <mailto:bones at necrobones.net>> wrote:
> 
>     Thus spake Kevin Kitts:
> 
>      > I happen to have a wired 100 mbps ethernet in my house. What
>     amazes me
>      > is that this old PII/266 will sustain 7.5 MBytes/second on file
>      > transfers. Honestly, I don't think a faster computer would do any
>     better
>      > job as a file server. I'm running SUSE with Samba as the server
>     but any
>      > Linux distro would likely do.
> 
> 
>     Yeah, I've found that these old machines are quite viable as household
>     servers. Most newer hardware is overkill for what you will usually
>     ask it
>     to do. For quite some time, my primary server at home was a P2 machine
>     (eventually upgraded it to dual P2 450, before more recently overkilling
>     it with an Opteron).
> 
>     A file server is a good idea. A very useful option is to also use it
>     as a
>     local DNS resolver/cache (practically works out of the box with most
>     distros, and it makes a subtle but noticeable difference when surfing),
>     maybe a DHCP server if your router doesn't do that, and perhaps even a
>     local mail server.
> 
>     For the latter, that was more useful before we all went broadband, but
>     several years ago I got tired of my ISP and webhost's mail servers being
>     bogged down. With fetchmail running out of cron, you can pull your mail
>     down onto your linux box, and have your client interact with it from
>     there
>     across the LAN. This makes the interactive portion snappy and
>     responsive,
>     even if new mail takes a couple extra minutes to become available.
>     Obviously this is superfluous if you use gmail or hotmail or some other
>     remote web mail system. (in my case, I've managed my own mail for years,
>     running both a local mail server, and one on a VPS host remotely)
> 
>     P2 machines are quite sufficient for all of these things at home.
> 
> 
>     Some good suggestions about distros have been made in this thread
>     already,
>     but I'd like to add CentOS to the list too. It's de-branded Red Hat
>     (specifically RHEL). Slackware is a great choice if you want a no-frills
>     distro to learn more serious non-distro-specific unix/linux (I use slack
>     on my primary server). But you'd save yourself some headaches by
>     going to
>     something robust like CentOS or Debian if you want good package
>     management
>     and easier setup of your services.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------
>     - Ed T. Toton III, RHCE --|-- www.necrobones.com
>     <http://www.necrobones.com> -- ed.toton.org <http://ed.toton.org> -
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------
>             Caution:  Breathing may be hazardous to your health.
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
My "Foundation" verse:
Isa 54:17  No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and 
every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt 
condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their 
righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

-- carpe ductum -- "Grab the tape"
CDTT (Certified Duct Tape Technician)

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