This week I've been thinking about my ancient Sun SPARC5, it mostly sits idle and unused with two Dell PCs sitting on top. The older Dell running Linux gets used more frequently even though it's lower in spec... Anyhow I felt guilty, and decided to see if I could get some more use out of it.
The disk isn't big enough for Perl yet, but I've been able to get SSH on it, in case BT ever get round to installing ADSL in the village, and the box becomes exposed. I had some fun trying to fit a litre in a half-pint pot but I managed to get it up and running.
The machine has only the base 32Mb RAM, and can take 7 more 32Mb sticks to a system max of 256Mb, which I've been quoted ã120 for. I'd also consider a extra HD, there is space in the box for a extra drive, say a 4Gb unit for ã30. I've just got to decide if it's worth the effort.... It's never going to be a speed demon!
I should do something with the box really, I checked uptime on it this afternoon to, it has a Windows crushing "1027 day(s), 20:44", not bad really. Plus Solaris experience looks good on a CV
The disk isn't big enough for Perl yet...
If you upgrade the disk you'll have to take the machine down and hence lose your uptime. Is there any reason not to NFS mount more disk space from one of the Linux boxen? (apart from the standard "NFS sucks", that is). Also, 16Mb is more than enough to build perl (and make world) on FreeBSD - is Solaris sufficiently frugal on memory that 32Mb will remain enough?
Re:maintaining uptime
ajt on 2003-06-01T20:31:57
While the uptime is impressive, it's not really that important in the scheme of things. I think I'd rather take it down to add the RAM and an extra disk, and make it more useful, than show off with a high uptime score.
I had thought about using NFS though, I'll have to read up on it, I've used it, but never configured it before. However the Linux box has a similar sized disk, so that won't help much either....
What I should do is get a new "grey" box PC, with a decent processor, plenty of RAM, and run a recent Linux/BSD distro on it - as my main system. I could then take the newer Dell (my current dual boot main system) and custom build Linux or BSD on it so I can really learn what all the bits do. I could pension the older Dell box off - before something dies in it.
By not spending on a top end Wintel box, I can buy some second hand RAM and HD for the Sun, and gain Sun skills, and if BT ever install ADSL in the village, I'll be able to boast my very own Sun-Sparc web-server! I can't deny that a 1000+ days uptime would look good on a Netcraft survey, but it would be a bit unfair, the box has essentially been hibernating in a cave for almost all that time....
aside - All I really need to do is find an email client I like on *nix. On Windows I use and like Eudora, and I once I've found something I like on *nix I'm fixed. My other favourites like Perl, Apache, Mozilla and so on are cross platform already, it's just the odd Windows apps that I've yet to find replacements for. I suppose I could use one of the various emulators, but I'd rather find a native app.
