Hi all!
I propose that we upgrade Eskimo (iglu.org.il) as well as beak
(hamakor.org.il). The reason is that:
1. Eskimo is falling apart - we have too little memory, the IDE hard disk is
routinely failing, and the machine is often too slow to run all the PHP
applications, as well as the sympa mailing list. We need an upgrade.
2. Some people talked about merging Eskimo with beak. I'd prefer not to,
because it would be a single point of failure, and because I'm not allowed to
administer all the beak services, especially not the qmail administration
there.
3. I wish to switch Eskimo from qmail to postfix. postfix may be a bit more
memory intensive than qmail, so it would be perferable.
--------------------------
Here's what we need:
1. The board and the processor should have a maximum memory of at least 64 GB.
I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure 4 GB will not be enough very soon, and would
rather think ahead.
2. Any architecutre would do - Intel Xeon, x86-64, UltraSPARC, Power, etc.
3. I strongly recommend that we use a GNU system - GNU/Linux, GNU/NetBSD,
GNU/FBSD, etc. Maybe even GNU/OpenSolaris... ;-)
The reason I prefer GNU is that it's richer and its semantics are saner. I
recall that when my co-worker installed FreeBSD (not Debian GNU/kFreeBSD), it
took us some time to get everything working properly - we had to replace the
termcap with the ESR termcap, he had to install vim and bash, etc. Much as I
would like to like the *BSDs there's no way I'm restricting my scripts to
Bourne shell only.
4. One processor would be fine.
5. Hard disk - I think we need at least 500 GB, in several disks. One small
disk (about 40 GB will do I believe) for the root partitions, and 500 GB for
storage. Possibly even more than 500 GB, because our mirrors are accumulating
more and more data.
6. A CD-drive, a place to plug in a USB disk, etc.
7. Distribution - Debian or Mandriva or perhaps a modern RHEL or equivalent
(CentOS, etc.) will do. Most people here prefer Debian[1] and I can certainly
use it.
---------------------------------
Can we make a pledge to do this? Can Sun give us a nice Niagara server? Can HP
(/Compaq/Digital) and/or Ligad get their act together and give us a new
server? How about IBM? Maybe we can ask for a donation on Linux-IL,
whatsup.org.il, etc. I'll be willing to pledge some money for this, but
obviously not enough to pay for the entire server. I can also ask my previous
workplace for a possible donation of a server.
Whatever it is, please try to get us a new server for Eskimo as soon as
humanly possible. I feel it's falling apart. We can take the old server and
donate it to a school or whatever, but it's not adequate as one of the two
main servers of Hamakor.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
[1] - There are many small differences between Debian and Mandriva. Some of
them I found to be neither good nor bad, but just different, and some of them
are actually things that I prefer the Mandriva way. I'm not saying Debian is
not without its advantages, just that I have grown accustomed to Mandriva,
and like it.
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Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Homepage: http://www.shlomifish.org/
If it's not in my E-mail it doesn't happen. And if my E-mail is saying
one thing, and everything else says something else - E-mail will conquer.
-- An Israeli Linuxer
