Linux-Misc Digest #480, Volume #27 Thu, 29 Mar 01 22:13:02 EST
Contents:
JAVA RPM Dualality (Chris wolcott)
ALS Call for Papers (Becca Sibrack)
Re: JAVA RPM Dualality (Jacob Kristensen)
ntp4 a red herring? (Pumpkinhead)
Turbo Linux Lite (Barry Manilow)
Re: Windows ME and Windows 98 and Linux comp. (Andrew DeFaria)
Help! Can't boot from floppy ("Hiawatha Bray")
Re: Windows ME and Windows 98 and Linux comp. ("Carey Holzman")
Re: Red Hat Linux 7.1 ("Matt Darnley")
kernel-2.4.2 problem.. help!! ?? ("Steven")
Re: Windows ME and Windows 98 and Linux comp. (Steve Lamb)
Re: kernel-2.4.2 problem.. help!! ?? ("Wong Ching Kuen Frederick")
Re: Windows ME and Windows 98 and Linux comp. (Plato)
Re: Windows ME and Windows 98 and Linux comp. ("Ken Blake")
Re: sort source (Jean-David Beyer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Chris wolcott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: JAVA RPM Dualality
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 18:20:15 -0600
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I have the JAVA SDK 1.2 RPM, (And JAAS JCOMM). I installed it,
everything said fine. If I get to a command line and type JAVA
-VERSION, I get 'No such command'. If I try to reinstall/update, I get
an error that they're already installed. If I try to -erase, it says
they're not installed.
How can I clear this up.
------------------------------
From: Becca Sibrack <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: ALS Call for Papers
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 16:39:32 -0800
5th Annual Linux Showcase & Conference (ALS 2001)
November 6-10, 2001
Oakland, CA USA
http://www.linuxshowcase.org
Sponsored by USENIX and the Atlanta Linux Showcase, Inc.,
in cooperation with Linux International
Now in its fifth year, the Annual Linux Showcase & Conference
http://www.linuxshowcase.org continues its remarkable development
as the premier technical Linux conference, attracting expert talks on
everything from kernel internals to Internet services, panels
discussing the state of the Kernel, invited talks presenting
Linux in the real world, and more.
And this year, ALS breaks with tradition by moving out of
Atlanta to Oakland, CA!
The ALS 2001 Program Committee invites you to contribute your
ideas, proposals, and papers for tutorials, invited talks program,
refereed papers track, workshops, work-in-progress reports, and
symposia tracks. We welcome submissions that address any and
all issues relating to Linux and the Open Source world.
The Call for Papers with submission guidelines and suggested
topics is now available at http://www.linuxshowcase.org
Submissions are due June 5, 2001
Please join us and participate in the premier technical conference
for Linux enthusiasts and professionals! We look forward to seeing
you in the San Francisco Bay Area in November 2001!
===============================================================
5th Annual Linux Showcase & Conference (ALS 2001) is
is sponsored by USENIX, the Advanced Computing Systems
Association, and the Atlanta Linux Showcase, in cooperation
with Linux International.
===============================================================
------------------------------
From: Jacob Kristensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: JAVA RPM Dualality
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 02:48:28 +0200
Chris wolcott wrote:
>
> I have the JAVA SDK 1.2 RPM, (And JAAS JCOMM). I installed it,
> everything said fine. If I get to a command line and type JAVA
> -VERSION, I get 'No such command'. If I try to reinstall/update, I get
> an error that they're already installed. If I try to -erase, it says
> they're not installed.
>
> How can I clear this up.
Check the "java" file is in your path. Remember that if you stand in:
/usr/bla/bla/bla/javadir
you have to type:
./java
to run....
If the problem is an RPM-problem -- I don't know...Try GnoRPM, I find it
easier to overlook the whole thing when it's graphical..
Jacob
--
There he goes...One of Gods own prototypes.
A high-powered mutant of some kind,
never even considered for mass production.
Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
Jacob Kristensen -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pumpkinhead)
Subject: ntp4 a red herring?
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 00:47:04 GMT
Hi,
I installed ntp4 on a system and started the daemon. This cause 3
daemons to run. Fine.
Next, I install said software on an identical system and I have a
defunct process. This happened on a third machine as well, albeit a
different kind of system.
Any idea on how I can troubleshoot this?
Also, if I do get it to run, on the "time clients", do I merely need
to mention the ip address of the "time server" in their /etc/ntp.conf
file?
And if this software doesn't work, what other options do I have?
Peter
------------------------------
From: Barry Manilow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Turbo Linux Lite
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 16:59:00 -0800
I have the
opportunity to get a copy of Turbo Linux Lite from a friend of mine.
I figured it was probably legal to have him burn a copy of it and give
it to me but I wanted to check in here to see first. I have never
used Linux before. I have only used DOS, WinDOS 3x, 95, 98, Win NT,
Mac OS and OS/2. I also would have to figure out how to partition a
drive on my hard drive to install it. I suppose I will have to use
Lilo? The drive is already partitioned between OS/2 Warp 4.5 and
WinDOS 98. Wondering what the Lite in the title of the distrib
means? Also wondering where I can find any docs on TurboLinux. TIA
to all answers. Also wondering whether my system will support Linux.
Basic Quantum Hard drive.
Creative Sound Blaster 16 PNP PCI card
Epson ES-1200C scanner
Canon BJC-6000 printer
Adaptec AVA-1505 SCSI card
Diamond Stealth III S540 video card
Mitsumi CD-ROM
Mitsumi CR-4804TE
US Robotics 56K FAX EXT PnP external modem
Asus motherboard
Aladdin chipset
--
Bob
Being flamed? Don't know why? Take the Flame Questionnaire(TM)
today!
Why do you think you are being flamed?
[ ] You continued a long, stupid thread
[ ] You started an off-topic thread
[ ] You posted something totally uninteresting
[ ] People don't like your tone of voice
[ ] Other (describe)
[ ] None of the above
------------------------------
From: Andrew DeFaria <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: alt.windows-me,alt.windows98,comp.os.ms-windows.misc
Subject: Re: Windows ME and Windows 98 and Linux comp.
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 17:16:46 -0800
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Steve Lamb wrote:
> 1: Most people's time is worth nothing as most people rarely do anything
> productive.
Totally false. The real value is in people and their time and how it it spent. I
find it amazing that you make this claim.
> 2: People who use Linux (and, in fact, other unices) have more free time. I can
> prove this in a simple manner.
>
> 2a: They have enough time to actually trim quotes.
This is irrelevant. I can as easily say that Linux users are used to typing and
editing a lot since it's mostly character based, therefore Linux users are good
typists and see it as easy to trim, correct and quote, etc. Most people are not
good typists or that well versed in the various editing facilities offered by the
tool at hand. It has nothing to do with not having time because you are fixing OS
problems as you incorrect suggest.
> 2b: They have enough time to post their reply /after/ what they are
> replying, instead of /before/ what they are replying. Oddly enough they also
> read books forwards instead of backwards and hold conversations in the correct
> order, as well.
Correct is a subjective definition. People post and quote according to their
style. Some people like to bottom post (I don't like that posting style because it
usually means that I need to scroll to the bottom first then scroll up to where
the person started their response). Some people like to top post. This is good
because what you need to read is presented first. However I like to quote and post
inline trimming the unnecessary stuff. But then again I can type fairly quickly
and trimming stuff is easy for me.
> Give your above lack of common courtesy in trimming quotes and proper order of
> posting I can only assume you're too busy trying to keep your OS running instead
> of actually using it to do productive work.
Totally invalid assumption. Doesn't follow at all (well perhaps in your obviously
biased mind...)
> In fact, I'd go so far as to say that you're actually trying to get as much
> verbage out in as short a time-frame since you don't know when the next crash
> will be.
Actually you went too far with your last incorrect assumption. You really
shouldn't go any farther!
> Contrast that to this post where I would have trimmed if I weren't making a
> point, posted in correct order and have been quite verbose. Could be because my
> server has known to have had a 9 month uptime and, aside from a faulty NIC that
> I need to replace before the cable gets disconnected again, will most likely
> have many more 9+ month uptimes. Means I can sit back, relax, take my time in
> my work /or/ push the machine as hard as I want knowing that work will get done.
Another totally irrelevant and totally not logically connected assumption.
> To me, that is a far more productive use of the time that I would not consider
> worthless.
To quote you "Most people's time is worth nothing as most people rarely do
anything productive."
> Now, the worthless time? Playing games on Windows, for that is all that is is
> good for any more.
It's as worthless as any other game playing on Windows or Unix or just in the real
world. Game playing is merely a release of tension, fun and can build up certain
skill. Like anything else it's as useful or useless as you make it.
==============0750331795B3A904C7FB46D4
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tel;home:(408)-363-0562
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adr:;;6187 Ellerbrook Way;San Jose;California;95123-5012;USA
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==============0750331795B3A904C7FB46D4==
------------------------------
From: "Hiawatha Bray" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup,linux.redhat.misc
Subject: Help! Can't boot from floppy
Date: 30 Mar 2001 01:31:11 GMT
I have copied a Linux boot image to floppy, but my computer refuses to
boot from it. It starts running initrd.img and then says "boot failed." I
tried two different boot disks, with the same result. Anybody know why?
------------------------------
From: "Carey Holzman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.windows-me,alt.windows98,comp.os.ms-windows.misc
Subject: Re: Windows ME and Windows 98 and Linux comp.
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 18:55:52 -0700
Yeah, that was Jamie Zawinski. =20
Carey
<Man> wrote in message =
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Thu, 29 Mar 2001 14:25:28 -0500, "Dan Forsythe"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>=20
> >"Linux is free if your time is worth nothing" - - Author unknown, but
> >enlightened.
>=20
> I think the quote belongs to Jamie Zawinski. He's the guy who wrote
> the Unix version of Netscape back in the day. So if you implying that
> this is a windows user your wrong. He's also responsible for Lucid
> Emacs a X version of EMACS.
>=20
>=20
> MAN________________________________________________
>=20
>=20
>=20
------------------------------
From: "Matt Darnley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: linux.redhat.misc,redhat.general
Subject: Re: Red Hat Linux 7.1
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 02:57:21 +0100
Reply-To: "Matt Darnley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
It now has kernel-2.4.1 - but more importantly is entitled (the beta at
least) "Wolverine"
"Bob Westwater" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> E J wrote:
>
> > First quarter of 2001: codename Florence probably includes kernel 2.4.x
> >
> > rick wrote:
> >
> > > Any estimated release date for rh 7.1?
> > >
> > > thx
>
> I am running the 7.1 beta 2.4.0-0.99.11
> as you can see it has teh 2.4 kernel
>
------------------------------
From: "Steven" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: kernel-2.4.2 problem.. help!! ??
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 09:53:16 +0800
hi.. i've just compiled kernel-2.4.2 on my redhat6.2..
i've encountered these problems after i boot :
1) when booting, there's a Starting NFS: NFS lockd: lockdsvc: Invalid
Argument [FAILED]
2) also during the booting process, i noticed this message.. ds: no socket
drivers loaded!
3) i did modprobe soundcore and modprobe emu10k1. (i'm using SBLive
soundcard).. but when i do sndconfig.. i got the message.. soundcore.o was
not fond in the module path.. lsmod shows soundcore is loaded.. and my
modules.conf shows an entry (alias sound-slot-0 emu10k1).. i try doing
insmod sb.. but i got the below messages.. (i'm using modutils-2.4.5)
Using /lib/modules/2.4.2/kernel/drivers/sound/sb.o
/lib/modules/2.4.2/kernel/drivers/sound/sb.o: unresolved symbol
sb_dsp_detect_Rsmp_d8a2731c
/lib/modules/2.4.2/kernel/drivers/sound/sb.o: unresolved symbol
sb_dsp_init_Rsmp_e986438b
/lib/modules/2.4.2/kernel/drivers/sound/sb.o: unresolved symbol
sb_dsp_unload_Rsmp_c4884969
/lib/modules/2.4.2/kernel/drivers/sound/sb.o: unresolved symbol
unload_sbmpu_Rsmp_74afd69c
/lib/modules/2.4.2/kernel/drivers/sound/sb.o: unresolved symbol
smw_free_Rsmp_450f9aea
/lib/modules/2.4.2/kernel/drivers/sound/sb.o: unresolved symbol
probe_sbmpu_Rsmp_ddc8ad00
can anyone help me solve all the above problems??
thank you very much!!
Regards,
Steven
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Steve Lamb)
Crossposted-To: alt.windows-me,alt.windows98,comp.os.ms-windows.misc
Subject: Re: Windows ME and Windows 98 and Linux comp.
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 02:16:37 -0000
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Thu, 29 Mar 2001 17:16:46 -0800, Andrew DeFaria <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>--------------0750331795B3A904C7FB46D4
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>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Gotta love people posting in anything other than ASCII.
>Steve Lamb wrote:
>> 1: Most people's time is worth nothing as most people rarely do anything
>> productive.
>Totally false. The real value is in people and their time and how it it
>spent. I find it amazing that you make this claim.
I don't. If you looked at any given person's day you'd find that there is
a lot of time spent doing nothing. Anyone who claims that their time is too
valuable to scroll or to trim or do other courtesy measures, like turning of
HTML posting (it is an option, you know), is only fooling themself. Fact is
it doesn't take that much time and anyone watching them for, oh, an hour or
two can identify them doing nothing; plain old nothing.
Sure, the time is of value TO THEM, but that does not impart that it is
valuable. My comic collection is valuable to me, it is worthless to the world
at large. I'm certainly not going to use my value of my items as a reasoning
why I should be rude and inconsiderate to others.
>> 2a: They have enough time to actually trim quotes.
>This is irrelevant.
It is relevant. They have the time therefore stating they don't have the
time as an excuse for not doing it is bogus.
>I can as easily say that Linux users are used to typing and editing a lot
>since it's mostly character based, therefore Linux users are good typists and
>see it as easy to trim, correct and quote, etc.
Because it is.
>Most people are not good typists or that well versed in the various editing
>facilities offered by the tool at hand.
Which is also not an excuse. Learn the tools or get out. Seems simple
enough and is applied in many places.
>It has nothing to do with not having time because you are fixing OS problems
>as you incorrect suggest.
No, not "incorrect" [sic] suggest, sarcastically suggest. There is a
difference, I suggest you learn it.
>> 2b: They have enough time to post their reply /after/ what they are
>> replying, instead of /before/ what they are replying. Oddly enough they also
>> read books forwards instead of backwards and hold conversations in the
>> correct order, as well.
>Correct is a subjective definition.
No, correct is not a subjective definition. It is an absolute definition.
It is absolute in that the community had defined specific standards of
behavior when communicating in this and other similar venues. It is then the
responsility of those who come into these forums to learn and abide by the
common guidelines and standards that were set. Any other behavior is
incorrect. It is not a matter of who likes what. As I quoted in another
post, RFC1855. Read it.
>People post and quote according to their style. Some people like to bottom
>post (I don't like that posting style because it usually means that I need to
>scroll to the bottom first then scroll up to where the person started their
>response). Some people like to top post. This is good because what you need
>to read is presented first. However I like to quote and post inline trimming
>the unnecessary stuff. But then again I can type fairly quickly and trimming
>stuff is easy for me.
Some people like to eat while in their underwear, burp loudly after every
5th bite, never use their napkin and eat with their figures. Something tells
me, though, that they would be thrown out of nearly every restaurant they ever
wanted to dine in unless they decided to clothe themselves and learn some
manners.
The same applies to newsgroups, email, and other forms of electronic
communications. Community standards have been set, have been written down.
As the NEWCOMER to that community it is up to you (and others) to learn and
abide by those standards. If you fail to do so, don't be surprised when
you're called an uncooth barbarian and politely shown the door.
>> Give your above lack of common courtesy in trimming quotes and proper order
>> of posting I can only assume you're too busy trying to keep your OS running
>> instead of actually using it to do productive work.
>Totally invalid assumption. Doesn't follow at all (well perhaps in your
>obviously biased mind...)
It follows in my sarcastic mind since the original poster was making jabs
at another OS I was simply returning the favor and using his bad posting
manners as a tool to do so.
>> To me, that is a far more productive use of the time that I would not
>> consider worthless.
>To quote you "Most people's time is worth nothing as most people rarely do
>anything productive."
Yup, I happen to be one who does something productive. Your point?
BTW, still sarcasm. Figure it out.
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>--------------0750331795B3A904C7FB46D4--
>
Gee, thanks for all that crap. Like I really care to get 1-2kb of utter
tripe from you each message. You want a date, go to another newsgroup for
one.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
===============================+=============================================
------------------------------
From: "Wong Ching Kuen Frederick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: kernel-2.4.2 problem.. help!! ??
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 10:21:54 +0800
run depmod after u reboot into the new kernel and then reboot again. see if
it helps.
------------------------------
From: Plato <|@|.|>
Crossposted-To: alt.windows-me,alt.windows98,comp.os.ms-windows.misc
Subject: Re: Windows ME and Windows 98 and Linux comp.
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 21:47:10 -0500
Steve Lamb wrote:
>
> The name is Steve, Danny-boy. Point is that trimming is considerate to
> others and most, if not all, top-posters are inconsiderate. It always pisses
> me off to see someone quote 20 messages, including all headers, signatures and
> other junk to say "do it" and then forward it to me to try to figure out.
It's actually a Ford vs. Chevy issue
------------------------------
From: "Ken Blake" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.windows-me,alt.windows98,comp.os.ms-windows.misc
Subject: Re: Windows ME and Windows 98 and Linux comp.
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 19:55:05 -0700
"Sam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:ybPw6.2876$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> People who put their replies at the end of a post
generally gets past over
> by me. My time is valuable and I know what the thread is
about, so to have
> to scroll all the way to the bottom is a waste of time.
People who put their replies at the beginning of a post
generally get passed over by me. My time is valuable, and I
read far too many threads to remember what most are about.
To have to scroll down to the bottom to find out what the
question is, then back up to the top to read the answer is a
waste of time.
--
Ken Blake
Please reply to the newsgroup
------------------------------
From: Jean-David Beyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: sort source
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 21:55:40 -0500
"Peter T. Breuer" wrote:
>
> Jean-David Beyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >>
> >> Does anybody know where I can the source for sort?
> >>
> > I see you already have answers, but let me elaborate a little.
>
> > If you run a RedHat system, you can do a whereis command and it will
> > tell you where command is. For example,
>
> > valinux:jdbeyer[~]$ whereis sort
> > sort: /bin/sort /usr/man/man1/sort.1
>
> > Once you know where it is, you can do:
>
> > valinux:jdbeyer[~]$ rpm -qf /bin/sort
> > textutils-2.0a-2
>
> Jean-David, what kind of system is your machine, actually?
It is a VA Linux Systems StartX-MP with dual 550MHz Pentium III's in
it. http://www.valinux.com/products/mp/mp.html describes it a little,
but I think it is discontinued. I got it about 13 months ago.
512 Megabytes of 100MHz ECC SDRAM (room for total of 1024 Megabytes).
Tyan S1832DL TIGER 100 Motherboard.
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/a_tiger100.html This is a bit dated
as well.
Symbios 8951U Ultra-2 internal SCSI controller for the hard drives
Symbios 810 Narrow internal SCSI controller for an HP C1599A DDS-2
tape drive
2 Quantum Atlas 10K 10,000 rpm 9 Gbyte hard drives
http://www.quantum.com/products/hdd/atlas_10k/atlas_10k_overview.htm
They now have snazzier models.
Matrox G200AGP 8 Megabyte video board
Soundblaster 16 pnp soundcard
3COM 56K V.90 internal fax-modem (I never use Fax)
Intel EEPro 10/100 Ethernet card
40x IDE CDRom Drive
Keyboard, Mouse, NEC MultiSync FE700 Monitor
> I believe
> it's dual and scsi based, but I'm looking right now at VA linux's
> offerings because I'm in the market for a raid server with about 100GB
> of storage to start off with. So your opinion would be very useful (of
> course!).
I like the machine a lot. I have the continuing problem that the a
process will lock up about once a month in state D (waiting for IO to
complete) when it has either completed, or will never complete). But
to get the device or file back, a reboot is required. Usually it is
IBM's DB2 running a backup to the tape drive, but once in a while it
is RPM trying to install something. I.e., sometimes it is the tape
drive, sometimes it is a hard drive. N.B.: these are on separate SCSI
controllers. VA Linux has cheerfully replaced the tape drive at no
charge, sending me the new one overnight, no questions asked, and
saying to return the old one at my convenience. This did not solve the
problem, though. Perhaps it is happening less often. The main trouble
with these problems is that they happen so seldom that it is tough to
debug. But I have never gotten 24/7 out of this machine for over 38
days, and it is usually in the order of three weeks of uptime at a
time. I have run the stand-alone memtest86 program for several hours
to see if I might be having memory problems, and it does not seem as
though that is the problem.
Also, about once a month, the system will crash when dialing my ISP. I
have not tracked this down. I suppose it is two different problems,
but I am not sure of this. I have run this with both the 2.2.5smp and
various other kernels. Right now I am running 2.2.14-VA.2.1smp kernel,
but I have tried 2.2.14-VA.2.1smp in the past and that does not help
much. It came with 2.2.5 kernel (from Red Hat Linux 6.0). I will be
putting in the 2.2.18-VA something or other that comes with their
6.2.4 release as soon as the CD-ROM arrives.
OTOH, I remember running an old DELL 486 box 24/7 with DELL Unix (back
when they wrote their own) for about 4 years, and the only times we
rebooted were to change the Dialogic Voice Processing boards, or to
add memory. This was starting in 1990. That would run over a year at a
time, and so far, this box has not. Of course, that box did not have
the X Window System in it. I do not suppose my problems are all X
problems, though, because they can be solved without rebooting.
>
> It seems valinux comes with mylex scsis raid.
They seem to have redone their web site since I saw it last, and
things are now hard to find. It seems they offer both their own RAID
controller, or Mylex. http://www.valinux.com/systems/storage.html#raid
> Their system seems
> to roll in at $6-7000 for 100GB raid and twin 800MHz processors
> and 1GB ECC memory. My calculations indicate that the components
> total about 4K (2K for the disks, 1K for the ECC, and 1K for the
> mobo and controller, plus box), so I'm wondering how the extra
> is justified. It's a rackmount that I'm looking at, with the
> disks pullable from the outside.
>
VA Linux Systems make a lot of different machines. They seem to be
emphasizing servers, which sounds like what you want. They make
US$50,000 machines as well.
When I bought my machine, I noticed the same thing. For a PC buyer, I
wanted to be sure I had a box that would surely run Linux well, and VA
Linux delivered it so it would boot up right out of the box, with
everything guaranteed to work. It did boot right out of the box, but I
did not like their partitioning, so I just reinstalled everything
(since I wanted to change / as well as everything else), which did not
take very long (most of the time was spent by the machine testing all
the hard drives before making the partitions and formatting them). I
also wanted to be sure it had a good tape backup system in it that
would work. I had a Floppy Controller Tape Drive that used QIC
(Travan) tapes that worked, but was slow and held only 850 megabytes
uncompressed, and irritating. The drive finally quit and I have not
been able to find a cheap replacement. I now backup that machine by
running a NFS server on it and have this machine back it up. When I
looked at Dell machines, I could not figure out how to order one with
backup devices other than Iomega Zip drives, which are pathetic. It
was just a mouse click to get a DDS-2 tape drive for this machine,
although for something of the size you are talking about, I imagine
you would want something larger and faster.
The quality of the components seems higher than with similar DELL
machines (and I should be biased in favor of Dell, since I own stock
in Dell and not in LNUX). It is not a machine to sleep with as the
fans are quite loud. My box has a 300 watt power supply and lots of
fans, and some spare slots. The thing works out with 24 IRQs instead
of just the 16 that most PCs come with. This is a problem with the
lousy PC design. I have two machines linked together with a 100MHz
ethernet. It would make sense to have my printer on the old machine
that spends most of its time running SETI@home, but it ran out of
IRQ's and I had to choose either a printer or a NIC, but not both. So
the printer is on this machine that has IRQs to spare.
If you have more specific questions, I will be glad to answer them. I
get the feeling that this sounds like an unreliable machine, but it is
actually pretty good.
--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ Registered Machine 73926.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 8:55pm up 1 day, 11:08, 3 users, load average: 2.20, 2.14, 2.09
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