I fail to see why you are moving the applications off the Athlon? why not just use your apps on the Athlon and ssh to it? it is multi-user after all
On 30/01/2008, Douglas A. Tutty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello, > > I have an unusual situation and problem at which I've been chipping > away. The resultant system will need to run OpenBSD so I'm asking here > for the accumulated wisdom. The base technology predates my IT > experience. > > My wife is sensitive to what she describes as electromagnetic fields. > She gets headaches and other pains when exposed to equipment: the higher > the frequency, the worse her symptoms. For example, a VT is better than > a regular CRT connected to even a P-II-233 MHZ while a 486DX4-100 is > better than the P-II. Both are far better than my Athlon64 @3.5 GHz. > And any CRT is better than any LCD/plasma screen. Even my Palm Zire (I > think 233 MHz) with its ~2"x~3" screen is unsuitable within about 30 > feet of her. She can't wear a digital watch. > > For lack of anything suitable, I have been using my Athlon64 for daily > use, with the P-II used for other-machine backup and ssh access to the > Athlon64 (one is upstairs, the other is downstairs) for e.g. a quick > email check. My 486 isn't used right now since it only has 32 MB ram > and an 850 MB hard drive. The backup set size right now is around 2 GB. > > I now have a VT520 which I can put upstairs for those email checks which > means I can move the P-II farther away from her. > > While I want to keep the Athlon64 for serious heavy lifting (graphical > web browsing, watching DVDs, burning CDs, etc,) I want to move the main > application server function off of it. The P-II only has 64 MB of ram, > is a abused box I rescued (full of cat hair and over-heating). I would > like to get a box (or boxes) that is (are) reliable, run at e.g 133 MHz > (certainly less than 200 MHz), with lots of ram, and lots of hard drive > space. Since the apps run on it will be non-graphical, it could be > headless, accessed via the VT520 or ssh from the Athlon. > > I'm thinking that this will be unsuitable for an embedded device like a > soekris and more like an older multi-disk server. I guess I'll have to > go to eBay for the hardware since its long gone off any reseller's > shelf. I don't have any experience with anything other than i386 or > amd64 so in that line I figure this will be a multiple-CPU 486 or > Pentium box. > > Because the box will be so old, it would have to be one that was popular > so that spare parts are readily available, but also one that was well > designed and built in the first place. I can tolerate some down time > while I swap out parts but I want to be able to keep spares on hand. I > suppose I could buy 3 complete functioning boxes just for the spares. > Looking at the packages lists in the different arches that 4.2 works on, > the four possibilities are i386, alpha, sparc, and sparc64. Since this > is a finished room in the basement, not a datacenter, I want the box to > do its own hard drive storage and not just be a compute node that is > supposed to have a separate box full of drives (unless this is > straight-forward). I'm envisioning something like a 4- or 5U server > box. Rackmounting a single servier is fine since I can make a suitable > shelf to simulate a rack. > > Here's the software that I need to run on the box (beyond what is in 4.2 > base): > > vim > mc > mutt > tex > python > some kind of printfilter to serve my Epson LQ-2080 impact printer. > > > Here's the hardware-type I'll envisioning: > > Multiple CPU so that multiple apps can run better on limited individual > CPUs, running under 200 MHz > Probably PCI bus. > Paralell port for the printer (or I would just use a USB adapter) > USB for future needs > serial port for console > multi-port serial for terminal(s) and my external 3Com Courier modem. > 10 or 10/100 Ethernet > Multiple hard drives: IIRC, the older boxes had 9 GB SCSI drives. I > don't know if one can plunk new eg. 250 GB SCSI drives in them. > SCSI HBA for a tape drive > > > Any suggestions for good old boxes like this that will run modern > OpenBSD and be reasonably reliable? > > Thanks, > > Doug. > > -- -Lawrence -Student ID 1028219
