Hi All, I've been running a dedicated Linux Counter-Strike Server (version 1.3), with HLDS Ping Booster by www.udpsoft.com on our LAN for about a week now (average uptime each day - 12 hours). I'm running it on an AMD-K6-3-550 mhz 128MB RAM. My server runs Mandrake 8.1. My network is slow, 10mbps 16 workstations served by two Cisco 1502 hubs.
I used Linux as a Counter-Strike LAN server out of curiosity. I wanted to see if it would really reduce lag and compensate for my 10mbps network. Earlier, I was impressed when I used my Mandrake box as a Samba server for the rest of the workstations. I saw first-hand how blazingly fast Linux is as a file-server. My curiosity is now a reality. I'm really impressed with the performance of my LAN server. CS1.3 paired with HLDS Ping Booster, the clients were fast and lag was reduced. My latency fell to an average of 20-25. I'm running this server on console, runlevel 3. At first, I was running it on X (with Blackbox as my window manager), but I fear that I couldn't maximize its speed while on X. I can run a CStrike and a Half-Life Server side by side. I could run a third one, or a fourth server, but my server hardware is pretty weak. Sana may dual Pentium III or Athlon server ako para mai-singit ko pa ang Quake 3 server. I am tempted to install Counter-Strike Beta 5 on a Windows server. It's frame-rate is really fast and clients' fps are blazingly smooth. However, I get fed up with cheaters and everyone here hates cheaters, so we opted for a more "cheater- busting" 1.3 server. I tried 1.4 once, but the HLTV (ala "Now!") features needs the speed of a 100mbps network. I'm back to 1.3 for now and will go for 1.4 (1.5, actually) after upgrading our hub to a switching hub later next month (nakaka-inggit talaga ang switching hub. Padalhan sana kami ni Santa Claus. Honest counter-strikers naman kami, ah!) Does anybody here have similar experiences in administering a Counter-Strike/Half-life/Team Fortress/Death Match Server on Linux? I would love to hear your stories on this mailing lists. Pwede ba rito, mailing list admin? I have several questions for your consideration. These concerns my Counter Strike server and Linux set-up as well: 1. Does memory leaks occur when running X? I notice that my server gets noticeably slow at least once every 5 hours. I read somewhere from the Internet that X is poor in cleaning up the memory that it uses. Is this true? Or is it slocate updating its index once in a while? Is it right to reboot the server once every 5 hours to refresh the memory usage/leaks? 2. I've pruned all services to the bare essentials. My file-system is ReiserFs. Should I use ext3 instead? Which is faster based on your experience? ext3, JFS, or ReiserFs? Kung konting speed differences lang naman among the three, I might as well stick with ReiserFs. 3. I've been using KDE System Guard to monitor my server's performance and throughput. However, soon after exiting the program, my server would slow down a bit. I know that KDE is a memory hog. Is it really advisable to avoid using KDE GUI clients in Blackbox? 4. I am fairly inexperienced with regards to the setup of Counter-Strike/Half-Life Windows clients. Can anybody send me their config.cfg, autoexec.cfg, server.cfg, listenserver.cfg? What values (such as sv_maxrate, sv_maxupdaterate, cl_updaterate, cl_cmdrate, rate, etc..) do you recommend for 10mbps networks? 5. Ano'ng peborit ninyong server OS? Red Hat? Debian? Slackware? Mandrake gamit ko kase newbie pa ako. Like ko talaga ang Draketools ng Mandrake (Totoo bang makagawa ka ng software RAID via Diskdrake?) . I learned much from Linux by using Mandrake. Ngayong medyo improve na knowledge ko, I might try another more capable server OS. Duda ko Red Hat pa rin ang majority choice ninyo. We'll be saving up our money so we can buy a GeForce or a Radeon this December. Next year pa kami maglalaro ng Quake 3, kaya next year na lang ang pagpapatakbo ng Quake 3 server sa Linux (huhuhu, iyak, iyak). Ang kulit ko no? Dami tanong. Newbie kasi. I'm interested if I can rig a Linux cluster for my Counter-Strike server just to see how it works. I'm excited to bring out my two 486DX from retirement. The only programs I know for clusters are pvm/xpvm. What are other excellent clustering/message-passing programs that you would recommend? I have two Red Hat 7.2 CD's. Baka merong pang mahalukay na RPM dito. Salamat talaga mga Pinoy penguins. I would appreciate very much your comments/suggestions. Flames? Mild lang ha? Regards, Mike _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
