[geeks] Say you wanted to...

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>
>Date: 2007/04/09 Mon AM 10:37:47 CDT
>To: geeks at sunhelp.org
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Say you wanted to...

<snip>

>I have three machines now that run 24/7:
>
>	- Sun Ultra 1, doing DNS, mail, news, and gateway duty
>	- Sun Ultra 2, doing WWW development, local apps, and some other
>          processing duties
>	- dual core Opteron desktop doing a little bit of everything, games
>          included
>
>I need a file server, and would like to use a Sun, but the drive cost is the
>kicker.  Of course right now, money is tight so I'm making do with an external
>drive and routing all backups to my desktop.  It sucks, but it works. 

Were I in your situation, I'd put together a Solaris x86 system with a minimal MB/CPU and use big IDE drives for maximal expansion/minimal cost.

>I want another desktop for programming work so I can avoid the dual-boot
>issue, but that's another unfunded project.

Define desktop - I've got U2s wasting away here...

<snip>

>I've even thought of replacing both of my Sun's with a single machine and let
>it do everything.  I kind of hate to have a gateway machine running normal
>apps, but it would be nice to reduce machine count to one that does it all.
>
>I could use jails to put each function on a separate IP and virtual machine.

There are *darn cheap* E420r systems on Ebay - if you want to consilodate several machines, one of those will go a long way towards that end. I got an E420r for $99 with $65 S/H with 4x 450 MHz CPUs, 4 Gig RAM, 4 port Ethernet card, picked up two PGX32 framebuffers for $40 (incl shipping, or $20/each),and my first E420r was $275, but that has a 12 month warranty, same specs and instead of a four port Ethernet card it has 2x 18 Gig HDs. Shipping the last system was $35 via FedEx Ground.

I realize that means $$$, but something like the $99 E420r is a heck of a box, IMHO... I plan to consolidate several boxes and shed DOZENS of mostly idle boxes ASAP. Web page/link to follow (I gotta shed the crap - seriously!)

Lionel