[rescue] first real server hardware

[Sheldon T. Hall]

William G. Gruesbeck says ...

> Hi everyone. I've lurked around quite a bit on the list and only popped
> up from time to time. Well today I finally bought my first real server.
> I just bought a Sun E250 from Anysystem off of ebay. But I have a couple
> of quick questions. A keyboard and mouse is $20 bucks extra. Is this
> something that I should go ahead and get even though it doesn't have a
> framebuffer in it?

I wouldn't bother, unless you want to buy a framebuffer and use it as a
workstation.  Serial access is fine for installations and emergency
maintenance.  If you want to do graphics stuff, you can always telnet or use
X over the network.

> While I'm comfortable using serial consoles and ssh sessions, my goals
> are to use it mainly to learn Solaris well enough to put it on my
> resume, maybe get a cert or two, and to play with a nice OS on real
> hardware.

I dunno what the cert programs want you to be able to do.  If you have to
know the GUI sysadmin tools, you might want that framebuffer, keyboard, and
mouse.  If they emphasize command line (and IMHO they should),
serial/telnet/X ought to do fine.

> So I'm wondering if there is anything else that I should know
> about or look into getting for this machine?

More memory, bigger disks, faster network, the usual
post-purchase-upgrade-fever stuff.

-Shel