h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My Hardisk is courrently ararnged like this.

C with windows on it, a 2 gig partition for linux within the boot sector. swap for linux, a larger bit for linux then the rest of my windows drives

linux has a total of 19000MB to occupy including swap etc.

I installed Xandros, don't like that one and so will try another, reminds me far to much of windows.

I think my other computer probably desperatly wants an upgrade of RAM from its 32Mb, i think that might be why when installing Xandros on the other one i never get to see the screens that have the options.

I keep getting promised a copy of mandrake from someone at school, but they keep forgetting to take it in.


what would you recommend as being the miniumum ram and hdd sizes for using it as a webserver? (apache, php, mysql)

I don't know the minimums; the simple rule is the more you give it, the faster it goes. I've seen a webserver written in Java that ran (slowly) in 64k (yes, "k"!) of RAM.

Remember, there's a big difference between a webserver (delivers HTML) and an application server (runs scripts) - the application server will require several megabytes of RAM just to hold tables etc. for JIT compilers and the like, while all the webserver needs to do is open data streams from HDD.

Yeah, it will be more of an application server, for the running of my IS project anyway, and testing of it.

Other than running the scripts and database for that (and a program for dyndns if i set it up) all i would perhaps use it for is file server with FTP for easy dealing with school work between school and home.
Also if I can get around to it, Printing, so that the printer can be shared and not dependant on the main computers.


That reminds me, I still need to check on the RAM in this PC I want to upgrade it to 512MB, at the moment it is runnig with 256, where I am using pretty much all of it and some swap file to do everyhting i like to do at the same time in XP.

Hmmm ... I may acttully end up asking for stuff for christmas this year ...

Networkcard
small (but larger than current hdd for the server) 8 gig or more.
and
of course
likely to your disdain for my gaming
Half life 2


oh and not forgetting, the serial mouse hehe.

still have a use for the dvd player that i have retested and concluded still works after my play, and even has the remote control.

Are you asking me if I still have a use (yes) or telling me that you still have a use for it?

asking if you have a use

We don't have a use for it anymore, i watch all the dvds on my computer, and my dad watches them on a differnt dvd player in the living room.

sorry for confussion.

how much should i be paying (or not paying) for:

256 MB DDR PC2100

ram?

thats is what I already have in this machine, and I am looking at doubling it

Just under £30, but if I were you I'd buy 256MB of PC400 (PC3200), as it's only about £4 more, (£32 last week when I bought some) and will still work when you get round to upgrading the motherboard in a year or two. It's easier to underclock memory now than overclock it later.

sounds good, and they will be happy working side by side?

Should be fine, as long as the motherboard's running at the speed of the slowest memory.

My server should be fine running at 200Mhz.

so I think what I need on top of that is:

a resonable amount of old ram for it
a serial mouse
a larger hard disk, mabe 8GB
a network card


what from that can you provide, and how much on top of the dvd player do you want for it?

Let me have a dig around. At the very least, I might have one or two 4GB drives left over from the Linux server that exploded earlier this year...

Oh, and I have a crate of network cards.

crate of network cards ... sounds promising.


what do you mean by exploded .... which part?

The power supply exploded - twice in about ten seconds - taking out the motherboard, processor, memory, video card, floppy and the HDDs that were connected at the time. By good luck only half of the HDDs and 1/3rd of the memory was actually plugged in.

it exploded twice?



the ones that have exploded on me just went bang once and then blue smoke

that explosion sounds expensicve losing all those bits ... ever find a reason for the explostion post mortem?


why if they were in the box wern't they plugged in or am I best not to ask

By good luck, Bob, who had borrowed the server at the time, had needed a Windows machine, so he unplugged the Linux HDDs and stuck in an old drive with Win98 on it. The RAM was being swapped around, but at the time it blew up it was just sitting in the middle of his living room doing nothing. Apart from two loud bangs and two jets of flame out the back.

OH dear, sounds interesting.

amazing how explosive computers can be


hmm, afterthought, how much would a new more effeicnt quieter fan cost to replace the old noisy one? I seem to remmember having to when this machine was a windows one, operate it without the cover, otherwise it over heated and crashed ... .


should be cool if i get it working ... so should my info project if i get that to work

Maplin do a variety of cooling fans, from £5 to £9... Alternately, find a dead PSU and remove the fan from that - if you wire the 12v fan to the 5v side of the PSU it runs about half-speed, virtually silent while still moving air. You just need 2 or 3 of them spread about the case.

cool

the 3 fans running slowly sounds better ...

more at a lower speed sounds better for air flow than one fast one


so to find a dead computer ... that or open up a couple of school computers take the fans then close them agian ... no one will notice the change in perfomance.

or perhaps that is the problem, mabe someone already had the idea.