[tech] Mermaid's uptime

[David Manchester]

[mussel/coding]

> It's the best single machine we have for now, but it's not actually very
> good at that job (it's got Celerons). In the medium term (next year)
> we need to get ourselves a decent user machine, which could probably
> just have a HDD transplant with mussel.

*ahem* <pipe_dream_mode> PAckrat's started to get a little more enthused
with the UCC and has about a dozen alphas and sparcs in his room at George's.
When he leaves, he'll probably want to drop a couple at the UCC.
An Alpha 3000/600, like the Alpha tartarus outta make a decent machine.
He's got buttloads of 3000 series alphas.
</pipe_dream_mode>

That said, we could build a cheap dual PII or PIII system.
We could probably find a cheaper Dual PPro machine.

... or we could linux the BeBox. 

>  * An outside firewall server (like mako/moray). Needs a stable machine,
>    32MB or 64MB memory, not too much CPU, a bigger disc would be nice. The
>    database ought to be on this box, but otherwise I don't think it
>    matters which mix of moray and mako's jobs it takes on. As soon as
>    there _is_ an extra working box, we should free up mako or moray.

Alastair mentioned that we might score a couple of Sparcstation LXes
from ATRI. These are not to be sneered at - one would make a great
moray, so long as we coupld recompile dispense and other voodoo.


>  * A PC wintel/scanning/games box. Has to be Pentium class, the faster
>    the better. 32MB should be enough. The more disc the merrier. We
>    could even try mermaid's old unstable CPU in it.

Ugh. No - pentium, 64mb P150 minimum. If people are going to run games, its
going to need at least that. Maybe a 3dfx card or somesuch.

>  * A stable user box. Lots of memory (above 64MB), a fair bit of disc,
>    decent CPU.

Yes, indeed.

> So... three machines, three jobs. Sounds perfect. How about ;
> 
>  * mermaid becomes the server, with that new IDE HDD we were buying
>  * The P100 becomes the PC wintel/etc box, maybe with the Bigfoot
>  * Wheel exercises more self-discipline on mussel

I'd advocate that the P100 will do an admirable job of webserving, etc.
and that Mermaid's CPU is more useful in the games box.
We can also snatch mermaid's RAM & put that where its needed & stick
8s and 16s into the Rhino9 (mermaid's mobo), as it has 6 slots.

> > If we do body-snatch it, I'd like to put mermaid's disk into something else
> > & keep the mermaid install alive.
> 
> The mermaid install is damaged by previous crashes - the partition needs
> a format. If we have some space to backup/restore with and use Luyer's
> packages to replace any missing files, that hsould be easy enough.

OK. That sounds sane.

It will not be the games box, it will be in the machine room, but if the
need arises, my C333A/96MB poecee can become available to the UCC if
required.

Cheers
/dave
-- 
/  David Manchester <mustang at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au>  [TDH]  Netware/UNIX droid. \
Tell someone who's interested, tell someone who can keep their lunch digested
Tell someone who wants your conversation, tell someone who doesn't regard you
\as an argument for compulsory sterilisation." [TISM], `How Do I Love Thee?'/