Get your GEEK on (A Servers Story)
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 5:47 pm
The other day I picked up a networking book at the library just for kicks, and now it's got me thinking about learning more about networks and servers. After doing some research, I found quite a few articles about building a home server on the cheap (which I had actually already started by trying to build an iTunes media server) just by using an old desktop.
I headed out this weekend to DI to see what I could find. First DI I found a nice old big computer which fit the need for a case, so I bought it for $10. It actually had an Iomega 100mb drive in it, so maybe I can download my disks that have been collecting dust. Unfortunately, the computer was DOA, but no worries as it was only the case I wanted anyway.
Ended up at a 2nd DI where they had no towers. As I was walking away I saw a worker pushing a cart full of products headed for the shelf. And lo and behold there was an old Compaq in decent shape sitting on the bottom. I tried to make my way over there to grab it but it was picked up by another guy before I could get there. He proceeded to take it off to the side to check it out. I watch him for about 10 minutes and he gave it the once over, and then surprisingly he left it there and walked away. Well I swooped in before the next guy and checked it out. Compaq 5900T, case in great shape, Win98, CD and CD-RW drive, 3.5 floppy, 2 USB ports, PIII but no network 10/100 card. Fortunately, it was only $15 so I figured what the hell. If anything, I could probably pull and sell the RAM to get my money back if I had to.
Well as I pick it up to leave, the original guy comes back and tries to claim it was his. Evidently, there was a piece of paper on the top that had the specs, and by removing the paper he believed he had the right to purchase. Uh... dude, it's DI. First come first server, and after a polite "well, you shouldn't have walked off" comment, I proceeded (well, actually I sprinted) up to the register. Now, it was the principle, and I was buying it to make a point.
Ok, so let's start the geek stuff. I get home and check it out. PIII 700mhz process, 20gb hard drive, 128kb RAM, Win98SE, etc. I plug it in, power it up, and it actually boots up to Windows, thought with a TON of error messages about software issues. No matter, I'm dumping the entire hard drive and OS. I do a quick download of the XUBUNTU 7.10 Linux OS, burn the image onto a CD, and 30 minutes later I've got a pretty decent working computer with a surpringly fast and clean OS. Normally a compute with those specs I'm dropping off at DI, not purchasing, but I'm pretty excited so far. Off to Circuit City for a $10 10/100 NIC and 15 minutes later I'm surfing the internet.
As a sidenote, this is my first experience with a Linux OS, and I'm loving it. I can't even tell you how cool it is to download the OS, burn it to a disc, install, and be up and running all within an hour. I haven't really dived into it yet, but so far so good.
So over the next few days I'm going to set it up as a server. I found a couple articles that walk thru the process of converting a desktop to home server, and this computer is going to be fun to play with as I try this out. And the best thing is I've got literally $25 invested, so I'm not worried about screwing something up (well, now $45 as I just bought another stick of RAM that will be here in a few days).
Anyway, so let's hear from the geeks that have WAY more experience in this arena than I do. I'm trying to learn quickly. In fact, I now know that RAID stands for Redundant Arrays of (Inexpensive) Independent Discs I'm trying to start small and learn as I go, so give me some suggestions. I'd love to set this up as a home server in the short term, then maybe expand into a web host server (I'm excited about this one) down the road.
I headed out this weekend to DI to see what I could find. First DI I found a nice old big computer which fit the need for a case, so I bought it for $10. It actually had an Iomega 100mb drive in it, so maybe I can download my disks that have been collecting dust. Unfortunately, the computer was DOA, but no worries as it was only the case I wanted anyway.
Ended up at a 2nd DI where they had no towers. As I was walking away I saw a worker pushing a cart full of products headed for the shelf. And lo and behold there was an old Compaq in decent shape sitting on the bottom. I tried to make my way over there to grab it but it was picked up by another guy before I could get there. He proceeded to take it off to the side to check it out. I watch him for about 10 minutes and he gave it the once over, and then surprisingly he left it there and walked away. Well I swooped in before the next guy and checked it out. Compaq 5900T, case in great shape, Win98, CD and CD-RW drive, 3.5 floppy, 2 USB ports, PIII but no network 10/100 card. Fortunately, it was only $15 so I figured what the hell. If anything, I could probably pull and sell the RAM to get my money back if I had to.
Well as I pick it up to leave, the original guy comes back and tries to claim it was his. Evidently, there was a piece of paper on the top that had the specs, and by removing the paper he believed he had the right to purchase. Uh... dude, it's DI. First come first server, and after a polite "well, you shouldn't have walked off" comment, I proceeded (well, actually I sprinted) up to the register. Now, it was the principle, and I was buying it to make a point.
Ok, so let's start the geek stuff. I get home and check it out. PIII 700mhz process, 20gb hard drive, 128kb RAM, Win98SE, etc. I plug it in, power it up, and it actually boots up to Windows, thought with a TON of error messages about software issues. No matter, I'm dumping the entire hard drive and OS. I do a quick download of the XUBUNTU 7.10 Linux OS, burn the image onto a CD, and 30 minutes later I've got a pretty decent working computer with a surpringly fast and clean OS. Normally a compute with those specs I'm dropping off at DI, not purchasing, but I'm pretty excited so far. Off to Circuit City for a $10 10/100 NIC and 15 minutes later I'm surfing the internet.
As a sidenote, this is my first experience with a Linux OS, and I'm loving it. I can't even tell you how cool it is to download the OS, burn it to a disc, install, and be up and running all within an hour. I haven't really dived into it yet, but so far so good.
So over the next few days I'm going to set it up as a server. I found a couple articles that walk thru the process of converting a desktop to home server, and this computer is going to be fun to play with as I try this out. And the best thing is I've got literally $25 invested, so I'm not worried about screwing something up (well, now $45 as I just bought another stick of RAM that will be here in a few days).
Anyway, so let's hear from the geeks that have WAY more experience in this arena than I do. I'm trying to learn quickly. In fact, I now know that RAID stands for Redundant Arrays of (Inexpensive) Independent Discs
I'm trying to start small and learn as I go, so give me some suggestions. I'd love to set this up as a home server in the short term, then maybe expand into a web host server (I'm excited about this one) down the road.
