Well I got three Compaq Proliant 2000 servers from up the street for free. I have a mess of RAM, 18 hard drives, and right now I have 4 CPUs running, but it has the potential to run 6 (no case space). First (or second ... ), I gotta say these servers are rather old, running SIMM RAM, 486-based 66 Mhz CPUs ... BUT don't laugh yet. With all these CPUs running I have 264 Mhz and the potential for ~400 Mhz, I have 16 RAM sticks installed using an expansion card that is now at 196 MB, and the entire system is completely hot-swappable SCSI. So hey, it's old, but it's still good right? I mean hot swappable SCSI, a good hunk of RAM, dependable 486 power (486s and Athlons are my favorite series of chips), and tape backup too.

So I need help!! I wanna get Linux to run on this system. I have distros of red hat already downloaded but I can get a ~700MB download completed in ~45 minutes with cable internet, so if you want me to install something other than red hat, that's totally cool. I also have a recent distro of debian. NO M$ BS will be on any server I will own ... (high five).

I know you will probably need more information, and I am your source ... just ask! The server is sitting in this same room I'm typing in. So ask away!

I really really really want to get this server going!! Like really really bad!! Any help is completely awe-sum!

Oh hey if this thing is running and set up right, it it possible to host my own website (like ex orange400.com) right from the server? Do I have to register the domain or anything? I don't think so, I'm just checking. I would also like to set it up as an email and ftp server ... could I do that stuff too? I'm totally new to this server stuff so excuse me if I'm asking completely rediculous questions ... lol

THANKS!!!

Wow you sure sound excited, I'll type out a response for your first question in a minute, just wanted to quick reply to let you know that you will have to register a domain name if you want to use one ( www.godaddy.com is cheap ). You DON'T have to use their DNS though as you can set that up all on your own (bind or djbdns).

Cool

Actually, I just remembered while typing this out that I found a thread similar to this on the Gentoo forums. It means you'll be installing Gentoo, but that should be a plus more than anything

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.p...virtual+script

Definitely a HUGE help on setting up a server. Pay attention so you can see what's happening and still learn along the way.

I strongly suggest you read over the entire (or nearly entire) thread before starting anything.

Cool

That looks as if it is totally helpful ... but I'm pretty lost on what the guy's up to. I can understand most of the scripts and I've played around with most of the prog's he's talking about ... but when he gets all into his scripts, I'm all like, whaaaaa?? lol ... I'm not that skilled at linux ... yet ... I'll read it a fre times and see if it comes to be more clear to me. Thanks for the killer link!

No problem A lot of it will be specific to Gentoo, so once you install that I think you'll see where a lot of his commands come from.

Cool

ah ic ... I'll be back home in a few days (on vacation right now), and when I get back I'll get right to it! Man if I could have this puppy work that would ROCK. What info, you da man!