Your most reliable *nix setup!

Believe it or not, I am a huge buff for old computers, not like 386 processors and ancient Commodores, but old but efficient computers. I order Intel Celeron 466mhz processors all the time off eBay for $6 from the same guy and Intel WL810 motherboards with onboard video and sound for $20. I have discovered that new in the box motherboard/processor/etc. can be just as efficient if all you need is a basic Linux setup. My question is, what is your most reliable setup for *NIX. Not the most expensive, but reliable.

My top three:

Dell Latitude XPi CD M166ST Laptop (OEM)
3GB Hard Drive
OpenBSD 2.7 (IceWM)
512Mb Swap Partition
48MB PC33 SODIMM SDRAM Physical Memory
12" LCD TFT
Neo MagicGraph Z Graphics Card
Linksys WPC11v4 802.11b Network Adapter (PCMCIA)
Iomega 100mb Parallel Zip Drive
Onboard Sound
Pentium MMX 166MhZ
3.5" Floppy
No CD-ROM
OEM Intel Motherboard

IBM PC300XL Desktop (Modified)
8.2GB Hard Drive
Slackware Linux 10.1
512Mb Swap Partition
128MB PC100 SDRAM Physical Memory
15" Sylvania F70 CRT
Geforce 2 PCI Graphics Card
Linksys WUSB54G 802.11g Network Adapter (USB)
Creative Labs Soundblaster Live Sound Card
Pentium II 266MhZ
3.5" Floppy
56x CD-ROM
OEM Intel Motherboard

MOST RELIABLE:

80GB Samsung SVH Hard Drive
Windows 2003 Server Enterprise
Slackware Linux 10.1
750Mb Swap Partition
256MB PC100 SDRAM Physical Memory
21" Viewsonic A74+
Onboard Graphics Card
Linksys WMP54Gv4 802.11g Network Adapter (PCI)
Onboard Sound
Intel Celeron 466MhZ (Mendocino Core)
3.5" Floppy
56x CD-ROM
Memorex DVD-ROM/CD-RW
Intel WL810 Motherboard

I have my advanced set-up as well:

500GB Maxtor SCSI Hard Drive
Tekram Technologies SCSI Adapter
Windows 2000 Pro
Slackware Linux 10.1
1GB Swap Partition
2GB PC3200 DDR RAM Physical Memory
GeForce 7800 PCI-E 256MB GDDR3 Graphics Card
Belkin 802.11n Router (Hardwired)
Two 3.5" Floppy Drives
Two DVD-RW 16x Drives
Internal Iomega Zip Drive
MSI K8N NEO4 Platinum Motherboard


Post Your Specs !!!

Those are my first 4 computers I built, hey!, I am only 16 who knows whats next!

Originally posted by DDoS YourseLF 500GB Maxtor SCSI Hard Drive

I doubt that. The largest SCSI HDD from Maxtor is the Maxtor Atlas 10K V running at just over $1.000...

Maybe its a typo...

Originally posted by demian I doubt that. The largest SCSI HDD from Maxtor is the Maxtor Atlas 10K V running at just over $1.000...

You are absolutely right, that WAS a typo. It is a 300GB Maxtor SCSI, although, I did not pay for it, It was given to me by my friend, Kenny. His dad purchased a warehouse that used to be a small business, which is where I got the hard drive, as well as an opened Intel Xeon 2.8GHZ (Nothing to do with it!).

Although, I forgot to mention a part on that final desktop that IS $1,000. The processor is an AMD Athlon 64 FX-55. I got that from http://ocx4free.pocketpcs4free.com for 21 referrals.

She's beautiful.

Sun SparcStation2
NetBSD
40mhz processor
SCSI-2 hard drive, can't remember size, probably 4.3GB

Serves DNS, mail, and web. Had uptime of just about 1 year (earlier this year). I've had it in service for about 3 years now and the only reboots ever were due to power failures! Has never suffered a crash of any kind. Never even had a failure of a service. I believe the system build date was May of 1989 :-)

Originally posted by DDoS YourseLF Believe it or not, I am a huge buff for old computers, not like 386 processors and ancient Commodores, but old but efficient computers. I order Intel Celeron 466mhz processors all the time off eBay for $6 from the same guy and Intel WL810 motherboards with onboard video and sound for $20.

Jesus, I need to search more eBay, incredibly cheap.

Great stuff for experimentations. Here in Brasil lot's of governamental institutions still work with very old PCs and I'd love to have a machine to test setting up a unix system in a old pc so I can implement this at my work place.

Originally posted by Brian Knoblauch Sun SparcStation2 NetBSD 40mhz processor SCSI-2 hard drive, can't remember size, probably 4.3GB Serves DNS, mail, and web. Had uptime of just about 1 year (earlier this year). I've had it in service for about 3 years now and the only reboots ever were due to power failures! Has never suffered a crash of any kind. Never even had a failure of a service. I believe the system build date was May of 1989 :-)

All you need to do is mention Sun Microsystems and it is synonymous with stability . That sounds awesome. What kind of connection is it on? T1/T3? Or just a home server?

QUOTE::" I'd love to have a machine to test setting up a unix system in a old pc so I can implement this at my work place."

yup , it's good to have fun and gain experience with linux on older PC , who knows , maybe somehow under some situations we might need to set up few linux on older PCs in some lesser-previledged grounds or institutions , what i mean is for those people who can't really afford newer PCs or simply just can't be bother to "ask" for better and more expensive machines at their area ...

come to think about it , i can run win95 with 386 and 486 with about 8 to 16 mb without much difficulties , and it comes with "full-featured" well functioning gui for practical learnings and searching ...

infact i wanted to test ubuntu (but with a much lighter WM) on older PC once , but with just the ubuntu cd , i can"t really install it with a bios that can't boot off a cdrom ....

Originally posted by DDoS YourseLF All you need to do is mention Sun Microsystems and it is synonymous with stability . That sounds awesome. What kind of connection is it on? T1/T3? Or just a home server?

Business class cable connection (blah, but can't get anything better without paying huge (5 digit) install charges due to my location). Prior to that it had been used as a test server at a local ISP.

Originally posted by Brian Knoblauch Business class cable connection (blah, but can't get anything better without paying huge (5 digit) install charges due to my location). Prior to that it had been used as a test server at a local ISP.

I run just a home server so my Belkin 802.11n Access Point does the job just fine! All my friends have like Dells with Windows XP then come see my rig of 4 computers and surround sound and they are like, "omGz 4r3 j00 t3h h4cK3r 0f t3h w0rLdZ." Heh, I am 16 and made some good cash building computers for Seniors going to college. I always include Linux on there!