Server or Desktop

chado · 11-27-2003, 01:05 AM

Hrm.

I keep reading posts about how great everyone thinks slackware is, or how they disagree...etc; etc;.

Well I think everything has a place. And although I'm just as much for linux being the king of OS's as the next geek...I am running Winblows XP on this computer. For example, I wouldn't of just finished playing Star Wars: KOTOR if I was running linux on this computer (I am addicted to that game...with the sith homeworld out of the way I am onto Tatoonie now...) anyway, I run Slackware and recommend it 100% for servers.

My server (sitting less then 10' away from me) is running slack and before the power outage this summer that put down most of north USA and southern Canada, I had 265days uptime (unfortunatly my UPS isn't that large and only held out for an hour or so).

Anyway, I found this new Dlink device as of late and I think I am going to put it on the wish list for x-mas (if my significant other doesn't get it for me...I'll buy it for myself on boxing day

) Anyway, more on that in another thread.

But to recap, do you run slack as a desktop? Or just as a server? (If you do both on the same machine were calling it a desktop for sake of arguement)

And if you dont mind commenting...if you run it as a desktop is your machine state of the art? Or is it something that could use an upgrade but your happy with it so why bother?

My slack machine:

AMD T-bird 1.1GHZ
256M PC133 Ram
1x80G IBM 7200RPM hd (1 year till I add a new array, 4x250G SATA but thats next year, this years budget is gone)
2x3com 3c905 NIC's
etc;

My Winxp machine (this one I am typing this on):
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe mobo (gigabit onboard lan etc; etc

P4-3.0/800MHZ FSB
2x512M DDR400MHZ OCZ
2x40G WD 7200RPM 8M PATA array
52x24x32x LG cdrw (just broke my plextor dont ask I'm bitter)
ATI AIW RADEON 9800 PRO 128M
SB Audigy 2

Anyway...I'm just curious and wanted to hear what everyone else is running/using.

Chado

Azmeen · 11-27-2003, 01:20 AM

At home as a workstation... Dual boot though, my Mrs is Linux-challenged.
[will post procinfo/cpuinfo when I get back home]

At work: server. A CD jukebox with a http frontent. Intranet only.

Code:

root@slackbox:/home/mothugz# procinfo
Linux 2.4.22AJC-BRIO2 (root@slackbox) (gcc 3.2.3) #6 1CPU [slackbox.(none)]

Memory:      Total        Used        Free      Shared     Buffers      Cached
Mem:        256212      176996       79216           0       15960      100672
Swap:       249440         500      248940

Bootup: Tue Nov 25 17:07:07 2003    Load average: 0.28 0.14 0.05 1/52 13307

user  :       0:02:49.75   0.2%  page in :   928106  disk 1:    13224r   21887w
nice  :       0:00:00.00   0.0%  page out:   767608
system:       0:03:24.66   0.2%  swap in :        1
idle  :   1d  6:23:44.74  99.7%  swap out:      119
uptime:   1d  6:29:59.14         context :  1261901

irq  0:  10979915 timer                 irq  8:         1 rtc
irq  1:         2 keyboard              irq 14:     34696 ide0
irq  2:         0 cascade [4]           irq 15:      5028 ide1
irq  5:    283861 eth0

Code:

root@slackbox:/home/mothugz# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 3
model name      : Pentium II (Klamath)
stepping        : 4
cpu MHz         : 300.686
cache size      : 512 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov mmx
bogomips        : 599.65

minio · 11-27-2003, 04:09 PM

Home as workstation

AMD Duron 800MHz
384 MiB PC133 RAM
Nvidia GeForceFX 5200
1x Quantum 20 GB
1x Seagate 120 GB (7200 rpms,PATA - both)

It's dualboot with WinXP (Sacrifice and Black & White

)

rtr · 11-27-2003, 08:03 PM

@ work as Both

Gigabyte GA7-DPXDW
Dual AMD 2.0
512 MB DDR2100
Optorite 52x32x52 CDRW
DVD-ROM
Geforce2 32MB
2 Intel 8255x NIC's
2 40 GB, 2 60 GB HD
Yamaha YMF-724F

Tinkster · 11-27-2003, 08:54 PM

all of the above :}

1:
P166-96MB-SCSI(21+8GB)-MilleniumII(4MB)
Slack 8.1 headless print-server/router/gateway/firewall

2:
Athlon 600-256MB-Ati-All-in-Wonder(8MB), 21", 80+30GB, DVD, CD-RW :}
Slack 8.1: Workstation, NFS server

3:
Thinkpad PIV 1.8GHz, 512MB, Radeon Mobility(32MB), 20GB, DVD
Slack 8.1: Workstation

Cheers,
Tink

P.S.: The kids both have dual boot systems
with Win98 (:Q) and Slack 9

deNiro · 11-27-2003, 09:20 PM

I use it as a workstation since 2.5 months now. In the beginning i was dual booting, but since I found out how to play my favourite games (vice city, championshipmanager, MOHAA) on linux and also how run run MSexcell and MSaccess (yes i know, some people may say that's a stupid program, but i find it handy, and need it for my work) and photoshop within linux, I removed the winXP partition.

Not that i never run microsoft on this computer, because i run that within VMware. It's just that i don't like rebooting the physical machine all the time.

My pc is a:

AMD Athlon XP1500+, 512MB DDR pc2100, geforce4MX440se, maxtor 80GB 8mbcache 7200rpm, combo philips DVD/CD rw.

Now i have tested, for myself, about 8 distributions, and i found slackware most suitable for me. It's a great distribution. I realize I still have to learn so damn much.. which sometimes frustrates me, but... it really brought back some fun in my computer experience that was gone since I used winxp.

So, my opinion is.... Linux, with the "right" distribution and a "good" desktopmanager is very suitable.. and mature enough to run as a desktop computer. Allthough i am a bit "affraid" for the future because the closed standards that microsoft is producing can spoil that all. If those techniques become too complex and if you can't interact (documents, communications, etc) with "the rest" of the world... it might be hard to maintain that status. But perhaps i don't have a good overview of the situation, and my fear is not real.

chado · 11-27-2003, 10:01 PM

Interesting responses!

Not at all what I was expecting...I always figured that people looking for a workstation were more apt to use mandrake or redhat...as they are more of an install and away you go sort of distro.

Nice to see.

I do notice that people tend to run slower computers as workstations then windows users, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. (good = cheaper, less upgrades) but bad as it shows that there is still that leading edge lack of support...

But one way or another I have confirmed that I will be investing in that switching device, so at the push of a button this monitor/kb/ms will have access to 2-3 of my computers (2 atm, 1 more will be finished in a week or so for when my girlfriend is over...its her computer actually...but I've determined she needs linux *cough* as she just uses irc and msn hehe) anyway, then I can run an X desktop and do my programming there...and use my winblows enviroment for my games...

Ahh happiness

Chado

EyesOnly · 11-28-2003, 03:51 AM

I use slackware for both server and desktop:

my 'server':

pentium I, 120 MHz, 48 MB ram
running apache, proftp, dns, dhcp, samba, and is used for some little experimenting from time to time.
has currently an uptime of 37 days. Longest 'till now

It usually had to reboot quite often due to my experiments

it is now running like i want it, so the experimenting is a little less 'aggresive' ..

my desktop:

AMD athlon XP 2400+, 512 MB ram
dualboot windows 2000 & slackware 9
for all the usuall work and stuff like that..

my old desktop:

pentium II, 266MHz, 128MB ram
dualboot win98(for this old crappy software i had to use, and just wouldn't run on W2K..) and slackware 9
This is currently used as a desktop machine, browsing the internet and such when my other desktop machine is busy. This is also my test-machine for the 2.6 kernel. (have tryed 2 test versions till now. haven't got one working yet, probably due to a lack of time..)

I've had quite a lot of distro's:
started whit SLS-linux 1.03,kernel 0.99 or someting like that! still got it here on 31 floppy-disks. cool(no, Im not that old. got it about 4 years back..)
After a lot of other stuff i got slackware about 2 month's back. I just loved it, so now all my machines are running it

Tarts · 11-28-2003, 03:52 AM

I have:

Mirrus:
700MHz AMD Duron, Slackware 9.1
Blah..Blah

Aladium:
500MHz Intel pentium III, Slackware 9.1
Blah...Blah

I just got DSL and since the ISP offers web space throught geocitys, I will be atempting to create a server to offer a web page to give people info on me and to give them a way to try out programs/scripts I have created. The server will be Mirrus and I want to keep the laptop as a workstation (Aladium). Now all I have to figure out is if there will be any problems with my ISP and being a server(ive heard of some issues). I would not go to redhat or suse or any other distro purely because Slackware has never given me a reason to.

skog · 11-28-2003, 08:38 AM

@ home is server and workstations

trickykid · 11-28-2003, 08:54 AM

Two machines mainly as desktops also including my crap laptop.

All others running as some kind of server which is close to 5 others now. Some machines are test machines so I'm swapping distro's on them every now and then, but usually running Slack for the majority of the time.

Scruff · 11-28-2003, 09:20 PM

Home: Desktop/server
Hardware in sig.

mipia · 11-28-2003, 10:05 PM

AMD Ath. 800 mHz
256 ram
80 gig hd
geforce2 64 meg

slack 9.1 dual w/ 2k pro
(mini-disk, and scanner wont work otherwise :P )

Of course this system is only a desktop, I have no idea about servers (LAMP etc) yet.
I ordered a C for beginners book and am reading about PHP at the moment. I would like to eventually get a second system to learn some networking skills and start with a simple local home network with various different protocols as I start to learn them.

Im guessing after december I will have a newer system. So eventually I will be able to use this system as my "love slave" heh.

I did use redhat for a week or so, soon after realizing that instead of starting out bloated and point-n-click, i could start SIMPLE and BUILD UP to a comfortable level of ease of use without using all my memory up. For now Im using fluxbox as a gui for a nice speedy little home desktop system without much bells n whistles. Some day though.....when I have the time and patients....networking.

Sad thing is I still have about 30 years before I am eligable for retirement. I figure that will be the only free time I will have to play around with protocols :P