hardware

[khayman97]

hi. I'm a was wondering what hardware would be best to run a network with red hat linux 7.0? I'm looking at dells with 256 mg of ram, 733 mHZ, and a 10 gig hard drive. I would be very interested in what someone who is familar with linux would recomend. you can e-mail me at khayman@hiwaay.net thanks

[Paul Weaver]

How many computers are going to eb connecting, what services will you be putting on etc?

[khayman97]

the lab will be around 70 computers and it will be elementary school software such as basic math programs, reading, etc. nothing major. We are planning on using an emulator though and we are currently looking at dell for the vendor because they offer the best product, linux preinstalled, support, the emulator software, and support and setup of the network.

[Iceman]

Hi:

No flame wars please to all.

If you are running RH as a server in a production environment avoid RH 7.0--or any other dot-oh. It's simply too new and there are too many potential problems--unless whomever is selling you the server is going to put someone on-site to solve all the inevitable problems.

Note that I am not bashing, simply making a point. Dot-oh=no. For MS I would wait for a few "service packs."

You also mention Dell as the vendor of choice, particularly due to service and support. OK if all you buy from them is the physical server itself. If you are also buying 70 workstation boxen I'd go with generic whitebox. Dell. Compaq, Gateway and any other major vendor have too much proprietary hardware and ...ahhh, the BIOS.

Keep in mind that http://www.google.com has 4,000 servers--and all are generic. Granted, they have tech on staff, but the TOC is worth the difference. I'm at the moment looking for proprietary cache memory for a Compaq server. I have the part number but the box is almost three yrs old. Compaq can't find it, and generic won't work.

But get a good server or two and you could likely save a king's ransom on the desktop boxen. Unless heavy graphics are involved, even P-166's would suffice--or PII's.

Repost if you're interested. I can provide a schema for "linux in schools." I've also sources for boxen in bulk. I know a fellow who has 200 Pentium 200MMX boxen for sale cheap--but you have to buy all 200. I also know of a municipality that has an entire 40 ft tractor trailer load--but you'd have to buy them all. How many? I don't know. It's a full trailer load, all palletised.

I don't suggest this as a seller--I am not and this is not that sort of forum. Nor would I consider it acceptable.

But if you are interested please repost.

Good Luck!
Good Luck!