Leaving my computer on while I am on vacation.

[gmoreno]

I will be on vacation starting on December 14th. I have ssh, http and some other services running on my box. I might want to download something from my box while I am on vacation. I'll be gone for about a month.

Should I use a type of power management tool. So that it wont waste a lot of electricity.

Is having the computer on for a month bad compared to starting and shutting my computer everyday. I heard that if you leave your computer on all the time is better than if you turn turn them on then off.

Give me some advice.

[A_Lawn_GNOME]

Leaving your computer on is better for your hardware.

For power management... turn off your monitor or something http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif . I suppose apmd (advanced power management daemon) might have a hard drive shut off timer. You'll have to find the manual on it.

Maybe a Linux laptop owner could give you more advice.

[Strike]

Originally posted by A_Lawn_GNOME:
Leaving your computer on is better for your hardware.
That's an unsubstantiated myth, as far as I know. The whole "barrage of electrons that hits your equipment when you turn it on" theory is pretty bogus. As long as you don't turn it off and on and off and on several times in a row, the equipment should be built to withstand it. Overcurrent and overvoltage protection are taken into consideration when designing hardware, trust me.

[posterboy]

I did this last March, and will be doing it again this March. I go to Daytona for BikeWeek each year. Last year I was gone 3 weeks. I dropped by the local library a few times to ssh in and see how things were going. It ran like a champ, served pages as expected, and had no issues. It's great to be able to get your mail while on the road, too. 'Sides, it was just a fun thing to do.
Ray


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HTTP://www.raymondjones.net

[D-Termind]

Originally posted by Strike:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by A_Lawn_GNOME:
Leaving your computer on is better for your hardware.
That's an unsubstantiated myth, as far as I know. The whole "barrage of electrons that hits your equipment when you turn it on" theory is pretty bogus. As long as you don't turn it off and on and off and on several times in a row, the equipment should be built to withstand it. Overcurrent and overvoltage protection are taken into consideration when designing hardware, trust me.

Here's the nitty...

Basically the reason it IS better to leave your equipment on if possible is:

1)- Wear and tear on switches.
2)- Heating and cooling of equipment and components.
3)-Mechanical stress imposed on powering up/down motors and stress on bearings, etc..


It has been shown (for instance) that ddue to heating/cooling things like connectors will sometimes get loose and even in severe circumstances cards will need to be jiggled around or removed/re-inserted to maake good contact.

Tthe heating and cooling also allows oxidation to form easier between contacts.

There are other considerations also but in general, not considering power usage, it is much better on equipment to leave it on 24/7 if possible.

Just make sure that you have a good UPS and proper shutdown software jus in case of local power outages.

Other than reboots, etc. I never shut down. I can think of entire YEARS that my equipment only powered down for very short durations. I used to Sysop aa PCBoard BBS and remember leaving my 8088 (reborn 286) up for at least 3 yrss. with only an occasional reboot. Since this is a new computer it's only been running since mid-October when I bought it.

Mainframe operators learned long ago that if a computer went down it was best if possible to return a computer to service BEFORE things cooled down. Imagine chasing down loose connectors/modules in a computer the size of a building...large businesses almost NEVER have their people shut workstations down. Go into most large corporations at 3AM and you'll see computers happily humming...

In general equipment will last LONGER if you never power down. Mechanical strain on things like HD motors/bearing will be greatly reduced. I had a WD 540M HD that I bought in 1993/4 that finally died about 4 mo. ago...my first HD to ever die.

The "barrage of electrons" thing however...IS a myth. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

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[This message has been edited by D-Termind (edited 09 December 2000).]

[D-Termind]

Originally posted by gmoreno:
I will be on vacation starting on December 14th. I have ssh, http and some other services running on my box. I might want to download something from my box while I am on vacation. I'll be gone for about a month.

Should I use a type of power management tool. So that it wont waste a lot of electricity.

Is having the computer on for a month bad compared to starting and shutting my computer everyday. I heard that if you leave your computer on all the time is better than if you turn turn them on then off.

Give me some advice.

Read my prior post...

Make sure you have a good UPS hooked to a properly grounded outlet...with shutdown software.

It's even possible to have many computers reboot and come back on with the power...

[UltraMaroon]

I find my system runs slow if I leave it on for more than 2 days or so...I think it runs out of memory...I have 64MB

[gmoreno]

Also..For you people that support leaving your computers on 24/7. Would you recommend to have apm or some power management software? Or would that be worst than turning your computer on and of since it suspends the computer.

[D-Termind]

Originally posted by gmoreno:
Also..For you people that support leaving your computers on 24/7. Would you recommend to have apm or some power management software? Or would that be worst than turning your computer on and of since it suspends the computer.

APM is fine, in fact I recommend it UNLESS it screws things up. I just got this computer in October and I still haven't found just the right combination that works right. I find that at time the puter won't wake up and I have to use the reset button...

I don't like doing that so I hope I find the right ccombination soon.

There's really little problem with monitor burn-in with an SVGA/VGA monitor. That's really a holdover from the old monochrome/RGB days where burnt screens were a problem. Admins would leave the same screen up for days/weeks and then it would "ghost"...get burnt.

Ironically that originated with the old DOS/UNIX in the text mode...rather than the GUI's we have today.

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[This message has been edited by D-Termind (edited 09 December 2000).]

[D-Termind]

Originally posted by UltraMaroon:
I find my system runs slow if I leave it on for more than 2 days or so...I think it runs out of memory...I have 64MB


It's still better to reboot...than to let the puter go through the hot/cold cycle.

I had one box...never did figure out why...but before it would recognize my mouse I would have to turn it on and leave it heat up for about 30 minutes...then it worked fine when I rebooted. Who knows?...small crack, a cold solder joint?

In any case once it warmed up I didn't have any problem.

You might try a memory manager like MemTurbo, it will defrag your memory as desired and recover memory that's not needed anymore by programs.

MemTurbo ( www.memturbo.com (http://www.memturbo.com) ) is for Windows but I'd be surprised if there wasn't something similar for Linux.

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[This message has been edited by D-Termind (edited 09 December 2000).]

[David Anderson]

Being a computer owner for the last 10 years and always shutting the computer off several times a day, I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to "wear out" anything on a computer by the time I replace it. My system generally gets an overhaul every 2 years, at which point I rebuild it from the ground up.

So I personally think it's fine to shutoff the computer when you're done with it and save some electricity.

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[D-Termind]

Originally posted by David Anderson:
Being a computer owner for the last 10 years and always shutting the computer off several times a day, I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to "wear out" anything on a computer by the time I replace it. My system generally gets an overhaul every 2 years, at which point I rebuild it from the ground up.

So I personally think it's fine to shutoff the computer when you're done with it and save some electricity.



Great!, more power to you. No, I'm not trying to be smart, it's just that some of us aren't that lucky. When I buy a computer I know that I'll be living with it for at least 5-10 years. It may go thru several reincarnations (upgrades) but I need to try to make things "last" if I can.

I am willing to pay a few cents a day to save having little things go wrong all the time...like an old car that starts going to pieces.

Corporations figured out a long time ago that the $$$ they save in hardware more than makes up for the electicity they spend to keep things "up".

When do things "blow"?...very seldom if ever without it accompanying a power up/down/fluctuation of some kind.

BTW, my first puter was in 1987. It was an 8086 8Mhz Turbo that didn't even HAVE a hard drive...just 2 floppies.

Do a search and you'll find that in most cases the worst stress a hard drive faces is constant on/off, heat/cold, and uneven wear on bearings from speeding up/down from powering up/down.

With APM I power up/down my monitor but never my HD's.

Each to their own...




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[RoySmith]

D-Termind:
you certainly seem to know what you're talking about, so i'm hoping you can answer the argument that i'd always heard against leaving a computer running all the time. it goes something like this: mechanical items such as fans and (more importantly) hard drives wear constantly while they are spinning, thus they will have shorter "useful" lifespans if left to spin at all times.
i've never really questioned that, until now, i've remained ambivalent about the whole situation. (yeah, i have trouble making up my mind when the choices aren't clear-cut! http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif )

[goyle]

It used to be back in my 286, 386 days the problem used to be called "chip creep". it would happen with the heating and cooling of power on/off. With the old boards, quite a few of the chips on mb and cards were socketed not soldered and the heating and cooling would cause them to work their way out of the socket. I remember having to reseat them sometimes on quite a regular basis.

[A_Lawn_GNOME]

Originally posted by David Anderson:
Being a computer owner for the last 10 years and always shutting the computer off several times a day, I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to "wear out" anything on a computer by the time I replace it. My system generally gets an overhaul every 2 years, at which point I rebuild it from the ground up.


So I personally think it's fine to shutoff the computer when you're done with it and save some electricity.



On the other hand, it will eventually wear it out. Think of all the 486's that are used as firewall/routers. Eventually all our Athlons and PIII's (not P4's, no one wants one of those) will end up as future home servers and such while we use 64bit quad processor systems with GB's of RAM.

So preserving your computer, even by a little, is worthwhile in the end.

[ph34r]

I've been doing computers for years now (since the TRS-80 III was the standard), and to be honest, I have never seen a differece. Up till my AMD 166 (and my non-linux time), I typically turned it off and on as needed. Of course, running Windows and playing with drivers and such to tweak thing for Quake (and then Quake2), I crashed or had to reboot often. Now that I use linux, I tend to leave my computer on for long periods of time - typically, until I experience power loss for some reason.

Oh, and power went out earlier today. Bummer.

[D-Termind]

Originally posted by RoySmith:
D-Termind:
you certainly seem to know what you're talking about, so i'm hoping you can answer the argument that i'd always heard against leaving a computer running all the time. it goes something like this: mechanical items such as fans and (more importantly) hard drives wear constantly while they are spinning, thus they will have shorter "useful" lifespans if left to spin at all times.
i've never really questioned that, until now, i've remained ambivalent about the whole situation. (yeah, i have trouble making up my mind when the choices aren't clear-cut! http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif )


The problem issn't so much "wear" as it is "uneven wear" and "stress".

"Uneven wear" comes from the effect of slowing/speeding during powerup/down, and "stress" comes from the torque on mechanics...particularly in going from 0 rpm to 4400,5400,7200 or higher rpm.

The torque is immense and THIS is also where bearings get the roughest wear. Much like a car engine where the biggest wear on parts is during the first few minutes after starting.

You see, while RUNNING the jewel bearings in a HD is almost frictionless, ALMOST running on air, yet when it settles down to 0 rpm, then revves up again...it's a different story.

Fans?...in 13 years I've only had one go bad on me. Even then after I blew it out with canned air it remained useable for almost a year.

Ask around and you'll find that MOST of electronic equipment failure past the first burn-in period is related to powering up/down/fluctuations/surges. Without those electronics will last almost indefinitely.

It's been proven long ago...leave electronic equipment running all the time and it will last much longer. Ccheck with HD mfgr's and you'll find that the greatest stress comes at startup.



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[A_Lawn_GNOME]

Originally posted by D-Termind:
Fans?...in 13 years I've only had one go bad on me. Even then after I blew it out with canned air it remained useable for almost a year.
Funny you mention that.

I left my family with a flawless Linux server. They shut it off of course (btw, this was not a *nice* shut off. It was "we're all leaving so g'bye" *WHACK*). Eventually they turned it back on and the fan did not start. The thing burnt up and now it's usless. Not only is the powersupply gone but it got the mobo too.

So yeah, I leave my computer on and it stays on.

[D-Termind]

Originally posted by goyle:
It used to be back in my 286, 386 days the problem used to be called "chip creep". it would happen with the heating and cooling of power on/off. With the old boards, quite a few of the chips on mb and cards were socketed not soldered and the heating and cooling would cause them to work their way out of the socket. I remember having to reseat them sometimes on quite a regular basis.

Yep!...exactly. The problem is much less today but it still exists. You might remember that this sometimes even happened to cards; you'd open up the case and wonder how in the heck the card came out of the slot.

(How man of you have forgotten/neglected to put the slot screw back in?)

We still have "some" chips this can happen with.

Here's another thing you might be aware of:

Someboddy said that they shut off their computer several times a day...

...I wonder if they are aware that they end up using LOTS MORE electricity by doing that...than if they had just left the computer running.

Take for instance light bulbs...the energy JUST to light it up from a cold start would RUN it for almost an hour. The amount of energy to START things is immense.

In all likelihood he is using MORE electricity by shutting down/powering up several times a day than if he just LEFT it running.

Similarly with a car...the gas JUST to START a car would RUN it for about 15 minutes at idle.

Some people will never learn though...

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[This message has been edited by D-Termind (edited 09 December 2000).]

[UltraMaroon]

I would leave my computer on all the time but I'm afraid of it...it's like 2 years old and I'm afraid one day it might just burn the whole house down while we are all sleeping or something...It has been getting turned on and off every day since I had it and before that too (when it was my parents) and it still works fine...

[UltraMaroon]

By the way, when I say turned off every day I mean like maybe turned on at 10am and turned off at like 12 midnight hehe

I've known some people that turn there's off when they aren't using it...so they turn it on like 3 or 4 times a day

[vvx]

Actually, the light-bulb bit is only true for florescent lights.. Incandescent lights don't have that large-amounts-of-power-to-start-up deal florescent lights do, then again once running florescent use less electricty and last a lot longer. If a computer is going to be actively used for 8 hours or less a day, you're probably going to use more electricity by keeping it on the extra 16 hours than not. As for cards getting loose and such, yes a few years ago I was one of those lazy folks who would neglect the screws and such but now, as it takes only two seconds more my computers are usually pretty well secured.. The only things that really should be affected by poweron/poweroff would be things that wind down/up. Fans, hard drives, that type of deal. I can't say how much the damage would be, but on a lot of boxes today people set them up to wind down the harddrives or such so I don't imagine that it's of tremendous difference if you leave your system on or not. But, just so everyone knows, my computer stays on 24/7.. How else can I have my mp3's going 24/7? HuH?

[gmoreno]

I have my computer on from about 8:30AM-10:30PM everyday. My computer is only off while I'm sleeping. My computer only rests about 9 hours a day.

[gmoreno]

Now how often should be rebooted if it is left on 24/7

[evil_roy]

Only when it has to be. I leave 'em on for as long as possible..just turn off the monitors.

That fire issue is still a worry though (maybe). I make sure I put the cases back together now...figured dust was going to be my biggest enemy for unreliabilty and fires.
By turing the monitor off I reckon I've reduced the fire risk - they are the most unreliable hardware and the biggest heat producers..btw..leave room around all your equipment for air to circulate.

[JG]

I'll throw my 2cents worth in here.

When you go on holidays,switch everything electrical off in your place that doesn't need to be ON. And then pull the appliance cords out of the power outlets for good measure.

Re whether to leave your puter on or not - I guess it depends whether you really really have to leave it on. Personally, if I didn't need to have something ON then I wouldn't.

Reason - and I don't want to sound like a smartass here - I am a forensic scientist who spends most of my time looking into fire origin and causes. Apart from having investigated several fires that have definitely started both in the puter case internals and the monitors, I had the personal experience of having a newly installed CDROM drive frying an internal voltage regulator virtually before my eyes and a friend of mine has experienced a component on the underside of a HDD overheating to the point of a small fire (yes a flame!) starting - he luckily had the case cover off at the time.

Also, DO NOT leave your puter running if you don't have to when you go to bed or when its going to be unattended for long periods. If you do either of these, make sure you have an adequate number of properly placed smoke alarms to warn you in the event of any trouble.

I don't want to sound like a worry-wart, but I've investigated too many fatal fires here (Australia) where a couple of smoke alarms would probably have made a big difference to the outcome of the fire.

Regards


JG

[D-Termind]

Originally posted by gmoreno:
Now how often should be rebooted if it is left on 24/7

Only when you need to.

Re: "fire"

Consider how many items you leave plugged in every day. Just use normal fire/smoke precautions...for some people that would include unplugging their computer.




[This message has been edited by D-Termind (edited 10 December 2000).]

[RoySmith]

hey, D-Termind, thanx for responding to my question. your answer was quite enlightening.

[D-Termind]

Originally posted by JG:
Personally, if I didn't need to have something ON then I wouldn't.
JG

JG,

I didn't realize that this question was concerning personal choices or about a "Public Safety Announcement".

I thought the person was concerned about the equipment.

Now, be sure that you unplug all your electric appliances that you don't need to leave on...like your toaster, electric coffee pot, electric stove, TV, radios, VCR's, DVD players, etc., etc., etc...and never, ever, go away and leave your electric alarm clock plugged in.

Never fly on an airline, drive a car, cross the street, or ride a roller coaster.




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[JG]

D-Termind,

Someone else in the thread mentioned the possibility of fire from leaving computer equipment on, unattended. And it was a very valid point!

My comment wasn't intended as a "Public Safety Warning" - just a bit of advice from my experience - but if you want to take it that way then please do so.

There's a bit of a difference between plane crashes and electrical faults that start fires. The latter you (the operator) have at least some control over, if you're going to be away from the equipment for a lengthy period of time - if you apply some common sense principles.

I repeat - if you intend to be away from your residence for an extended period of time then it IS a basic and common sense approach to disconnect any electrical appliances that don't need to be connected from power outlets. And if you elect to, then you can even "pull" the fuse for any circuits that don't need to be ON. Gee, you may even prevent an electrical fire from burning down your house, just by taking the time to use your brain and apply some risk minimisation procedure!

For your information, there exist several electrical faults and failures eg current tracking and dry soldered joints in circuit boards, that develop even with the appliance not ON but connected to a power outlet that has its switch ON.

And as for smoke alarms - if a computer and a monitor is left on over night, then you'd have to have rocks in your head not to have functional smoke detectors installed that may just wake you up in time before you become too affected by smoke to escape a fire.

As I said above - take it or leave it. But please do not scoff at some pretty basis fire prevention and detection ideas for residential situations.

JG

[D-Termind]

JG,

My only point was that the fear of leaaving your computer on 24/7 is unwarranted.

I wasn't scoffing...only pointing out that SAFETY is another issue. If I didn't have a REASON to leave my computer on I would turn it off.

I was only noting that there's nothing (other than safety or saving electricity) that would warrant turning it off, and it's really better FOR THE EQUIPMENT to leave it on.

I was assuming that if the person was considering leaving their computer on...it was for a reason. I don't really see much sense in leaving it on (for extended periods without supervision) JUST to say you did it.

I was just pointing out that it wouldn't harm THE EQUIPMENT.

I thought THAT was the issue...

Joseph

-Always wear a Coast Guard Approved life jacket when traveling in U.S. waters.-




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[D-Termind]

Originally posted by RoySmith:
hey, D-Termind, thanx for responding to my question. your answer was quite enlightening.

Thanks for the comeback...




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[rayh]

Turn off WATT power ? --- leave the dammed thing on and plugin the ol' KayPro ... needs a battery charge anyway. & both monitors too - speciallt the OEM 19" Sylvania. REM ... every KWAT ya burn means that's just another can't be used in California ... hehehe ... freeze their *** ...

[JG]

D-Termind

A "fear" ,as you put it, about leaving a computer ON 24/7 may not be warranted, on the basis that a fire arising from it running permanently would in most circumstances be a low probability event - But, a very healthy respect for the possibility of a fire arising from even computer equipment (and even the critical failure of solid state componentry running at 12V) should not be understated.

There are still a lot of people around (who should know better) who believe that a fire can't start from 12V solid state components in say a computer. That view, using a colloquial expression, is "complete bull****"

A certain brand of computer monitor WAS the cause of several fires here in Australia, one of which caused the death of a family of 3 in a house in Melbourne. That particular brand of monitor was, I am informed, distributed world wide.

And by the way - Yes, you should unplug your bedside clock/radio when you go on vacation. Again, these items can and have been shown to fail and cause fires. So the inconvenience of having to reset the time/alarm on it upon your return from vacation pales in significance, in my opinion, as compared to the possible consequences of it being left on (why?) in your absence.

JG

[Lorithar]

*grins and peers around*

a) Leave it on. turn the monitor off, but ... leave it on.. the likelyhood of it starting a fire is *very* small ... the three computer fires I've seen in 23 years of computing have all been from sugar. (OOOpppss.. spilled ma pop on that there mobo... oh well ..... they dry the mobo off and fire it up ... 3hrs later... Poof!)

b) APMD and a ups .. go for it.

c) last time I turned off my Linux computer intentionally was to insert the SCSI controller...

d) last time I turned off the winders box ... to put in a buddy's harddrive to transfer a *huge* chunk o data.. (and then take it out)

Longest uptime on the linux box ... 82 days.
(only 'cause I'm still playing with it so much)
Longest uptime on the winders box .. .93 days..

Linux box (sometime next week after the tape drive goes in) will shoot for 150 days, unless I get a new CPU for christmas.

[bugfix]

I'd make sure that you have 'shutdown' runnable as a user so you can ssh-in and shut it down if you think someone has been having a go at hacking it. Or, alternativly, root has permission to ssh in, although this is less advisable.

[StanLin]

I would love to leave my server on 24/7 but I cannot overcome this fear of a lightning strike. I have heard that doubling the surge protectors don't help. Where I live and work, thunderstorms can occur daily for some weeks. I would be glad to get some practical answers.

My experience with harddisks is that their average life span is 3 years. Then again I turn them on and off everyday.

[A_Lawn_GNOME]

Originally posted by StanLin:
My experience with harddisks is that their average life span is 3 years. Then again I turn them on and off everyday.
I got a 10 MB hard drive that is 5" in height. It would run if I knew what to plug it into. I also have a few 20MB ones that are 1.5" high that also work. I suppose I should try those so I can get my Doom II wadfile that I've been hunting for. Only prob is what to plug it into.

[milanuk]

Originally posted by StanLin:
I would love to leave my server on 24/7 but I cannot overcome this fear of a lightning strike. I have heard that doubling the surge protectors don't help. Where I live and work, thunderstorms can occur daily for some weeks. I would be glad to get some practical answers.



What do you mean by 'doubling the surge protectors'? Having 2 of them? Of course that doesn't work. It's not like they have a cumulative effect. And here's the rub on some kinds of surge protectors: They have a rating known as clamping voltage, which is somewhere in the range of 2-3x line voltage. So assuming line voltage is ~120vac (US), the MOV in the surge arrestor won't do jack until the line voltage is over 300vac. Now consider that your friendly neighborhood electric utility most likely has lightning arrestors spaced up and down the distribution lines that your service xfmr that feeds your house taps off of. Most of these have a clamping voltage of about 1.2-1.7. Which one do you think is going to go first? Most likely not your home one, unless you take a direct hit on the service btwn the xfmr and the house, or something else freaky happens.

A good bet might be a surge protector, and a UPS that does line regulation, i.e. it converts from AC to DC to pseudo-AC, so no matter what the utility supplied voltage is, it puts out 120vac or so. I'd think the combination would be more effective, and minimize wear and tear on your computers power supply by minimizing the variance that it has to deal with.

Monte

[D-Termind]

Originally posted by StanLin:
I would love to leave my server on 24/7 but I cannot overcome this fear of a lightning strike. I have heard that doubling the surge protectors don't help. Where I live and work, thunderstorms can occur daily for some weeks. I would be glad to get some practical answers.

My experience with harddisks is that their average life span is 3 years. Then again I turn them on and off everyday.


I -usually- turn the puter off for lightning. However, I have also had lightning strike nearby while it was on. In almost 15 yrs. I have ONLY had one modem fry and I can't say why.

Consider this...any reliable surge protector equipment has 25,50 or MORE _thousand_ $$$ protection warranty.

All you are required to do is run ALL your computer through it.

Concerning HD's...my FIRST ONE died a few months ago. You MAY be CAUSING early failure by turning things off/on all the time.

Consider how it would be if AOL or your ISP's turned their equipment off all the time...lightning storms, etc.

They don't...unless it's a ma & pa ISP.


Use surge protectors WITH A GOOD GROUND.

I don't advise this for everyone but I drilled a hole in my floor near my outlet and ran a dedicated ground rod. Then again my house is over 100 yrs. old. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

I _KNOW_ I have a good ground.



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[D-Termind]

Originally posted by StanLin:
I would love to leave my server on 24/7 but I cannot overcome this fear of a lightning strike. I have heard that doubling the surge protectors don't help. Where I live and work, thunderstorms can occur daily for some weeks. I would be glad to get some practical answers.

My experience with harddisks is that their average life span is 3 years. Then again I turn them on and off everyday.

There is NO advantage in "doubling" surge protectors. Just get a GOOD one and trust it.

My advice is to go with one of the brand names rather than one of those Dollar Store discount ones. They MAY be just as good...but is the company behind it?

There's different kinds of surge protection and the better companies won't cut corners...their name is on the line.

VERY IMPORTANT!!!!

Make sure you have a good ground. Without that you have virtually NO protection...very poor at best.

If a person live in an old house with only a two wire outlet...run a dedicated ground...it's not that hard.

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[gmoreno]

I compiled my kernel to support apmd. But now ppp dosent work even though I added it to the kernel. So unless I get this fixed before the 14th I'm not going to be able to leave it on. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/frown.gif

I am 100% sure I compiled it in. I doubled checked and compilied.

[RoySmith]

Originally posted by A_Lawn_GNOME:
[QUOTE]I got a 10 MB hard drive that is 5" in height. It would run if I knew what to plug it into. I also have a few 20MB ones that are 1.5" high that also work. I suppose I should try those so I can get my Doom II wadfile that I've been hunting for. Only prob is what to plug it into.

should work in one of the old ibm-compats - old meaning 8086-based or maybe even as new as 80286-based. those drives probably need a RLL controller (it's been awhile, i *think* RLL is right). you might even be able to find an ISA version, somewhere, and hook 'em up to your current machine.