Ludwig is dead. Long live Archimedes.
Instead of going through the trouble of finding ludwig’s cause of death, I found a suitable replacement.
The local Computer Renaissance had a pallet of used machines: Dell Optiplex GX110 models, with 500MHz CPUs and 128MB RAM each. The quoted price was $50, but the sales guy on duty sold me one for $25. (I didn’t even ask. Honest.)
Continuing with my theme of lesser-known Disney characters, I named the new server “Archimedes” after the owl in “The Sword in the Stone”.
I had a few surprises while configuring the server. Most notably, the IDE controller uses Cable Select and will not function without it. I had the system drive configured as master, and the controller wouldn’t detect it. I had to turn on Cable Select before it would work. There is no AGP expansion slot, but the integrated video uses AGP. I don’t even use X11 on the system, so a lack of decent video is hardly a detriment. And the case is either an engineering marvel or a overcomplicated piece of junk, depending on how irritated I am at it.
The system came with a PCI Sound Blaster Live! card. I removed the card, as a server doesn’t need a sound card, and intend to put it into my Wintendo.
Debian installation went off without a hitch. Even installing and configuring the additional servers I use was easy, primarily because I managed to save the /etc directory from ludwig. I’ve installed samba, dnsmasq, and cups so far without any hassle whatsoever.
All I can say is that I’m pleased with the results.
Comment posted by Michael Kors at 5:10 am on 2 June 2007:
That’s good you got it for less price, but I were at your place, I would have asked