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Linux Software

Mega Linux Boxes, and Cheap Ones Too 163

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-see dept.
Couple of interesting developments in Linux hardware lately. The Linux Store is selling super cheap linux boxes. news.com has a story about them where they proclaim that they will only be advertising on sites like Slashdot and Freshmeat except that Scoop doesn't even had ads, and I'd never heard of them before reading that article. An actual advertiser (Penguin Computing), however now has a 8 CPU Xeon Box that runs Linux (of course). First 8 CPU box I've seen running Linux (which I didn't even know could do 8 way SMP. Although I've been told of 32 and 64 chip linux boxes in development by other companies. No I can't name names).
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Mega Linux Boxes, and Cheap Ones Too More

Mega Linux Boxes, and Cheap Ones Too

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  • They're using their own chipset. Making this a very proprietary box.
  • Wow is that a NT box.

    Well, queso says:

    queso www.thelinuxstore.com
    209.140.25.18:80 * Windoze 95/98/NT

    So, yes, I guess it is an MS server. Tsk Tsk.

    -Brett.

  • I have used resellerratings in the past and have found that the ratings generally represent what is REALLY going on at the company. The fact of the matter is that you have really managed to piss off the majority of your customers. 7 of the 8 respondants have mentioned that they received rude service.

    Nevertheless, a 1.7 out of 7.0 rating on resellerratings shows me what kind of company you really are.
  • Yes, he is. He said so. Or weren't you at last year's Linux Expo? :)
  • No, the big draw to Linux is that it'll run on fscking anything.
  • I haven't checked out his parts list, but behind hard drive (most expensive), usually comes processor and motherboard. If he's using a cheap Cyrix processor, the motherboard is probably the third most expensive item. Then memory and processor would come in at a tie for fourth most expensive item.

    -Eric

  • Let's put it this way. At the low end, Compaq has maybe a $50 profit on each machine that goes out the door. On the high end, they may mark it up by as much as 50% to cover the engineering costs (high end stuff is usually highly customized).

    Now you know why Linux Hardware Solutions and VA Research aren't aiming at the low end, and why a large-volume distributor of Wintel computers is the first one to take Linux to the low end.

    Personally, I'd love for a Linux-centric vendor to attack the low end. But the marketing is going to be a killer. I think the only way to make it work is to have a Linux equivalent of the iWhack, i.e., plug it in, turn it on, it comes up and asks you to set up your ISP, and the whole thing costs under $500. The only way to sell something like that is in the mass market, which takes $$$ to buy your way onto the shelves at Best Buy and Circuit City. The other possibility I see is for sort of a WebTV without the TV part, i.e., a diskless machine with a built-in monitor that operates off of flash disk that runs a browser and that's pretty much it. Think "iWhack" with a flash card instead of a disk drive. But again, we're talking about massive quantities needed to make a profit here, and a marketing strategy that requires millions of dollars to make work. I have actually played with a similar diskless "thin client", but right now it's too expensive for that kind of use. Right now it's just a diskless Linux workstation for use in, e.g., loading bays and other such high heat/high vibration areas where you don't want a hard drive. The only way to get the price down is by selling massive quantities, and the only way to do that is by investing massive amounts of money in advertising.

    Anyhow, enough of that. (And note that I am DEFINITELY not speaking for Linux Hardware Solutions in this message... believe me, my boss just smiles and ignores me when I start raving about going after the consumer market !)

    -Eric

  • Basic limitation is how to share processors? DUH!

    Cache coherency etc. is not part of the problem. The problem is the granularity of the semaphoring within the Linux kernel. That is, how much of the kernel can be running in parallel. Right now, once you get up past 4 processors, the kernel becomes the limit.

    There are also some process control and migration issues, as well as memory management, all of which can be lumped under the banner of "scheduling issues". Matt Dillon of the FreeBSD project did an interesting analysis of the Linux VM, for example, noting how it was a simple and elegant design (and making suggestions for doing similar simplifications to the FreeBSD VM subsystem) but somewhat simple-minded with some obvious performance problems when dealing with large memory sets (like when we're talking 8-way processors!).

    Anyhow: the Linux kernel guys know what needs doing. It's just that they're now at the hard part -- going from protecting entire subsystems with semaphors (so that they run on only a single processor) to allowing those subsystems to run in parallel on multiple processors (by protecting the data structures within those subsystems with semaphors). The known scheduling and VM issues need addressing too, of course. All of which is on the table for 2.3.

    -- Eric
  • 1) Dell is almost totally a "white box" operation, with the exception of the very high end of their line. In fact, the Compaq guys make fun of Dell because so much of Dell's stuff is just off-the-shell commodity hardware. The Dell guys just smile all the way to the bank.

    2) I assure you that LHS and VA Research, at least, have people on staff who came from Compaq, Apple, etc. and are quite familiar with the design centers at those compoanies.

    3) VA Research no longer builds their own low-end computers. Those have been outsourced to Flextronics (or did you miss their news release?). Most computer companies do this. Very few low-end computers are built by the company whose badge is on the front cover. (Heck, even the iWhack is contracted out to such an outsourcing firm!).

    4) In general, almost all facets of designing and building a computer can be outsourced now. I can't tell you details (sorry, NDA), but basically it becomes a game of where your design dollars should go. In the $1K-$30K range Compaq cannot build better motherboards than ASUS or Intel, and in fact they don't. What they do accomplish is creating motherboards that are cheaper to add into manufactured computers. Ever wonder why so many components are integrated into Compaq motherboards? Well, that saves a few dollars because those components can be automagically placed onto the motherboard by robot pick'n'place machines, rather than having some poor slob have to spend thirty seconds slamming a video card into a computer and spinning the retaining screw home.
    But the thing about outsourcing is that the poor slob is now in Malaysia or Thailand and is being paid $3 per day. Given that, why invest design dollars creating a board that reduces manufacturing costs, but which is actually technically inferior to what can be bought off the shelf from ASUS or Intel? (I say technically inferior because integrated peripherals reduce the flexibility and repairability of a computer, both of which are qualities which I personally value).

    5) All that nonwithstanding, you are correct about being able to put together a system equal to that of VA Research, Dell, or Linux Hardware Solutions out of off-the-shelf parts. In fact, any Joe Consultant in Cheyenne Wyoming can do the same. That is what is so amazing about today as vs. 20 years ago, when that was definitely not the case.
    Given that, vendors like VAR, LHS, etc. are not going to win by trying to out-engineer ASUS and Intel. Engineering resources have to be carefully allocated to those areas where off-the-shelf hardware currently doesn't exist (I don't think I can say more there, NDA etc). In the mainstream $1K-$30K server market, though, where any Joe Schmuck can buy the exact same parts off the shelf, it's the services of systems integration and support that we sell. We sort through the dozens of video cards and network cards and etc. out there so you don't have to, and then set things up and often times hunt up or write drivers for things that need it (like for the Symbios 53c896-based stuff or the Mylex stuff). If you don't need those services, build your own for crying out loud! That's why we put the parts lists up on our web sites, after all. But don't diss those of us providing a valuable service just because you don't need that particular service!

    -- Eric
  • Linux SMP is not currently limited by by memory bandwidth on the 8-way stuff. They use multiple memory busses to gain extra bandwidth.

    The real limit is simply that the Linux kernel's locking isn't granular enough. From listening to the discussions on the kernel list, the basic limitations seem to be in the filesystem and SCSI device drivers (you don't try doing a machine like this with IDE drives!). Theodore T'so popped up a while back saying he was going to work on making the filesystem work better w/SMP, but that was the last we heard of him (presumably he has discovered that it's harder than he thought!).

    Anyhow: The VA Research machine is apparently, from reading their press releases, a machine that was developed by a Japanese manufacturer in conjunction with Intel (was it Hitachi?). I suspect that the Penguin machine is the exact same machine, just as the rest of their "big" servers are the exact same machines that VA Research sells (heck, the exact same machines that Linux Hardware Solutions sells as our dual processor Xeon workstation and quad processor Xeon servers, except that for our top-of the-line quad server we use the AMI platform rather than the Intel one, and we deck them out a bit differently as far as network card and RAID card). I haven't the foggiest clue who has been putting LSD into Sam's drinking water lately with these hallucinogenic press releases we've been seeing, but I must admit that I get a bit of a laugh out of them. Maybe he's doing like UserFriendly etc. and stringing the April Fools jokes out?

    Eric.

  • I've been bouncing around this business since 1982, basically, when as a kid I got my first little Commodore computer and got a subscription to Byte. How things have changed since then. Back then, you bought an Apple II if you were a mere mortal needing a computer, and building one was not in the cards unless you wanted a boat anchor filled with S-100 cards for an ungodly sum of money (anybody remember Godbout? Cromemco? All those other S-100 hobby vendors that are long gone?).

    Today, thanks to the mass market in commodity components created by the IBM PC platform (see The Commoditization of Computers [linux-hw.com]), any Joe Consultant in Hoboken, Michigan can put together his own computers that are every bit as high in quality and low in price as those from Dell. It's an amazing democratization of the computer industry, totally unlike anything that has ever happened in any other industry. Suddenly any schmuck off the street can build a computer just as good as what he can buy, often for less!

    Given all that, folks like VA Research, Penguin, or Linux Hardware Solutions would have to be nuts to design their own motherboards. People don't buy our hardware because it is somehow better than what Joe Schmuck can put together in his back room with an issue of Computer Shopper in hand. People buy our hardware because we are *LINUX* people. We know Linux. We can choose the best hardware for Linux out of that vast array of commodity hardware just sitting on the shelf for the picking. We can configure Linux to best work on this hardware (and for the guy who says Red Hat 5.2 won't work with the 2.2 kernel, every single one of our SMP machines ships with the 2.2 kernel, and probably 90% of those are Red Hat 5.2). We can set up the automounter so that people don't have to mount and dismount floppies and CD-ROMs. We can install "X-CDRoast" when people buy a CD-R from us.

    When every Joe Schmuck can put together a box that's every bit as good as what he could buy from Dell, Gateway, or LHS, we're no longer in a business where engineering is the difference. Rather, the difference is going to be service and quality of components. Fundamentally speaking, folks like VA Research, LHS, and Penguin sell the service of pulling together Linux-compatible components and installing Linux on the resulting computers. How well we do this is what detirmines our success or failure -- not how many components we manufacture ourselves.

    Note: I'm talking about the "mainstream" market, between $1,000 and $30,000 in price... past $30,000, we're talking about engineering making a difference again, and below $1,000, you need massive quantities that Joe Schmuck can't do in his back room. Still, you get the point, right?

    --Eric

  • I thought a big draw to Linux was that it could run on older, cheap, "underpowered" stuff ... and now this? Whatever.

    And the contradiction is where, exactly?

  • Ignoring for the moment whether the NX chipset can support 8 processors, has it occurred to anyone that the distro they include is RH5.2? Which uses Linux 2.0.36 at best. Which has terrible SMP support. The least they could do is offer a customized distro based on 2.2 with some modern multiprocessing capabilities. No way I'm going to spend 100 grand on a machine and let Linux 2.0 anywhere near it. Who do they think they're kidding?

  • For your typical PC he is right. PCs do not have the memory bandwidth, or any of the other things that make that statement untrue for the big machines like Sun or Sgi makes.

  • The one good thing is the 1024x768 screen resolution. I have no clue (and they don't say) who made the laptop, so I don't know what accessories I can buy except from them. It comes with too little memory and you can only get a total of 64M from them (and it's presumably EDO, not SDRAM). Your only choice for networking is a 3COM 10Mbit card, no 10/100 cards nor any modem I saw, built-in or otherwise.

    Just not knowing who makes the laptop would be the first big red flag in my book...not seeing any interesting accessories on that site nor on cpu micromart's site was another... Where do you go for a docking station? An extra battery if the "Linux Store" goes under?

    I'd get a refurbished Winbook, despite the name, give the lose'98 CD to a friend (if any wanted it) and stick Linux on it myself so I know what's going on... As hot as they call themselves, I would've thought they'd use Stampede, not Red Hat, if they knew what they were doing...
  • The problem with selling low-cost boxes is that they're inherently low-margin. On the other hand, finding a low-cost box which will run linux and X without a problem can be hard.

    I would probably use a highly integrated AT mobo with a minitower case, if I had to build one, unless MicroATX has gotten a lot cheaper...and you'd have to find a MicroATX board that has full Linux support for the video and audio. Ditto for any MediaGX boards.
  • VAResearch had the first 8 way xeon back in March. There's a picture of VAResearch's founder standing next to it at LinuxExpo, but like every other product, if you don't market it, it might as well not exist.

  • With all due respect, Penguin Computing's claimed 8-CPU support does not seem possible. ftp://download.intel .com/design/chipsets/datashts/24377101.pdf [intel.com], and every other source I've been able to consult, states that the Intel 450NX chipset supports up to four Xeons. Not eight.

  • I've recently heard a claim that what Penguin Computing is really doing is reselling this [nec-computers.com]. That would partially explain the 450NX puzzle: It's an NEC-designed variant of the 450NX, the "Aqua II", that is said to do some weird bridging of two 450NX sets. (I've been unable to find information on it.)



    What that does to SMP is an interesting question.

  • I've put plenty of boxes up with RH5.2 put in as a baseline, then upgraded the kernel to 2.2.x along with the 'kernel-2.2' packages from the upgrade dir... 2.0.36 is on there long enough for me to stick SSH on it and scp over what I need.

    Keep in mind that nothing about RH requires you to use any specific package (be it kernel, apache, or whatever). Just bust out of the .rpm, grab the .tgz or .tar.bz2 and install the old-fashioned way if you need a customized solution.

    --
    rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)

  • Hi Alison;

    This is not true. The public reading this should know that that Alison is a penguin computing employee and Sam Ockman's Girlfriend. Real nice ethics Alison, you should let the public know who you are when you slam a competitor.(In case you have trouble with the word, it's : ethics [uchicago.edu])

    Chris DiBona

    Evangelist, VA Research (See,that wasn't so hard, was it.


    --
    Grant Chair, Linux Int.
    VP, SVLUG

  • Well, oops, sorry about that, I thought that Alison was still his girlfriend. My Bad. As far as the rest, I don't know, give them a ring or something.

    Chris DiBona

    Evangelist, VA Research


    --
    Grant Chair, Linux Int.
    VP, SVLUG

  • I don't really feel all that bad. Our's will be out very soon, we have had one since well before LWCE and have a very rigerous testing schedule that we put such things through.

    Chris DiBona
    Evangelist, VA Research.


    --
    Grant Chair, Linux Int.
    VP, SVLUG


  • Penguin Computing flat out rocks. Sam Ockman's hardware/software talent was really held back at VA Research and it
    is really cool to see his talents put to good use at Penguin. His designs are rock solid. Oh and Sam gets jiggy with the
    Time Warp, too.


    Time warp, eh? As in, this server announcement was meant to go out on April 1, but managed instead to go out on April 8?

    I say that we all need to go have a good re-read of the penguincomputing.org [penguincomputing.org] web site!
    --

  • I worked for Ockman in the extremely early days of Penguin. I got better.

    As for the Chilean girlfriend, he mentioned her on many occasions--even wanted to set up a branch office of Penguin in Chile. This was back in the days when he wasn't paying for his colo space and was booted out of the office space he was mooching from a friend.

    At the time, he also bragged to me that he had some designs on our co-worker and office manager. He made it sound as though he and Alyson had a fairly open relationship. I stayed out of it, but I feel rather sorry for all those that he is involved with.
    --
  • something like, anything over 4 right now is throwing money at a dead horse.

    Rev. Randy
  • Trying 209.140.25.18...
    Connected to www.thelinuxstore.com.
    Escape character is '^]'.
    GET / HTTP/1.0

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0
    Content-Location: http://209.140.25.18/index.htm
    Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 05:46:05 GMT
    Content-Type: text/html
    Accept-Ranges: bytes
    Last-Modified: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 02:15:55 GMT
    ETag: "d6e0453e537abe1:32f3"
    Content-Length: 834

    ------------------------------------------

    Trying 209.140.25.18...
    Connected to www.thelinuxstore.com.
    Escape character is '^]'.
    GET /main.cfm HTTP/1.0

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0
    Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 05:48:43 GMT
    Content-type: text/html
    Expires: 0
    Pragma: no-cache
    Cache-control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate




    Error



    Error Occurred While Processing Request

    Error Diagnostic Information

    Server busy or unable to fulfill request. The server is unable to fulfill
    your request due to extremely high traffic or an unexpected internal error.
    Please attempt your request again (if you are repeatedly unsuccessful you
    should notify the site administrator). (Location Code: 25)



    Connection closed by foreign host.


  • my AMD K6/300 gets 598 bogoMIPS

    Which is precisely why they're called BogoMIPS -- they're a completely bogus measurement of CPU speed. Trust me, each of those UltraSparc CPUs will blast your AMD out of the water...

  • I dunno if even on an Ultra-450 16 processors is really all that worthwhile.

    From experience, yes it is. We've got a few E10000 StarFires here -- the largest domains are 24 CPUs, each and they definitely *do* need them. Running them with 16 or less cripples performance. Admittedly, this is with Solaris, but given that Sun are now providing David Miller with access to hardware and information, I see no reason that Linux can't scale that high properly, too. 16 CPUs today, 64 tomorrow. World domination next week :-)

  • Alan Cox noted at one point recently that there were some major upgrades to Linux SMP (I think it happened somewhere in the middle of the 2.1.x series) that he said made Linux SMP _very_ nice for high numbers of CPUs, up to 16. I don't remember whether UltraLinux can boot w/more.

    I think that Linus was talking about the hardware limitation of i386 architecture, and I'd say you're throwing your money away w/more than 2. But SPARC is _way_ better than intel for multiprocessing. Tho I dunno if even on an Ultra-450 16 processors is really all that worthwhile.
  • Linux 2.2 pretty much tops out at 8 way. Anything higher is a bit of a waste still. Solaris is much better for that many processors, at least on Sun hardware. Does anybody know if Solaris x86 is signigantly more scaleable?

    2.0 was pretty good two way, but it didn't stack up to most other systems at anything above that.

    People are working on even finer grain kernel locks, and enough people want more processors that I'm sure that Linux 2.3 will boost us to at least 16, and quite probably 64.

    In two years I will regret having made that statement. :)
  • That wasn't half as funny as the option to purchase the Personal Edition of WordPerfect 8!

  • Are you serious?? (Score:3)

    by Sleepy ( 4551 ) on Friday April 09, 1999 @11:55AM (#1943024) Homepage
    Save money by removing the fan and hard disk, while making the system totally silent.

    Think, before you speak r00t d00d..

    Heat fins on the case? Since when is the CASE a major source of heat? If you want to transfer heat from the hard drive and the CPU ONTO the case, how would you do it? Submerge it in water maybe... :)

    CPU's in _general_ aren't the problem; x86 and is hugely innnefficent and generates higher-than-average levels of heat so it needs another fan atop the heat sink. My PowerPC does quite nicely without a CPU fan... the CPU is in my estimation the third source of heat after the hard drive and power supply.

    As a result, this G3 is AMAZINGLY quiet. I suppose all fans could be disabled if I got an external hard drive (no thanks) or netbooting (not needed) and moved the power supply out, but I'm not willing to test it. If I wanted absolute quiet I'd get a G3 rackmount from Marathon Computers..

    One thing that CAN help reduce noise is applying vibration dampening material to "safe" metal inside the computer, like portions of the frame and maybe the inside of the case cover (YMMV I wouldn't completely cover the case because more heat may build up).

    You can get the stuff at a car-stereo shop..

  • But I thought that the NX chipset only did up to, 4-way CPU's.
    Is this vapor-hardware? I know that Intel is working on 4+ systems but they are not out yet.
    I am pretty sure that I am right.
    Feed back anyone?
  • I love this card. it works great in all of my Linux servers.
    Of course I would prefer a Yellowfin but not all of us are that lucky.
  • why do those cards suck?

  • Anyone else notice that they are using 3com 905b cards in their systems? Don't they know that those cards suck?

  • Check out Netcraft's info here [netcraft.com]:
    www.thelinuxstore.com is running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4 or Windows 98
    Yeah, I think I'll be rushing to purchase a Linux box from someone who doesn't use their own product.

    -dave0
    --
  • I'm running a Dual Pentium-Pro box with the 2.2.x kernel series, and have used 2 3c905b's in it since day one, using it for masquerading/firewalling, and have never had a problem with the 3com cards, running them at either 10Mb/s or 100Mb/s. We use them at work with all our pc-based servers, SCO and Linux (but we really really want to replace SCO). =)

    It's really the only card I've ever used where I just plug it in and it works.
  • I believe that Ultra Penguin has booted on
    an Ultra 5000 with 16 CPUs. Still, as has been
    pointed out, anything over four and you're wasting
    CPUs.
  • It looks like The Linux Store is "a service of" CPU Micromart. I don't know if that means their service will be as bad as CPU Micromart, or not. Just though I should warn people, though.

    (I have ordered stuff from CPU Micromart, and I eventually got it, but I don't know that I would recommend them.)

  • $649 is quite respectible, but there are lower priced computer out there capable of running Linux.
  • ... There you will find some choice words straight from the buyer's mouths on some of the lower cost vendors at pricewatch. Not that they are all bad, ( in fact some are very good ) but you need to shop carefully. Pricewatch accept ads from some real crooks ( including the ones that are trying to run with my money ... )
  • The linux store is a part of CPU-micromart. for info on the latter check out resellerratings.com [resellerratings.com] for a taste of their reputation.


  • The people who post to resellerratings.com are not a representative sample of the population. In fact it is often bad luck with a hardware purchases that will entice someone to surf around for a shop like that.

    Also , someone who has a run-of-the-mill purchase experience usually will not post a comment. Partly because a purchase where everything goes OK doesn't say that much about a company. The people who post comments fall into two categories:
    (a)people who are loyal customers
    (b) people who have bad luck with a purchase and get to put the companies support to the test.

    cheers,--

  • Yeah, I agree with you that a lot of people complain, and the results tend to be skewed downward. But you can still get a good overall picture ( especially since they have a quantitative thing where you can compare how different vendors have fared. )For example, Dell who have good customer satisfaction rating do well on resellerratings , even though they have a few flames. The point is they have less than the other guys.

    The important thing when looking up a company is to check their numerical rating and see how they compare with the other dealers on the site. It their rating is better than 6 ( about Dell's level ) and have received a lot of feedback, they are probably an honest dealer who you can trust. If their rating is below 4, they are probably scam artists.

    cheers,

  • In Linux Magizine Volume 1 interview with Linus, he stated that Linux currently has support for upto 16 processors and doubts there will ever be more then that, since it will reduce performance for non-smb systems.

  • for someone who's not looking carefully is that this is a dual-processor system with two processors. The company is not actually lying to its customers, but I would consider this type of marketing to be remarkably Clintonesque.



    A roughly equivalent system from Penguin Computing is $2,495 (dual-capable system with a single Pentium/500 CPU), but at least you know what you're getting. I didn't check VA Research because all their dual processor systems are SCSI and thus not price-competitive.



    Overall, I think I'd stay away from this company. Dishonest marketing material, even merely by implication, is a giant red flag for me.



    D
    ----
  • My message got mangled somehow - probably because I was trying to post from the NetPositive browser on the BeOS. NP doesn't seem to like the posting mechanism. Anyway, my point was that it was a dual-processor capable system with just one processor, and that fact was not clearly explained. Sleazy.

    However, I have a question to IntlHarvester - what is it about IDE that makes it use up the CPU? I hear people bad-mouthing IDE all the time, but it's worked fine on my Mac G3, even for high-speed video captures. What's wrong with IDE?

    D

    ----
  • It makes me a little worried about making a mail order purchase when, even with a high-rated company that's very good at satsifying customers, you have 27 people returning merchandise out of 63 total respondants (see Transcend Technologies [sysopt.com] ratings).

    Just wondering. Incidentally, I don't mean to pick on Transcend - pretty much all the highly-rated companies have similar stories to tell.

    D

    ----
  • With UDMA, cpu utilization is at extremely low,
    SCSI-equivalent levels, and has been so for over
    a year.

  • I detect a slight amount of sleaze (Score:3)

    by IntlHarvester ( 11985 ) on Thursday April 08, 1999 @03:07PM (#1943043) Journal

    I thought multi-proc + IDE was a bad idea. Plus why buy an extra CPU when you're burning the cycles you do got with IDE?
    --

  • What is that? (Score:3)

    by raistlinne ( 13725 ) <`lansdoct' `at' `cs.alfred.edu'> on Thursday April 08, 1999 @03:23PM (#1943044) Homepage
    What is asynchronous IO? What specifically does it relate to?
  • I got the following error from them when i tried to open one pannel of there frame in to a new window. -----------------------
    Error Occurred While Processing Request
    Error Diagnostic Information
    Error resolving parameter WEBPRICE
    Cold Fusion was unable to determine the value of the parameter. This problem is very likely due to the fact that either:

    1.You have misspelled the parameter name, or
    2.You have not specified a QUERY attribute for a CFOUTPUT, CFMAIL, or CFTABLE tag.


    The error occurred while evaluating the expression:

    price = #webprice#

    The error occurred while processing an element with a general identifier of (CFSET), occupying document position (23:1) to (23:26).

    Date/Time: 04/08/99 13:49:20
    Browser: Mozilla/4.5 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.3 i686)
    Remote Address: 205.246.80.11
    Template:
    D:\thelinuxstore\wwwroot\catalog\system1.cfm
    ---------------
    Wow is that a NT box. Or does cold fusion use paths like Windows. I thing that if they sell Linux Boxes they should not host on NT.
    (just my 1/2 cent)
    --
    Joshua Curtis
    Lancaster Co. Linux Users Group
  • A little steep for an intel based machine.
    Regardless of no. of processors or speed,
    it's no SGI [sgi.com]. I called SGI [sgi.com] and for a basic
    SGI [sgi.com] ONYX^2 [sgi.com] Base Reality 2x 195Mhz RS10k [mips.com] .. yada
    system its only $70,000. The basic setup
    for this 8 xeon proc box is $100,000.

    -Z

  • Uh, unless I am very much mistaken,
    it is impossible to write an OS without
    having a large clue stick about the
    underlying hardware. And in Linus' case,
    I'd definately trust him with both
    Intel hardware capabilities and the
    performance of his OS on its primary
    hardware platform.
  • This stuff looks pretty nice, but the build your own approach appeals to me personally from a pricing and education standpoint. I want to build a PC running Linux/Windows,(I know, I know, but I like Half-Life) to play with Gimp and Blender, as well as aquiring *nix skills. Would anyone be kind enough to point me to some favorite vendors for parts/components/boxes? Best web sites with tutorials for such an endeavor? Thanks, /.ers.
  • Senior Taco- Perhaps you missed their booth in all the craziness, but VAResearch was showing an 8-way Xeon box with something like 2TB on on-line storage.

    It gave off enough heat to warm a small apartment, but it looked killer.

    -jason
  • 4-way may be overkill for home use, but it is by no means overkill when you run an Internet company. Some of our production DB servers where I am employed contain 16 CPUs, and we are thinking of upgrading to even bigger babies (all Sun, of course).

    Sun didn't create the Enterprise 10000 just for fun. There are people out there who need 64 CPUs to run apps like Oracle and PeopleSoft.

    -jason
  • It sounds like you're using Cold Fusion. Why not at least use Solaris/x86 or Sun hardware? That certainly beats the Redmond Devils. Anything developed on CF for NT will run on Solaris with minor tweaks (depending on what you're doing, but most apps do)



  • All I know is that all of the good .*linux.*.com domains are being taken. I spent a good week or so desiding upon thelinuxmart.com [thelinuxmart.com]. Does anybody know how many domains linuxmall.com actually owns? It is scary!

    -AP
  • No, it actually is google. Since you can't copyright a number, it's www.google.com
  • they had on display a borrowed one from Intel, with most components under beta and not shipping for awhile...
  • Sometimes all the money the vcs can bring in can't replace hard work and love for of the craft...

    Alli
  • and dns is through electric lichen, a company
    owned by VA Research with the sole intent of
    slandering vicious information and causing
    Penguin Computing to lose customers.

    not only that, Chris owns and VA Research is hosting penguincomputing.net and penguin-computing.org/com/net....wow! that's a lot
    of energy in attacking Penguin and the pure Linux
    systems we sell.

    Why don't you use that energy to attack MS?

    Peace,

    Alli
    Penguin Computing

  • is this a ploy by micromart "publicy traded as EBIZ" to boost stock price or what? "Gee this Linux thing is really taking off. . .and look what those EMachine guys are doing. . .hey, i've got an idea!!!"

    And tsk, tsk to news.com for link to the wrong Freashmeat. (.org indeed!)

    I think i'm going to berate the marketing folks here, just to get my pound of flesh. . .

  • I really doubt it was Alpha.
  • They can't spell "googol", either.
    (Menu entry is labeled "google search".

    K
  • Give me some of those to make a Beowulf cluster, baby!

    Someone would have mentioned a Beowulf cluster, eventually.. might as well get it out of our systems now. :-)

  • Give me that 8-way Xeon fast! It'd be the perfect roommate.
  • With an in-house 8x 500MHz Xeon, don't you think one could get another roommate to pay the rent? ;)

  • The AWE64 series AFAIK is discontinued... besides what advantage does it have over a basic, cheaper SB16 anyway under Linux.

    But then again, why mess with ISA PNP sound boards when their Ensoniq PCI line goes for $30-45 and works great... no more clicks/pops when the PCI bus is busy either with the new 2.2.3+ kernels either.

  • I've been using a scsi drive lately. I used to use a udma, BIG DIFFERENCE! My computer is much faster, and I can write cds in 4X while im browsing, writing, playing games (the few that exist for unix), and there are no problems at all. When I installed from a IDE cd to a scsi drive i got 1200kbs per sec. with IDE to IDE i got around 600kbs. Now I use a scsi cdrom as well and mys ystem flies!
  • This is a bit odd. Why are they trying to run the old 2.0.x kernel on the 8-way machine? Or is it a customised version of RedHat?

    The new kernel is far superior in terms of SMP.

    Paul
  • 8-way is cool, but sounds like a waste of money to me. >4 is overkill (IMHO).

    Monty

  • Now get down on your knees and repent :)


    --

  • it scales THAT well? thats cool if its true...
  • Commercial BSD did SMP long ago, but remember the
    BSD license: none of the changes were returned
    to the Open Source world.

    FreeBSD didn't get SMP until long after Linux
    had production-quality SMP. Linux was the only
    free game in town for a year or two at least.

    FreeBSD is now at the Linux 2.0 level. Who cares?
    Linux 2.2 is out now, with huge SMP improvements.

  • Linux has a bit of a SCSI bottleneck. You should
    consider using a few IDE drives!

    FreeBSD has crappy SMP. When you run the latest
    experimental code, it is similar to Linux 2.0.
    Ho humm. Linux 2.0 and FreeBSD are obsolete.

    Oh, you think FreeBSD will fix that problem?
    Yep, and Linux will fix the SCSI bottleneck.
    Linux is also getting a superior filesystem
    and superior network IO. What is offered now
    is FreeBSD with crap SMP and Linux with good SMP.

  • Red Hat has a $1000 server edition. You get a
    bit of extra tech support for that price!!!

    I think Caldera has the same kind of offer.

    What a deal!!!

    Well, if you can get the boss to help fund your
    favorite free software company... why not?
  • Save money by removing the fan and hard disk,
    while making the system totally silent.

    Put big black heat sink fins on the outside
    if you need to. Silence would be wonderful.

  • I prefer dejanews for this sort of thing. No matter how good a vendor's service is you will find someone complaining (nobody's pefrect), but if you find lots of flames then watch out.
  • im sorry, the 3c905b is great for windoze, but c'mon folks, stick with the 3c905 for linux (i am unfortunate enough to be running with a PII Dell optiplex that has one of those on-the-mobo 3c905b interfaces at work.... i tried linux on it, and it just puked. packets dropping everywhere...timeouts....etc)

    As an OEM and a linux builder, i find it hard to believe they are even offering this NIC when they could just as easily (and affordably) use the straight 905!

  • Our Server: As some users have noticed we are presently running the site on NT, we would like to offer a short explanation. Our shopping cart had to be developed on NT, the company that created the authoring software is in the process of porting their application to Linux. They have recently released a tool that allows us to connect from Linux to NT through a bridge and we are implementing that, but we will have to wait for the Linux version of their software to fully migrate to our new Linux server.
  • Check the dates on the stories. Through various online auctions CPU sold 10's of thousands of modems alone! CPU has also sold more than 3K of Multia's, including some to users who should have never attempted to install an OS on what is a quirky machine. CPU has done its best to service all of these people.....it's sort of like software, bugs show up for some people, some people love the software, but there is always room for improvement....version 2.1 will be better!
  • We updated the page with the dual processor workstation to reflect that the price and configuration clearly states that the dual processor motherboard is configured with only one processor. We did this so that someone who might not be able to afford both processors immediately would be able to benefit from adding a second processor as they needed it and could better afford it.
  • "$650 is not super cheap, but considering the specs, it's a good deal. I'd be hard pressed to build up a comparable box from scratch for that amount..."

    It's a good deal when you compare it to mainstream computer prices. But using the same specs, I could build from scratch for about $200 less. Of course, that's without going into specifically which type of motherboard, ect.

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