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Author Topic: I'm so @£¤%£$# angry  (Read 7040 times)

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Offline carlsTopic starter

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I'm so @£¤%£$# angry
« on: June 29, 2003, 09:31:06 PM »
Not Amiga, but PC...

I recently got my hands on a Pentium 166MHz with 96 megs of RAM and a 2.5 gig hard drive, so I figured I'd set up a small web server on it to play around with.

At first, I installed WinNT4 with Apache and MySQL and everything went fine - slow, but fine. But then I realized how limited I would be in the remote administration part. I'm going to put the machine at work and remote desktop and similar products will be dog slow over the encrypted VPN from my home machine, so I figured I'd install Linux and run thttpd on it instead of Apache.

I'm fairly good at Linux, I'd like to call myself a power-user or at least an advanced user. Of course, I'm still living in the late nineties since that's when I learned Linux (Slackware).

Since it's an old computer I figured I'd go with an older distribution. I've got Knoppix, RedHat 6.1 and RedHat 8.0 (I think) at home so I settled with RH6.1.

Now the fun begins.

I go through ALL the packages in the package list and select the ones I want. Still, RH installs a friggin' SMP kernel and a bunch of other useless stuff like PCMCIA support. Well, the PCMCIA support is easily removed from the init and I can rebuild the kernel later on. I can live with having the other useless software packages installed, they're just using some disk space and there's enough of old hard drives to go around.

Then I realize that neither ssh nor sshd is installed, so I decide to download them from redhat.com. Oh, but noooo, my system is too old!

I don't know what I'm going to do with the machine now. It's far too slow to run UAE or Amithlon, Windows is not an option because of the flaws in administration and it seems that most of todays Linux distributions are too bloated for a 2.5 gig disk and 96 megs of RAM.

ARRGGHHHHH! :destroy:

Any ideas?
Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.
 

Offline carlsTopic starter

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Re: I'm so @£¤%£$# angry
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2003, 09:47:09 PM »
Yeah, I might give FreeBSD a try. A lot of people say it's very good and easy to use.

As for WinNT and OpenSSH... well, I woulnd't like to try out administering an NT machine from the command prompt only :)
Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.
 

Offline carlsTopic starter

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Re: I'm so @£¤%£$# angry
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2003, 10:03:18 PM »
Well, BSD it is then. At least I'll give it a try :-)

Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.
 

Offline carlsTopic starter

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Re: I'm so @£¤%£$# angry
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2003, 10:06:36 PM »
@amigamad
Thanks for the link! Seems like Damn Small Linux is very desktop-oriented, however... There's neither ssh nor a web server in the package list. It would be nice with a similar distro made for server use, however... Just pop the CD in the drive and off you go :-)

edit: oops, at least it had SSH... More than you could say about RedHat ;-)
Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.
 

Offline carlsTopic starter

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Re: I'm so @£¤%£$# angry
« Reply #4 on: June 30, 2003, 12:08:20 AM »
@mikeymike
Thanks!
Ok, first question :-)
Would the FBSD4.8 mini-ISO cover my needs? I'll download and compile thttpd myself.
Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.
 

Offline carlsTopic starter

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Re: I'm so @£¤%£$# angry
« Reply #5 on: June 30, 2003, 12:10:56 AM »
@everyone
Thanks for your suggestions.

@dammy
Hmm, figures, a Linux dist without SSH is like... uhm... a Linux dist without SSH :-)
Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.
 

Offline carlsTopic starter

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Re: I'm so @£¤%£$# angry
« Reply #6 on: June 30, 2003, 12:54:43 AM »
@Cymric & Dana
Well, I AM fond of Slackware but I want to try something new. I've been in Slackware-land almost exclusively since 1995, and now Debian-land (all the Linux boxes at work are Debian machines). I do understand the Debian philosophy but it feels kinda crippled when neat stuff like Pine and Pico isn't supported by the distro team.

I want my little machine to differ from the masses (of servers at work) :-)
Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.
 

Offline carlsTopic starter

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Re: I'm so @£¤%£$# angry
« Reply #7 on: June 30, 2003, 10:20:30 PM »
Right, old habits die hard...
I was seriously considering FreeBSD but since I want the machine to be up and running at a functional and reasonably secure level by wednesday I chose Slackware.

And behold! It works! And I only got the packages I wanted, a normal kernel, ssh, sshd, etc.

edit: spelling
Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.
 

Offline carlsTopic starter

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Re: Debian
« Reply #8 on: July 05, 2003, 02:19:39 AM »
Yay! It's online!
http://gonzo.1av10.nu/

I'll register a suitable domain Real Soon Now.
Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.
 

Offline carlsTopic starter

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Re: I'm so @£¤%£$# angry
« Reply #9 on: July 05, 2003, 03:05:12 AM »
@jamesm
That's just another reason I've just learned not to run RedHat... "It's now unsupported" - how very Microsoft of them :-) I have no interest in trying RedHat 9 on a P166 with 96 megs of RAM. Plus, now I've installed Slackware and I actually feel quite at home with it. It reminds me somewhat of AmigaOS, don't ask me why...
Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.
 

Offline carlsTopic starter

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Re: I'm so @£¤%£$# angry
« Reply #10 on: July 05, 2003, 03:10:23 PM »
@DarthX
No, now I'm @£¤%£$# happy  :-D
Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.
 

Offline carlsTopic starter

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Re: I'm so @£¤%£$# angry
« Reply #11 on: July 05, 2003, 03:12:59 PM »
@Desmon
IMHO, Knoppix is great for desktop use but it's pretty unmotivated for server-use, especially since the hard drive install script installs EVERYTHING (X11, KDE, Mozilla etc.)

I have no interest in making an install that forces me to clean up unused stuff by hand...
Amiga: Too weird to live, too rare to die.