Expert Server Box advised....

Hi,

Tomorrow... one of my friend dad..will give me one of his server box. But the thing is He will give me his old server box .
This is what I'll have :
-IBM PC520 Server
-Tower case
-Intel Pentium 166 Mhz Processor
-64 MB RAM
-6,25 GB SCSI Hard drive Raid Aray
-SCSI CD ROM Drive
-3,5" 1,44 MB Floppy Drive

So I need advised from you guys..cause I've never have server Box before..
My question is :
-Is that server box to old?? I'm going to run Apache on that box using *nix
-How can I upgrade that server box..if too old, and BTW I'm going to upgrade that box by myself...so please be clearly when you explain that (cause I'm not expert hardware :) ).

Thanks in advanced for your advised

Cheerssss

ooo thats a great box for serving. heres what you do: (this is if you are webserving/irc/ftp/whatever you want)

[1] install a unix, no x or anything x related so you just have the shell

[2] setup ssh so you can edit things

[3] setup the RAID config for nix, it should be available on install

[4] i recommend netbsd or openbsd for this kind of serving so try that

[5] install text utilities like vi, pico etc

[F] have lots of fun on your new server, you lucky gal you.

ps : sorry forgot something...that box "dual processor capable"

even better, check the bus speed on the mobo, should be labeled, and see how much processiing power it can handle. then possibly getcha another 166 and have a raw powered server now! ps... the server that runs about 100 computers at my school, its a 450mhz pentium with 64 mb ram.... so i think youll be doing fine with that :)

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check the bus speed on the mobo, should be labeled, and see how much processiing power it can handle. then possibly getcha another 166 and have a raw powered server now!

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Thanks for that er0k...I'll do that tomorrow after I've got that box..in the mean time I'm searching google..to find good information(about hardware) to setup my server.

You guys feel free...to add some more advise..

Cheerss

It's definitely not too low spec to run (for example), Linux & Apache. It really depends what else you're going to do with it.

If you want to compile stuff under Linux, that's ok, just be patient :)

If you want to run web apps like AO, written in PHP, it will probably work but definitely be sluggish. The amount of RAM required by Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL is well within what you have, but more is definitely better. Compiling things will take a long time.

Getting drivers for hardware RAID can be tricky for Linux (probably even harder for BSD etc) as it's possibly got a proprietry SCSI controller. If you can get them though, it should work fine.

Be sure that you set up plenty of swap space, seeing as if you start running memory-intensive stuff (C++ compiler, Java, etc), it will definitely need it. The 64mb of RAM is the weak point really.

that sounds like a fine machine to use, especially for your first server. up until last year we used a 166mhz machine as our nt server at work, and their idea of redundancy was one hdd with two partitions.

one suggestions i would make though would be to use freebsd instead of linux. it's a little harder to set up then linux but i think it's more stable, "server-oriented" os. and i don't know about your experience with apache, but i would suggest investing in a good reference book.

Thanks guys for your advise..I decided to install BSD for my server, I am familiar with FreeBSD 4.7 and right now that process for installation still on.And then I'll try OpenBSD 3.2 ( I'm going to choose between "two" BSD's ) and this weekend I'll start to build Apache,MYSQL and PHP.
I'll let you know how it goes..

cheerrss

While I love openbsd, you gotta be aware that it doesn't have SMP support (yet.. perhaps someday..) so you could still install it but won't be able to exploit that second cpu's power...

Ammo

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While I love openbsd, you gotta be aware that it doesn't have SMP support (yet.. perhaps someday..) so you could still install it but won't be able to exploit that second cpu's power...

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Thanks for that ammo..