924Board.org

Peter_in_AU · Joined: 29 Jul 2001 Posts: 2743 Location: Sydney, Australia

all you tech nerds out there might be interested to know that the server that runs the board had it's reboot anniversary 3 days ago. It's now been 368 days since it was last rebooted.

The last reboot was for an operating system upgrade during which time it was off the air for approximately 60 seconds (the reboot time). Like all real computers the OS upgrade was done totally remotely, just download the OS source, compile and reboot. About a 1 hour process. It was doing it's job as a server through the whole upgrade process except for the last 60 seconds.

The hardware is basically a 300MHz PC with 256M RAM which was switched on in it's current location about two and a half years ago and has never been switched off. It runs the FreeBSD (Unix) operating system.

Apart from the board and the 924 register the server (it's hostname is buffy) runs a phonecard (calling card) system, a couple of network monitoring systems and acts as a general test system when I need to demonstrate the software I develop.

Be nice if everything was that reliable.
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1979 924 (Gone to a better place)
1974 Lotus 7 S4 "Big Valve" Twin-cam (waiting)
1982 924 (As featured on Wikipedia)

Learn to love your multimeter and may the search be with you

Lizard · Posted: Sat May 24, 2003 3:50 am Post subject:

78porsche924 · Posted: Sat May 24, 2003 3:48 pm Post subject:

Good call lizard.
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90 944 S2
78 924 NA <---now sold and killed by new owner
snailshell trans
Bae turbo kit
to check out my 944 S2 http://www.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=388139

epsylon · Posted: Sun May 25, 2003 4:23 am Post subject:

do you find freeBSD easier to update / patch then linux ( redhat / mandrake / suse )?
_________________
'82 931
'78 928
Howell Henderson
South Padre Island

Peter_in_AU · Joined: 29 Jul 2001 Posts: 2743 Location: Sydney, Australia

epsylon, I find it easier for everything but I have been using it for over 5 years. When we started using FreeBSD Linux was really still Linus Torvalds hobby. I've done a few SUSE Linux installs building Oracle servers for a client and it's a very nice piece of work and probably as stable as FreeBSD.

My only complaint, which really isn't a complaint, is that the Linux software install process tends to be too helpful and installs a lot of stuff you don't need. This isn't a problem if you're building a desktop actually it's fun because you always find nice things you didn't expect. When I'm building a server I want to know exactly what is installed so I don't get any security surprises. I'm sure if I spent more time using Linux I'd be more accurate with my installs.

My opinion is that the Linux distributions are easier to install than FreeBSD if you're building a desktop and FreeBSD might be slightly easier to install when building a server. The difference either way is now so small it's insignificant. Once installed both operating systems are probably equally reliable. Be interested to know what the Apple Mac guys think of OS/X which was built on top of FreeBSD now that it's been out for a while.

It's nice to have a choice.
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1979 924 (Gone to a better place)
1974 Lotus 7 S4 "Big Valve" Twin-cam (waiting)
1982 924 (As featured on Wikipedia)

Learn to love your multimeter and may the search be with you

Joes924Racer · Posted: Mon May 26, 2003 3:12 am Post subject:

Thanks for the service
Thats really remarkable good work. This place is nice.

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1979 porsche 924 Na
1980 porsche Turbo 931GT Replica
Have u ever driven a turbo.

78 924 N/a · Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 769 Location: Pacific N.W.

I Agree, this place is cool!

But I think that its time to get somemore Smiley's

these are old...
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1978 924 n/a

Peter_in_AU · Joined: 29 Jul 2001 Posts: 2743 Location: Sydney, Australia

yeah, it's on the to-do list.

It's a good indication that things are running reasonably smoothly when smilies start to become important

_________________
1979 924 (Gone to a better place)
1974 Lotus 7 S4 "Big Valve" Twin-cam (waiting)
1982 924 (As featured on Wikipedia)

Learn to love your multimeter and may the search be with you

epsylon · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2003 7:17 am Post subject:

the company i work for is purely a windows shop, ms .net over java, but i dabble in linux when i get the chance. my girlfirend just bought a ibook which came dual boot with os/x and the apple os. i checked it out. very nice ui. she is going to use it for work and internet surfing and i found that the os/x apps were a little unstable. i could make them crash on command.
_________________
'82 931
'78 928
Howell Henderson
South Padre Island

Peter_in_AU · Joined: 29 Jul 2001 Posts: 2743 Location: Sydney, Australia

yeah, I suppose anyone with enough knowlege can break anything. Perhaps that's the advantage with microsoft products (the ones they wrote themselves anyway) - you don't need any technical ability, they just break all by themselves

I don't have a problem with microsoft products, some of them are good and those that aren't are very well marketed. I use windows NT on my desktop PC at home and even make money occasionally writing microsoft office applications. I just wouldn't want anyone putting a pacemaker with a "powered by windows" sticker on it into me.

Being able to install software or a major operating system upgrade on a server on the other side of the city or, more often, in another city from the comfort of my spare room and not having to reboot the server (o/s upgrades only) until I actually want to (maybe days later when things are really quiet) tends to work for me.
_________________
1979 924 (Gone to a better place)
1974 Lotus 7 S4 "Big Valve" Twin-cam (waiting)
1982 924 (As featured on Wikipedia)

Learn to love your multimeter and may the search be with you

MR2 Racer · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2003 4:45 pm Post subject:

thats remarkable reliability! WOW! Or should I say *in my best strongbad voice* "holy crap!"

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85 MR2 CSP soloII racer
87 MR2 w.i.p.
86 Cressida SW tow car (da brick)
77.5 924 (pops)