response 50 of 181:

Oct 15 14:13 UTC 2001

Re #41: I would worry about buying an Alpha machine.  Why saddle 
ourselves with a platform that's already been orphaned?  We'll be left 
in the same situation we are now, having to dig and scrounge for parts 
when something breaks.  Support for hardware in open source operating 
systems also tends to be related to how new and interesting it is.  
People eventually get bored with older stuff and stop maintaining code 
for it.

I think we should seriously consider an x86 based system.  Yes, it's an 
ugly architecture, but it *works*, it's mature, and there's no sign of 
support for it drying up any time soon.  (I actually maintain two Dell 
PowerEdge servers like those mentioned in #36, that are running Linux.  
They've been very reliable, however we've only had them about four 
months so far and they aren't under the same load Grex is, so you can 
decide how much weight to attach to that.  RedHat Linux is fully 
supported on them by Dell.)

However, since we rely on volunteer staff, and I get the impression 
some staff dislike Intel enough that they'd refuse to work on an x86 
machine, that may not be an option.  I don't actually mean that in a 
judgemental way; I think that since we ask people to maintain Grex for 
free, the *most* important criterion is going to be that we pick an 
architecture and operating system that they enjoy working on.  Anything 
can be made to work if you like it enough to devote the time to it, and 
anything will fail if you dislike it enough to neglect it.

Re #44: Seeing as use of the dialin lines continues to steadily 
decline, I don't think we should invest much of anything in the modem 
bank.  It's a dead end.

response 52 of 181:

Oct 15 15:05 UTC 2001

At first my gut feeling was to suggest a RAID array, but then I thought 
about it a little.  What would Grex gain from a RAID array?  The main 
reason to use one is high availability.  In the rare event of a disk 
failure, the system can keep running until you replace it.  But being 
down while a disk is replaced and restored from backup doesn't really 
cost Grex any money.

Another factor to consider:  Will we want to co-locate in the future?  
If so, we should look for a system that can be easily rack mounted.

response 54 of 181:

Oct 15 17:01 UTC 2001

A constant rate is a constant.  Acceleration can be a constant, as a 
result of which speed keeps getting faster.  (Think of car or rocket 
speed, to make this easy.)  Not a strange form of constancy at all.  
Moore's Law is a constant.

The really strange form of constancy is the platitude "change is the 
only constant".  What makes people think change is a constant?  Often 
the rate of change increases (because acceleration is a constant).  
Sometimes change speeds up or slows down (as in the S-curve).  Some 
things don't change at all (think of the French proverb "plus ca 
change ...")

response 56 of 181:

Oct 15 18:41 UTC 2001

We do say, "..things change constantly..". At issue is the meaning
of "constant". The sense in "change is the only constant" is that
"change is constantly occurring". Dictionary definitions include
"long continuing or continually recurring", which change certainly
can. 

response 58 of 181:

Oct 15 21:40 UTC 2001

Re #49: Yes, e^x *is* its own derivitive. That's what's special about the
constant 'e'.

response 60 of 181:

Oct 16 00:42 UTC 2001

resp:56 - "long continuing or continually recurring" can indeed 
describe real-world change.  But it also describes real-world non-
change in many circumstances.  So change remains not the only constant, 
regardless of the definition of "constant".

response 62 of 181:

Oct 16 23:31 UTC 2001

Re #39: What data do we have that says that grex's user base is
declining, and is grex in any danger of extinction?

Re #42: I suspect that buying a server class rackmount case, power
supply, motherboard, sca drive bays, possibly floppy and or cd-rom
drive as a single package, and then adding ram, disks, and processors
may actually be what makes sense, rather than getting individual
pieces.

server class machines these days usually have scsi, video, and
ethernet on the motherboard, such that you usually end up not needing
pci cards at all, especially in the 1U and 2U servers.

A gig of RAM is like $400 or something, last I checked.  More than
that gets expensive quickly because you generally have to buy 256MB or
larger DIMMs.

dell and compaq have their own unique rackmounting hardware, which
makes it difficult to mix their hardware with other vendors' hardware,
and you generally want things like ethernet switches and upses in the
rack, too...

Re #43: if it compiles faster, the vandals will finish seeing how
futile their efforts are faster, and with less effect of slowing down
the system.

Re #47: I have a 60 mhz pentium with a 120MB hard drive acting as a
kerberos server.  It works well enough that I'm not likely to worry
about finding better hardware for it anytime soon.  So I think that
claiming that two year old hardware is obsolete is misleading.  And my
mail server literally is about two years old (although its hard disk
and power supply have needed to be replaced, and I added RAM a few
months ago), and if I replace it, it's going to be more because I want
SCA drive bays and an emergency management port than that the current
hardware is inadaquate.

Re #50: I'm not really convinced that the NetBSD folks get bored with
maintaining software for older platforms.  And in general, once they
get it to work they generally don't do a whole lot to break it.

I think I've experienced far more problems from stuff that was too new
(raidframe in netbsd 1.4.x, a usb cf reader on 1.5.2) than I've had on
stuff that was too old (admittedly, I have a solbourne that netbsd
simply doesn't support, but it never has, either).

Also, just because the modem lines are seeing declining amount of use
does not mean that we should ignore the possibility of improving the
quality of the existing lines.

Re #52: RAID mirroring means that whomever has to deal with the failed
disk has a lot less hassle to deal with when they fix the problem, and
a disk failure isn't nearly as likely to completely take the system
down, requiring immediate attention.  Assuming a good raid
implementation (not that I'm convinced that any exist), the total work
is likely to be reduced by using raid mirroring.

response 64 of 181:

Oct 17 04:28 UTC 2001

(And enough staff to do the maintaining, and someone to pay the bills and
collect the money.)

response 68 of 181:

Oct 18 00:55 UTC 2001

I'm certainly leaning toward an Intel machine, but I'm not a concensus.  I'd
be perfectly OK with the Sun option, and I know some staff members like Sun
a lot.  Holding off shipping things certainly wouldn't hurt.

response 70 of 181:

Oct 18 01:37 UTC 2001

Yeah, I can look after a server over here.

response 72 of 181:

Oct 18 03:40 UTC 2001

I'm still a little vague about what services we would distribute.

response 74 of 181:

Oct 18 04:16 UTC 2001

Jan, doesn't putting mail operations on a separate machine count as 
distributing services?