Re: [seul-edu] Slowest Computers Useful For

[Cameron Miller <cdmiller@adams.edu>]

Les Richardson wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> What is the slowest computer that can be used for particular tasks?
> 
> 1) X Terminal - I would suggest a 486-66 is the lowest end machine that
> should be used for this. A 486-33 just doesn't seem to make the pixels
> move fast enough, although some may find this useful.
> 
> 2) Firewall Routing - I'm using 386-40's for dialup routing and firewalls.
> For a faster connection like 384K and up DSL I would suggest something in
> the Pentium/486 100 range. I've had no success with 486-66's doing DSL
> routing, but YMMV. My firewall at home is a 486-100 managing a 128K/1.5Mb
> DSL link.
> 
> 3) Server usage - We are using a 486-66 for a school division mail server
> (and have for 4 years) doing only POP/SMTP. Other servers for file/print
> service are Pentium 200's with 128MB of RAM but good SCSI drives ( 2 x
> 18GB Seagate UW Barracuda 7200's).
> 
> 4) Terminal Server Use - Dual Processor P3/Athlon, Maxed out Ram, Good
> Scsi subsystem. Typically here we would look at a dual P3 setup,
> Systemworks Chipset, and 4GB of RAM. A dual 10K SCSI drive system using
> LSI or Adaptec Controller. Apparently a single P4 board will work fine
> also since it clocks at about the same as a Dual P3 setup, although this
> is still open to debate...
> 
> Les Richardson

X Terminal: Network and Graphics display speed make a huge difference. 
Put an accelerated graphics card and a PCI 100 megabit nic in an old box 
for ~$25.

Firewall: I have used a Pentium 133 with 32MB RAM to do backbone routing 
  and IP Masq for a few hundred workstations.  That was for 5 100 
megabit nics, with 10 megabit to the desktop.

"File" Server: IO speed is critical.  Old Netware 3.x servers ran fast 
enough on 486 50's to run entire remote booting diskless workstation 
Windows networks, with lots of RAM and or fast drives/controllers.  On 
Linux more RAM helps a lot as commonly used files get cached by the OS. 
  Another factor can be your disk setup, mirrored drives provide faster 
read times, and hardware raid 0+1 or the like is generally faster than 
software.

That's my experience,

- cameron

-- 
- cameron miller
- UNIX Systems Administrator
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