ALL you UNIX experts....a quick question.

[AtomicPC]

I have no clue about UNIX operating system (pretty good with Windows though). Here's the scenario: My Father-in-law needs a faster computer which is running a UNIX based software (WoodWare) for his millwork company. The server they have now is a dual Pentium 166mhz PC, which has 10 dummy terminals and 5 pc's networked to it. Would I be wrong to try and build a P4 based PC to replace his aging server? I was thinking about a real nice P4 2.0 with 512meg PC2100, RAID mirroring, etc. How would I place his old data onto the new PC. Any Help or Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Richard Hillis, Atomic PC

 

[Nothinman]

First you need to find out what that dual P166 is running, be it Linux, FreeBSD, SCO, etc.

Normally you'd setup the OS on the new box and restore a data backup from the old one onto the new one and hope everything works with the new hardware/OS, then find out what doesn't and fix it.

 

[Abzstrak]

it could be quite an undertaking for someone with no unix experience.... building the box is easy... getting the software to work preoperly is another story.

How much faster does it need to be? U can grab a couple 233MHz for about $10 each and 64MB EDO SIMMs are around $6 each... so dual 233's and 256 MB RAM would be less than $50 and should more than double the speed of the system, cheap and easy and requires no knowledge of the OS.

Also, you mention the terminals, are they running over serial or LAN? for everything LAN I'd make sure its at 100Mbps.

I have a funny feeling they're running SCO, and your gonna be in a world of hurt trying to upgrade it without knowledge of it.

 

[Nothinman]

Also, you mention the terminals, are they running over serial or LAN? for everything LAN I'd make sure its at 100Mbps.

IIRC even terminals running via ethernet and LAT only run at serial speeds, and really what would a terminal need 100Mb/s for anyway?