Linux on old P133s / P166s

[neuro4848]

Hey Guys,

I want to get some expert opinion on this. I have a bunch of old P133s and P166s and would like to put the machines to good use. I'd like to set up a pretty complete network with 2 webservers, 1 e-mail server 1 DNS Primary / 1 DNS secondary and finally 1 Printer / FTP machine.

These machines are old P133/P166 with memory ranging from 32MBs to 80MBs as the title suggests. My question is the following...

Where can I find information on installing Linux on old machines, but only installing the necessary services for which the server will be dedicated for. I want to leave the smallest amount of footprint in order to use the machines efficiently.

My distro of choice is Mandrake Linux 9.0. Not one of these machines will be running X-Windows, but i'm very comfortable getting around the machine via the shell...

I'm looking for any good starting points to make my little side project worthwile. Any ideas and suggestions will be highly appreciated.... Thanks!

 

[n0cmonkey]

Most of the links posted in these types of threads have a "Linux for dumbasses" type of doc. I've used a few in the past (long ago), and they typically explain the basics pretty well. I really think reading some of the docs out there on the linux documentation project page and other similar sites is good, but playing around with the machine is even better.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

If you're looking for a small footprint, I don't think mandrake is gonna be the best choice. Maybe debian or slack or something.

I really think reading some of the docs out there on the linux documentation project page and other similar sites is good, but playing around with the machine is even better.

I'd say they go hand in hand. You can't do one without the other, otherwise you'll take forever to learn. Read some stuff, put it to use, keep doing stuff until you find something you don't understand, then go read about that. Etc etc etc. If you only stumble around on the command line without ever reading about how things work, or if you just read and read and never actually put the reading to use, you'll end up not learning much.

 

[pac1085]

You might want to try NetBSD, OpenBSD. I threw NetBSD on my P133 webserver and it has a pretty small footprint, and is running great so far (I really like the OS, too). If you have to use Linux, I would go with Debian. You definetly dont want to put Mandrake 9.0 on those machines, though.

 

[Buddha Bart]

If you already know mandrake, stick with it. Just make sure to do whatever their equivilant of an "expert" install is so you can cull out as many packages as possible. While it would probably be easier to get slack or debian down to a smaller install-footprint, the difference is likely less than 100meg.

Probably of more concern to you is the memory-footprint of the kernel. Assuming mandrake's kernel is extremely-modularized like redhat's, just only load the modules you absolutely need.

Frankly, the real fact of the matter is the choice of distro almost never matters, and when it does, its by such a small amount that you're still probably better off going with whatevers easiest or you know best.

Assuming your network has less than 15 users, and the ftp server is just for moving things about, not for use as a near-file-server, your machines should handle everything fine. My main concern would be that hardware that old is prone to shitting itself, so figure out a backup regimine.

 

[neuro4848]

Thanks for the replies you guys.

Speaking of backups.... any good Linux utilities for backing up?

Reading that many people prefer Debian / Slack / NetBSD / FreeBSD, is there any preference from one over the other? Or is this just like shooting monkeys in a barrel full of fishes?

And as far as docs are concerned, anybody got some good docs over the years that they can share? I really wanna get up to my elbows in Linux, so this is a great side project for me to do it with.

Again, thanks to all those who took the time to read my post....

:beer:

 

[yoda291]

Originally posted by: neuro4848
Thanks for the replies you guys.

Speaking of backups.... any good Linux utilities for backing up?

Reading that many people prefer Debian / Slack / NetBSD / FreeBSD, is there any preference from one over the other? Or is this just like shooting monkeys in a barrel full of fishes?

And as far as docs are concerned, anybody got some good docs over the years that they can share? I really wanna get up to my elbows in Linux, so this is a great side project for me to do it with.

Again, thanks to all those who took the time to read my post....

:beer:

for backups, you can just use tar.

as far as distros go, I'm a big fan of the BSD unices...like freebsd and netbsd...but if you're comfortable with mandrake, go with that. In the end, tho, it really doesn't matter since the smb.conf httpd.conf etc etc are all the same anyways. The only thing I'd say is I recommend going with openbsd if you're gonna put the machine on the net...makes updates a little easier.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

I'd go for OpenBSD on that caliber of box. Tiny footprint and high power. I run that on a couple boxes in my "closet cluster" - one's a router with ALTQ, one's a webserver. The others are Linux and Windows.

- M4H

 

[Nothinman]

The only thing I'd say is I recommend going with openbsd if you're gonna put the machine on the net...makes updates a little easier.

OpenBSD is good at a lot of things, but I wouldn't say that keeping it up dated is easier than say Debian.

 

[neuro4848]

I guess I'm getting down to the wire as far as OS are concerned.

It's either Debian or BSD.
Does it matter what flavor of BSD I should get?
What's the difference between Open / Net / Free?
If I can get any input from both Debian and BSD users, this would help me a lot.

:beer:

 

[Bremen]

Who said you need the same thing on every box? Personally I'd try different things on each one. One the firewall/proxy running openbsd, another a webserver running slack, a third DNS running freebsd, backup DNS debian... blah blah blah. It might be a pain at times, but I guarantee you'll really know your stuff!! (now if this was for any truly serious useage obviously you'd want a uniform OS to adminster in order to more effectively keep it patched etc, however I am led to believe you are more interested in the journey than the destination, so bon voyage!)

 

[drag]

Ya, I agree. if this is just for playing around with just go with a couple different OS's. Go with what your familar with on the main machine and put a couple bsd's plus a debian or slackware on the secondary ones.

NetBSD is more for use in a wide veriaty of platforms, FreeBSD was traditionally targeted at x86 platform, and OpenBSD is targeted at complete security. You'll probably get best performance and compatability from FreeBSD. If you want to create a cracker-proof box (as much as humanly possible) start with the defualt installation of OpenBSD, It's good enough that you can set it out on the internet with no firewall or router or anything like that and expect to be resonably safe.

That's the good thing about unices like linux and the BSD's. They work hard at standards, even though the kernels are different, and odd bits like the default shell or /dev/ naming conventions are different, any command-line commando is gonna feel at home at any OS from mandrake to solaris to openbsd. The differences are nothing like windows vs linux...

Have fun

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

You'll probably get best [....] compatability from FreeBSD.

Unless you have a usb keyboard!

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

You'll probably get best [....] compatability from FreeBSD.

Unless you have a usb keyboard!

ukbd(4)

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: TheOmegaCode

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

You'll probably get best [....] compatability from FreeBSD.

Unless you have a usb keyboard!

ukbd(4)

Myym usubub kkeeyeyborard ttypepd likek thsis udnerd feferbdsd.

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Myym usubub kkeeyeyborard ttypepd likek thsis udnerd feferbdsd.

Oh, you didn't know? That's a featured enabled by default to make you look like t3h l33t hax0r

 

[neuro4848]

Originally posted by: drag
Ya, I agree. if this is just for playing around with just go with a couple different OS's. Go with what your familar with on the main machine and put a couple bsd's plus a debian or slackware on the secondary ones.

Sounds like a good idea. Now, fun aside, what OS would one recommend if they want to implement a business enviornment? Given from Debian or Net/Free/OpenBSD.

From what I read, I get the feeling that FreeBSD is the most liked in this post. However, I haven't heard anyone defend Debian. If that's the case, i'll just stop d/loading Debian and go with FreeBSD.

Any takers? Any? Debian?

:beer:

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: neuro4848

Originally posted by: drag
Ya, I agree. if this is just for playing around with just go with a couple different OS's. Go with what your familar with on the main machine and put a couple bsd's plus a debian or slackware on the secondary ones.

Sounds like a good idea. Now, fun aside, what OS would one recommend if they want to implement a business enviornment? Given from Debian or Net/Free/OpenBSD.

From what I read, I get the feeling that FreeBSD is the most liked in this post. However, I haven't heard anyone defend Debian. If that's the case, i'll just stop d/loading Debian and go with FreeBSD.

Any takers? Any? Debian?

:beer:

To me it would depend on what I was doing in that business environment. I am a big OpenBSD fan, but it is not always the best tool for the job. Debian is great for Linux, and I wouldn't hesitate to use it again.

 

[Nothinman]

Sounds like a good idea. Now, fun aside, what OS would one recommend if they want to implement a business enviornment?

RedHat, because it's supported.

However, I haven't heard anyone defend Debian. If that's the case, i'll just stop d/loading Debian and go with FreeBSD.

I'm a big Debian supporter, I just get tired of posting in all the "what should I run" threads.

 

[Bremen]

Businesses being ingerently conservative want someone to blame so RedHat is the most popular by far. That said many smaller startups may use something offbeat since the founder can do whatever she likes...

 

[chsh1ca]

Slackware is bar none the best server distribution I've come across. Granted, I like recompiling everything myself directly for the machine it's running on, and I have the time to do so, so that's a rather moot point.

 

[Nothinman]

Slackware is bar none the best server distribution I've come across. Granted, I like recompiling everything myself directly for the machine it's running on, and I have the time to do so, so that's a rather moot point.

Compiling everything from scratch is pointless and time consuming. Everytime you need a new version or need to apply a patch you have to recompile everything. You waste space with extra development tools, include files, static libraries, etc. It makes much more sense to use binary packages from a managability standpoint. Hell we've started looking into creating in-house RPMs for the few pieces of software we do need to compile, just because we don't want compilers on the DMZ boxes.