I fail to see why you are moving the applications off the Athlon? why
not just use your apps on the Athlon and ssh to it? it is multi-user
after all

On 30/01/2008, Douglas A. Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca> wrote:
quoted text
> Hello,
>
> I have an unusual situation and problem at which I've been chipping
> away.  The resultant system will need to run OpenBSD so I'm asking here
> for the accumulated wisdom.  The base technology predates my IT
> experience.
>
> My wife is sensitive to what she describes as electromagnetic fields.
> She gets headaches and other pains when exposed to equipment: the higher
> the frequency, the worse her symptoms.  For example, a VT is better than
> a regular CRT connected to even a P-II-233 MHZ while a 486DX4-100 is
> better than the P-II.  Both are far better than my Athlon64 @3.5 GHz.
> And any CRT is better than any LCD/plasma screen.  Even my Palm Zire (I
> think 233 MHz) with its ~2"x~3" screen is unsuitable within about 30
> feet of her.  She can't wear a digital watch.
>
> For lack of anything suitable, I have been using my Athlon64 for daily
> use, with the P-II used for other-machine backup and ssh access to the
> Athlon64 (one is upstairs, the other is downstairs) for e.g. a quick
> email check.  My 486 isn't used right now since it only has 32 MB ram
> and an 850 MB hard drive.  The backup set size right now is around 2 GB.
>
> I now have a VT520 which I can put upstairs for those email checks which
> means I can move the P-II farther away from her.
>
> While I want to keep the Athlon64 for serious heavy lifting (graphical
> web browsing, watching DVDs, burning CDs, etc,) I want to move the main
> application server function off of it.  The P-II only has 64 MB of ram,
> is a abused box I rescued (full of cat hair and over-heating).  I would
> like to get a box (or boxes) that is (are) reliable, run at e.g 133 MHz
> (certainly less than 200 MHz), with lots of ram, and lots of hard drive
> space.  Since the apps run on it will be non-graphical, it could be
> headless, accessed via the VT520 or ssh from the Athlon.
>
> I'm thinking that this will be unsuitable for an embedded device like a
> soekris and more like an older multi-disk server.  I guess I'll have to
> go to eBay for the hardware since its long gone off any reseller's
> shelf.  I don't have any experience with anything other than i386 or
> amd64 so in that line I figure this will be a multiple-CPU 486 or
> Pentium box.
>
> Because the box will be so old, it would have to be one that was popular
> so that spare parts are readily available, but also one that was well
> designed and built in the first place.  I can tolerate some down time
> while I swap out parts but I want to be able to keep spares on hand.  I
> suppose I could buy 3 complete functioning boxes just for the spares.
> Looking at the packages lists in the different arches that 4.2 works on,
> the four possibilities are i386, alpha, sparc, and sparc64.  Since this
> is a finished room in the basement, not a datacenter, I want the box to
> do its own hard drive storage and not just be a compute node that is
> supposed to have a separate box full of drives (unless this is
> straight-forward).  I'm envisioning something like a 4- or 5U server
> box.  Rackmounting a single servier is fine since I can make a suitable
> shelf to simulate a rack.
>
> Here's the software that I need to run on the box (beyond what is in 4.2
> base):
>
> vim
> mc
> mutt
> tex
> python
> some kind of printfilter to serve my Epson LQ-2080 impact printer.
>
>
> Here's the hardware-type I'll envisioning:
>
> Multiple CPU so that multiple apps can run better on limited individual
> CPUs, running under 200 MHz
> Probably PCI bus.
> Paralell port for the printer (or I would just use a USB adapter)
> USB for future needs
> serial port for console
> multi-port serial for terminal(s) and my external 3Com Courier modem.
> 10 or 10/100 Ethernet
> Multiple hard drives:  IIRC, the older boxes had 9 GB SCSI drives.  I
>         don't know if one can plunk new eg. 250 GB SCSI drives in them.
> SCSI HBA for a tape drive
>
>
> Any suggestions for good old boxes like this that will run modern
> OpenBSD and be reasonably reliable?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Doug.
>
>


-- 
-Lawrence
-Student ID 1028219