Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 20:50:14 -0800 From: "Peter Ong" <peter@haloflightleader.net> To: <pjklist@ekahuna.com>, "William Carrel" <william.a@carrel.org> Cc: <stable@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: 4.5 PRERELEASE - Call for testing Message-ID: <003501c18e91$fe155ea0$0101a8c0@haloflightleader.net> References: <C4A5672A-FA7D-11D5-A21C-003065D5E9A4@carrel.org>
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> > All switches should have configurable ports, IMHO. I think all of those Dell rack optimized 8xP4 2GHz, with 8GB of memory should be even cheaper too. I must say as much as I would like to keep a catalyst 2948G at home, it would be nice, but I haven't really had a need to manage at the switch level yet. Not even at work. All ports, except for the servers, run at auto/auto. The servers that I have at home are hand-me-down workstations from previous fortune 500 companies I've worked for. They are 60MHz/40MB, and the 90MHz/52MB. The 60 functions as an email server, and the 90 probably the web server. I haven't decided yet. Both of these machines have a 10Mbits/sec card that won't go faster, and I'm not sure if it's full/half duplex. All I know is I can tranfer 1GB of data to and from these machines simulataneously within 12 to 15 minutes. There are 4 machines total on the network; my laptop, and my old PIII 400/128MB workstation. I burned out the graphics card so it got demoted to server status. Now it's my file server, and it has a 10/100 full/half auto nic by Netgear. I do have a question since we're on this subject. This is probably best suited for another thread or another group altogether but I'll risk it. There are many platforms out there. Intel, Alpha, Macintosh, Sun's machines, SGI, VAX, and a bunch of others whose names I've only heard and read about. But the only real hands-on experience that I have, and that I can call even remotely that I'm knowledgeable on is the Intel platform. I play with these machines every day. From the 386 all the way to the brand new P4s. The P4s are really fast, and I like them; very powerful. I bet if I get a chance to put FBSD on them aside from my company mandated NT4, it would show some serious performance no one expected possible of the machine. The question that I have is that Pentium 4, running at some 2GHz, are nice, and fast. If it was coupled with 1 or 2 GB of memory it would be a really smoking machine. Now, I look at SGI, and their machines that use their own CPU run at some 500 to 600 MHz, and yet they are so much more expensive than Intel machines. Are they really that much more powerful than Intel CPUs that they are worth the extra money? For what uses might this extra power be needed? I've worked in two Fortune 500 companies. I've seen their infrastructure on the backend, but it isn't using these high-end exotic hardware. They mostly use PIII 800s with Cat 1900/2900s on NT4. This was within the past 3 years. In the lawfirm I work for now, they are using a similar setup. I've never really seen any of these corps embrace Linux/BSD/Unix. I forgot to mention Novell, they're there too more than Unix has a presence. Maybe I don't know the capabilities of these other hardwares, but from what I know, Intel machines are plenty sufficient even for heavy loads. Those Dell Poweredges are pretty sweet machines. We use the 2400SCs at this lawfirm, and not only are they rock solid stable, but they are heavy as semi-trucks too. Good for theft deterence. The other Fortune 500 company used rack optimized PowerEdges, and the other one used nothing but Dell Latitude as standard issue to their company constituents (you gotta give it back if you leave the company). I also worked for an ISP which used nothing but "white box" home made in the office with AMD K6-2 chips all running on RH/Linux. This ISP was a nationwide ISP that served DSL, worked great. It was moving a ton of pornomail everyday via sendmail on one or two of these K6-2 machines (500 - 600MHz/128MB). > Managed switches aren't for every scenario, particularly when some of us > would rather spend $3000 to purchase mountain bikes than network > equipment for our home. (Granted the prices are coming down on smaller > managed switches, but...) Since we're talking about wish lists... New surfboard (1 long board and 1 short board) want a box of wax too. New amplifier and a Gibson Les Paul (box of picks and strings 0.9s) Volkswagon Passat Blue Silver Dell 2400SC P4 2GHz 2GB memory with Perc Module Cisco 3600 Router And an OC3 connection to my one bedroom apartment. Santa disappointed me big time this year. And I'm not even asking him for ponies anymore. Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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