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![[Christian Fish Symbol]](fish-blue-flipped.jpg)
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This site was originally hosted by a Sun Sparc IPX, located at my employer's location. The Sun
Sparc IPX is a cute little lunch box sized computer (see picture at right) with moderate computing
power, yet with Sun's often legendary reliablity. Save for a few
bumped power cords, this system ran without any problems or
maintenance for over a year and a half. It was running Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 for the OS, Apache for the web server, and has
64MBytes of RAM and 2GB of disk space. It's bandwidth to the Internet
was a shared 160kb SDSL. This machine also acted as a mail and DNS
server for my domain, rkirkpat.net, showing that even with a
relatively old and slow machine, a lot can still be done. :)
After graduating from college and getting a job as an Electrical Engineer (i.e. having some money to spend), I purchased a more modern machine to replace the Sparc IPX. The site was then hosted by a DEC Alpha XL366 (sorry, no picture), which is a standard looking tower case machine. The XL366 was powered by a 366MHz 64bit Alpha processor, and this system was configured with 128MB of RAM, and three 9GB SCSI disk in a (software) RAID5 array. This machine dates from the late 1990s, and is roughly equivalent in power to a Pentium II 350MHz. As the Sparc IPX before it, it was running Debian, now version 3.0, and Apache webserver, as well as Postfix + SpamAssassin for email, and Bind for DNS. Also, this machine resided in the basement of my house, connected to the Internet via a SpeakEasy 144kbit IDSL line, showing that it does not take a lot of bandwidth to host a domain. :) Then time went on and it was time to upgrade hardware again. The site is now beng hosted by a dual-processor 1GHz AMD Athlon server with a Tyan S2460 motherboard, 2GB RAM, and 18GB SCSI disks in a (software) RAID5 array. As the Alpha XL366 before it, it is running Debian, still at version 3.0, and Apache webserver, as well as Postfix + SpamAssassin for email, and Bind for DNS. This machine resided in the basement of my house, connected to the Internet via a 1.5Mbit Qwest ADSL line. This web site was designed and is maintained using the XEmacs text editor for writing the HTML code (real web site designers use text editors!), GIMP for the graphics, and Mozilla for verifying layout. Though care was taken to make this web site as viewable as possible by as many browsers as possible, including Lynx and Links, two text-only browsers. I also have a varied collection of computers for my own personal use that vary from plain x86 machines to Compaq Alphas, many different Sun Sparc Stations, SGI Indys, a Mac IIci, and even a VAX 3100 M38, among other oddball systems, including an old TRS-80! Most of them run Debian GNU/Linux, save for the SGI, VAX, and TRS-80 which run thier own native OSes. I plan to add pictures and more information about these computers to my site in the future. |
![[Christian Fish Symbol]](fish-blue.jpg)
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