[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Server - sys req?

[Rob Beard]

Eddie Armstrong wrote:
> Rob Beard wrote:
>> Not sure if you'd need the 32MB card, does it have on-board video?
>>   
> Not AFAIK it spare anyway it seems it might be useful

Maybe.  If it's anything like the old Dell machines we have at work 
(OptiPlex GX100/GX110 machines) the on-board video will cover most if 
not all tasks.  An extra video card could maybe give you dual head.  My 
server is running a 2 meg S3 PCI video card and it sits in the loft.  I 
have an old 14" CRT monitor attached which rarely gets used.  Most of 
the time the server just runs.

>> Are you going to run software raid on the hard drives?  I
>>
>>   
> Not at first maybe get something later
>> Do you need to run FLAC streams?
> Oh Yes - this is my one (?) weakness! Must be CD quality :-)
>>  AFAIK FLAC is more CPU hungry when  
>> compressing audio.  O
>>   
> But will compress/uncompress take place on the desktop/player or server?
> i am worried about streaming 2 audio streams and maybe ordinary file 
> transfer and general use by 2 users at home.

As far as I know the compression takes place on the server.  Being a 
lossless compression unless it has dedicated hardware (for instance 
APT-X as used in the radio industry) then it'll use the main CPU.  It 
may work but you might find that you'd have to plump for a faster CPU or 
high quality OGG stream.  To be honest OGG is pretty good and better 
than MP3 format.

> Where are the bottlenecks - can one drive cope with data throughput?

I'd say use an Ultra DMA IDE cable, I suppose you'd be looking at 
UDMA66, possibly UDMA100 which would probably be fast enough for a 
couple of audio streams.

>>  It also runs  
>> VMWare Server which runs another server installation which does my  
>> e-mails (so it's basically two machines in one).  A
>>   
> Don't give me ideas :-)

It's energy efficient :-)

I managed to consolidate two servers into one.  If I had a enough spare 
cash to upgrade the server to a dual core machine I could probably run a 
couple of servers on it.

>>   I take it Apache isn't going to be heavily used  
>> if it's for testing?
>>
>>   
> No, 2 users- domestic use for server, Apache for testing - maybe small 
> databases later.
> Most heavy use will be for music while I work
> Eddie

I'm sure your P3 machine will be up to the task.  Give it a try, you 
won't loose much, just think of it as a learning experience.  If it 
doesn't work then just have a re-think :-)

Rob