Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!EU.net!usenet2.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!usenet1.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!psinntp!psinntp!pubxfer.news.psi.net!usenet From: Bruce Smith <bruce@armintl.com> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: minimum system config? Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 16:57:28 -0400 Organization: Armstrong International Inc. Lines: 42 Message-ID: <327129B8.2699@armintl.com> References: <3270F930.7D55@eccosys.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 38.254.232.6 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (X11; U; HP-UX A.09.05 9000/735) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.hardware:54541 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:30009 David Moles wrote: > > Okay. I'm thinking of building an x86 'NIX box to act as an > apartment mail server and not much else. What's the cheapest > thing I can get away with? Assume that I can borrow a monitor > and keyboard from another box when necessary. What are the > absolute minumum hardware requirements? Assuming you are NOT going to run X Windows, Linux requires a 386 and 4MB of memory (8MB is much better). I have almost all of the Slackware 3.0 loaded and am using 250MB disk space. You can go considerably smaller. You can probably make it run in about 20 MB + some swap space. (not counting whatever space you need to hold your mail) Any video card and monitor will work (remember no windows). -- There should be some used PC's around, but be damn careful with used prices, I've seen many used PC's for sale with price tags higher than you can buy a new & more powerful PC. i.e. Joe Blow buys a PC for $4000 a few years ago. He decides to sell it for $1200, heck of a deal -- except you can buy a bigger/more powerful PC today for $800 - NEW! He is not trying to rip anyone off, but the prices drop so fast & he is not current on today's PC prices. See it all the time. > What would be the next step or two up from that? More memory, more disk, faster CPU. Memory would be the best performance gain for the money. (assuming you are short on memory to start with). -------------------------------------------- Bruce Smith bruce@armintl.com System Administrator / Network Administrator Armstrong International, Inc. Three Rivers, Michigan 49093 USA --------------------------------------------