# Cheap Gentoo Server

## nonhuman

I want to put together a low-cost Gentoo system to used mostly as a low-load webserver.

Can anyone recommend some hardware? I really have no preference between pre-build and DIY for this, I'm only really interested in cost, capability, and compatibility. A small footprint would also be a plus, but is secondary.

Any suggestions?

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## cokey

there are a couple of problems with this: 

You haven't given a price range

You haven't given a price range

You haven't given a price range

There was one more but i cant remember it. If its just a webserver you dont want any more than a 333mhz with 128mb ram

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## nonhuman

 *cokehabit wrote:*   

> there are a couple of problems with this: 
> 
> You haven't given a price range
> 
> You haven't given a price range
> ...

 

I knew I forgot something...

Um, price range would be definitely less than $500 (shouldn't be too limiting there). But really just as cheap as possible without it being cripplingly slow. Maybe $200-$300?

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## Johnyp

a P4 capable mb with onboard video/lan - $37 http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-135-167&depa=0

CPU 1 - used P4 2.4 is around $60

CPU 2 - retail new Celeron D 2.4Ghz with HSF - $72 http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=19-112-190&DEPA=1

Case - cheaply made new case with 350W PSU - $30 http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=1

Memory - 512MB DDR 3200 - $37 http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-161-615&depa=1

HD - 30gig Maxtor 7200rpm $48 http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-140-132&depa=1

Total - less than $250 for a fully functional PC.

For low traffic webserver - plenty fast.

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## Headrush

I picked up a dual Pentium II 466Mhz machine on ebay for only $35 Canadian.

Added a 80gig drive for $49.

It only has 160MB of RAM and this lowly system has been running my web server without problems for ages.

You don't need a lot. The more RAM the better.

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## cokey

2.4ghz for a webserver? Thats going overboard, anything more than 1ghz is just a waste. Webservers just sit there routing traffic at internet speeds which compared to HDD and network cable speeds is a snails pace.

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## Johnyp

 *cokehabit wrote:*   

> 2.4ghz for a webserver? Thats going overboard, anything more than 1ghz is just a waste. Webservers just sit there routing traffic at internet speeds which compared to HDD and network cable speeds is a snails pace.

 

It actually depends on the website. For example - using googleTAP with phpNuke may need a lot of CPU power, using Gallery (web albums) can put a real load on the machine if you do resizing, watermarking etc on the server. There are more cases like this... but we are not here to discuss this.

Yes, serving a couple of static pages can be done on a really OLD and slow (by modern terms) computer, but why bother with old hardware ? I would rather pay a bit more and have a machien that will not go down because some fan was too old, or HD that died because it was overheated too many times in its previouse usage.

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## cokey

 *Johnyp wrote:*   

>  *cokehabit wrote:*   2.4ghz for a webserver? Thats going overboard, anything more than 1ghz is just a waste. Webservers just sit there routing traffic at internet speeds which compared to HDD and network cable speeds is a snails pace. 
> 
> It actually depends on the website. For example - using googleTAP with phpNuke may need a lot of CPU power, using Gallery (web albums) can put a real load on the machine if you do resizing, watermarking etc on the server. There are more cases like this... but we are not here to discuss this.
> 
> Yes, serving a couple of static pages can be done on a really OLD and slow (by modern terms) computer, but why bother with old hardware ? I would rather pay a bit more and have a machien that will not go down because some fan was too old, or HD that died because it was overheated too many times in its previouse usage.

 

1ghz is more than enough for that

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## yaneurabeya

A mid-level to high-level P3 that's properly optimized would do nicely. I've seen xboxes do wonders  :Wink: .

used xbox - $75-$100

splinter cell - $10

memory card - $15

30W soldering iron + solder - $10

Total - $100-$125

Just wait for the new version of Gentoox to come out unless you intend on screwing around with the native install, which is strictly reiserfs/ext3 based as opposed to fatx-the native os. Plus, xboxes are great for lan parties  :Smile: . You can do a lot more fun stuff as described at http://xbox-linux.org/ . I do not recommend using the Gentoo livecd (cause you can google it and find it), because it's full of outdated software *cough Raincoat v0.5* which will screw up a TSOP flash. Just wait till the next Gentoox release comes out.

Also, surplus joints are selling P3's for cheap nowadays. Why, my school's surplus was selling P3 era dells for ~$50.

Why go expensive when your webserver can do just as well with 'antiquated' hardware? Only high traffic servers really need power like that and that's where symmetric processing with multiple CPUs/PCs comes in handy.

Btw, I serve a ton of static pages as well as distfiles with a fairly optimized Celeron 1.2 GHz as well as have a ton of services running and I see little lag-and the only lag present is due to my old harddrive's speed.

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## xbmodder

Yeah, I had my xbox running gentoox as a webserver. It was quite amazing. I am currently running 1Ghz 256RAM. upgrading to 2.4Ghz 1gig of ram

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## omnicloud

My webserver is an AMD Athlon 1.1GHz with 640MB RAM and it runs GREAT!

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## cyberdork33

 *yaneurabeya wrote:*   

> 
> 
> used xbox - $75-$100
> 
> splinter cell - $10
> ...

 

you don't even need the memory card... add a usb port and use a thumbdrive... and of course, if you use a modchip, then you don't need the game or memory card. You can also pickup easily repaired xboxes on ebay for about $50...

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## yaneurabeya

Memory cards are the easiest way considering that there are inconsistencies in USB thumb drives which only allow some to work with xboxes and others not. There is a list of working and non-working ones somewhere on http://xbox-linux.org/ , but I forget the actual link.

Besides if you don't have either, memory cards are considerably cheaper and all you need to do is send the memory card to someone who has a modified xbox basically and they *might* do it for free, or for a small token of gratitude (see the xbox-linux site again), like coke bottles, etc. Plus there are more options than just splinter cell. There are a ton of hacks because-surprise, surprise!-the xbox dash has a lot of usable buffer overrun exploits. Mech Assault, NFL Fever 2002, and 007 Nightfire are also hackable as well as there are quite a few MS dash hacks.

Sometimes the $50 xboxes on ebay are more than they're worth considering that many times the PSUs are dead-which cost $30 + (most of the time) $10 shipping, or are from bad mods, which are fun to repair to say the least... Believe me: it's more cost and time effective to get a working, used xbox and then go from there unless you feel like learning about xboxes or know a lot about circuitry on PCBs.

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## bingobob

reading with interest. I'm with the memory card solution. Worked a treat for me..just got a new xbox (a v1.6 with no tsop unfortunately - to the uninitiated the newest xboxes v1.6+ dont have an onboard memory that u can flash a new bios too, so u need to use a software exploit - as discussed or buy a mod chip). Saying that its not a problem as the software exploit worked fine and i installed gentoox pro using the ftp method.

I'm interested to know about the gentoo-xbox live cd. Gentoox feels a bit proprietary, would like to have even more control over the base system and without the magic stuff. I treid to build my own 2.6 kernel and almost made it but i think the .config was slightly wrong as fanctl was going craaaazy. But to some up...the xbox is softmodded (software exploit) and gentoox had samba and apache (with gallery) running in no time at all - not bad speed either. Amazing. I havent even had to open the xbox i got from the shop! (i like that). I think these would make excellent NAS devices if used with a large HDD.

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## cokey

i still think you should build your own one. If you can get parts from your mates then build it around them. You will learn something in the process, you can always come back here for help and suggestions.

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## ewan.paton

have a look on ebay for some sparcs you could probably pick up a nice quad cpu with a bunch of scsi disks these days but then dell recently put up  a new 2.5ghz celeron system for £99 which would more than do you hell 2 years ago i got a dell with a p3 1.3ghz cpu{1} system with a 17" monitor for £140.

{1} these were great cpus and faster than most p4s till they got past the 2ghz barrier unless you needed floating point

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## cyberdork33

 *bingobob wrote:*   

> reading with interest. I'm with the memory card solution. Worked a treat for me..just got a new xbox (a v1.6 with no tsop unfortunately - to the uninitiated the newest xboxes v1.6+ dont have an onboard memory that u can flash a new bios too, so u need to use a software exploit - as discussed or buy a mod chip). Saying that its not a problem as the software exploit worked fine and i installed gentoox pro using the ftp method.
> 
> I'm interested to know about the gentoo-xbox live cd. Gentoox feels a bit proprietary, would like to have even more control over the base system and without the magic stuff. I treid to build my own 2.6 kernel and almost made it but i think the .config was slightly wrong as fanctl was going craaaazy. But to some up...the xbox is softmodded (software exploit) and gentoox had samba and apache (with gallery) running in no time at all - not bad speed either. Amazing. I havent even had to open the xbox i got from the shop! (i like that). I think these would make excellent NAS devices if used with a large HDD.

 

i have used the xbox live-cd... but i did a native install.. you need a bios that will boot the kernel from the hard drive (cromwell) so you will need a chip for that, but i am sure you can get gentoox/xebian running, and then do a gentoo live install over top of it... just have to get that kernel config right...

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## yaneurabeya

You can use gentoox and convert back to using emerge. magic is just something that shallax added to help a lot of xbox users since it's by far much simpler than using emerge for some.

You can also use xromwell to boot from a dashboard if you like and do a non-native (loopback) install. It's sort of kludgy if you don't have a 10 Gb Seagate or higher though and it is slower since it's not native reiser/ext3 on the drive itself.

The reason why I don't like the Gentoo livecd (and the software contained in portage in geneal) is a lot of the xbox software is actually quite outdated, so you essentially have to download your own junk and compile it whereas with Gentoox you can get access to the latest xbox specific software since shallax keeps it up to date.

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## shrike

As a Samba server in my home I am happy with the EPIA M 600Mhz fanless MB. The big selling points for me were low cpu power consumption (7 watts) and fanless (quiet).

But as a web server I don't have a clue. The fanless models are 586 class cpus with a small 128kb cache. Graphics and ethernet hardware are part of the chipset. Most models are under $200 with a few under $100. Add some ram and stir.  :Smile: 

One final caveat comes to mind, the unichrome graphics system is not well supported for fb and X. At least not under Gentoo though knoppix/kde boots up fine. There are some custom ebuilds listed in these forums but I have not used them. A console based Samba server is all I need.

http://www.iboxpc.com/shopping/home.php?cat=23[/url]

shrike

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## wjholden

Or you could be like me and build a second machine to use as a dedicated server and after 3 months still haven't migrated everything over.  So my desktop is my server.  It's kinda nice.

It's hard to beat one of these.

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## yaneurabeya

 *destuxor wrote:*   

> It's hard to beat one of these.

 

That's a LITTLE outside the buyer's price range though  :Razz: .

Mang, those are sweet supercomputers though...

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## wjholden

 *yaneurabeya wrote:*   

>  *destuxor wrote:*   It's hard to beat one of these. 
> 
> That's a LITTLE outside the buyer's price range though .
> 
> Mang, those are sweet supercomputers though...

 Heh heh, little joke  :Laughing: 

/me mops up the drool under my chair...

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## plonka2000

 *destuxor wrote:*   

> Or you could be like me and build a second machine to use as a dedicated server and after 3 months still haven't migrated everything over.  So my desktop is my server.  It's kinda nice.
> 
> It's hard to beat one of these.

 

Sweeeeet...

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## Nate_S

 *yaneurabeya wrote:*   

> Memory cards are the easiest way considering that there are inconsistencies in USB thumb drives which only allow some to work with xboxes and others not. There is a list of working and non-working ones somewhere on http://xbox-linux.org/ , but I forget the actual link.

 

They're not all that inconsistant.  As a general rule of thumb, if the usb storage device will work in a newer version of windows without needing a special driver, then it will work with the xbox as well.  I used the compact flash card from my digital camera, for example.  Also, it's not even necessary to buy an exploitable game; as you only need it once, it's sufficent to rent it.  

-Nate

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## cyberdork33

 *destuxor wrote:*   

> It's hard to beat one of these.

 

eh... xbox webserver blows that out of the water.... ok not really... but they do cluster nicely  :Smile: 

aside from the whole gamesave exploit, you could also just get someone with a modded xbox to help you (borrow the chip long enough to install the software exploit)... and there is the hotswap your hard drive method... but I don't recommend that...

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## bendy

How about building a system around a VIA mini-itx board?  The processor and chipset are fully supported in Gentoo, and it gives you a small footprint.

My home server is based on a fanless 533 MHz board - it's quiet and doesn't use much power, and it's fast enough to be a low-load webserver.

http://www.viaembedded.com/product/epia_mini_itx_spec.jsp?motherboardId=21

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## yaneurabeya

 *Nate_S wrote:*   

>  *yaneurabeya wrote:*   Memory cards are the easiest way considering that there are inconsistencies in USB thumb drives which only allow some to work with xboxes and others not. There is a list of working and non-working ones somewhere on http://xbox-linux.org/ , but I forget the actual link. 
> 
> They're not all that inconsistant.  As a general rule of thumb, if the usb storage device will work in a newer version of windows without needing a special driver, then it will work with the xbox as well.  I used the compact flash card from my digital camera, for example.  Also, it's not even necessary to buy an exploitable game; as you only need it once, it's sufficent to rent it.  
> 
> -Nate

 

True, but who in the heck wants to sit down at best buy and test out thumb drives in xboxes  :Very Happy: ?

Yes, renting is better. I suppose I just kept the game since I love Splinter Cell and I've softmodded and then hardmodded quite a few xboxes so renting wouldn't have been cheap for me (note: modding xboxes as a mean of income is _not_ feasible...).

 *cyberdork33 wrote:*   

>  *destuxor wrote:*   It's hard to beat one of these. 
> 
> eh... xbox webserver blows that out of the water.... ok not really... but they do cluster nicely 
> 
> aside from the whole gamesave exploit, you could also just get someone with a modded xbox to help you (borrow the chip long enough to install the software exploit)... and there is the hotswap your hard drive method... but I don't recommend that...

 

Of course, no one does. I've done some interesting things with xboxes though semi-comparable to that (see stupid mistakes thread  :Razz: ).

Reason why you don't want to buy fixer upper boxes as opposed to used working boxes:

I've received about 10 xboxes at one time or another. ~4 were simple fixes, and the other ~4 cost serious cash while I couldn't fix the other ~2 because I didn't have the right kind of modchip to fix improperly TSOP'ed chips.

Take this for example:

Bought used xbox - $125 (shipping included).

Came with HDTV and Cat-Antenna outputs, X3 modchip, and fatty controller and was in perfect working shape. I could never touch a deal like that with the broken xboxes since the modchip alone is $50, the controller's ~$25, HDTV outputs ~$20, Cat-Antenna ~$10. Usually broken boxes cost $75+$20 shipping (sellers rape buyers on eBay in terms of shipping).

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## cyberdork33

tsops are easy to fix... that and the duped eeproms... usually it is pretty easy to figure out which are the easy fixes. just ask the seller what it does when powered on... and if there is a broken trace, they will normally tell you.

I just got a box with a bad eeprom for $45... installed my chip, flashed a valid eeprom, and it booted right up (except the locked hard drive now, which you replace on a modded box anyway)

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## yaneurabeya

 *cyberdork33 wrote:*   

> tsops are easy to fix... that and the duped eeproms... usually it is pretty easy to figure out which are the easy fixes. just ask the seller what it does when powered on... and if there is a broken trace, they will normally tell you.
> 
> I just got a box with a bad eeprom for $45... installed my chip, flashed a valid eeprom, and it booted right up (except the locked hard drive now, which you replace on a modded box anyway)

 

Didn't say they were difficult; just takes a little bit of learning, time, and the right parts.

Considering that most people don't have the right parts-including myself in that case since I had to send an xbox to someone with a 27 (?) pin modchip to fix a bad TSOP flash-or don't want to take the time to learn how to fix the xbox fully, used boxes suffice.

But ANYHOW... back to the topic at hand!

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## wjholden

Ok, I need a place to vent some anger and this seems like a somewhat appropriate place for it.

The story: I have two desktops, one I use as a dedicated UT2004/MySQL/print server (it runs windows only because of the damned printer), the other is both my Gentoo workstation and Apache/FTP/SSH server.  Both machines use Athlon XP processors, one has a 2400+ while the other has a 2600+.  I built the Windows computer long after my Linux box, so it has the 2600+.  Having meant to switch processors for a long time (makes no sense, why use the slower CPU in the machine I actually use?).  No problem, right?  I mean, the only difference is 33 MHz in the FSB.  So I do the switch.  Boot the Gentoo box.  It has a cheap nForce2-based Biostar motherboard.  Whoops, got some drives switched around.  Fix the drives and it boots fine.  Reboot, speed up the FSB, zero problems.

Then I boot the Windows computer.  Blank screen, no beeps.  Whoops, the FSB is set to 166 MHz, which is too fast for a locked 2400+.  Find the users manual, fix that.  Ok, boot.  Splash screen doesn't go away.  Press the reset button.  Same thing.  Reset again and let it sit for several minutes.  It eventually comes up with some error about a BIOS checksum being bad or something.  Ok, I guess that makes sense.  Pull the battery on the board (btw, it's an VIA-based ASUS board).  Reboot again and it seems ok, only Windows won't boot.  WTF?!  It says something about the hard drive not being bootable.  The drive's only a year old, so it's time for a Damn Small Linux CD.  DSL boots fine.  Is the hard drive crashed?  mount /mnt/hda1.  Mounts fine.  Why doesnt' Windows boot?  Ok, reboot again, this time with my Windows CD, thinking I'd run a chkdsk.  Whoops, my administrator password isn't working?  Well, I don't feel like getting the fix for that so I try booting Windows again, not expecting it to work, and it works.  Interesting.  So now that I've wiped my CMOS I need to flash it again.  Try to install ASUS' flash utility and guess what, the installer thinks it isn't an ASUS motherboard.  Ok.  Whatever.  I'll call them when I have time.

Not much of a rant, but I guess it goes to tell everyone that even switching a CPU can break Windows.  This forum is full of people reporting how they compiled support for a new motherboard into their kernel and swapped boards and everything worked great.  I guess it's time for me to throw that printer away and get something Linux compatible.

Sorry for the impertanent rant, guys...I should make a blog.

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## yaneurabeya

Uh.............. wow.... that was incredibly random.

A lot of Windows junk is statically installed so making a drastic change like that will cause you issues. I dunno if you would have issues going from one arch to the next (like P3/coppermine -> P4), but I ran an install on Slackware using my P4, put the hd back into my P1 and things worked perfectly (heheheh). Dunno if the same is true for some flavors of Linux though cause I think I tried with Redhat and failed...

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## cyberdork33

i have tried switching from a p3 to a p4 with windows 98 .... didn't over so well... also switching between architectures sux... ie amd -> intel

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