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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=090134417-01042004>Hi,</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=090134417-01042004></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=090134417-01042004>wanted to pass on
some experiences, and then ask a tired old question that has been asked many
times before, that I can never quite remember.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=090134417-01042004></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=090134417-01042004>I just finished
porting my cluster from it's desktop box (a 550 MHz Celeron Box, 256 MB, 9GB
SCSI drive, Red Hat 9, ax25 support to a PK232), to an even older laptop. My
reasons for this were</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=090134417-01042004></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=090134417-01042004>- laptop has a
smaller footprint, takes up less shack space, and is quieter (No fan
noise)</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=090134417-01042004>- For the fun of it,
to see if I could make it work</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=090134417-01042004></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=090134417-01042004>The laptop is an
older IBM, 755CD, which is a 100MHz 486 with an 810MB HD and only 16MB of RAM. I
ended up picking Debian, and I must say, it was a good choice. Unlike my
previous installs on Red Hat and Mandrake, where I ended up re-compiling the
kernel to get the ax25 support, the Debian allowed me to configure all of the
ax25 support as modules painlessly at install time (including the required
utilities). Made this all very easy. Had to install from floppies, as the IBM
has a swappable CD ROM drive that is not bootable. This was not too bad, after
getting around a bad image on one of the driver floppies on the original site I
downloaded from. The Debian package manager front end, dselect, was good to use,
although it is VERY slow to load package lists and to install selected packages
(function of my slow CPU and miniscule amount of RAM I expect). My PCMCIA
Ethernet I/F came up no problems, and with a non-X Windows install I have a
whopping 150MB left after everything is in, which seems small by today's
standards, but should be just fine for a dedicated cluster box like this is.
<FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=090134417-01042004>Cluster is now back up
and it seems to be running smooth, and I have a surplus 550MHZ box to store or
sell. I would heartily recommend Debian to anyone looking to bring Spider up (or
any other cluster or ham software for that matter) - it was easier than either
of the other 2 distros for me. </SPAN></FONT>Best of all, an old laptop that was
headed towards oblivion is now back with useful work to do, and I have a quieter
shack and more shelf space to clutter up with some other radio-related
toys!</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=090134417-01042004></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=090134417-01042004></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=090134417-01042004>My question is - I
forget what the initial steps are to get setup to be able to use CVS to perform
updates to the current build. Seems like I saw the instructions on the website
before, but I guess I am sleep-deprived (not much doubt about that!) - I can't
seem to find it now. Anyone want to give me a gentle reminder on where to look
or what to do? I confess to being a self-taught Linux hacker whose knowledge is
pretty spotty at best...</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=090134417-01042004></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=090134417-01042004>73 de KE0MF/MIke
(Node KE0MF-15 sysop)</SPAN></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>