Here we go again
My house server is starting to fail; the graphics card died last week. Since it runs Solaris 10, it's still running, but I can't use my nice 24" flat panel monitor and I probably can't reboot it without replacing said graphics card. I am also a bit worried that even with a new graphics card, it will, like the server it replaced in late 2006, simply refuse to power up at all.[1] Yes, it's backed up and yes, I can turn this laptop into the house server for a week or so if I have to, but really, I'd rather not.
Also, I built the system to be an email and dhcp server, run a web browser and email client and do some geekish fiddling with. I wasn't planning on either ripping CDs or processing RAW images from a Canon DSLR. It's definitely underpowered for the latter task. And the motherboard fan died a few months ago anyway.[1a] Time to build a new server.[2]
I can almost hear
pir laughing from here, since he's listened to me swear my way through three " almost works"[3] system builds over the years. Especially the last one, when I went from FreeBSD to Solaris 10 because FBSD 6.mumble and I had an argument over whether it would install or not[4]. Fortunately, the motherboard I'd bought just happened to have a chipset that was on the Sol10 HCL, and that install Just Worked. All my system builds have had some weird idiosyncrasy or other, which is why pir laughs.
THIS time I'm starting with a motherboard that is on the OpenSolaris HCL, so we shall see.
[1] There is also the question of whether it's worth buying a new graphics card for a 3-1/2 year old system, even if the card will only cost $20 US.
[1a] I unplugged it and added a 2nd case fan I had lying around. I also got tired of renumbering my footnotes (I should learn to do that with HTML markup, I suppose).
[2] Wonderful time for it, since we just ran up some large vet bills in the last two weeks between Chava getting very ill (she's fine now) and Hermann needing to be neutered.
[3] Well, Solaris 10 almost works on custom built PC hardware anyway, since Sun's engineers couldn't seem to get USB straight, and even OpenSolaris is only 95% there.
[4] Yes, PEBCAC :/
This was crossposted from Dreamwidth. Please feel free to comment here and/or there (the Dreamwidth entry has
comments).
Also, I built the system to be an email and dhcp server, run a web browser and email client and do some geekish fiddling with. I wasn't planning on either ripping CDs or processing RAW images from a Canon DSLR. It's definitely underpowered for the latter task. And the motherboard fan died a few months ago anyway.[1a] Time to build a new server.[2]
I can almost hear
pir laughing from here, since he's listened to me swear my way through three " almost works"[3] system builds over the years. Especially the last one, when I went from FreeBSD to Solaris 10 because FBSD 6.mumble and I had an argument over whether it would install or not[4]. Fortunately, the motherboard I'd bought just happened to have a chipset that was on the Sol10 HCL, and that install Just Worked. All my system builds have had some weird idiosyncrasy or other, which is why pir laughs.
THIS time I'm starting with a motherboard that is on the OpenSolaris HCL, so we shall see.
[1] There is also the question of whether it's worth buying a new graphics card for a 3-1/2 year old system, even if the card will only cost $20 US.
[1a] I unplugged it and added a 2nd case fan I had lying around. I also got tired of renumbering my footnotes (I should learn to do that with HTML markup, I suppose).
[2] Wonderful time for it, since we just ran up some large vet bills in the last two weeks between Chava getting very ill (she's fine now) and Hermann needing to be neutered.
[3] Well, Solaris 10 almost works on custom built PC hardware anyway, since Sun's engineers couldn't seem to get USB straight, and even OpenSolaris is only 95% there.
[4] Yes, PEBCAC :/
This was crossposted from Dreamwidth. Please feel free to comment here and/or there (the Dreamwidth entry has
comments).