Re: SOHO SUN Server - I'm giving up

On 29 Mar 2006 08:15:42 -0800 "llothar" <llothar@xxxxxx> wrote:
Well i tried to buy better hardware but in a cost sensitive SOHO it's
not that good. My U10 had about 65 Watt, my new server around 45 Watt
and they are so silent that i can run them in my office 24/7. With
larger/more modern SUN systems i need to change my office and get a
small server room, because i'm noise sensitive. I'm not willing to do
this.

I think i could get it running on Solaris, i just need to buy hardware
that is 4-5 times the price of the hardware supported by Linux. For
example the programmable power switches for the build machines cost 60
Euro (USB controlled on/off) instead of 250 Euro (Network HTTP
Interface). The backup disk seems to only work well when i buy SCSI
drives. But they are about 2 Euro/GiB <-> 0,4 Euro/GiB.

And then i need to spend much more time in setting all up. I was amazed
to see how simple it is to setup a software RAID system on Linux (with
a modern Distribution that has a GUI for it). For me it was educating
to do this on Solaris, but i now run out of time. I don't want to be
educated on each implementation detail. I want it to work and see a 5
point checklist what to do when trouble starts.

Linux RAID setup *might* be easier (for me, SVM is trivially easy, but
I don't have the education step to worry about), but come failure time,
you are going to kill yourself with Linux RAID. Try hot-adding a drive.
You can start with: there are no man pages. It's downhill from there.

Hardware support for USB cards is terrible bad. Gigabit Ethernet cards
are much more expensive, Grafik Cards the same (insane prices for stuff
that i get for 20 bucks from EBay).

Yes, no and no. Sun supports Intel gige (better than Linux does) and
also supports broadcom (the best, IMHO) and nvidia gige. These are
sub-$100 parts. Sun also supports your cheap nvidia and ati graphics.

Why don't you install Solaris on the PIII you got?

The Ultra 10 is useless junk hardware.

Now the USB thing isn't going to be solved easily, but it's easy to
shut down a machine (as long as it isn't hung) and wake-on-lan makes
it easy to turn one back on. I guess if you need to power-off a
possibly hung machine you're going to have to buy more expensive power
controllers.

I agree that Linux has problems but i now think in SOHO it is much
better then anything SUN can offer.

I couldn't disagree more. Sun (Solaris) has FAR better remote
management and diagnostic capabilities, and FAR better reliability.
I'd think for SOHO you need that kind of thing.

You are mistaking your lack of experience with Sun/Solaris and perhaps
lack of "howto" guides for Solaris as a fault with Sun's hardware and
software. Linux is only superior if your time is worthless.

-frank
.

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