Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with dell and server

That Red Hat is awfully expensive!

Oktober — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:01:19 -0800

Is paying for a RHEL subscription worth it, or should we just go with CentOS? We're looking at moving our e-mail server to more-capable hardware, and would like to avoid paying $4k+ for a new Xserve, if at all possible. We're reasonably happy with our current package, Communigate, but it's severely hardware constrained now.

The only two applications that need to run on it are Communigate (which has ports for every OS under the sun) and Retrospect (our backup client, which has a Red Hat rpm).

Ideally, I'd get a cheap Quad-Core server from Dell, slap CentOS on it, installed our two applications, and call it a day. Still, I have nagging questions. Is paying for RHEL worth it? Can you continue updating your OS after your subscription expires? Is CentOS really 100% binary compatible with Red Hat?

My 350 won't let me take it's temperature

SpecialK — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:03:49 -0800

Another longshot hardware question, but not the wood table kind: I have an OLD Dell PowerEdge 350. I'm running OpenSUSE 10.3. I'd like to monitor system stats like processor temperature and drive status via the normal IPMI drivers. This should be possible; I can get it working on a 1650 using the drivers from Dell's linux website. It doesn't mention the 350 anywhere. Ideas?

Possible uses for idle XP box

Hat Maui — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 03:10:22 -0800

What are some things I could do with an old XP box? I just got a new iMac and I'm left wondering if there would be any useful purpose to which I could put my four-year-old XP Dell to... or should I just scrap it?

It's a 2.4 gig Celeron with 700 megs of ram, a dvd and cd drive, and I have two external hard drives for it, plus a monitor (that i'll now likely use with the mac). Oh, and a 40 gig internal.

It'd be too slow to use it as a dedicated media streaming box over wifi, right? (at least, for video anyway).

Any other thoughts as to what use I could put it to?

Where can I buy an $800 Linux Server?

phrontist — Thu, 10 May 2007 11:25:46 -0800

I need to buy a server for around $800 ($1000 as an absolute maximum). It will be hosting a website with a (PostGres) database that will start at around 4GB and grow slowly (so would like at least 2GB of RAM). It must be able run Linux, preferably Ubuntu or Debian. I go to college in Kentucky, where I work for Radio Free Lexington. I am now home in the DC area for the next three months, during which I intend to develop a custom CMS/Radio Station Management/Playlist tracking system. The problem is, I have nothing to run or develop it on.

Before I left Kentucky, I had ordered a Dell Optiplex 320. It arrived two days before I had to leave, and what I thought would be a quick and straightforward install turned out to be extremely difficult (see this thread). Even if it is possible, I'm now out of town and can only ask the minimal effort of the person who has graciously volunteered to help me out of this mess and install the replacement machine in my absence.

So I'm looking for recommendations for a "server" (whether it is billed as such by the manufacturer is not important to me) that is comparable or better to the Optiplex machine, but is well documented as being trivially Linux compatible (no kernel patching) or ships with a Linux distribution installed. It must be something I can order in the next two weeks (I know Dell is promising Ubuntu systems... but I can't wait). Dell is not out of the running, but I'm highly suspicious now.

Here are the specs of the last machine:

P4 Processor 641 (3.20GHz, 2M, 800MHz FSB)
80GB SATA HDD (the SATA controller is actually what caused the problem, so I'm somewhat wary)
2GB SDRAM
$643 before shipping.

The Blinking Cursor of Immense Frustration

phrontist — Thu, 03 May 2007 06:36:37 -0800

I'm trying to install Ubuntu Server on a just out of the box Dell machine. After completing the install the machine hangs (displaying only a blinking cursor), and subsequent attempts at reinstall from the LiveCD result in hangs as well. I downloaded the Ubuntu Server 7.04 i386 install ISO and computed it's md5 sum, which validated correctly. I ran through the install using the whole hard-drive on a brand new Dell Optiplex 230 server uneventfully. Upon the first boot, I got a blinking cursor after GRUB, after which it simply hung. I tried to boot again several times, in safe (or "recovery") mode, with and without the monitor plugged in, and combinations thereof.

I tried to run a verification on the disc, but it hung in the same manner as booting from the HDD did. I assumed I had a bad disc. I burned another and ran a successful verification (on another machine) first. Upon trying to install from it, it hung once again - same blinking cursor of frustration.

I've let the box sit for 15 minutes more than once to ensure it wasn't just some daemon taking a long time to come up.

Also, I get random characters and colored blocks (like old DOS-style ASCII blocks) when I let it sit for a bit.

Someone in the Ubuntu IRC channel reccomended using a LiveCD to re-install GRUB on the HDD, which was done to no avail. While the Ubuntu install LiveCD's hang as described after the ubuntu menu, the super grub disk worked fine.

My post on the ubuntu forums yesterday has gone unanswered. I've got to get this server up before Friday, when I leave town for three months. Help me MeFi!

Dell 2450 can't boot - hive error

Lactoso — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 13:27:27 -0800

I have a Dell server running Win2K Server. Registry damaged and won't boot now. Returning 'Hive Error'. No viable backup available. Help recover/repair? I've got a Dell 2450 server (Service Tag: 9VHZ201). It's running Windows 2000 Server. The server froze up over the weekend and upon reboot, returned the following error:

--
-- STOP: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
-- The registry cannot load the hive (file):
-- \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE
-- or its log or alternate.
-- It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.
--
-- Beginning dump of physical memory
-- Dumping physical memory to disk: ##
--

Of course I don't have a good backup of the registry or the data and there's critical data on the server which I desperately need. I completely deserve all the bad stuff that's happening to me, but this sinner wants a second chance!!

While restoring the server to its former glory would be great, I would be more than happy just to be able to download the databases and Excel files I need and then reinstall Win2KServer (along with a big old honking backup unit).

Any help would be great appreciated!

3 serious hardware questions

sylloge — Sun, 21 Dec 2003 19:51:07 -0800

Three'fer:
(1) Is there a significant difference between running Linux on Opterons vs. Xeons? Is one clearly better? For MySQL? For Apache/PHP?
(2) Ever hosted with Cogentco? Is there anyone else with prices like that? (100Mbps at $1000/month)
(3) What's your favorite server vendor for typical 2-way 1U systems? (Looking at Dell, IBM, Penguin; where does Google buy them again?)