[frgeek-michiana] Lab Notes May 15, 2003

Lab Notes May 15, 2003

Present: Jay Schlatter, Mike Cook, Goose Zimmerman, Tom Brown

:: Indy Box Rox


http://216.138.156.34/

Browse this url for a shocking picture of Herr Indy Doktor himself in his
air conditioned subterranean operating theater as he prepares to sew up the
patient. You may want impressionable and sensitive children to avert their
eyes first. 

Jay overcame obstacles to put the SGI Indy online. The headless box is
running Debian Woody 3.0, has a MIPS 150 cpu, 36 gb scsi hd and half duplex
10 mbps nic. It resides in a rack at Goodwill Industries. Apache is serving
the html until Tom installs aolserver and threaded tcl.

The Debian install is barebones -- the OS transplant was done live via the
Internet. Finding MIPS debs is a pain so most application software will be
compiled from source. Jay set up accounts for the active volunteers. You
should be receiving your account info today.

There is a second Indy waiting for an application now that Jay has the
proper cdrom and knows how to change the SGI system rom settings. Jay
discovered several undocumented steps necessary to installing Linux on the
Indy. Herr Indy Doktor may or may not publish his project log for the
benefit of mankind and the planet.

:: iOpener Opens Eye


http://www.expiredmilk.com/iopener/

http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/12/12/1456233.shtml?tid=3

Mike popped the lid on the cute little iOpener to discover that it had been
hacked. But not damaged. The SanDisk had been wiped so the iOpener couldn't
boot. But it tried. All were impressed. This could be key to our portable
ltsp lab project. Mike took the iOpener home to experiment.

:: IBM NetVista Boxes


http://www.epinions.com/content_81405185668

Beware what you wish for. 

Tire Rack upgraded their thin client workstations and donated a pallet full
of IBM NeVistas to Goodwill. Can Goodwill profitably use them, cannibalize
or sell them? Probably not. Odds are better than 50% that FGM will inherit
them.

The chassis design is excellent. The boxes are quiet, small and attractive.
No drives installed. The mobo has headers for one ide controller and one
CompactFlash rom, plus two pci slots and 128 mb of pc66 ram. Full
complement of ports on rear including an onboard nic. NetVistas could be
cool FreeBox PCs or FreeLab/FreeLan workstations.

Tom took the sample box home to install a hd and see if it boots.

:: Fly in the NetVista Ointment 


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=3024089415category=11181

Can you say "Token Ring?" 

These NetVistas are set up to netboot via the onboard token ring nic. For
FGM to use them as ethernet thin clients we'll have to pop for pci nics
with ltsp bootroms installed. Now we're talking $40-$50 per unit for 30
units. Or buy a token ring hub (maus) and cables for that special token
ring network Goose is always talking about. 16-24 port token ring hubs are
selling for $10-$20 plus $15-$20 shipping on ebay. Token ring needs special
cables.

:: Boris Makes Debut

After several miscues Boris the Frankenputer is serving the Sallie lab.
Permissions may have been a problem. But the real deal killer was dhcpd.conf.


Boris is replacing LTSP1. LTSP1 ran version 1.0 of the k12ltsp distro.
Boris is running k12ltsp 2.x so we couldn't just copy dhcpd.conf from one
to the other. The two version have subtly different dhcpd.conf files.
Instead we hacked the file in true Frankenputer style. A little of this and
a little of that.

All kernel references and paths were edited, and we added some lines to
help recognize the isa nics in two of the clients. Now Boris is booting all
workstations and zips right along. 

It's tight, dog.

:: pppd Problem

pppd on Boris is causing a problem. If the external modem is absent or
turned off, RH 7.3  hangs in the networking section of the boot sequence.
Goose worked on it but couldn't find a quick compromise position on when
and where to start pppd. The normal RH rc.d init script for pppd is missing
for some reason. So we'll have to write (copy) a new script which allows RH
to fail the pppd init and move on if the modem doesn't respond.

:: LPI Certification


http://www.lpi.org/

Both John and Jay expressed interest in the LPI certification. John has set
a goal of passing Level 1.

Tom



To post to the list send email to <frgeek-michiana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

You may unsubscribe or change your list settings by going to the list website 
at <http://www.freelists.org/webpage/frgeek-michiana>

Other related posts: