[frgeek-michiana] Warehouse Report

  • From: Tom Brown <tbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: FreeGeek Michiana <frgeek-michiana@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:24:55 -0500

:: DHCPD Dead

The server has stopped dishing IP addresses to our thin client. Dale and I nosed around in the server. All we determined for sure is we couldn't start dhcpd from /etc/rc.d or /etc/rc.d/init.d. Rather than cause unintended problems for Goose, we stopped troubleshooting.

Also, it looks as though there is just one network interface card in the server so there is probably no connection to the outside world...unless another box is the gateway.

:: Crowded Office

We had a crowd last night. Dale and Kevin were there doing hardware troubleshooting and repair on refurbs. Dale's son, Mark, was doing triage testing on boxes and demanning the failures. Two new volunteers, Valerie and Ashley, began training. They dbanned drives.

At the end of the evening, Mark, Dale and I began to clean up and straighten up the work tables so we have more room. Next week we'll finish dbanning the current set of computers and start loading VL and Puppy on them.

We could use two to four durable 4-port KVM switches to make room on the work tables for debanning and installing OSes and to increase volunteer productivity.

:: USB Detection Problem

Most of boxes we debanned were Dells. Dale loaded VL 5.8 on one to take home to study. When I demonstrated how VL automounts USB pen drives for Valerie and Ashley, the box failed to detect my PNY USB stick.

I don't know whether this is a random event or a chronic problem with this Dell model. Further testing is required as we've got quite a few of these particular models in stock.

:: Possible Intel Server for Warehouse

Goose thinks our networking problems are caused by an AMD kernel bug. The server is running an AMD cpu. We can switch to a generic Intel kernel one revision down from the installed kernel or switch the drive array to an Intel based server. Goose prefers the hardware solution.

Kevin may have the hardware solution. He brought in an Altos (Unix) server in a mid-tower case which was recently decommissioned from a medical office. It has a dual Intel cpu mobo with just one processor installed. The current cpu is a P3-733. I found two P3-933 cpus in our stock of pulls. The server comes with 128 MB of registered ECC PC133 memory and no drives. Kevin found a matching 256 MB memory stick in our pulls and what appears to be a 9 GB IBM SCSI drive. The mobo has Adaptec scsi onboard.

Neither of us wrote down the mobo serial number. Otherwise, we could look up the mobo online to determine whether it will accept 933 MHz cpus. Maybe next week.

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