martinlittle.com:thinkThin

Today I have come to the decision that there is too much tech in the world and not enough time. You see, I finally got my flat into a reasonable setup with my home network - I bought a Compaq Deskpro EN Small Form Factor PII 400MHz, which now has a mighty 320MB RAM and 60GB hard disk in it, running Red Hat Linux 7.2 for my firewall/Web/MP3 server. At the moment, it's going into a 10Mb hub (although all network cards are 100Mb), so that I can set up my parent's computer (which was the one running my firewall) and feeding through to my brother's room; 10Mb is fine as we rarely do any file transfers between the PCs and ADSL only runs at 512k. For this alone, I have enough ideas to keep several hundred full-time Martins working for years!

Then my old Uni friend Gav Park pitches up out of nowhere with a broadband cable connection AND a wireless network at home. Wireless is something I have been planning to do for some time anyway. If I am going to go wireless, then I should really get a new ADSL modem/router as ZenADSL are now making it possible for me to have multiple IP addresses for free (which would mean each computer inside my house could have it's own IP address), to keep things tidy and to remove the USB connections from my system (for something else???). Next thing you know, it's costing upwards of 400 pounds. Money I just cannot justify - and that is saying something.

Then my friend John bought an SGI Indy the other day - it seems SO much cooler to have one of those compared to a PC. I got checking on eBay to see what was out there - did a quick search on 'Sun'. Managed to turn up a few servers, but also some Javastations. Way back when I had just left Uni, I remember reading about them - and now I had the chance to buy one. I whacked in my bid, and got it. After some quick consultation with John@DoctorBooze, we have a masterplan - and another four requests for machines. I'm now looking to buy a job lot of ten of them and distribute the other few to friends or family who are interested. Drop me a mail if you have a broadband connection and an interest - we plan to run Linux on them, linking back to a central server for software, very much along the lines of this LinuxDocs article. Now I am looking for a Sun server - just for kicks.

Enjoy the weekend!