[rescue] Small servers (was Re: WTT: 1.5G of PC2700 for 1G of PC100)

[Shannon Hendrix]

On May 3, 2008, at 15:04 , Steven M Jones wrote:

> Shannon wrote:
>
>>> The project is to build a tiny dedicated server, and by tiny I  
>>> mean  I'd like it to be as small as no bigger than a small  
>>> switch... 2  inches high, 6x6 or something.
>>>
>
> My first thought was of a Soekris box. My second thought was, "Wait,  
> how slow are those CPUs?"  And thirdly, they definitely need a plug  
> wart. On the other hand, the low power consumption is ideal when  
> they meet your needs.

One possible solution to the wall-wart problem is to get a decent 8- 
plug "hideaway" wall-wart manager.

They are kind of expensive for a power strip, but it might be worth  
the $$$ just to keep the annoying things out of my way.

> So my question is, how's the support for using it in a headless  
> configuration? The thing I liked about Intel's ISP 1x00/2x00 servers  
> was that they supported serial consoles in the BIOS. Maybe not  
> perfectly, but well enough to avoid those obnoxious "remote access"  
> kludges.

What I really, really want is not serial BIOS where video is  
converted... I want a real serial BIOS, designed to be serial from the  
start.

That one change would be a profound improvement on PC systems.

I really find it hard to believe no one has done it.  They can even  
keep the standard video BIOS and just create a CLI to control it as a  
front-end to talk to it and CMOS.

It's amazing what kind of crap the industry will put up with.

-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com