[rescue] The best 'rescue' workstation

[Patrick Finnegan]

On Saturday 23 April 2005 11:21, Andrew Weiss wrote:
> On Apr 23, 2005, at 11:43 AM, Zach Lowry wrote:
> > I figure if I got an IBM I would put Linux on it and not fool with
> > AIX.
>
> That would probably be a mistake with such a machine.  A huge
> mistake. 

Why?  IMHO Linux on POWER(PC) is a *wondeful* thing.  There's a reason 
that IBM is pusing Linux on POWER-architecture stuff over AIX...

> > Indeed. I just saw on eBay form 44P-170 400MHz machines, no RAM or
> > Drives, going for $200. That's pretty tempting.

IMHO, $200 for a 44P-170 is a steal.  Jump now! ;)

I've got a rack of 9076-260s (basically 43P-260s in an SP-rack 
formfactor), and am soon to get some real 43P-260s.  Personally, I like 
those things much better than, say, an Ultra 30 or Ultra 60.  The 
memory bandwidth on IBM boxes is *amazing*, especially when you compare 
it to what Sun has to offer.

For example, with some memory-bandwidth bencmarks I ran called 'stream' 
on a Sun F6800 at work, I was getting 67% or so of the performance that 
I got on our 375MHz IBM POWER3-II SP nodes, which are around 5 years 
old now.

IBM is where the good UNIX hardware comes from. ;)

/me ducks and runs

Pat
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