recomend a distro

happytechie

happytechie

happytechie

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Joined
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Right then, good people of OcUK linux I need me adistro to run as a test server at home. hardware will be a knackered old Dell P233 with a mere 64Mb of RAM.

Requirements are to host test web sites, so it needs to basically have what a hosting provider would provide, apache, MySQL, and any other stuff to allow me to configure it from a remote browser.

Not fussed if it has a GUI or not, command line is just fine, I need to be able to install and configure the OS and apache and then have the rest of the admin (setting up domains and sites etc) to be performed through some sort of web interface. The machine itself will move into a cupboard and run headless for the forseeable future.

As you can probably tell I don't really know what I need :D

If the distro in question doesn't come with one I'd like a decent install guide as well.

Thanks in advance

paul

edit it would appear that I need a <insert OS here>AMP install and freeBSD looks to be a good option for low spec systems, anyone care to offer comment?
 
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5 steps to success!!

1.) Install Debian *

2.) run command:
Code: 
apt-get install apache mysql-server php5 php5-mysql

3.) tweak httpd.conf/php.ini to your hearts content.

4.) behead it, throw box into cupboard.

5.) Enjoy.


*this may look a bit easier than it is
 
Dj_Jestar said:
5 steps to success!!

1.) Install Debian *
2.) run command:
Code: 
apt-get install apache mysql-server php5 php5-mysql
3.) tweak httpd.conf/php.ini to your hearts content.
4.) behead it, throw box into cupboard.
5.) Enjoy.
*this may look a bit easier than it is
Click to expand...

Debian sounds fine to me, why do you sugest that installing it 'might' not be as easy as it sounds?

Failing that I've just found a CD with Solaris 8 for x86 so I'm almost tempted to try that :D
 
Debian is not as automated as other distro's, and depending on your patience, might be a bit more than you would care for :)

Solaris is awesome, and perfect for the job tbh. again could be little patience-testing though :)
 
Mmm, tasty Solaris...


Failing that why not have a go at Gentoo? It'd be perfectly optimized for your task and it would have minimal overhead.

Also, Ubuntu server would run is Debian's too rough for you.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
Mmm, tasty Solaris...


Failing that why not have a go at Gentoo? It'd be perfectly optimized for your task and it would have minimal overhead.

Also, Ubuntu server would run is Debian's too rough for you.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if I can bear the pain of installing solaris again tbh, I've put that phase of my life behind be and am trying to forget about it.

Ubuntu's latest and greatest (6.10 iirc ) server system wouldn't install due to a lack of memeory which annoyed my a bit last week after downloading and buring 6 CDs for the thing.

Doesn't gentoo require me to recompile the kernel every time I add a package? On a P233 that might be a little painful. deb's only two Cds it would appear so I might go with that, is the install going to be really painful?
 
Gentoo has modules now, you'll still need to compile the source for the given application, but you don't need to recompile the kernel everytime. :)

Gentoo, Solaris, Debian, Slackware, FreeBSD.. any of those. All of those are available in minimal versions, all of those rock your world.

An example of Gentoo (moi) install from minimal took roughly 45mins (about 20mins of my actual time, the rest was compilation time) to get CLI up and running with Apache, MySQL and PHP daemons running, live on network.

Besides which, recompiling the kernel takes <5mins on my machine (2700+, 1GB)

portage is particulary sexy.. providing I have the USE flags apache2 mysql and php5, all will be installed, and started, with one simple command:
Code: 
USE="apache2 php5 mysql" emerge mysql php
 
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Dj_Jestar said:
Besides which, recompiling the kernel takes <5mins on my machine (2700+, 1GB)
Click to expand...

I'm sure it will only take about two hours or so on mine then (233 MHz 64 Mb :eek: )

If you're happy to assist when I [post questions I might have a go over the weekend. I'm off to download the CDs and manwells now.....

Cheers

Paul
 
happytechie said:
Ubuntu's latest and greatest (6.10 iirc ) server system wouldn't install due to a lack of memeory which annoyed my a bit last week after downloading and buring 6 CDs for the thing.
Click to expand...

did you download 1 ubuntu ISO and the rest porn or something?!
 
happytechie said:
Debian sounds fine to me, why do you sugest that installing it 'might' not be as easy as it sounds?

Failing that I've just found a CD with Solaris 8 for x86 so I'm almost tempted to try that :D
Click to expand...



Download Solaris 10- a very tasty OS
 
Arch Linux.

I run it on my Laptop, Dell Latitude LS PIII 500Mhz Coppermine, 128MB SDRAM, 10GB IBM TravelStar, 2.5MB NeoMagic256AV.

Does what I want it to do, and not very difficuilt to use. Does have a good guide for setting up IIRC.
Otherwise NetBSD would be a good bet.
 
fumbles said:
Arch Linux.

I run it on my Laptop, Dell Latitude LS PIII 500Mhz Coppermine, 128MB SDRAM, 10GB IBM TravelStar, 2.5MB NeoMagic256AV.

Does what I want it to do, and not very difficuilt to use. Does have a good guide for setting up IIRC.
Otherwise NetBSD would be a good bet.
Click to expand...

well it was all going so well :(

I booted into the install CD (live thingy), downloaded my tarball (stage3-i686-2006.1.tar.bz2) uncompressed it, downloaded some portage thing (portage-latest.tar.bz2 ran and uncompressed that, looked at the compile options but pretty much left them as they were, did some mirrorselect stuff, copied DNS and mounted some filesystems according to the gentoo handbook.

Now I was ready to chroot into the new enviroment....


chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash which I presume means to run the bash shell with / effectivly pointing at /mnt/gentoo

this just comes back with Illegal instruction which struck me as a bit odd, anyone got any ideas?

TIA

Paul
 
Hate said:
did you download 1 ubuntu ISO and the rest porn or something?!
Click to expand...

nope I lied, Edgy Eft was only one CD, fedora core was the 6 CDs neither of there installers would boot very well. I like the idea of installing from a live bootable CD that gives you a real filesystem and commend line.

and as for porn :eek: I'm a married man I'll have you know.

Paul
 
happytechie said:
well it was all going so well :(

I booted into the install CD (live thingy), downloaded my tarball (stage3-i686-2006.1.tar.bz2) uncompressed it, downloaded some portage thing (portage-latest.tar.bz2 ran and uncompressed that, looked at the compile options but pretty much left them as they were, did some mirrorselect stuff, copied DNS and mounted some filesystems according to the gentoo handbook.

Now I was ready to chroot into the new enviroment....


chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash which I presume means to run the bash shell with / effectivly pointing at /mnt/gentoo

this just comes back with Illegal instruction which struck me as a bit odd, anyone got any ideas?

TIA

Paul
Click to expand...
hmm.. that usually means you have the wrong CFLAGS settings, have you checked you have the right flags for your hardware?
 
wow fast responce, I've been reading some docs on the forums over at gentoo and I'm not actually sure if I've got the right stage file for my machine. Is a Pentium MMX 233 a i686 ? it was the only stage3 tarball that I could find.

I may well have the wrong flags for the compiler options, I have

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

thanks again
 
Hi HT,

I'd have thought a Pentium MMX 233 would be classed as a 586 rather than a 686 (686 is P2 upwards). In this case a i386 kernel and flags would be more suitable. Is there not a generic i386 stage3 tarball available? Sorry Im not very "up" on gentoo these days, havent used it in about 2 years!
 
possibly, I couldn't find one at the time. there defo wasn't one on the UK mirror service's mirrors I'll have a search for one and try again, do I have to start over from the beginning or can I delete some stuff and try again?

If I have to delete stuff where is it and what do I need to remove. I can start agin if needs be.

Paul
 
right it looks like P233 is too old for current gentoo without doing a stage 1 install which sounds hard. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-512503-highlight-i386+stage3.html

Any other distro recomendations for my hardware?

If a stage 1 install has full instructions somewhere then I'm game for that, I'll keep on reading the docs and see what I can find out....

failing all this could I run a LAMP system from a live CD just using the local filesystem for storage or would that be a silly idea?
 
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