Linux P133 webserver advice please.

I have a spare P133/ 64/4gb hd system here that i wish to use to learn some linux. HAs a realtek network card in.
I think i would like to set it up to run linux and apache and use it as a webserver, with php and mysql.
I think a non gui would be easiest, and i want to setup as much as poss remotely, because i dont normally have a monitor on it, and i want to learn some ssh / telnet.

Is red hat a good distro to use - if so what version?
Can i install any control panel software eg cpanel /ensim
Will the specs above be ok, just for learning.
I also have an lcd on this box, i could set that up as well using the linux sw i forgot the name of.

Is this a good exercise to do to learn some linux/webserver type things? I have tried linux on desktop breifly a couple of times, and use a couple of linux webservers.

Any help or advice much appreciated.

 

I personaly use E-Smith SME server on my older serving boxes with prety nice results. They are running "headless" (no monitor/kb) and I administer them through the http based interface and putty/ssh.

Version 6 beta 3 runs prety nicely on my P166, and like a charm on the P2 350 and P3 600. On the not-so-ancient machines, I can even run gameservers (Quake 3) with good results.

There are other distros that can accomplish all that E-Smith does, but this is fairly easy to set up and fairly easy to use (as long as you know a little about how Linux works). Heck, I even have distributed computing software installed and running on them, and I am not exactaly good at that sort of thing

I have talked myself into attempting Gentoo sometime soon, even burned the ISOs. I'm slowly turning into a Linux geek

 

Cheers.
I have heard about that before, others have said it is good as well.
I take it i can install additional programs etc with no probs?

I may wait, i should be getting a Celery 333 /128 soon, and i might bung a big hd in and use it as a file server.

 

Yes, additional programs are no problem, as long as you know enough Linux to install them. The E-Smith server is based off Redhat 7.3 I believe, so it isn't all that hard

A Celly 333 would make quite a nice file server. I have a P2 350/96 doing the same job, along with a 80gb hdd

My 166 is a mail/webserver, and only has 64mb of ram.

With E-Smith, I wouldn't think you would want Ensim on it, honestly. The web based configuration panel does most of that for you

 

Thats great.
Will try and find some time to get this celery going then. Thanks for your help.

 

Yep, no problem.

If you need any help with the process just let me know, and I'll see what I can do

The e-smith forums are prety good with problems, I have called on them many a time

Good luck

 

I've been expermenting with ClarkConnect linux..

http://clarkconnect.com/


Does routing, firewall, webserver, ftp, samba, dhcp, etc, etc..

will run on any pentium class cpu with a 1gb hdd and 64 mb of ram.. All admin is done by SSH and the web interface..

-scoob8000

 

<thread hijack>
The other day I found some p166 and p200 chips and a couple of mobos, and I'm fed up of testing things one apache/php/mysql on wind0ze (because it's crap) so I was thinking of using some of the old hardware I found and building a little linux server for me to test things on.

Dosent need any routing facilities or firewall because it won't be connected to the internet, just needs to run apache, php and mysql.

Just needs to run on the above hardware (think I've got a sheadload of ram somewhere) and be nice and easy to setup.

All my online servers run redhat so I thought this would be an ideal choice for me to install for testing things on, but will it run on such old hardware? or is there anything else that is easier to setup?

Thanks
</thread hijack>

 

i really don t know how mysql will handle at low proc speeds. if you can bare untill it feeds you the recordsets(and that may take a time) it should be ok to use those 'ancient' boxes
for redhat...try getting one of the older 7.2 7.3 versions and install them without xfree and any x related software...it should work...i think the latest version will work too but don t try anything 'windows' related

 

you could also try the gentoo linux that everyone is talking about on thiese forums...i checked it out and i saw it supports mysql and other db enviornments and the optimizations that they say are built into it should make it more workable on a p133
cheers

 

Got a 2.8ghz P4 heading this way so I'll use that

 

that would be a WAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY to good configuration for what you are going to use it...

 

Not costing me owt so

 

deadrat is rpm based, and hence horrible. clarkconnect/e-smith are deadrat based, take a guess.
if you're gonna be using slow hardware, use something with less bloat, slackware is my fave. debian is ok, but the software tends to be out of date. gentoo is fine, but takes a long time to set up, and offers no speed benefits. slackware just works i run it on several web servers, mail servers, gateways, my desktops, my laptop.... everything. whenever i try another distro, i always come back to slack. it just rocks

 

It rocks, but is a pita to get set up and configure. It all depends on your knowledge and time.

But if you're going to be using a 2.8GHz P4, why don't you use something like Gentoo, can't let all that processing power go to waste

 

yeah...it s a pitty to have that p4 power go to waste
you might as well have a vmware supported os on it with vmware and run a bunch of web servers on whole lot different configurations in parallel on virtual machines...that would at least make a use for that proc

 

/me slaps everyone into using Slackware

Everyone except Lucifer of course...

 

my experience has been like this:
winlinux :d
tried to make a debian router(failed and never thought of touching another linux for some while)
e-smith
redhat for some time
slackware after the first time i saw it, i only used slack
openbsd(which i am curently using) za best
/me goes to see if there s a new version of obsd available

 

gentoo being faster is a myth - in several sets of benchmarks i've seen, it performs worse than a standard distro. other than tidy package management, it has little going for it.
bsd anyway seems to do no more than slack, but takes more efford. never got on with it.

 

Lucifer...i really got on fairly quick with slack and i got even faster with openbsd. i can't tell you many advantages over slack because i still like it, but for one, the traffic shapeing in obsd is included already in the packet filter(which i think is more flexible and poerful than iptables) while in slack you will put some effort to bring it to a functional form. also, it has the ports tree from which gentoo s package management was inspired.

/me is an addict...don t throw stones at me...all my opinions are from the command line point of view