[plug] Computer Angels Sale Time

[Craig Ringer]

On Sat, 2005-08-06 at 08:56 +0800, Mike Holland wrote:
> Craig Ringer wrote:
> > On Fri, 2005-08-05 at 15:32 +0800, Harry McNally wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>Cyrix MediaGX 200MHz CPU,
> >>32MB SDRAM in one of two SDRAM slots,
> >>16MB DiskonChip running Linux 2.0.something with $some_apps,
> > 
> > 
> > Specifically XFree86 3.3 (XF86_SVGA only), Netscape 4, a terminal
> > emulator, an ICA client, possibly other remote service clients, and
> > that's about it.
> ...
> 
> Is there any way to configure these boxes?
> Can you easily edit config files on the 'DiskonChip'?

Yes. The admin password will be provided with the system, and lets you
get a root prompt to do whatever you feel like with the system. Be aware
that if you break it, recovering it might be hard without something else
to re-write the DiskOnChip.

They have a built-in configuration program that'll let you do things
like set them to query an XDMCP server on startup, too.

> What about an automated process to telnet in, mount an NFS fielsystem,
> load driver modules (for the ISA & PCI slots), start daemons, etc. ?

You could just write some rc scripts for it. When it comes to driver
modules, the 2.0.x kernel will be an issue. Ditto daemons - I couldn't
compile binaries that'd run on it even on a Woody box - they aborted
with "kernel too old".

NFS is supported, though.

> I guess 200MHz is a bit slow for streaming video, without adding 
> hardware mpeg decoding?

Probably. It depends on the actual grunt of the CPU, the X server in
use, and what hardware acceleration the X server can use. I used to play
DVDs fine on my old 300MHz laptop (*NOT* my current one), so depending
on the video codec and bandwidth, and what you can do in terms of
upgrading the kernel, I wouldn't write it off.

--
Craig Ringer