I just picked up an HP NetServer LH Pro for the low price of $30. It has dual 200MHz processors and 256 mb ram, there is a 10 gb ata drive installed(that i'm currently installing red hat 9 on) and 6x9gb 10000 rpm scsi drives. What would be a good usage for this? Net storage, mp3 server, humongous paperweight?
Thanks,
CM
It'll keep your house warm in the winter time
i've noticed that... and living in a dorm, thats a plus...
the search is currently on for a distro of linux that will successfully install/boot...
RH 9 was a nogo, nor was gentoo or knoppix
the search goes on
CM
That you got such a powerful machine for that low of a price. It took forever to find a P3 IBM NetVista Server 850MHz for under $300 USD. Then I traded it for a Pismo (my only PB that I own.)
Today, I got a K6 2 400MHz w/ 360MB ram for the ultra-low price of $0. It came from a coworker at my dad's workplace!! Right now I am typing this on it. I threw in a Laptop 6GB HD and a 4MB AGP Graphics card and it does everything that I would need a PC to do. Like, play iTunes, browse the Web (with FireFox of course www.mozilla.org ) Also, I can play a few games on it that I wanted to, but was unable to get the full features because it required a PC.
But, Congrat's!!! I say turn it into a server. RAID the drives and put it on a Gigabit network and use it to host games!!!
Or you could throw all your MPEG-4 or DivX movies on it and watch them from other computers across a network.
Why you went to such a lot of trouble to spend a huge amount on a network server you weren't going to use, just to end up trading it for a Pismo that you could have bought in the first place with less trouble overall? :s
Light duty webserver perhaps? They aren't useless for that kinda thing, it just wont scale amazingly well. it would also make a nice server for some types of older games(like ragnarok)
But i dont really see net storage.. with only 70gb of total storage(60 not counting the boot drive) might make an OK mp3's server if you dont have an amazing amount of mp3's, but its not the most power efficient..
Still, $30... wow...
Uniniversity surplus sale... thats where it came from. There were a couple of older HP servers ranging from 25¢ to $100. I picked the most powerful for least amount of money.
CM
I've got the exact same machine, less IDE drive, in my basement. Do you have the config CD-ROMs? I've got a set for "NetSever L Series", but I dunno if it is the correct set for that machine. I don't wanna screw it up by using the wrong CDs... BTW how loud is it? I've yet to power mine up in all the months I've had it. I got it a long time ago for just $20. It's dual P-Pro 200, 256MB, 6x SCA 9.1GB drives....
I dont have any of the cd's, but I do have the diskette (mine was inside the case in a static bag). The search is on for a compatible Linux distro, Slackware is next on the list.
It's a bit noisy, so I wouldn't put it where I sleep. It sounds like a jet taking off when it starts up and spins the SCSI drives up. Then it has a nice whooshing sound while it's running.
I currrently have netBSD installed, but I have VERY limited UNIX command skills. So, the search for a gui linux continues....
CM
On my Digital Prioris 6000MX server (4 200mhz PPros with 512k L2 cache each, 512MB RAM, 6 x 4.3GB SCA drives, dual 10/100 NICs), Mandrake Linux 9.2 worked on it. I tried 10.0 and it crashed during the installation. I have not tried 10.1 on it yet.
I've also tried to install Fedora Core 3, and it didn't like the perl module. I have yet to get any version of Fedora Core to work on anything, much less this server.
Unfortunately, the built-in video only has 1MB VRAM, so at 64k colors the max resolution is 800x600.
Cost: $0 - "Do you want this? We're going to throw it in the dump!"
If you are willing to run Windows, Windows NT 4 will probably run on it. That OS ran on just about every architecture except toaster.
The advantage of linux for me, being a poor college student, is the fact that it's free. Plus, I'm an adamant opponent of all things made by Evil Bill.
But if I dig up a copy of NT 4 and nothing else works, that may be the way I'd have to go.
(I had XP pro installed on it for a while before i started trying linux distros)
Or if anyone knows how to get a gui on netBSD....
FreeBSD sounds like what you want then. It's easy to install, includes X, gnome, kde, etc., has an optional linux compatability package, and is quite good overall.
I have a copy of NT 4 I can send you if you want.
Yeah, I think I remember seeing that floppy inside the case on top of the drive cage. Does that one let you reconfigure the RAID? I wanna pull out a couple or 3 of the SCA drives, and I know it's going to need to be told to create a 3 drive RAID.
The CD in the util set I have is labeled 'HP NetServer LH3 HP NetServer LC 3' and 'HP NetServer Navigator L.11.00' so I know it's not for this exact model, but I dunno how close it has to be to config the RAID card. Anyone have experience on these older servers? I would have gotten one of the nice dual Xeon 450 NetServers when I got my LH Pro, but those were all stripped. Noone seemed to think that 6x9.1GB drives could be very useful. I wanna take a few out of mine and put at least one of them into my Sun SS5...
You might try some of the steps on this HP Forums link. You might just need to update the BIOS and clear any settings from the Winders install.
When you boot up, even without the disk, there should be a built in RAID configuration utility option after the scsi initializes by pressing ctrl+M. This will allow you to stripe or configure the scsi RAID however you want.
well... hmmm
The slackware was a nogo and trying rh again was equally productive...
I might look in to mandrake, freebsd, other distros or ...duhn, duhn, duhn... NT
Does anyone know how to get to the KDE environment from the command line once booted into freebsd? i have it installed, and before i resort to win nt 4, i would like to try linux
Also, do y'all think that redhat 5 would work. I have a copy of that if necessary
CM
Have you tried startx or start x ?
Cheers,
The Czar
The command is something like startkde or go-kde, if I remember correctly.
well... i found something that works that's a little more friendly to me(Redhat 7.2, I've used it before.) I also dropped in a nvidia 5200 PCI 128mb to overcome the little problem of 1mb VRAM
I'll update you all as I get it up and running...
Thanks for all of your help!
CM
Hey, neato score you got. I gave away an old server to a poor friend of mine. It was also a dual pentuim pro but it has 392 megs of ram on it and a 10 gig ide drive in it. I gave it away becuase it was given to me for free.
I just finished putting together another server that was in the suplus pile headed for the dump, it was a dual pentium 3 600mhz server.
Why is this hp so weird when it comes to installing alternative OSs? The old dual pentium pro server I had happily installed anythign I threw at it (2 versions of mandrake, 10 and 9, and windows 2000). Are those HP systems somewhat prioperitery?
Well... The nvidia card allowed me to use all of the graphical installers on redhat9 and others...
I have given up on linux after 3 shots at RH9, twice at RH7, gentoo, slackware, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and collegelinux.(Yes, I realize that BSD is not linux, but it is an alternative OS)
The search is now on for WinNT 4.0, unless someone can explain to me why the RH9 disk #3 keeps hanging on the pkg of KDE core files. I've burned 3 different copies from fresh ISO's, but to no avail. Maybe I should use the Gnome DT instead.
As of now, I am looking for a copy of NT 4 or some advice on getting RedHat going.
Thanks
CM
Have you considered Windows 2000? It uses the same basic kernal as NT4 but is much more available and has much better driver support.
Does 2000 offer the advantages of being a server like operating system. I want to serve mail, nfs, ftp, and smb. Does 2000 offer that? If not, the search continues for NT 4.0 or for RH9 advice.
Thanks,
CM
Well, technically Windows 2000 is Windows NT 5.0, so I would say it functions just like NT4 but has added features all over the place. It's probably the best way to go.
thanks... thats what i needed to know
CM
Does anyone have a set of the HP NetServer LH Pro cd's they'd be willing to part with?
I've gotten corrupted nvram and bios and it says i have to have the recovery cd to fix that problem! Please help!
The machine wont let me install or boot anything unless I have these cd's!!!
thanks in advance -
CM
I have one as well. The Fedora Distro has some bug in the raid driver, so I have not been able to get fedora up and running.
I have 7.1 on it, the only problem was that X woudln't go on the installed video, so I have it in command line only.
This one is 1G ram, PII-400, with two 4G drives.
It's pretty fast, I guess the drives and ram do make a difference.
I have them set as RAID-0 striped, for a single 9G partition.
You can install XP pro on it, but you CANT install SP2 on a 4 G partition, or at least I wasn't able to. I had to un-mirror the drives, and stripe them instead.
The drives are fairly pricey, at least the ones on ebay at the moment are. I haven't tried yet to put an IDE drive on the cable with the CDROM.
I'd be interested in whatever CDs were supposed to be with it as well.
Inside mine, was a floppy that has some sort of factory diagnostics.
Got the EISA updater and bios updater, now XP Pro is installed...
Its a bit sluggish with 256mb ram, but im not going to complain, its finally something
CM
You may want to try a knoppix CD.
It's Debian-based, pretty good for hardware detection, runs well on antique hardware and can be run right off the live CD to try it out.
Also use the fact that you have +some+ system up and running to note chipset names, interrupts etc. for easier configuration if you need to manually configure anything with Linux later.
Thanks, already gave the knoppix a shot. I gave up on linux, too much work, not enough time. I just put 200 pro on it and all is well.
CM
Oh wow. 200 pro fan here too!
(snicker, just teasing you.. i know you meant win2k pro).
Guess I should preview posts a little more closely!
Thanks for the heads up.
CM