I want to try to setup a server on an old PC I found. Would it be possible to do so with a pentium II 350 mHz processor with 48 MB RAM? I'm pretty sure I may need to get a little more RAM but didn't know if I could skate on by without it. It was enough to run Windows and numerous programs so it seems that it could run a server with no GUIs pretty well. Anyways, I tried installing it last night but kept getting various issues. I'm going to try again today and hopefully I can get somewhere. I think the CD integrity was bad and various components would not install properly. My network card was not detected for some reason, so is there a way to fix that also? I erased the CD and burned the image at a lower speed so hopefully it will install this time. But, if my network card is not detected then I assume I will not be able to connect to install everything I need... right? All of this is completely new and I want to just mess around on this old PC before installing anything else on my newer PCs. I have a virtual machine that I play with but I wanted to try installing it since I have the chance. Any help would be appreciated, and I know I'll have more questions if/when I get it installed.
A lot of my PC's are old ones like this, about 15 of them run ubuntu, but with only about one which I bought the parts for do I have the luxury of running a GUI with. As for running Ubuntu without a GUI you should have no issues as long as you don't want to do anything major. Apache/FTP/MySQL/DNS all the basic stuff will probably go alright, but don't expect it to handle a big load. Running a GUI in my experience with ubuntu uses A LOT of RAM, on the one box I have a GUI it uses roughly 200MB so thats a no go. As for your NIC (Network Interface Card) either the disk is faulty or the card is dead, I would try another card if you can or try that card in another box if you can. Regardless of whether you can hook up to the net or not you should find ubuntu will come with the majority of packages you will need on the CD. Ubuntu in fact uses the CD as it's default repository when you first install it off CD IIRC. Thanks.
Oh ok. Yeah I figured the server should be small enough to run on that type of PC but it was saying recommended minimum RAM was around 64 MB. I guess I could get a little more but I didn't know if it'd be ok at 48. Perhaps it will. It did start installing in low memory mode, so I don't know if that means I'd miss out on anything, though... or if that's a bad sign from the start. As for the network card, it was working fine when I had windows installed just a few minutes before I partitioned the hard-drive. Like I said, I was just trying to rush through it and follow the tutorials. But, a lot of what I saw was not on the tutorial so maybe that's because I was in low-memory mode. I will try again later, when I get home. I'm anxious to dive in and get to breaking/fixing stuff. I'm not too worried about the GUI either. I think it'd be easier to use, but learning the commands seems beneficial... just more time consuming.
Well yes I think going without a GUI is a good way to learn, but you also have to be willing to RTFM quite a bit at first, at keep going at things when you get stuck. If it all possible, first off I would recommend running a box with a GUI just to get things sorted out... then run the box headless (no monitor, keyboard etc..) and just SSH into it, this will force you to use the CLI and thus learn commands faster but also means that you have the GUI to fall back on if you need it. This is how I did it, and in a matter of about a week I really had no need for the GUI when I first started, now I don't even bother with one As for low memory mode...i've never heard of it, can't do too much harm as linux really should run decently on anything, though I would pop some more RAM in if you can. Linux systems do use RAM/CPU but i find in the CLI you tend not to notice that ....even with the old boxes I'm running, they can get a little slugish once in a while but really it's fine.
Also, with regards to your NIC, is it old or new? All my old cards seem to work fine...then again the fairly recent ones seem to aswell . But really Ubuntu should detect the NIC through the setup with no effort required, if you have DHCP it will even auto connect you and test the online repositories, otherwise you'll have to specify the details before it does that. Any Idea what NIC it is? I guess you'll have to check when you get home eh? Might be worth checking if others have had problems with the card.
Ok awesome, now I'm anxious to get off work and get started on this again. I think I may setup the server on my virtual machine and install the desktop so I can learn the basics, like you were saying, with the GUI and work on my old PC without the GUI (so I don't have to worry about memory). Would you happen to know where to find most commands or even a place that would give specific details from start to finish? Although, there's no way to determine an "end" but I just want to install it and setup a server and then figure out how to host web and/or email and mess with PHP. Thanks a lot.
Well howto forge is definately a great source for howto's, there's various ubuntu specific documentation sites, for example ubuntuforums.org and a few others. I personally started to write some documentation for stuff I started to do, include a sort of newby guide, but the writing of those hasn't been finished. Feel free to take a look at what I have though, Guides such as setting up a webserver or a good strength firewall or a PPTP VPN. It is a little sluggish though as my link right now isn't the best and it is hosted from my place... http://uberhostau.ath.cx/forum/ Also, it displays terribly in IE so try and stay away from that
