How To Create a Linux Network for Peanuts

securitas writes: LinuxWorld has the first installment of a series on how to go from being a Windows based shop to a Linux one." One of the article's points, one that I strongly agree with, is how overpowered the machines are that most people buy.

Comments

no kidding.

[No-op]

I agree with you completely... I read that and went "my god". why would anyone in their right mind consider using that technology again? I still cringe thinking about trying to maintain that stuff.

For that matter, the disgustingly low cost of decent quality 10/100 pci nics (netgear comes to mind- I prefer intel or 3com, but cheap is cheap, right?) and the low cost of cat5 or at worst cat3 really makes thinnet an insane concept. For that matter, having all those collisions is not really my idea of fun- investing in a few decently priced switches would improve his network performance by quite a bit. (there's such a thing as LATENCY, besides pure bandwidth :P)

It seems to me that the guy writing this article is some kind of nutjob just out of school or something, who sees a piece of crap PC and says "Hey! that'd make a great (DNS/DHCP/SMTP/whatever) server." and then he proceeds to build it, and go from there.

Now here's my take on it- if that guy worked for me, or I was hired to manage him, I'd fire his ass faster than you can say "GET OUT." people like that are dangerous, because they don't think about some of those important things... like stability, downtime costs, etc. I don't care of the bargain basement box was super cheap, I'd prefer to spend a few more hundred and be sure the damn thing will always run and be something I can get parts for if it breaks.

If I built my array of DHCP servers, or DNS servers, or something like that out of generic desktop 200-300mhz boxes (like he suggests) I would be gone. and I would deserve to get canned. to do that when you need to guarantee that things work is just blatantly retarded.