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Gateway Linux Microserver
JeffRC wrote to us with a new machine from Gateway that looks remarkably like the Cobalt Qube. The device apparently runs Linux, with Apache and SMB. Update: 12/08 02:15 by H :Well, I am an idiot. If you remember, I had posted a story that GW and Cobalt would be teeming up - I guess this is the fruit of their alliance.
So, you think I can customize my Cobalt to run BackOffice 4.5??
-- "Big Brother is Watching..."
How would I get to this "Microserver" page? I get the impression that this product is
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Yes this is a repackaged CobaltQube. Check out the old /. story here. I know this is almost two months old and you see a lot of submissions, but god guys your memory shouldn't be that bad. This means you Hemos, since you posted both of these.
I submitted this as a story, but it was rejected.
I believe it's very interesting and demonstrates the Linux stock craze in the markets very well.
Check this out:
A bunch of people on Yahoo chat boards touted a company called Perle Systems; which makes I/O cards and equipment, as the company behind Perl. Thousands of crazy day traders flocked to buy the stock just because the ticker symbol is PERL and they thought it was Linux-related, and the stock is now up 200% in one day.
Go check the stock "PERL" if you don't believe.
--
BluetoothCentral.com
A site for everything Bluetooth. Coming in January 2000.
Zigbee Central: A Zigbee weblog
Probably a combination of marketing and distribution. We all know it isn't their customer service that'll convince anyone to buy one.
The sad thing is, Gateway's marketing will likely succeed in pushing these things -- one would hope that people buying servers aren't the same idiots impressed by a spotted cow box, but alas we know how futile that hope is.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I bought gateway (celeron)in april and it's my linux box right now. Got rid of win-modem (it didn't say winmodem anywhere on www but when i got it i realized). Everything works. Vid, snd everything!
what does Caveat Emptor mean?
Insert mind here.
Cobalt Qubes have been designed to be small webservers or corporate intranet servers, not megaboxes that can serve up 100% dynamic webpages while cracking RC5 keys. A small web/intranet server doesn't need a whole lot more than 64 megs of ram and an amazingly huge hard drive. Their selling point is that you can drop it into your network and it works, not to mention it has an HTML administration interface that is a good idea. I do think these boxes are really overpriced, if they were sold for abour 900-1000$ I would find them a good deal more attractive.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I was expecting the server to be about the size of a monitor, but in the spec sheet it says it is _7_ inches on a side! For that amount of desk real estate you get a lot for your money!
Has anyone looked into building their own miniserver? Intel has the microATX motherboard format. I'd like to get a dual processing Celeron in a Sony Vaio form factor. Turn the CD/DVD on its side and the box doesn't need to be that wide. Throw out the ISA slots, floppy drive(CD boot), parallel, serial and PS/2 connectors and save even more space on the motherboard. 4 USB ports with Firewire would give it plenty of expandability.
-Mike
You sure your thinking of Gateways? All desktop systems sold by Gateway comply with AT, ATX, or other form factor standards. Rarley is everything integrated, and when it is, the integrated stuff can be disabled when a new card is put into the system. If you look, the only non upgradable systems Gateway sells are the All in one Astro, and the Profile 2. (Both can be upgraded, just Gateway won't help in the process).
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C'mon. Think about it. How cool would you be if YOU had a purple cube show up in a COW BOX! Show your friends! Impress your neighbors when you bring that sweet box to the curb!
- Dual eth0. about time! These will make great NAT/firewalls.
Uh.. Are you sure you don't mean eth0 + eth1?They've spent years of research and thousands of hours of marketing effort to decide that the case should be... Black!
Seem to be more expensive than a Qube too, though they give you a wee switch with the box.
Deleted
It depends on where you applied. Since Gateway dosen't ship Linux on most computers, why would someone in the department supporting these systems support Linux? If a client called, and got help from one person, they would begin to expect it all the time. Standards on what is supported in tech support is a good thing.
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The chip is a low power R5000 range MIPS chip, not a raging R10000/R12000.
I use one at home. Nice little boxes. They're fast enough and cheap.
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You're not supposed to customize it. If you want to customise it, you're buying the wron box.!
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That's the point!
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It's an R5000 range, but not terribly quick. You can squeeze a couple of hundred Mb in.
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ftp://ftp.cobaltnet.com/pub/contrib/misc/borgqube. gif
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A bit old, but - IT'S AN APPLIANCE PEOPLE!
Deleted
1999-12-8 19:15.0.0
..
[B] --Andover.Net IPO priced at $18, opens at 47 1/2
Offtopic? Yes, but
send + more == money?
Has anyone else noticed that the only things you can configure on this are the number of ethernet cables you can order with it and the service plans you want? I wonder if they have just not implemented the config. page completely yet, but I would be a lot more impressed with this mini-server if I could change the specs on the box, to make it somewhat less of a mini-server.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
You can also knock off $7 if you don't want ethernet cables.
And people wonder why i read with a -1 threshold.. heh *shakes head*
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
In the end, I decided that, of the two evils, hanging precariously on the edge of oblivion by my fingernails was more inviting than having anything to do with them.
P.S. Does anyone want to hire a Linux geek?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Looks to be $200 cheaper than a similar model direct from Cobalt, but with a larger hard drive (10GB instead of 6.4GB). Gateway however, may have used cheaper drives. Caveat Emptor. I suspect that Gateway's deal with Cobalt was to be able to use the same form factor as the Cube as well as the software setup. This to avoid a suit ala the Apple iMac v. eMachines eOne fiasco. Viva la choice however.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
Anyone know what kind of Ram it takes? Or what the max. you can stuff into it is?
--Hired Net Grunt
...on the page in the story. It isn't obviously a link, but if you go to the customisation screen it obviously is.
You get this BTW
Microsoft® Windows® 95
Microsoft® Windows® 98
Microsoft® Windows® NT
Microsoft® Windows® NT® Server
Microsoft® BackOffice Small Business Server
Microsoft® BackOffice® Small Business Server 4.5
;-)
Every man for himself, all in favour say "I"
The agreement between Gateway and Cobalt was mentioned in this story, posted October 13th.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Please qualify your statement that Dell does not use standard components.
I support 75+ Dell systems and can easily swap drives, NICs, video cards, sound cards, etc. I have found nothing "non" standard in the systems worth mentioning.
The Dimensions, as far as I can tell, are completely off the shelf components, or OEM versions of them. The Optiplex units, I believe use a special form mother board, but everything that plugs into is not special.
One thing of complaint has been on the servers. The servers have all required processors sold by Dell. I cannot buy a processor from anyone else or the servers complain that the stepping is wrong. Pissed me off severely as the cost for a second processor from Dell was more than twice the cost of that processor from anyone else.
Cobalt Linux release 4.0 (Fargo)
Kernel 2.0.34C50_SK on a mips
Of course this is just a "normal" Qube2 not a gateway one but it's a cutey nevertheless. It needs to be said however that the /.'er could achieve Qube results with a penguin computing box and webmin as well - just not as cute =) - And occasionally we need to present to the "Board" =)
Did anyone happen to glance at the on site installation charges?
I couldn't believe it. These things are a breeze to setup and anyone who needs help with it should not be allowed to reproduce.
Says it is for the microserver and x workstations. The workstation service features this:
Features
A Workgroup Installation Service includes the following:
Remove purchased systems from their packaging
Oh, they slay me. Only $288 for the server and 2 workstations. I hope they dispose of the boxes properly.
You can spend a few hours building your appliance, and then spend the next couple of days configuring everything from ipfwadm to samba and apache, and continue to configure it via telnet and vi.
Or you can be someone who knows something about networking but nothing about Unix and buy one of these and have a working NAT box, firewall, workgroup webserver, Windows/Mac fileserver, IMAP mailserver and majordomo box up and running in ten minutes. No joke.
Cobalt's boxen aren't cutting-edge from a software standpoint (they don't use LDAP, no PHP preinstalled on the webserver, etc.) and if you want a general-purpose Linux server, the MIPS CPU can be a minor hassle.
But they have done an incredible, genius job of gluing everything together with seamless web-based configuration, good documentation, and a fuss-free experience. If you want an infinitely flexible system, or want to use it for things it wasn't meant for (databases, XWindow app hosting, etc.), it's a bad choice. But if you're going to use it for what it's made for, it's an absolutely wonderful gizmo.
In sum, unlike a general-purpose server, it's a real appliance, which means it's as easy to set up as a videogame console. I started a new job with a smallish company and discovered they had an unprotected network and no email, and I didn't have time to spend a couple of days building and configuring all the services on a generic PC or server, so I ordered a Qube. I was blown away. They deserve all the accolades they get.
And given the time it saves and the sysadmin burden it gets rid of, it's a bargain.
Only problem is when you add a news server, web based email and try to run your backups at the same time.
Deleted
You're thinking of the accursed Packard Bell, not Gateway.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
Not a super powerful R10000 or R12000, but fine for what it does.
Deleted
It's a StrongARM CPU. That is to say, a much cleaner and more efficient architecture than the bodged-together x86. However - this particular ARM has sucky (nonexistent) FPU performance. But you don't need floating point much for a web server...
The good thing about this box is that it's "fire and forget". You take it out of its package, plug it in, upload you web pages, and leave it do its thing. If you a company paying Western world labour costs, it could well be cheaper to get such a preconfigured unit than pay someone to put together a commodity PC.
10 out of the 11 Linux boxes here are running on Gateway kit. We've haven't had any problems in getting Linux to install or run - except for the PIII G6-450 I'm typing on now, and that was with the Video card.
In the end, I found that Suse 6.2 had an X server that worked with the card, and it's run flawlessly ever since.
Put it another way, before I had Linux on this box, I had NT on it (yeuch). I've now got NT running in a VMWare window all the time now, and it seems to be faster than when it only had NT on it. Spec: Gateway G6-450 PIII, 256Mb ram, 8Gb HD.
Anyhow, next week, I'm installing Suse 6.3 on one of our Gateway Server's here, so it's going to be fun (the rest are normal PC's).
Java gaming nut - http://www.retep.org/ or for the rail http://uktra.in/
What do they use for collaboration for instance.
I based that statement on my experiences with a couple Optiplexes we had. I acknowledge that the Dimensions are a different story, I like those just fine.
The problem I had with the Optiplex came when I wanted to add a simple ISA 2-extra-serial-ports card. In order to get that thing to acknowledge the devices, I had to boot with a special BIOS utility disk and endure some silly process to tell it I had put a card in. This seemed like gratuitous non-standardness to me. This is the kind of thing that can turn into a half-day problem when the PC is two years old and the manual is misplaced. (Who needs the manual to put a card in?) Anyway, there's a happy ending - I'm safely out of desktop support now, and nobody can make me go back.
They are probably talking about dual speed 10/100 here instead of more than one ethernet connection. Else they probably would have said "2 10/100 ethernet adapters". I have not seen two port ethernet cards (I have seen 4 port ones though).
Since this has a 56k modem on it, that is probably meant to be the outside interface.
I guess I'll put the rest of my comments here:
Linux 2.0: I hope you can upgrade this w/o voiding the warrantee. (assumtion:linux=kernel)
No option for upgrade memory: does not bode well for future expansion.
no secure shell...
use a gateway lately? been around when the hardware pukes?
and you can get a much better deal building it yourself.
Same for 5 port eth0 switch.
a 5 port eth switch.
As you will see if you examine closely, one gateway machine does not a cobalt qube make
The marketing drivel on the page says that this thing is "An Exciting Concept"...
Um, is it just a concept, or is it an actual real product?.
I also noticed it's running 2.0. Shouldn't they try something a little more recent? Most of the kinks have been ironed out of 2.2.
just repackaged w/ Gateway brand. Apparently Cobalt and Gateway have some sort of deal going on..duh
I feel Gateway has waited way too long in offering some kind of Linux powered server. Its a step in the right direction.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
http://www.cobalt.com/about/press/1999/991012.html
It looks like the Cobalt Qube because it IS the Cobalt Qube. This story has been posted before!
It list its OS as "Linux 2.0 operating system". If they partnered with a specific disto, you know licencing would require that they trumpet it from the rooftops. Did they actually develop their own distro? Go Compaq!
Too bad they can't sit online waiting for ANDN to pop up every day.
Congrats on open at 47 1/2.
-- jar
Ah, but the Malda does not notice that it is in fact the Cobalt Qube we have all grown to love.
Now, there must be a point to all of this. Is Gateway gonna sell it cheaper? Oh, please. Oh, please. Oh, please.
/me bounces up and down like a giddy schoolgirl on crystal meth.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
The Gateway machine is a Cobalt Qube. See the Cobalt press release for details.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
GATEWAY:
Memory 32MB RAM memory
Hard Drive 10GB Ultra ATA hard drive
$1299
COBALT:
Cobalt Qube 2 with 32MB DRAM and a 6.4GB hard disk
(Cobalt P/N: Q28 364 NAU) Price: $1,499.00 US. - QUANTITY
The Gateway is a better deal...
EverCode
From CNET news.com: Gateway taps Cobalt for Linux servers
Photos of bits of the past hiding in the present: afiler.com
$30 for an ethernet switch?! Now if only T1 costs would drop like that...
Funny, I didn't notice any of thst sort of problem while maintaining 75 Gateway systems over the past 3 years. Unlike Dell or Compaq, Gateways use very standard components and form factors. By the way, the only quality probs I ever encountered among those 75 GP and E series workstations were a few bad monitors and one hard disk failure. It doesn't get much better than that for commodity PCs, folks.
This isn't especially cheap, and if you consider what amount of information you get, you would be better off with a system you put together yourself. They don't even tell you what CPU it has ... "64-bit RISC Processor" - what's that supposed to mean? They don't know or what? And what does "backup utility" mean? That tar is included?
And as others have already pointed out, you can't configure it at all (other than saving $7 for ethernet cables - come on! is that a joke or what?)
I'm sorry, but this is really lame. The only nice thing is the way it looks. But frankly, I don't give a damn about that. It might by nice for some non-tech users to set up a network for a small company, but I am not sure if they provide enough info for a newbie.
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
thus the cubes
As somone else said, it's a MIPS chip. I think the distro is hand-made, more or less, by Cobalt. When I was inquiring about one a little while ago, the sales guy was hedging a lot about the distro. It prolly still has a 2.0 kernel due to the butt-pain of porting stuff to a newer one.
;)
Yes, it is overpriced, if you're a hacker type, but the value of this thing is more in the fact that you can drop it on the network and it pops up and works, and it has a lot of sweet configuration utils.
Config util screen shots ->
It takes up to 64MB of ram. The other issue is that people aren't sposed to think of this as a 'computer,' it is not designed to be used as your workstation - it's an appliance.
It's still overpriced, imho, tho.
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
...or is there a better solution?
I am about to get and ISDN line to my house (ISDN for 3 reasons: 1) So I can be ON my office network 2) My employer is paying for it and 3) DSL and cable modems are not an option in my area)
So anyway, I want to set up a fast ethernet inside my house, connected to the ISDN line. Would this gateway Qube server be the thing I'm looking for for this? Or can somebody suggest something better?
Also, does anyone know a good site for help on buying ISDN hardware?
Thank you for any help on this!
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I think Gateway needs to market a more scaled down machine. I, like many, run an older PC for firewall/gateway purposes. And like many older PCs, that PC is starting to fail. The hard drive worries me most, but I'm also seeing memory errors, fans are breaking, the graphics card is spotty. While I could easily fix every single one of these, tracking all the parts down is simply too time consuming to bother. I don't need 4.3gb of space, which is about the smallest HDD I can find, I need one. For reasons like this, I'd much rather just buy an entire new PC - I don't care about having the latest components, but support would be great, and getting to use Cobalt's GUI would be a treat. So, note to Gateway: market something in the $100-$200 "appliance" range. I'm sure you'd have lots of customers.
--
"Some people say that I proved if you get a C average, you can end up being successful in life."
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
All of Perl's numerics are based on double precision floating numbers. The machine ships with Perl 5.0.
Since we are diss-cussing Gateway..
http://cnnfn.com/1999/12/08/technology/gateway/
Ted Waitt stepped down today. Maybe he's going to RedHat...or VA...or Corel...
:-)
Mine's faster. $700 for:
... till they come out with a dual Athlon board).
Dual 400s, 128 Megs of ram, 18Gig hard drive...
Linux has all the room and horsepower it will need (for the next few months at least
Now there's an open source idea. Take the OpenPIC architecture and design a dual or *jizz* QUAD Athlon board.
You'd have my $$$.
I've been looking at both of the pages, and I can't seem to find any hard info on what processor that these things are using. Can you, as an owner, or someone else who knows, enlighten me on the subject? Just how powerful are these things?
Now if the makers of the Cobalt Qube got together and organised a licence from Star Trek you could create a box which looks like a Borg Cube and damn every nerd and his dog would buy it.
All I have to say is Gateway SUX REALLY BAD!!!! I don't give a shit. I will never purchase anything from them again. Oh btw, this is not becouse of 1 machine I got from them....I purchased 40...they all suck... Thanks for my vent!
I recently purchased a Gateway PC for Home/Office work and was told that they in no way, shape or form support Linux. It was almost a religious cleansing they tried to give me. This is not Linux compatable, neither is this, or this or this.... however, it all works great with WINDOWS! Ick! I went home, partitioned the drive, and put on Linux. There are hickups... but... it still works betters than M$. That was only a month or so ago... oh how the wheel turns. -- The Wages of Sin are reportable... so the IRS claims
- They just rehashed the Qube. Nothing new here.
- It's a fscking Gateway. Guaranteed to be trouble.
I haven't seen a Gateway box yet that didn't turn into trouble at expansion time. Want to add a new printer, scanner, video camera?, add more RAM?, more drive space?... God forbid you want to add a NIC! They do stupid stuff inside those Gateways to make them cheap.--
Una piccola canzone, un piccolo ballo, poco seltzer giù i vostri pantaloni.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
Similar, hell; from the small shots shown by the links, they look identical in all but color. The curved bit on the front is a dead giveaway. Could this be the result of some kind of deal between Cobalt and Gateway? Unless Gateway licensed the case design, or Cobalt is building these things for Gateway, I smell a lawsuit brewing. At least, I assume Cobalt's box is a custom design and not an off-the-shelf product from a big case maker.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
OK, so what OEMs still aren't selling linux boxen in some shape or form?l )
(btw - http://slashdot.org/articles/99/10/13/132216.shtm
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Other folks have already posted the press release about the deal, which looks like a Good Thing to me. My bad. Hey, Rob, ever thought about letting posters moderate their own posts down?
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
- Dual eth0. about time! These will make great NAT/firewalls.
- Less memory. I think. This is not really a huge issue for such a small machine.
- Bigger hard drive. 10 Gig is good for a *small* server. however, ours has only a 4, way too small. Course, our industrial linux box has 56 gig.
- Modem. Not sure how many pci slots this thing has. This should definately be an option, dual eth0's or modem. But that would make the config more complicated.
- Comes with a 5 port eth0 switch. This should also be an option, as most offices should have a real LAN already. it'd also lower the price. Plus, it's not like it can be added to packaging late in the game.
This is an excellent expansion for small businesses. instant NAT! `8r) Can't wait to see what other types of products they release! Course, I have a bunch of friends who work for Cobalt, so I hope they do great things.. hehGonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
What kind of processor is in this thing? It just says RISC? I would think they'd tell a bit more
From the specs if you click on operating system next to Linux 2.0 you get a wide variety of Micro$oft products (fragmentation) but no Linux info. Where do they post information on the distro?
I wouldn't mind having one to use as a little network server; the killer questions, from my perspective, are thus:
Can I run something like Debian on it? Or am I basically restricted to hacking on (and making cruftier) what Cobalt provides?
Note that Egghead/On-Sale have been auctioning 'em off for around $500 lately, which is rather more interesting than $1500...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
a beowulf cluster of these bad boys.
This is where Linux is really shining.
Small to medium webserving applications. It's flexible, it's cheap, you don't have to sell your soul for a NT or IIS license. Can do almost any kind of content out of the box. It slices, it dices, it can do perl!
Nice to see this kind of thing continuing to sell well, and priced nice too.
I went to the configure page and tried to add more RAM -- it appears that it's impossible to do so.
So, I started thinking. Why would someone want one of these things. What makes them cool -- or at least cooler than the network appliance boxes I can build out of cheap PC parts?
Can somebody help me on this one?
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/ 10/13/132216.shtml
funny thing is... Hemos also posted that one
he must be losing his mind..
Does anyone have real-world experience with a current-generation Cube? What's the performance of this compared to Pentium/Pro/II/III?