[PLUG] FG server versus portable drive

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Tue Jun 17 16:57:32 UTC 2008


On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:48:40 -0700
Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com> dijo:

> On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 09:33:59PM -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> > 
> > I don't mind sharing a bit in the expense of something like this.
> > However, I have to say that I do not understand what y'all are
> > proposing and why it would be better than a USB disk. What would be the
> > transfer rate from the server?
> 
> Alternative USB:  Storing the distro library on John's USB drive:
> 
> A1) Advantage: John knows how to do this, and is willing to do the work.
> 
> A2) Advantage: Nothing to negotiate with free geek.
> 
> A3) Disadvantage: The number of distros would be limited to what fits
>     on the 60GB drive.  That is actually not very many, especially if
>     some are DVD distros (we will see more of those in the future).
> 
> A4) Disadvantage: John might forget to bring the drive, or might lose
>     it, or drop it.  Back to square one.
> 
> A5) We would be burning most of the CDs at the Clinic on John's laptop.
>     There are better uses for his time.

No, it is a USB drive, so distros can be burned from anyone's computer
as long as it has a USB 2.0 port.

> Alternative Server:  Distro library on a server at Free Geek:
> 
> B1) Advantage: We can store a LOT more distros on a fixed server with a
>     big disk.  I would like to store all the Redhats and Fedoras, Debians, 
>     Ubuntus (various flavors), and OpenSUSE and Slackwares, in time.
> 
> B2) Advantage: We can make potentially it an update mirror, also.  Ubuntu
>     likes to do updates, and it would save a lot of bandwidth if we could
>     do that locally.
> 
> B3) Advantage:  Mucho bandwidth.  The local network is faster than a USB
>     link.  Desktop/server hard drives are faster than notebook drives.
> 
> B4) Everybody can access it, we aren't tying up John's laptop.
> 
> B5) Advantage:  We can set up a partially automated process, using a 
>     wiki page as a request page, to download more distros.
> 
> B6) Neutral:  We will still be downloading stuff, probably more stuff
>     than the burst of activity during the clinic, but we can run the
>     downloads during slack times at night.
> 
> B7) Disadvantage:  It will be running continuously, consuming power and
>     space and needing some maintenance.
> 
> B8) Disadvantage:  We will need permission from Free Geek, and there
>     will be folks that want to change/control what we do.
> 
> B9) Disadvantage:  It will be somewhat harder to set up the process
>     and the "add a distro" process will need a maintainer.
> 
> B10)Disadvantage:  It may be difficult to set up the mirror and 
>     update process to seamlessly work with standard Ubuntu and yum
>     update mirror selection processes.
> 
> B11)Disadvantage:  It will cost a few hundred dollars for drives.
>     I imagine we can get the rest of the hardware from Free Geek.
>     
> 
> I hope that makes my proposal a little more understandable.  Again, we
> can do the initial load on the local network at PSU from their local
> mirrors.

It is now morning and my brain is sort of functioning again. (Sort of
is the best it gets.) 

I now remember that I also have a 160 GB USB drive that I have not used
for years. It is the size of a thick hard bound book and needs a wall
wart. Not as convenient as my little shirt pocket 60 GB drive, but
still eminently portable. 



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