CentOS - Sep 2018 - OT: Linux recommendations for old Pentium PC

On Friday 31 August 2018 18:20:20 Warren Young wrote:
> You?re giving two very mixed signals here.
>
> ?Old Pentium,? as someone else said, can mean anything back to 1993, but ?4
> TB drive? suggests something far newer than that.
>
> I ask because that affects the expected energy draw of the server.  If it?s
> old, it could be 200 W or so.  If you?re using ?old? rather loosely, then
> it could be down in the double digits.
>
> Here?s why it matters:
>
>    https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/energy-cost-calculator.html
>
> At 12 pence per kWh ? typical for power in some places in your country,
> based on your TLD ? it?s going to cost you about 1 pound per watt consumed
> if it runs all day every day.  If it draws 35 W, that?s ?35/yr.  If it
> draws 200 W, that?s ?200/yr.
Hi Warren,

I had considered power consumption but only with regard that it is a small 
footprint system, both physically and in terms of processing power etc. 

I had not considered the lack of energy efficiency. The server has a MSI 
MS-9628 board with a Pentium M processor, and the one modern 4TB HDD.

There is one tiny fan in the PSU and another tiny processor fan on the CPU.  
From this I (possibly wrongly) assumed power consumption would be low.

It used to have 2 x 1.5TB drivers with software RAID until that died. 

I am still in the process of installing lubuntu so I don't know how
effective
it will be. I had considered putting Centos6 32-bit back on, but has been 
said elsewhere that's very near EOL. Having said that, some of my (soon to
be
replaced) SAMBA boxes are still runnning F9.

On Sep 3, 2018, at 2:30 AM, Gary Stainburn <gary at ringways.co.uk>
wrote:
> 
> ...Pentium M processor...tiny fan...assumed power consumption would be low.
You could well be right, but I?m a fan of taking measurements over guessing. :)

If you were in the US, I?d recommend either of these from personal testing:

    https://amzn.to/2NMWXJq
    https://amzn.to/2oyz5Oz

I wrote the review voted most helpful for the latter item.  You might want to
read it.

A clamp meter + line splitter is more fiddly to use than a Kill-a-Watt, but you
can use the clamp meter for many more things, so it?s a better overall value
unless you simply will not be doing those other things.

Neither of those will work for you due to US vs UK AC line connector
differences, but these two items appear to be roughly equivalent:

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01DSQ30FO/
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00H99EECU/
       plus:
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B075D512KM/

I?ve found the same clamp meter that I reviewed above, differing only in OEM
labeling.

I?m not too happy with my guess for the best line splitter, for two reasons:

First, I'm unfamiliar with your UK power plugs, so I don?t know if that?s
actually a UK plug.

Second, two of the reviews of that line splitter point out a design flaw that
you might care about.  I?d have passed it by if I could find something better on
the Amazon.co.uk site, but that is the best I found, alas.

You need a line splitter to do this test with a clamp meter, else you get a zero
reading since the electromagnetic field from the neutral line cancels that of
the hot line: you have to measure one or the other, separately.  It doesn?t
matter which one you measure: the current through both lines is the same,
differing only in direction, which is what we mean when we call something an
electrical ?circuit?.

Alternate plan: build a ?broken circuit:?

    https://tangentsoft.com/elec/broken-circuit.html

You can either make one for an inline current meter, as shown, or take the basic
idea to DIY your own line splitter.

Gary Stainburn <gary at ringways.co.uk> wrote:
>  I had not considered the lack of energy efficiency. The server has
>  a MSI MS-9628 board with a Pentium M processor, and the one modern
>  4TB HDD.
This means that you'll need a 32-bit OS, and that PAE might not be
recognized by the OS. Debian 9 32-bit would work; CentOS 6 32-bit
might not.

-- 
Yves Bellefeuille
<yan at storm.ca>

On Monday 03 September 2018 15:13:06 Yves Bellefeuille
wrote:
> This means that you'll need a 32-bit OS, and that PAE might not be
> recognized by the OS. Debian 9 32-bit would work; CentOS 6 32-bit
> might not.
It previously had Centos 6 on it, but I wanted to avoid that as it now has a 
limited shelf life. However, when I tried lubuntu the Bacula versions were 
not compatible. Now Putting Centos 6 32-bit back on and crossing my fingers.

I'm really impessed that the m/board recognised the 4TB drive