edhew@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew) (12/11/89)
In article <9375@microsoft.UUCP> stevesc@microsoft.UUCP (Steve Schonberger) writes: Dan Mocsny had previously written: >>Starting your own site is not really out of the question, if you have >>about $5k to spend (386 AT clone with 4 MB RAM + >120 MB disk), UNIX > >Now this is not such useful information. It's quite wrong. I run a >site of my own at home that I have less than $500 invested in. I had >it running for a while on a $400 dual-floppy XT clone running DOS and >UUPC. Although two 360K floppies were not enough space for me to take >a news feed comfortably, I could have done it if I kept the feed >small. Mail ran perfectly well on the dual-floppy system, and I >didn't come close to running out of space. I since added a disk for >about $80 (a controller at a discount store and a 10-meg drive that a >friend gave me after upgrading), which gave me enough space for what >is a _lot_ of news for one person. If all I had on it was mail and >news, it would still be almost empty. Methinks Dan was talking about a public-access UNIX site. You seem to be discussing a small personal machine. I suspect that you must be running a very tight expire on your full news feed, and perhaps your users might have a bit of trouble getting in on your multiple lines. :-) I'd hate to even think how long it takes you to uncompress and unbatch 120K incoming news batches with your setup. IMHO Dan's figure of ~$5K for startup is quite accurate, and after that you start spending more. [eg: I just put another 8 megs of RAM in this box, and am now looking for some BIOS that'll talk to my new scsi controller so that I can bring the new 380 meg drive online.] Now, if only Ma Bell would get that cable run for my 3rd phone line.... >Setting up the UUPC software was simple. I expaneded the UUPC ARC >file, created directories as advised in the readme file, and arranged >my mail and news feeds. My first link's uucp login script took some >work to set up, but the other ones were pretty much like the readme >suggested. Again, this sounds great for a single-user mail site. When you start adding users and downstream feeds you will discover some limitations. > Steve Schonberger microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.net Ed. A. Hew SCO Authorized Instructor XeniTec Consulting Services edhew@xenitec.on.ca -or- ..!{uunet!}watmath!xenitec!edhew