This is major league bullshit tho.

On linux, where the config file for a specific program is, can vary annoyingly greatly depending on what distro you’re using and sometimes the same config file exists in several places and somehow certain parts of the configuration parameters get taken from several of those files, so if you think you’ve found what the actual config file should be and remove the duplicates, suddenly the program uses defaults or doesn’t even work at all.

They have a secondary motherboard that hosts the Slot CPUs, 4 single core P3 Xeons. I also have the Dell equivalent model but it has a bum mainboard.

With those 90’s systems, to get Windows NT to use more than 1 core, you have to get the appropriate Windows version that actually supports them.

Now you can simply upgrade from a 1 to a 32 core CPU and Windows and Linux will pick up the difference and run with it.

In the NT 3.5 and 4 days, you actually had to either do a full reinstall or swap out several parts of the Kernel to get it to work.

Downgrading took the same effort as a multicore windows Kernel ran really badly on a single core system.

As for the Sun Fires, the two models I mentioned tend to be highly available on Ebay in the 100-200 range and are very different inside than an X86 system. You can go for 400 or higher series to get even more difference, but getting a complete one of those can be a challenge.

And yes, the software used on some of these older systems was a challenge in itself, but they aren’t really special, they are pretty much like having different vendors RGB controller softwares on your system, a nuisance that you should try to get past.

For instance, the IBM 5000 series raid cards were simply LSI cards with an IBM branded firmware.

The first thing most people do is put the actual LSI firmware on them so they run decently.

Oh, I get it. But a baseline HP Proliant from that era is just an x86 system barely different from a desktop today but worse/slower/more power hungry in every respect.

For history and “how things changed”, go for something like a Sun Fire system from the mid 2000’s (280R or V240 are relatively easy and cheap to get and are actually different) or a Proliant from the mid to late 90’s (I have a functioning Compaq Proliant 7000 which is HUGE and a puzzlebox inside).

x86 computers haven’t changed much at all in the past 20 years and you need to go into the rarer models (like blade systems) to see an actual deviation from the basic PC alike form factor we’ve been using for the past 20 years and unique approaches to storage and performance.

For self hosting, just use something more recent that falls within your priceclass (usually 5-6 years old becomes highly affordable). Even a Pi is going to trounce a system that old and actually has a different form factor.

You should replace that thing with something more modern. I had a 5000p chipset system someone gave me with dual quad cores and an assload of ram.

The shitty box idled over 400W. I went as far as getting low power ram and the newest CPU it would support that also supported frequency and power scaling and it still used over 400W on idle.

This while I had a Xeon E5 box that was only a few years younger that uses more in the neighborhood of 50W on idle and utterly decimates the 5000 series box in CPU performance.

You’re probably better of fetching some old Ryzen 1800x system of ebay for higher performance and leagues lower power consumption.

As for the raid, don’t use it. Hardware raid has always been shit and in modern Linux and Windows is as good as completely depricated.

Have to say, this is not the most convoluted way of testing a simple thing I’ve seen in my years, not by a long shot.

Yeah, since you can also use a different Kernel and end up with something that looks like a Linux distribution, anyone who has ever used common Linux distributions is instantly familiar with, while definitely not being Linux.

Well, the kernel is Linux and the OS is whatever the distribution or special purpose is called.

There is a distinction as Linux is used in far more than operating systems and at times is run with just the kernel and an application, with no possible interface between any user and application.

Problem is that most Linux desktop users have fuck all clue what Linux is all used for and wouldn’t know how to interface with 99% of all the linux running devices on the planet.

Exactly, it’s going to be Office 365+Windows in a single package kinda deal.

Probably with a mostly functioning Windows left if you stop paying, but no access to specific features or Office.

It’s just a way to get people to pay a few bucks a month extra for the Office 365 package, which in the long term culminates to getting full bank plus then some for Windows, instead of a one time flat fee people will then use for as long as they keep the system.

Most people I know use the same system/laptop for 3-4 years, some even as long as 6-8 years if the thing doesn’t break down.

The subscription will likely be setup so that you pay what you’d normally pay for a basic Windows Home (100-130ish) within the first 2 years (say $5 a month) and every year you use the same device longer than that, is just extra gravy for Microsoft.

But I doubt they’ll drop the simple license. There are to many devices where a subscription wouldn’t work and especially in this day and age, connecting the device to the Internet for any length of time is a big nono for the user/company.

We rather make a deal with a daemon.

I’ve been in IT all my life, starting in the mid 80’s. Got an extensive home lab and host pretty much everything you tend to use as SAAS these days at home too. Home mail, cloud, web based office suite, etc.

But for the “what if your ISP goes down”, well, then I switch to my neighbors ISP XD.

There’s dozens of ISPs of various sizes where I live and there’s neighbors representing 8 of these ISPs. I have access to all their networks (most of them gave access).

So if my ISP goes down, I switch to another one.

That said, I haven’t had an outage longer than 30 minutes in 5 years and the average time between shorter outages (quick resets to minutes long) happen 1ce a year or so.

There are some announced outages, usually once per quarter, for network upgrades and system maintenance. But generally, my ISP has a 99,99% uptime.