<p>i need the server to host websites</p>
<p>gonna take advantage of the free colocation caltech gives students at UGCS</p>
<p>That's not how it works at all. UGCS isn't a colo facility, it's the sporadically maintained and jealously guarded remnants of a discarded CS cluster, used only for House mailing lists and alumni websites. To put a server in UGCS, you have to bribe a UGCS sysadmin (of which there are three, who range from soulless to stark raving mad). The usual place for server colocation is under your desk.</p>
<p>what about safety? have there been computers stolen from dorms or is it generally safe if you just remember to close your door and not give out your pin code</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In general, things in public shouldn't get stolen. Computers, money, passports, and lots of other stuff are left in public common rooms for long term and they are safe.</p>
<p>The South Hovses before didn't have any access restrictions and so occasionally off-campus hobos would steal something in people's rooms; but that is very uncommon since everybody knows everyone else and a stranger would be suspicious. Also during summer when there are lots of summer students from elsewhere things get stolen sometimes.</p>
<p>chemist, I must agree. Linux is one of the most fun operating systems to try to install. I almost exclusively use Slackware these days; not everything works but, on the whole, I just feel more comfortable with Linux than Windows.</p>
<p>Good luck with your laptop; I'll be interested to hear the results.</p>
<p>Thought I could benefit from the price war between HP and Dell towards the end of summer. However, there has been little luck so far. Any suggestion anyone?</p>
<p>Yeah, don't buy HP, and don't buy Dell's Inspiron line. They both have a minor tendency to disintegrate.</p>
<p>I guess I forgot to post back here about the laptop. I've been busy lately with things.</p>
<p>I got the adapter and ended up bootstrapping gentoo on this thing. The process went something like this:</p>
<p>I took out the hard drive, put it in my desktop with the adapter, and booted from the gentoo install livecd. Then I put a base system on the hard drive and installed the software packages I thought I'd need.</p>
<p>For those of you who don't know, in bootstrapping you build the entire OS from source code. I set the global compile options to -O3 and the architecture to i686. This way I would have a faster system (not sure how much faster) and I can plug the hard drive into my desktop and boot, since both processors are i686. Thus major updates could be compiled in days on the desktop instead of weeks on the laptop.</p>
<p>Of course, bootstrapping means you have to do all the system configuration yourself. Including the hardware configuration. After a few weeks of playing with that on and off this laptop works reasonably well. Graphics, ethernet, mouse, sound, hibernation, power management, etc. all work. I still have to play with ACPI for sleep mode and get some sort of wifi manager to work on this, but those aren't too important.</p>
<p>So after all that work I finally got a nice shiny linux system installed. Finally I can relax.</p>
<p>At a LAN party the other day a friend of mine mentioned that he had a port replicator with a CD drive I could have used. If I'd known about that I would have spent 10 minutes installing Xubuntu instead of weeks of manual hardware configuration.</p>
<p>@$%@&@$%@<em>$#%(@</em>$#%(@ &#!)!#%*@#!!!!
(translate that how you want)</p>
<p>My luck should be taken out and shot. Repeatedly.</p>
<p>There are some Gentoo optimization tips at [url=<a href="http://funroll-loops.org/%5Dhttp://funroll-loops.org/%5B/url">http://funroll-loops.org/]http://funroll-loops.org/[/url</a>].</p>
<p>Actually, that page was mostly about crazy gentoo users. I did find some useful reiserfs stuff though, so thanks.</p>
<p>My favorite quote:
[quote]
now I can have gnome2.2 running using gnome-terminal to compile the latest j2sdk from source (nice -n 19)while browsing with mozilla while running e17 in a seperate login with two eterms and run Unreal Tournament at full speed (this with an apache webserver running for my dyndns pseudo-domain and a mysql for my answering-machine software for my isdn card-which keeps track of all incomming phonecalls and manages my telephone book app and ntfsd/sshd/dhcp server/squid)...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I heard we have to bring our own ethernet cables, how long do they have to be?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Actually, that page was mostly about crazy gentoo users
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Gentoo users scare me. </p>
<p>-Oren</p>
<p>Depends on how far from the ethernet port you want your computer to be.</p>
<p>Some of the crazier ones scare me too. I, however am just a lowly mortal who happens to use gentoo and is too lazy to switch to anything else.</p>
<p>Is there any chance of picking up cheap cables around campus or do we have to bring our own from home / buy them over there?</p>
<p>One more thing: What about wireless? Do we get any kind of reception in the dorms? Do people use wireless outside much? Is there any advantage to an 802.11 abg card as opposed to ordinary 802.11b?</p>
<p>I imagine a lot of people would have g routers. I'm bringing a g router. If you end up close enough to it, you can use it.</p>
<p>You could get an ethernet cable at Caltech Wired (located in the bookstore). It's slightly more expensive than office supply stores, but not insanely so.</p>
<p>The coverage in the houses is decent, though (in the north houses) is all personal routers. The coverage outside the cafeteria is good, though I'm not sure how it is elsewhere outside on campus.</p>
<p>I managed to find a bunch of ethernet that one of the labs threw out. If you look around, you might be able to find some. I prefer to make cables myself rather than buy them pre-made. I believe the EE stockroom sells it by the foot.</p>
<p>The official wireless network is 802.11g.</p>
<p>just long enough to reach the desk in your dorm</p>
<p>I am having an argument with my father regarding laptops.
Do I really have to have one, at least in the Fall term (after that, he argues, we could buy one cheaply on Christmas sales)?
If yes, could you please name the reason(s)?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>