4/17    Now that those rat bastards at VALinux are getting out of the
        desktop market who is a reasonable alternative as a supplier?
        IBM? HP? Dell? Someone else? --dim
        \_ what was good about VALinux? there's penguincomputing.
           I don't know why you'd care, just install Linux on anything.
                                        \_ Just say no. If you must
                                           use PC hardware, at least
                                           install FreeBSD.     \
                                           \_ and deal with freeBSD?  fuck that.
                                              \_ Deal with what?  You're either
                                                 a troll, ignorant, or simply
                                                 deeply confused.
           what's so bad about PC hardware? it's cheap and fast _)
           hey, this is a good troll.
           \_ BIOS, crappy memory bandwidth, floppy disks, IDE drives,
              32bit PCI, ISA, bad power supplies, awful SMP performance.
              I don't think that I need to go on.
              \_ You do realize you can buy a PC with SCSI and PCI64,
                 right? SMP performance is partly a function of the OS.
                 Have you seen what kind of crap Sun is shipping these
                 day? Their low end boxes are IDE! --dim
                 \_ Sun is shipping this bottom-end server crap, the 280R:
                    redundant hot-swap power supplies with independent power
                    cords, hot-plug power subsystems, fibre-channel disk
                    drives, backplane has software-mirrored hot-plug boot
                    drives. 8MB cache. 8GB RAM. lights-out management card.
                    Free solaris. Now hook it up to the T3 external hardware
                    RAID array, GBIC cards, dual-ported 10K RPM FC-AL disk.
                    Max. multimode optical fiber length of 500 meters.
                    Two redundant loop cards per enclosure FC-AL circuitry
                    Two Power/cooling units per enclosure, Integrated
                    backup battery power, Redundant fans, Battery backup
                    for cache destage. Free Veritas. Yeah I agree its shitty
                    product. But your cheap PC will always be its bitch.
                    You can mass your million-man Red Army, but their few
                    precision jet bombers will blow you to bits.
                    So what if their products "suck", I'd like to take a poll:
                    if SUDDENLY TODAY, someone gave you choice of a FREE $1000
                    PC or a FREE $1000 SunBlade, which one would you take?
                \_ VA Linux sales were good at calling over and over and over
                   like clock work.  I always knew it was the first thursday
                   because that's when VA Linux sales would call.
                    \_ the SunBlade is a piece of shit.  The 280R, configured
                       with 8GB of RAM and a T3 RAID array, costs $90K,
                       hardly "bottom-end".  -tom
                    \_ You are nothing more than a shill for Sun. -ausman
                       \_ No, that's the top-end E280R configuration.
                          I just priced a $10,000 one on their site
                          (one CPU, one disk, etc..)
                       \_ A $1000 PC is a POS. A Sun Blade is not. I'd
                          take the SunBlade over even a $10K PC.
                       \_ The 280R *is* the bottom-end of the Sun server line.
                          It's a workgroup server. Max two CPUs only.
                          \_ are you stupid or just lying?  The bottom-end
                             server is the Netra X1, which costs an order
                             of magnitude less than the 280R, and is a piece
                             of shit.  -tom
                 \_ are you comparing PC servers to desktop machines? --jon
                 \_ Ultra 2, 2 300 MHz US2 Procs, 1GB Ram, Creator 3D
                    now that is a Desktop Machine (~ 2 - 3K now).
                    Or an Ultra 60.
                    I prefer real hardware to some cheap broken PC
                    crap.
                    \_ An Ultra 2 is a piece of shit these days. --dim
                       \_ Really? I guess that the 2 GB of RAM
                          it supports along with the 2 300 MHz
                          US2 procs are just no good compared
                          to your OC'ed Celli 933s. I'm so sorry
                          that your IO bandwidth and your memory
                          bus speed SUX, as does your SMP bus.
                          But I'll bet your GeForce2MX make up
                          for that in your "real world" applications.
                 \_ PowerMac G4 w/2x533 G4e's, 1 GB Ram, Ultra 160
                    drives, GEForce2 (or 3). Now that is a desktop
                    machine.
                 \_ P5-166, 96 megs RAM, 3 EIDE disks: 1.2 GB, 2.0 GB, 4.3 GB,
                    Matrox Mystique (the first one), OpenBSD, open air case,
                    300 watt PS, 1.44 diskette, 2 serial, 1 par, dual 10/100.
                    Rock solid!  Top that, kids!
                    \_ SparcStation 10, 1 SM61 proc, 272 MB Ram,
                       2 Barracudas, QFE, no framebuffer (serial
                       console only), OpenBSD CURRENT.
                    \_ p5-166?
        \_ Dell makes rather nice Linux boxen. Don't expect their
           Linux (software) support to be anywhere as good as VA Linux
           though.
           \_ Are you joking?  My research group ordered some computers
              from Dell and they SUCK.  We ordered the plane vanilla
              machines with Linux pre-installed and Dell installed
              unsupported video and network cards then dragged their
              feet when we asked them to fix there mistake.  I will
              never again by Dell.
           \_ VA has support? Surely you jest.
                \_ VA Linux sales were good at calling over and over
                   and over like clock work.  I always knew it was the
                   first thursday because that's when VA Linux sales
                   would call.
                   \_ I said support.