11/30   [Probably deserves its own thread]
          I don't think I've ever seen an official upgrade proposal or
          a request for donation.  Do you have a pointer to either?
          \_ I could have sworn there was an official posting on
             this... I'll look around or post again.  Soda is gettin
             some dual P4 Xeon luvin (I have yet to figure out how to
             get them to burn a hole in the machine room wall, but I am
             definitely trying).  Ooodles of disk space and RAM come
             with it too.  Depending on how our finances look (ASUCk
             money, donations, etc), we are seriously considering
             offloading mail handling to another machine (and putting
             virus scanning into the mix to kill off some of that
             pesky virus-laden mail).  We are also looking to give some
             of the other servers face lifts (upgrades to somewhat
             modern technology like motherboards without ISA slots like
             a high-end PIII or something cheap).
             Everyone will be getting some quota love... maybe up to
             100-150MB (don't quote me on this, it isn't set in stone
             yet because we don't know how much disk we can buy or
             even what is considered reasonable).
             I'd love to give official specs on what we are planning,
             but those are changing because of finances. - jvarga
             \_ I think everyone else on the motd has asked already,
                but why dual Xeons?  It's a fine choice, apart from
                the fact that it runs warmer, slower, and is more
                expensive.
                \_ Why? It's a stable and proven platform supported
                  by a wide range of integrators (including Dell).  I
                  don't give a damn about  whether AMD is 15% faster or
                  slower as long as the reqs. above are satisfied.
                  Chances are you won't notice the speed difference as
                  CPU is just one of several components that impact it.
                  (not speaking for the CSUA though).
                  \_ As an organization living off the kindness of
                     others, I would certainly hope that the CSUA
                     is prudent with its spending.  Xeon is likely
                     not the best performance/cost trade-off cpu.
                     AMD64 is in IBM, HP, and Sun, I think, and is
                     just as stable a hardware platform.
                \_ We've all asked and have never been given an answer.
                  I think they pulled the choice out of their spleen
                  and have no satisfactory reason.
                  \_ Xeons are just cool.  They SOUND cool.  They sound
                     like ZENA, which of course gets all the comp nerds
                     all in a titty twister over the whole thing.
                     \_ Not to mention the NEAT-O Intel Inside sticker
                        you get with a Xeon box!
                      \_ It's Xena, foolio!
                  \_ We wanted to go with a dual CPU system.  This
                     leaves us with PIIIs, Athlons, Opterons, or Xeons.
                     PIIIs aren't worth buying, I've heard lots of
                     problems with the Athlon chipsets, FreeBSD has
                     been reported unstable on Opterons, which leaves
                     Xeons.
                     \_ Sounds reasonable to me.  I've had some
                        trouble with Linux on Opterons as well.  --PM
                     \_ This is no longer true with the 5.3 release.
                        \_ Hardware was purchased about a week before
                           5.3 was released. --njh
                           \_ That's a shame.  I am sure there were many
                              people here (me included) tracking the 5.3
                              release, and we could have given you a heads
                              up.