Are the raq servers actually good for anything anymore?

Are the raq servers actually good for anything anymore?

yes, home server(s), i have 5.

but they are so slow and the OS is so limited

but they are so slow and the OS is so limited

They are fine to serve HTML/CSS.

suppose, shame they cant be used as small file servers :)

it depends on what and how you want to use them.
I have since stopped using them and now have more than 10 sitting in my room...

But from what I have done with them before, they can be file servers if you get a larger HDD, up the ram a little change the Kernel and modify the OS and basically spend more money than you are suppose to...

it depends on what and how you want to use them.
I have since stopped using them and now have more than 10 sitting in my room...

But from what I have done with them before, they can be file servers if you get a larger HDD, up the ram a little change the Kernel and modify the OS and basically spend more money than you are suppose to...

Wish i could get hold of your 10! :) I have always used them as they are small light weight and use hardly any power.. shame there is no modern alternative!

Hey,
one of my RaQ's (I have 8) is working as a torrent downloader with Torrentflux (http://www.torrentflux.com). It's upgraded with Strongbolt 1 OS.

I also have a RaQ 4 running the original RaQ OS with all the updates I found and a 2.4 series kernel. Just to play with it and test some modifications before upload them to my website.

Very happy with them, small noise, small power, and super nice looking!!!

Alberto.

I have 10 left from my RaQ days. Just pulled 3 from a cabinet last week that were perfect nameserver boxes, running djbdns/tinydns on Ubuntu. Ultra-reliable and rock solid. Absolutely ideal for the job.

Brandon

They're fine as long as you're not intending to deploy mission-critical materials. The old RaQ2's can be loaded with the NetBSD/Cobalt port, rather than having to use the vanilla Cobalt Linux OS which is horribly out-of-shape. The RaQ 3 and 4 series have a variety of loadable platforms, but keep in mind that these lil' guys were EOL'd many years back.

I have a few lying around for when I have some time to tinker around, but as mentioned, are fine for small web/dns/mail servers, maybe on your LAN at home...

i would love to get my hands on a RAQ or 2, have always been intrigued by them but never gotten my hands on one, if anyone fancies donating 1 or 2 let me know, lol

Are the raq servers actually good for anything anymore?


I was kinda wondering that myself. Actually what I am really wondering is why there is still a forum category for them? We've long since stopped using them and ended up just tossing them, as well as customer units as well.

Sun really did a fantastic job of killing a nice niche's product.

I was kinda wondering that myself. Actually what I am really wondering is why there is still a forum category for them? We've long since stopped using them and ended up just tossing them, as well as customer units as well.

Sun really did a fantastic job of killing a nice niche's product.

I love the look of them just like everyone here but I wouldn't say that Sun killed them off. There are PLENTY of great 1U servers that are low power and look nice. I say we keep them as relics of the old bubble and move on.

Raqs are always usefull => install blueonyx on it and you'll see ;-)

install blueonyx on it and you'll see ;-)

how do you install it?

just follow the tuto here http://www.mr-webcam.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=23

It rocks

suppose, shame they cant be used as small file servers :)

I run StrongBolt 1 on two XTRs (1GHz processor with 512MB RAM) as file servers using SMB. THey are RAID5 and run fine as home file servers. I have one set up with four 80 gig drives in it, the other with four 320s that I had laying around. They're a bit noisy, but I have them in a closet since they don't generate a bunch of heat. I used to run an intranet page that pulled in RSS feeds, local news and weather, but did a reinstall and haven't rebuilt it. I'm not that savvy with web, so it took a while to do initially, and I dread having to go through all that again.

Scott

I run StrongBolt 1 on two XTRs (1GHz processor with 512MB RAM) as file servers using SMB.

Scott

I mis-spoke. They both have 1gig of RAM...

Hi chemical ... could you explain me how you have installed with strongbolt RAID5 ??? the install only permit raid 1 ...

Honestly, I don't remember how I did it. I think I did the initial install with a single drive, added the remaining three drives, updated, upgraded to CentOS 5, and then made it RAID 5. I do know that I added a bunch of packages that weren't installed in BlueQuartz. That said, the system is down now anyway. I tried, and failed, a full reinstall. I was trying to reinstall and upgrade back to BlueOnyx, but for some reason it's not working. I'm currently running CentOS 5.4 and using Webmin to manage it.

Cause I just install my new xtr this morning under blueonyx this morning ... :p

Did you have any trouble? Mine would install, and after a few minor issues, wouldn't let me in via the SSH after the reboot, and the website was the default Apache site. After that, I couldn't get in to do anything else.

MMMMh if you have problem I'm going to update my tutorial on how install blueonyx on raq 3 / 5 and XTR after you just have to follow the tutorials on Mr Webcam forum (for the screen the mionitoring of temperatures etc)

Yeah, Mr Webcam's tutorials, along with his personal help was what I tried. TOgether the two of us couldn't figure out why it wasn't working properly. We gave up and used Webmin instead. It works well, and does RAID 5.

Just look to my tutorial on http://www.openskill.lu in the news section you have the pdf => don'r follow th procedure of resizing partition (like a totaly dumb I never saw that there is isolinux booting cause the video card of my candy box could'nt print my resolution :p now I have seen that with the syslinux desktop you have a console to size th partitions before installation on the raq).

=> In ne syslinux desktop console type the command noted in it and choose those sizes :

/ : 4096
/var : 4096
/temp : 4096
/swap : 1024

So you never have a problem with yum update and you never have a totally full partition that could crash your installation.

Just forget => I made the install just like Mr-Webcam from the SB1 CD ... wanting to test rackstar OS2 but it's impossible to register on their forum nor to test the OS2 beta (or find an iso of it).

I never got Rackstar 1 to work. I really like Strongbolt, but wish I could get a working BlueOnyx machine running. I guess doing it the way I did it will suffice, as Webmin has a lot of the same features, plus some that BlueOnyx doesn't have, like Samba, which is awesome on an XTR.

:p I have try to use webmin on different kind of server but always thought it was a huge security hole ... all the servers that we have in my job (including cobalt) are for webdevelloping or web production in datacenter and I never needed samba (very crapy protocol when you work under linux on gigalan ... I prefer SSH transfert or ftp).

But good to know that webmin take the raid5, I certainly need to ask on th forum of mister webcam how he arrived to do it on an xtr under centos 5.4 + Blueonyx :p, for the moment I only have 2 120Go HD (2 are dead in the delivery of the XTR grrrrr!).

I have two RaQ 550's in use, both I have put the bigest processor, and as much memory as possible, so in this case, 1400Mhz and 2048Mb.

I know in the age of multi-core processor this is like going back to the dark ages.

The software has also been upgraded to CentOS 5.4 and BlueOnyx thanks to Mr-Webcam.

I am only hosting a few web sites at this point in time, but it seems to be doing the job well.

My uncle has one, he uses it for online backup service. When he backups all his online files and put them on there.