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Xref: sserve comp.os.linux.networking:9691 comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip:12707 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:3351 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.sprintlink.net!cs.utexas.edu!news.cs.utah.edu!news.cc.utah.edu!wasatch.com!wasatch.com!bobh From: bobh@wasatch.com (Bob Hauck) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Internet service providing-which OS? Date: 19 Jul 1995 13:25:59 GMT Organization: Wasatch Communications Lines: 54 Sender: bobh@olympus.wasatch.com (Bob Hauck) Message-ID: <3uj157$lpr@lonepeak.wasatch.com> References: <3ue5qa$ain@panix.com> <id.VAPL1.0SA@nmti.com> <3uhstv$pf@empire.texas.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: olympus.wasatch.com In article <3uhstv$pf@empire.texas.net>, im14u2c@millenium.texas.net (Joseph R.M. Zbiciak) writes: |> Peter da Silva (peter@nmti.com) wrote: |> |> : It's certainly possible to provide PPP using a PC. My ISP does it |> : using BSDI. |> |> It's certainly possible. I wouldn't recommend it, however. At least, |> not yet. Too many PC boxes have suboptimal architectures. More established |> workstation-class machines would probably be better choices, and nowadays, |> such machines can be had for the same price as a big PC. I keep hearing this, but I'm not sure I believe it any more. Even 10 ports running at 115k bps is doable in theory, given the usual ISA buss bandwidth. You'd need a smart serial card, but that's a given for building a terminal server. To say nothing of the PCI or VESA busses. And how much does a "big" PC cost? Well, remember that you don't need a big monitor, or sound, or fancy video in a terminal server. You can get a suitable Pentium or 486/100 for under $2000 or so without trying too hard. Ok, throw in some high-end disk drives and 32 MB of RAM and the cost goes up to $3500. Maybe we can buy a nice used Sun Sparc 5 for that? How does the performance comapre, really? How about the cost for replacement parts? We did some testing a while back using a Sun Sparcstation 10. It could not do an FTP over the serial port, using SLIP, at more than 29,000 bps or so. The serial port was a simple dumb, unbuffered UART. The reason we did the testing was that we were having trouble recieving a 38.4 kbps data stream while doing other tasks in an embedded system. Ended up adding a second VME board to the system to handle that. I'm sure you can get smart serial cards for a Sun, but the point I'm trying to make is that you may end up with a lot more hardware than you really need if you go that way. |> guys is hard drive and RAM. (Moreso RAM than anything.) When you buy |> into a Sun or an HP or an SGI, etc, you know you're getting a good |> motherboard, a good SCSI controller, a good ethernet interface, etc. When |> you buy into a PC, there's too many variables. You also get a $1000+ monitor, memory and video that support a useless (for an ISP) X-windows interface, and expensive proprietary parts. For the small or startup ISP, Linux and FreeBSD make a lot of sense. Besides, I think you are underestimating the performance of high-end PC's when doing IO and integer computing. PC's suck at floating-point math, but ISP's don't do much of that. --- Bob Hauck Wasatch Communcations Group bobh@wasatch.com Data (24 hrs): 801-272-3792