[conspire] (forw) Re: Looking for a way to gain Linux Admin experience

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:00:22 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: Linux Dude <in2linux at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Looking for a way to gain Linux Admin experience
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.

Quoting Linux Dude (in2linux at gmail.com):

> I plan to build a computer -buy parts from frys-
> - how much memory/disk do you recommend for a set up with VM/virtualBox?

I forgot to address your question about disk.

It's no longer possible to purchase a hard drive that I would deem
smaller than gigantic.

Let me put it this way:  The Linux server that runs my domain
linuxmafia.com (from which I'm sending you this reply) is an old PIII
machine with 1.5 GB RAM from 2001 that is still highly serviceable on
account of Linux.  It has a 73 GB SCSI hard drive it boots from, and a
mirrored pair of 18GB SCSI drives that hold most contents that matter.
So, about 91GB of main storage.  And that's ample.

If I were doing a lot of work with video or audio files, it would be too
small.  Also, be aware that workstations are typically beefier in many
ways than servers usually need to be, though that might seem
counterintuitive.  

If you're running a workstation or laptop box with a host (main) OS plus
a VM package plus multiple guest OSes runnable inside VMs, you want a
gig or so per OS.  Not that that's a problem:  Try to find a hard drive
smaller than 250 GB, and you really can't, except used.

New hard drives have reportedly been in short allocation and might have
seen some price increases, on account of unusually severe seasonal
flooding in Thailand:  Manufacturers reacted to the north Japan
earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear disaster by shifting
production to Thailand -- which then got hit by severe floods.


----- End forwarded message -----