[sf-lug] Another motherboard was _not_ burned out today

[Rick Moen]

Quoting John F. Strazzarino (jstrazza at yahoo.com):

> Thanks for the history of your CPU problems/concerns/successes.
> 
> If you would like a newer computer, I have several Dell Optiplex 760
> P4 - 3.2 GHZ (2 GB) machines available for FREE.

Hi, John!  Bless you for offering.

I remember those Optiplex boxen with some fondness, having used one of
those as a workstation at $DAYJOB for about six years, running Debian
Testing.  They're perfectly OK machines, nice workhorses.  I might talk
to you when I get back from SCALE (where I'm sitting and listening to a
talk about puppet at the moment).

I actually have a couple of P4-based Dell PowerEdge server machines
sitting around undeployed as spares, specifically a 2850 and an 1850.  I
honestly don't lack for hardware, it's more been time and effort.

One curiosity of the PIII to P4 product migration is that AC power usage
went way, way up, which is one reason why I've kept my obsolete
PIII-based VA Linux Systems gear running as long as I have -- because
I'm cheap, because I pay my own PG&E bill, and because my family
guilt-tripped me about running a 24x7 rackmount server.

I hope to soon resume a long-deferred project to retire the PIII in
favour of tiny, silent, no-moving-parts modern machine that should draaw 
only about 10-12 watts, described here:
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2015-February/007897.html
That product family continues to be developed, and is detailed here:
http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/intense-pc/



Bonus tip:  The lack of typos in this absent-minded posting is courtesy
of this line in .vimrc, added because inline spelling-checkers are cool:

set spell spelllang=en_gb

(Local[1]-specific substitutes for 'gb', such as 'us', also work.)


[1] http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/?page=misc#english