No laughing: Celeron 600MHz 256MB 5 active users?

[luvit]

I am considering SMF Appliance for minimal resources (assuming no lost features in SMF).
Links: SMF Appliance Webpage & SMF Appliance Thread

It will host a closed forum up to 120 families with a related theme.
I believe there will be 5 active members at once... (maybe 10 until the novelty wears off)
I would like standard Forum Features to be in place (avatars, sigs, maybe even profiles.

• Hardware:


• 600Mhz Celeron (upgradable to 700Mhz or higher)
• 256MB RAM (upgradable to 512MB)
• 10GB HD (Upgradable to 40GB)
  

I am very familiar with server standards and hosting... redundancy not required... this is 100% volunteer. Server hosted at home with 512K uploads (15MB downloads).

Is it a pipe dream to run a standard SMF on a tiny PC if the my community is very small?
1/2 the members will have broadband... so it should be expected to run smoothly.

If the SMF Appliance is not recommended... what tiny distro with SMF would run smoothly on this hardware?

--thnx!

[H]

For a small site this should been fine. I don't know how good the SMF Applicance is though having never used it but I can't see it being a problem

[rsw686]

You'll be fine running that at home. I run my forum and a couple of other sites from my home off business cable (5MB down / 2MB up) . I have the RRD graphs sitting in front of me and I average 30 KB/s upload. At the max I can push around 200-250 KB/s. You'll be able to do around 50KB/s max. I have an average of 40 users active on my site. Around 10 real users and 30 guests which are mostly yahoo spiders.

As far as processing power and memory that should work. You'll probably have to upgrade to 512mb depending on how light the SMF Appliance is. I run my forum in VMware 768MB memory on Fedora Linux. It ran fine with 512MB allocated, but you could see a performance increase with the 768MB.

I've never used the SMF Appliance so I can't comment there.

[Bigguy]

I have about the same server sitting here as those specs you have. I run Ubuntu Linux Server edition and webmin on top of that and mine runs real smooth. I don't really ever have a lot of members on it but it runs great. I have never heard of this appliance software either so I can't comment on it as well.

[lax.slash]

Is this it?

Appliance Homepage: smf.rpath.org

Software Homepage: simplemachines.org

Current Version: Simple Machines Forum 1.1.4 packaged in appliance version 2.0 | Download

Description: The Simple Machines Forum (SMF) Appliance includes the SMF package, a minimal Linux operating system, and an administration interface. The SMF package was built from a direct download of the SMF tarball, and when installed on a Conary-based system, it includes the appropriate Apache and PHP configuration in addition to updating the permission and ownership of the installed forum files. The goal of the appliance is to provide a forum with minimal need to install, configure, or maintain the underlying operating system, all of which should be accomplished through the administration interface in any web browser.

[H]

Yes

[luvit]

I have about the same server sitting here as those specs you have. I run Ubuntu Linux Server edition and webmin on top of that and mine runs real smooth. I don't really ever have a lot of members on it but it runs great. I have never heard of this appliance software either so I can't comment on it as well.

Hey Bigguy! You all bear good news.
-- Can you give me the specs of your server RAM and HD since I listed 2 specs?
--Is your Ubuntu Server v7.10 installed as default or did you have to strip it down?

[Bigguy]

Mine is a compaq server I retrieved from the garbage and it still ran. It has a 40 gb scsi drive and a 10gb 256 mb ram. I can PM you the link to the forum if ya want so you can check it out. It runs very smooth. I am trying to find my link to the php info.....

EDIT: Yes that is my Ubuntu version and it is installed by default. Its command line only; there is no GUI with it.

[青山 素子]

I am not sure if they have permission to redistribute SMF....

* Motoko-chan has to go check

With the server specs you provided, you just need to make sure you run very light. That means no GUI running (you can certainly have it installed), no extra services (CUPS, xinetd, ...), and you should be okay. It might get a bit slow depending on use, however. Remember: every extra thing you have running takes resources away from the primary purpose of the server - serving.

Personally, I recommend Slackware. It is not the most novice-friendly distribution, but you can run it very light. This is one of the reasons I like it so much. The Slackware Book has a great guide on installation and management. I also recommend using SlackPkg for managing updates.

[Panzer-]

Remember about the problem with ubuntu/debian based distros.

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=211513.0

If your running a 10gb harddrive, even a 40gb once you upgrade - the sessions table might fill up pretty fast.

[rsw686]

Remember about the problem with ubuntu/debian based distros.

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=211513.0

If your running a 10gb harddrive, even a 40gb once you upgrade - the sessions table might fill up pretty fast.

True you could always go with a stripped version of CentOS. Just only select base on the packages when installing. You'll be left with a console only install. This is how I have my box setup.

[Bigguy]

I don't see any problem running the server version of Ubuntu. It works just fine.

[Panzer-]

I don't see any problem running the server version of Ubuntu. It works just fine.

Apart from the session tables fault.

[Bigguy]

I guess my site is not real busy at all so I would not notice it but I did look in my database and all looked fine to me.

[青山 素子]

Can we get back to helping the original poster, please?

[luvit]

UPDATE:

• i chose Ubuntu Server, no GUI since i am familiar with Ubuntu Desktop the their Community Forum and bigguy has success.
  
• i also chose SMF2 beta
• it will be a very small and close forum. (maybe 5 active members at a time with 150 registered users)
  
  

i am not using the SMF Appliance.

• note that 80% of my linux experience has been appliances (IPcop, other routers and storage)
• i have been very grateful for live-cd distros and prepackaged all-in-one installs.
  
  

if there is any way for the SMF community to support this appliance or live-cd effort it could have turned my install experience from 3 evenings (still messy/unfinished) to 1 evening (clean and complete)

• assuming the live-cd installs to hard-drive
  
  

Can we get back to helping the original poster, please?

thanks Motoko-chan... now, since this update i do encourage some excess chat

[rsw686]

if there is any way for the SMF community to support this appliance or live-cd effort it could have turned my install experience from 3 evenings (still messy/unfinished) to 1 evening (clean and complete)

Anything we can help you on as far as the configuration goes?

[青山 素子]

if there is any way for the SMF community to support this appliance or live-cd effort it could have turned my install experience from 3 evenings (still messy/unfinished) to 1 evening (clean and complete)

We don't make that, so we can't support it as we know nothing on it. It'd be like asking your HVAC person to support the wiring since there happens to be electricity being used by their device. We can support SMF itself, just not the environment it is in.

Besides, I just checked and they aren't authorized to do the distribution. They'll be getting a nice request soon about an agreement so they don't have to stop.