Re: Home Server for family pix & vids

[Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com>]

Quoting Jason Marks (jymarks@sbcglobal.net):

> OK, here's the other adventure...
> This summer I came to the realization that a cheap desktop could serve
> as a centralized repo of family pix and vids. The keyword is "cheap." 

I was in a hurry, earlier, and couldn't elaborate on this at the time.  
A bit more now follows:

Desktop boxes in general are poorly designed for 24x7 server operation,
don't have adequate cooling (can develop heat buildup leading to early 
compnent failure and unreliable operation), tend to have really cruddy
I/O and unreliable I/O and storage hardware, and (at least for many
years, not sure anymore) many had ATX PSU / motherboard combinationss
that couldn't be configured to boot back to fully 'up' mode after losing
power.  That is, many such units, after regaining power, came back up to
a 'standby' mode until an operator restarted them -- a highly
undesirable thing in a server.  Also, desktop boxes tend to have bloated
CPUs / video but feeble and unexpandable (or poorly expandable) RAM.
This is a headache for Linux server usage, because Linux servers are
often bottlenecked on RAM and I/O, and almost never on CPU.

Also, at the point of purchase, desktop boxes are excessively expensive
for what you get, compared to (say) a two-year-old used server box.

Used to be, you could walk into Weird Stuff Warehouse and get a bunch of
adequate used server boxes practically for free.  But Weird Stuff
Warehouse is sadly gone into the mists of Silicon Valley history.  I
don't know where one would go for such offerings, now, unless perhaps
the Electronics Fleamarket.

The most common headache with server-class boxes, when adopted for home
server use, is noise:  The fans tend to be excessively noisy for in-home
use.  Over time, this can become kinda intolerable.

What would help would be if hardware manufacturers would recognise the
existence of a home server market, and target it with small fanless or
very quiet, compact boxes that are nonetheless able to house substantial
RAM (like 8GB-32GB) and RAID1-mirrored storage.  But the manufacturers 
don't do that.  One market that's _close_ to what's needed is the HTPC
(home theater PC) class of small computer. often mini-ITX form factor
for the case and motherboard.  If you're careful about CPU (avoid
bloat), you can have a silent, fanless unit that has good RAM and is
backed by a RAIDed pair of SSDs (likewise silent).


It doesn't need to "do" much other than safely store and serve pix & vids to the family on the LAN.

> I researched and bought the cheapest AMD ( fanboy *cough* ) based
> desktop with the intent of wiping out Windows and putting Ubuntu
> Server 20.04 ...  Bought an HP EliteDesk 705 G1 SFF running an AMD A4
> PRO-7800B w/ 8GB of RAM and a 500GB hdd.

The problem with Small Form Factor PCs is that, to cram everything into
a tiny, thin case, serious compromises needed to be made.  

The AMD A-series A10 PRO-7800B (or similar, as there are several they
use) APU is perfectly fine.  Since this is a
CPU aimed at the laptop market, it runs cool, which you definitely want,
and a Linux server isn't going to be CPU-bottlenecked in any plausible
scenario, anyway.

That's so small and thin that you risk a heat problem (in server usage)
in spite of the low-power CPU.  Also, it's so cramped in there that I 
am _guessing_ there's no room for a mirrored pair of storage devices,
and also the case passive cooling isn't good to avoid the need for a
PSU fan.  Not sure about the ability to add storage, actually.

You'll also notice that the optical drive slot appears to be specialised
for a tiny 'HP Slim SuperMulti DVD Writer Drive' assembly.  I'm not sure
from the specs how many PCIe x16 expansion slots there are, but they're
limited in size:  '2.5” low profile, 6.6” length'

> On top of this, being a relative Linux noob ( "DOS rulez!" He said,
> until he tried to install it in a VM. ) in a "less pain is better"
> mentality I tried to install a GUI. I get confused w/ the DE/DM/WM
> nomenclature. 

'Display Manager' is just a (any) graphical login-screen application for
X11.

'Window Manager' is a privileged type of X11 application ('client')
whose purpose it is to manage interaction among the other X11 clients
and furnish/handle controls like scrollbars, close boxes, etc.  

'Desktop Environment' is not a technical concept, really, but rather a
marketing concept.  A DE is a suite of X11 clients, a window manager
(or a choice of window managers) and a set of graphics libraries shared
among all of the bundled X11 clients, and a few other things.  A DE is
typically delivered as a metapackage that, upon installation, pulls in
as dependencies the entire suite.

There is a persistent misconception that desktop computing requires a
DE.  This is not the case.  It's just how marketing works.

On any modern Linux distribution, you can actually install or remove
whatever X11 applications you choose on an a la carte basis, without
regard to 'DE' affiliation.

By the way, you should consider omitting X11 entirely from a server.
Less bloat, less to go wrong, smaller security profile, etc.  OTOH, it's
your box, and if you want desktop software on your server, fine, go for
it.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BerkeleyLUG" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to berkeleylug+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/berkeleylug/20201003204456.GJ4777%40linuxmafia.com.