>    Jacob H. Suter <jsuter@intrastar.net> wrote:
> > The problem is with farms is that one thing goes down, its
> > broken.  Lets say your central NFS server for /home and /var/mail
> > die...  You're screwed.
> 
>    Why can't the same happen with a single box?

With multiple stand alone boxes you can have complete hot standby
systems.  I'm never "down" to customers unless the General Telephone
Experiment (GTE) fscks something up, which then I beat them until
they're clueless and they fix it.
 
> > Well "new crap" isn't that bad of a thing.  Forcing a school full of
> > people to use outdated stuff is pretty shitty IMHO.  Students *do* pay
> > for proper Internet access.
> 
>    But what if the "outdated stuff" is _BETTER_ than new crap? I claim that
> proper ARPA Internet access is that through a VAX running Berkeley UNIX(R).

I seriously doubt that is going to be better than a semi-modern x86 or 2
or 3 running a common free Unix system (FreeBSD is what I would
recomend).  Something like FreeBSD or NetBSD has a lot of people
supporting it, with BSD4.4 you find a hole you're on your own...

Its not that "proper ARPA Internet access" is a bad thing, but
technology moved on.  Security holes were found, things were sped up,
and it all just works.
 
> > How could I play my mp3's?
> 
>    That's the difference between a moderate and a radical. Being an
> opponent of multimedia, I abstain from it and if I need to record music, I
> use standard analog magnetic tapes.

"wow" and "flutter" went out in the 80s with cassettes and record
albums.  MP3 isn't perfect but I'd put it beside any 1/4" 1 7/8 ips
cassette any day, especially a hot texas summer afternoon :)

Now, the truth is you seem to just be setting up a secondary "elite
vanity" service for your school.  Noble, but not terribly professional
unless you can beat money out of someone/people for it.  When people
pay, they bitch, welcome to the real world.  As long as its free its
pure vanity.

Although I am interested in seeing what you make of this 4.4BSD "pure"
stuff you speak of.  I'll slap it on a vax here to see someday when/if
you ever do it.

JS