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Subject: 
w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.admin.finance, lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.general, lugnet.robotics, lugnet.trains, lugnet.technic, lugnet.castle, lugnet.space, lugnet.org, lugnet.announce
Followup-To: 
lugnet.admin.finance
Date: 
Tue, 24 Feb 2004 04:24:19 GMT
Highlighted: 
!! (details)
Viewed: 
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We appreciated your patience during the downtime today

Thank you for bearing an unusually long downtime today. We certainly weren’t expecting a 9-hour outage simply for the replacement of a disk.

You may have noticed on the LUGNET homepage during the downtime that we are finalizing plans for purchasing a brand new server box for LUGNET this week. (We are still running on almost 20th Century hardware.)

As of 5:00pm EST today, LUGNET had exactly $728.69 USD in its coffers (not counting the quarterly bandwidth bill which is due shortly and has already been withdrawn), which gets us about half way to a decent modern server. Thanks to kind donations in the past few hours, we’ve got a little more breathing room now than earlier today, but we think there is a lot more potential out there. (Thankfully, Pair Networks paid for the new drive that got installed today, since it’s part of their package.)


We need a completely new server


Please click here if you have $5 or $10
burning a hole in your PayPal account.



Soon we begin the transition

As mentioned in October, Matthew Miller and I are going to be transitioning LUGNET away from the FreeBSD setup at Pair Networks and over to an all-Linux system where we can administer fine-grained accounts on the server ourselves and generally have much greater control over the server box. Matthew is a fellow LUGNET-er, NELUG-er, friend, co-worker at Boston University (day job!), and the creator and full-time project leader of the very successful BU Linux distribution. Matthew has offered to administer the new LUGNET server from a security, software installation, and developer account standpoint.

We believe we have found an outstanding co-lo place right here in Boston and will be visiting it tomorrow night after work to check out the facilities. If we leave happy, then we will probably bring a server there later this week and begin the server transition process.

LUGNET currently runs on a single old beater 900 MHz. Celeron processor with a sorta crufty old motherboard that is maxed out at (eeek) 512 MB RAM. More horsepower and RAM will speed things and make plenty of breathing room for additional accounts and software development.


Where we’re headed

The new system Matthew has spec’ed out includes a dual-processor-capable motherboard and 1 to 2 GB of ECC RAM, as well as honkin’ system bus and two phat ATA disk drives. We don’t have a quote on it yet, but Matthew estimates it to be around $1700, plus or minus a couple hundred. We can always add another processor later as well as more memory, but what we start with will still be pretty awesome. Obviously, the more cash we can raise toward this, the better system we can afford, which...

...Brings me to the next part. We actually want to buy two new servers: one to serve as the production server and the other to serve as a research and development server. We think it would be best to purchase both together, if possible. We’re also thinking we could save a bit of money by putting one drive in each system -- each partitioned with its own area plus a mirror of the other system -- instead of putting two drives in the main system. With a second new server, we could also improve overall reliability by running HTTP on one system and NNTP on the other.


We’ll get there with your help

I hope you can take a few moments to make a small donation toward this goal. Your contribution will come back to you tenfold in good LEGO karma.

Leg Godt
Todd




Message has 18 Replies:
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
(...) Thanks Todd and all the LUGNET’s out there. I put my 2 cents forth to the fund (ok a little more). Happy Lego David Bail #154 (21 years ago, 24-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
I have just added a small amount to your "fund drive". I was happy to make a donation, but I expect I'd be happier if LUNGET published accounts. That way we could all see what the future holds... (...) Novice question: could the old box not work as (...) (21 years ago, 24-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
Money has been sent! Best of luck in aquiring the new hardware! I am sure that you will not have any problems, as LUGNET is well worth the money. Atleast it is to me, hopefully everyone else who is able to will step up and help out. I am excited by (...) (21 years ago, 24-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
Kwyjibo? (: (21 years ago, 24-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
Hey, folks, look at it this way: it's less calories than Girl Scout cookies! And the satisfaction lasts a lot longer! Funds sent, James Wilson #1783 (21 years ago, 24-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
Please accept $250.00 from Big Ben Bricks LLC. Big Ben Bricks LLC would not be where it is today without the support of LUGNET and many of it's members. I encourage others with LEGO related ventures, who use LUGNET to promote their products, to do (...) (21 years ago, 24-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX) !! 
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
Done! Keep up the good work. Paul (21 years ago, 24-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
(...) I hope my little donation will help you with the new server. Mark "keep up the GoodWork" de Kock (21 years ago, 24-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
(...) Please accept my small donation along with my utmost apprecation... Ken (21 years ago, 24-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
(...) I've sent a small contribution but I see the exchange rate at the moment certainly helps. Running the whole of LUGNET on a Celeron 900 - that's outrageous! Simon Denscombe LUGNET Member 93 (21 years ago, 24-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
(...) I may be able to help with the colo aspect. I just moved Brickshelf to a new ISP, and I still have some rack space left. Its at Equinix in Ashburn, VA which has some of the most abundant and lowest cost bandwidth anywhere. Rack space however (...) (21 years ago, 25-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
I just sent U$S10 via paypal, I hope you got it and it helps. Thank you for your work and efforts. Nicolas (21 years ago, 25-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
Hi Todd, Please accept my humble contribution and let me thank you for all your efforts on behalf of thid comunity. Keep up the good work! Best regards, Paulo Renato (21 years ago, 25-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
Mr. Gower cables you need cash. Stop. My office instructed to advance you up to twenty-five dollars. Stop. Hee-haw and Merry Christmas. -Sam Wainwright Here's to Todd Lehman, the richest man in town. (21 years ago, 25-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
Hi Todd, I also made a small contribution and hope this all will get the new server up and running. Thanks and with kind regards from the Netherlands, DP #1511 Dirk Peter Bakker Bricks 4 Sale (URL) (21 years ago, 26-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
Donation sent...... Thanx Todd and keep the momentum going! Mark & Milissa Millere (21 years ago, 26-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  Re: w00t! Fund Drive for LUGNET Servers
 
Hi Todd, Just so you know I have some LEGO display stuff I'm putting up on auction on my Bricklink store. The display minifig is going to have 10% of the final bid go to lugnet. The other display stuff will be between 25% and 50% :) (I also need to (...) (21 years ago, 27-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, FTX)
  LUGNET server fund drive a roaring success!
 
Update: Thanks to donations totalling over $4K from more than 150 people around the world, we not only hit our target in four short days days but exceeded it -- by a margin wide and comfortable enough to afford a superb hardware configuration and (...) (21 years ago, 28-Feb-04, to lugnet.admin.finance, lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.general, lugnet.robotics, lugnet.trains, lugnet.technic, lugnet.castle, lugnet.space, lugnet.org, lugnet.announce, FTX) !! 

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