[9fans] Building a new Plan 9 system.

[James A. Robinson Jim.Robinson@Stanford.Edu]

Whew, I just ordered all the parts. The final configuration is listed
below. I hope I haven't made any errors in getting equipment that
will work!  Has anyone ever collected a list of parts used in current
Plan 9 setups that the folks on this list use?  I would be interested
in collecting such information, and putting it up on a webpage. If
people feel like e-mailing me their setups, I will do so.

I was interested to read the comments that the CPU server and terminal
server don't need hard drives.  I was wondering how hard it is to then
use the terminal to install the file server software?  But in any case,
some 1.2Gb EIDE drives were cheap enough ($100) that I just got a pair.

I'm wondering what people use to network between the File servers and
the CPU servers. Does everyone here just use plain 10BaseT, or some
folks use something fancier?

Finally, I thought that perhaps I might be able to have the two server
machines here at work (where Stanford has some T1 connectivity), and
install the terminal server at home, networking over my cable modem (only
about 512k). Will this work?  One problem I've been thinking about is
the reliability of the cable modem. Once in a while my connection drops
for a minute or so -- can Plan 9 handle that? Or will it force a reboot
on the terminal or something?

Parts:

	File Server
		Asus P2B (BX) w/ Pentium II 266Mhz
		128Mb PC-100 100Mhz SDRAM
		Diamond Fireport 40 PCI
		Seagate 9Gb 7200 Barracuda
		Generic 256k VGA card
		3com 3c509 Combo ISA ethernet
	
	CPU Server
		Asus P2B (BX) w/ Pentium II 400Mhz
		256Mb PC-100 100Mhz SDRAM
		S3 Trio64 V2 w/ 4mb Video
		24x Mitsumi ATAPI CD-ROM
		1.2Gb CMS Enhancements EIDE
		3com 3c509 Combo ISA ethernet
	
	Terminal Server
		ATC-5030 Baby AT w/ Pentium I 233Mhz MMX
		128 Mb 60ns SIMM
		ATI Xpert@Work w/ 4Mb Video
		1.2Gb CMS Enhancements EIDE
		3com 3c509 Combo ISA ethernet
		Viewsonic P810 Monitor (already have this, thankfully)