irc.blackened.com was the biggest IRC server in the world, and it
ran off of a 486. But it had a buttload of RAM.
On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Jonathan Morton wrote:
|Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:57:09 +0100
|From: Jonathan Morton <chromi@...>
|Reply-To: unreal-users@...
|To: unreal-users@...
|Subject: Re: [Unreal-users] Users limit? [OFF TOPIC] Linux and scalability
|
|>My 50mhz 486 with 8 mb RAM fell to the ground at 33.000 users :P
|>took like 20 minutes with swapping in/out to get up at 33.000 users :P
|>
|>My 233mhz 128 mb ram shallowed it all in 30 secs with no lag =P
|
|8Mb RAM is your bottleneck there - can't really do much with it once a
|decently functional kernel is loaded in (yes i've got an 8Mb box as well -
|those 30-pin SIMMs are hard to find). I'm impressed it handled 33k users
|at all, even with the swapping and bad performance.
|
|The point is that Linux can scale up to the biggest jobs without much
|difficulty given relatively "modest" hardware. Remembering, of course,
|that Linux' roots are in UNIX, which was first produced in the days when
|1MHz and 512K were still respectable, this shouldn't be all that
|surprising. I particularly enjoy the ability to run a pro-level, extremely
|useful server from bits of junk I found lying around computer fairs that
|no-one else wants. Hmmm, a piece of junk which is capable of performing
|several SMTP deliveries every second.
|
|I'm contrasting this with the "minimum requirements" and "recommended
|system" specs often attached to commercial OSes and software - eg: (these
|are real specs, apart from the "practical" ones which are my own addition)
|
|- Windows 95:
| Minimum: 386+387 or 486sx+487 or 486DX with 8Mb RAM and 100Mb HD
| Recommended: Intel Pentium with 32Mb RAM and 500Mb HD
| Practical: Pentium-90 or better with 64Mb RAM and >2Gb HD
|
|- MacOS 8.6:
| Minimum: Any true PowerPC-based Mac with 24Mb RAM and 200Mb HD.
| Recommended: PowerPC 601 at 80MHz, 603e at 150MHz or any 604 or better
| with 48Mb RAM and 1Gb HD.
| Practical: Any PowerPC that isn't a non-G3 PowerBook or a Performa,
| with 64Mb RAM and around 2Gb HD. Anything with a G3 will fly.
|
|- Windows NT 4:
| Minimum: 486DX2/66 with 24Mb RAM and 500Mb HD
| Recommended: Intel Pentium-133 with 128Mb RAM and 4Gb HD
| Practical: the biggest, fastest system money can buy - and it still
| won't be enough. And you'll have to reboot it at least
| every 49 days, and with every configuration tweak.
|
|- MIMEsweeper (an extension to M$ Exchange Server on WinNT)
| Minimum: Intel Pentium-166 with 128Mb RAM and 300Mb free HD
| plus 50Mb HD per 10 users
| Recommended: Pentium Pro or Pentium-II with 512Mb RAM and >30Gb free HD
| Practical: Scrap this and go to Linux with Exim and Procmail. You'll
| have to fiddle with some text configuration files, but that'll
| be a doddle to anyone familiar with the Registry.
|
|- Linux, *BSD and other similar projects:
| Minimum: 80386sx with 4Mb RAM and 40Mb HD
| (might be able to squeeze into less HD)
| Recommended: 486DX/33 with 16Mb RAM and 1Gb HD (RAM required for
| installing most popular distributions)
| or: PowerPC (PReP, CHRP or Macintosh) with 32Mb RAM and 1Gb HD
| or: similarly specified Alpha, Sparc etc.
| Practical: Decent Pentium, PowerPC or Alpha with 64Mb RAM and 4Gb HD,
| more if you are handling a large (>100?) number of users as a
| server. RAM and HD space are vastly more important than CPU
| speed. Small servers will run happily and reliably on the
| "recommended" spec.
|
|--------------------------------------------------------------
|from: Jonathan "Chromatix" Morton
|mail: chromi@... (not for attachments)
|uni-mail: j.d.morton@...
|
|The key to knowledge is not to rely on people to teach you it.
|
|Get VNC Server for Macintosh from http://chromatix.autistics.org/vnc/
|
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Regards,
Jonathan George, CEO
MultiList Central
http://www.MultiListCentral.com
|