Graham Redway wrote:

> What Bill is suggesting is buying a server similar too those found in
> offices and running povray on that. What you're thinking of is buying a
> bare-bones system to run POV. If you did that you'd still need the
> keyboard, mouse and videocard (at the very least to install Windows
> etc.) but you could save on the monitor by having a switch box (using
> your existing monitor) or running it remotely using a piece of software
> such as CarbonCopy. Networking is getting very cheap and what you're
> suggesting is entierly possible, all you would need is the two network
> cards, a cable and the software (Windows.) I've been doing this
> successfully for nearly a year and only had a few minor problems.
>
>         Graham.
>

Well, if you go with Linux you might be able to skip all that. No mouse needed at
all. Keyboard and monitor need only be connect if you are doing a simple
installation (i.e. default off the RedHat CD).

At my prior company, we had a product that was a linux-based small office server.
To configure each box all we had to do was have it hooked to the network and a
serial port. I believe that we'd just connect to the serial port to enter a
machine name and IP address for our install script (running from a boot floppy),
then everything else was automatic. No need for monitor, keyboard or mouse. We
did have a video card, but I'm not sure if that was completely necessary, or just
default on the boxes we were buying.

BTW, I setup a system here at home quickly with a $15 cheapie network card from
Fry's. The main trick was just needing to figure out which driver to use (found
the chip listed then everything else went quickly). I didn't even configure the
graphical display on the system. When I needed to run a graphical configuration
tool, I just telneted in from my main machine, set the display environment
variable to name that main work machine, and then the X display from the new
computer was running on my main computer no problem. Don't even have a monitor
switch box here (but I did use a spare monitor for the initial setup). Gee,
Linux/Unix is quite handy.

--
"My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box" - W.A.Y.

Post a reply to this message