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From: smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: Starting a Public Access Unix System -- How?
Message-ID: <982@csustan.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Oct-87 15:33:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: csustan.982
Posted: Wed Oct 14 15:33:26 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 16-Oct-87 04:29:39 EDT
References: <834@seradg.Dayton.NCR.COM> <7617@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Reply-To: smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller)
Organization: CSU, Stanislaus; Turlock, California
Lines: 43
Keywords: questions opinions
Xref: mnetor comp.unix.questions:4527 comp.unix.xenix:955

In article <7617@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes:
>In article <834@seradg.Dayton.NCR.COM> pat@seradg.Dayton.NCR.COM (Patrick Pesch) writes:
>|	o  Can a machine of the 286/386 class support usenet links, and
>|	   provide "news" (Assuming large disks, etc...)?  How much
>|	   additional system administration burden does this require?
>
>You will have to expire (read: delete) old articles or have a hugh disk.
>See the 'lists' postings for volume, but figure at least 1MB/day coming
>in. You will need special versions of news for a 286 (minor midifications).

Having recently gone through the "how much news can I take" calculations:
News traffic was approximately 30 Mbyte over two weeks - ~2 M/day (source:
uunet traffic statistics postings).  I run expire -e2 -E7 - keep news
2 days, keep history information 7 days (7 days is the time it takes for
an article to reach 99% propogation).

News comes up quite nicely on a 386 system, but the disk subsystem may
not offer enough throughput for news and interactive use - I don't know,
because my 386 is at work, and news goes at night.  Multiple disks and
multiple partitions/disk will help, though.

>Notes:
>  You can get a unix-pc (actually 3B1) with 2MB memory and 67MB hard
>disk for <$2k. You can add 0.5MB and a 2nd serial for ~$250.
>Unfortunately the next step up is expensive: 4 port serial ~$600, tape
>backup ~$700. Software will be about $500.

My understanding (via CIS) is that

The Sale Is Over.

Rumor has it that a European organization bought out AT&T's *entire*
remaining stock of 3B1s.

>  You can get a ready to run 386 box (2MB/40MB 2s/1p) with UNIX for
>about $4k. This will probably be my next upgrade.

I'd consider this a bit small.  My 386 system (3M/40M 2s/1p) has about
17M freespace, and this is after several days with repeatedly light
news flows.  Of that, 10M is an MsDos partition, so things are really
tight - when the Usenet maps came through, the disk nearly filled...

>	bill davidsen
       \scott