Date:         Tue, 16 Feb 1999 07:30:30 8
Reply-To:     Wes Neuenschwander <wesn@ESKIMO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
Comments:     Authenticated sender is <wesn@mail.eskimo.com>
From:         Wes Neuenschwander <wesn@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject:      Re: Is Gerry Really Dead?
Comments: To: David Marshall <vanagon@VOLKSWAGEN.ORG>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

David,

You can count on me for a contribution to whatever solution you deem
appropriate.  I was more than happy to donate to the original Gerry fund
and it's been one of the best investments I've ever made.  The Vanagon
list has saved me many $$ in service and repair costs and has been
invaluable in helping me perform good maintenance and avoiding even
greater repair bills.

A Gerry without the search capabilities is a real loss.  A Gerry without
adequate backup and recovery capabilites is untenable.  Fooling
around with stop gap fixes and interim solutions only adds to the
admin's burden.  Let's get it fixed and fixed right.

Just let me know what the final tally will be and where to send my check.

-Wes


> Date:          Fri, 12 Feb 1999 08:14:21 -0800
> From:          David Marshall <vanagon@VOLKSWAGEN.ORG>
> Subject:       Re: Is Gerry Really Dead?

> Here is the situation:
>
> Gerry has Dual P90 CPUs - when it is doing LISTSERV the utilization is
> [on both CPUs] 75% or so.  When doing a web search [both CPUs] it is
> pegged to 100% and it can usually never get the job done - thus times
> out.
>
> There is 64MB on Gerry - there is on average 75 to 100 page faults per
> second so we need more memory.
>
> The solution is a faster box.
>
> Another thing that bothers me is that there is no RAID array - which
> means if that hard drive dies - that's it!  At volkswagen.org I am
> running two mirrored drives (RAID1) and I have had the unfortunate luck
> of one of those drives dieing (Western Digital) - the server kept on
> going even with a dead hard drive - 10 minutes of down time to replace
> the drive and away it went.
>
> I see lots of good reasons why we should upgrade Gerry - Y2K is another
> issue as someone will have to set the clock on January 1 for it to
> function correctly - not a big issue but an issue none the less.
>
> When I get to work this afternoon I will put together a system spec and
> our (ABC Communications) cost pricing on this box - I will also approach
> our distrubutor and see if they can do anything on the price - anyone
> object to an advertisement being on Gerry if we get a good deal on the
> box?
>
>

Wes Neuenschwander
Seattle, WA
wesn@eskimo.com