computer death

Entry posted by Neil September 15, 2006

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It's always a real pain when a computer dies, but thankfully my most recent computer deaths have been about as kind as they could possibly be.

Prior to this one today, I last had a computer die on boxing day last year. That was my own 'work' computer - the one I run eFestivals from - so it really couldn't have died at a better time. Nothing happens in the festival world between Xmas and new year, so that gave me the chance to get another built and configured before everyone started back at work in the new year ... the only down side was that I spent the xmas hols working.

Today, my 'test server' has died - very conveniently at the end of the festival season. The test server is a linux server that mirrors my live servers set-up, and is used for developing and testing new things for the website. I've not looked at why it's died yet - I'm hoping it's just a power supply (and I always have a spare or two of those in my computer bits cupboard),l and if that's all it is then it'll be going again very shortly.

This test server is the oldest PC that I have, and I've had it in mind to build a new one this autumn anyway (the plan was that I'd do that before the old one had problems). It's also got a very old version of Red Hat on it, and it would be good to have an up-to-date version.

Currently I'm downloading the CD images of the latest version of Fedora (the free version of Red Hat linux) - there's five to download, each of 600+MB which I then cut to CD, and then use the CDs to do the install ... it should all be straightforwards, here's hoping.

Then I'll probably have to install some extra bits and pieces to get all the functionality I need, but it's possible that these extra bits now come within Fedora (they didn't in the old version I had) ... I hope they do come within it, because doing these extras will be where things will get complicated - I'm far from a linux expert even tho I do know a fair bit. Time to get on with it all I guess....