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Redoing my domain and home network. I want to have each device publicly mailable at "[email protected]" but reachable on the LAN at a fixed address of hostname.marq42.xyz. Definitely plan to do some distributed computing on them, perhaps even approaching Beowulf cluster levels. Hmm, more of a dog than a wolf. Beodogg?
So. I have
Unicron, a large and spacious desktop with an ancient motherboard and aging i/o that works
Primus, a tight server-adjacent beast of an air purifier the computer shop gave me for free cause it doesn't work
My sata power adapter finally came in the mail. It's not doing anything. I believe it's possible to get Primus working, i really do. But probably not by me.
Now here's the other part of the problem:
Unicron is currently hosting all my files and i want it to also drive the 4k tv. It's running Linux of course. The graphics card is from before AMD bought ATI, the only way I can get video from it is a DVI-to-VGA adapter plugged DIRECTLY into a VGA cable going DIRECTLY into a 1080p monitor. Adapting to hdmi doesn't work, even tho the active adapter itself definitely does. The only graphics cards in town that go in old school PCI slots are worse than mine, and the pci-to-pcie adapters I'm seeing online look sketchy af. (are they? If you've used them please tell me if they work). I spent $200 on an rx6600 and at this point I'm almost ready to build a whole pc around it, just to have something with room to grow. Also transcoding maybe.
Now, I have several usb-C to hdmi adapters which require windows drivers. Unicron does not have usb-C ports. Unicron barely has USB 3 ports. I have exactly one (1) USB A to C high speed data adapter of the proper sexuality - which came with and is currently in use for the nvme enclosure I'm using for my cache drive. Because, to loop back around, Unicron doesn't have anywhere else to put an nvme ssd and i got sooo tired of using my sata ssds for this stuff also they might be too slow idk it doesn't matter.
Point is, I have these options:
do nothing and return nil
Put the extra ram + storage in Unicron and install Windows on it to make the USB display drivers work, then slap a linux vm on top and do everything in that. This is a lot of overhead especially for an older system, and introduceth lots of annoyances thruout the stack ex. networking
Unicron overhaul! Keep the case but upgrade everything else. Mostly straightforward but expensive but money is not a concern. We could even also do the windows thing too on top of it, wouldn't that be horrible.
Pick all the good bits off of Unicron and Primus and give them both to the repair shop, then just buy a new computer. Same as previous option but could be simpler depending on case compatibility.
Either way they're closed on sundays so i gotta wait to do stuff.
Hmm, maybe part of this post should have been a poll...
No idea what I did but jellyfin is working now. Had to sign back in on everything but it's good
Next step: discovered hostnames.
Avahi is called "zeroconf" but it's always taken me hours to get anything out of it...
Alright, netbooting is a thing. It's been done by me now, but i still kinda prefer using a thumb drive. Might set it up at home if i ever get around to making a test/maintenance table station thing... i could see it working great in anything larger than a one-at-a-time operation like mine.
Next up: Beowulf cluster. Fucking finally
Might take Unicron to the shop tomorrow to see about a new motherboard and PSU, mostly so i can stick more graphics cards in. Really don't want to be tied down to Windows just for the USB-to-hdmi adapters to work...
X forwarding over ssh works just not with Windows in the mix
Okay I powered down Shockwave and Unicron, then put Unicron's spark (hard drives) in Shockwave and it seems to be working alright. I don't want to push Shockwave's cpu tho, it's a bottom tier desktop Athlon from 2009. Like it'll be fine but that fan gets loud
