Part Two: Building the Computer

Our first post in this series covered the planning of building our server.

Lets get started making a server. First, be sure and read the directions that come with this box. I was successful in not breaking anything when I did what it had to say.

There is one screw on the back. A simple Phillips head screwdriver will get it off. This will allow you to slide off the side panel for access to the inside of the box.

Next, we will need to pull of the faceplate. Follow the directions that came with your computer carefully, and it will come off. There are flimsy plastic clips holding it on. They do come off, so don’t force anything. I managed not to break mine.

Now that you have all of the outside pieces off, you need to unscrew the internal drive cage that will hold your 2^nd hard drive. It is designed to hold one 5 ¼ in optical drive. I bought an adapter that allows you to put a 3 ½ in drive into a 5 ¼ in bay.

All of the components once it has been disassembled.

Overhead view of inside of computer

Once you have it all apart, put your memory in.

Memory

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Part 1: Introduction and Planning

This tutorial is about how to make your own Ubuntu Linux file server. If you are wanting to follow along and are curious about the difficulty of this endeavor, I would give it a 6/10, where 10 is some kind of rocket science thing. I did my best to make this a step by step guide for anyone who, like myself, has lots of questions and isn’t totally sure what they are doing. I tried not to leave too much up to assumptions.

I am still a beginner at using Linux, but have been using a PC since the command line days of DOS. The reason I have decided to write this post is because I spent many hours perusing the Internet looking for answers on how to do what I wanted. What I found is that no one had posted exactly step by step for the noob how to do everything I wanted. So I had to take bits and pieces of pages from blog posts, message forums, the Ubuntu documentation, Linux Reality Podcasts, and help from the good folks at ubuntuforums.org to get where I wanted. I documented in Evernote along the way what I was doing so if I screwed up, I wouldn’t have to start all over again figuring things out (it took more than one try to get it to work). I wrote this post because I wanted to help others who may be trying to do something similar but can’t find all the steps. A lot of learning took place for me along the way. I did everything through the CLI (command line interface). It was like writing a book in a foreign language. I had to look up everything as I didn’t know the commands needed to do what I wanted. Once I knew what the commands were, I had to learn how to use them.

Here is what I wanted. A safe place to store my documents, music, photos, financial information, and anything else that I didn’t want to lose without worrying about a disk dying on me or succumbing to a virus. I am fully aware that this doesn’t solve every risk, but it did enough to make me happy for now. (This post might give you some insight to my paranoia with not trusting an external hard drive for my needs.) I also recently got married and wanted to make sure my wife and I both had access to everything in a central location. Since I am now the family IT guy, I wanted to make sure I had her data in a safe place too. This was also going to serve as a print server, and possibly more some time down the road. I wanted this to be virus free, cheap, long lasting, and energy efficient as it was going to be on 24/7. Once I was done getting it going, I wanted to be able to walk away and leave it sitting on a shelf doing its thing without needs for reboots, security updates, etc. I wanted it to be a headless system. That means no monitor, keyboard, or mouse. Just a power cord and an Ethernet cord. I’m sure my task would have been much easier had I just bought a fancy new computer and put windows server something on there or used OS X server, but apparently, I enjoy doing things the hard way (and I’m cheap).

The following is my setup:

• Ubuntu Server 9.4
• Foxconn barebone R10-S4 CPU
• Intel Dual-core Atom 330 processor
• MB with integrated Ethernet, video, sound
• Kingston 2 GB RAM DDR2 533
• 1 8GB Patriot USB key drive
• 2 750 GB SATA Western Digital Caviar Green Drives
• Linksys WRT54GL router with Tomato firmware
• Computers on network: Macbook and iMac with Snow Leopard, Dell Inspiron laptop with Windows XP

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I was reading through some sites today when I came across a blog mentioning that five of the voters of the Baseball Writers Association did not vote this year. Big deal right?

This isn’t five voters who forgot to vote, they intentionally turned in blank ballots. Why? We don’t know all of the reasons why except for one guy, Jay Mariotti.

I didn’t vote for anybody in the baseball hall of fame this year. Ya know why?  To me…the first ballot is sacred. I think Roberto Alomar is an eventual Hall of Famer, not the first time. Edgar Martinez, designated hitter, eventually, but not the first time. Same goes for maybe Fred McGriff. As far as Blyleven and Dawson…if they haven’t gotten in for years and years I cannot vote them in now. Ripken, Rickey Henderson and Gwynn. They are true first ballot Hall of Famers, but I didn’t vote for anybody, throw me out of the Baseball Writers. I don’t care. SOURCE

Wow, I’m sure that was a great reason.

Personally, I can’t believe that five voters who have a pretty big responsibility didn’t have the consideration to at least vote. If they don’t want to vote, they should give the responsibility to someone who does care about the Baseball Hall of Fame. For crying out loud, Jay even asked to be kicked out. Please, someone do it.

Why is this significant, ask Bert Blyleven about how he feels about missing out on the Hall of Fame for the 13th time. Guess how many votes he needed to get in?

5

I can’t believe that five people don’t think that following baseball players were worthy of the Hall of Fame, at all:

• Andre Dawson
• Bert Blyleven
• Roberto Alomar
• Jack Morris
• Barry Larkin
• Lee Smith
• Edgar Martinez
• Tim Raines
• Fred McGriff
• Don Mattingly

All are All-Star calibre players that any manager would have loved to have on their team. Great players whose names any baseball fan knows. Are they all worthy of the Hall of Fame, no, but you can’t tell me that none of these players deserve to get in. I also don’t think it’s right to leave the ballot blank just because you want to make a statement.

Something needs to be done about the Hall of Fame voting.

From http://www.gettyimages.com/

It’s been 9 years, but former Cub great, Andre Dawson, has finally made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I am very happy about the news. Last year, I posted about my disappointment that he didn’t make it.

Dawson’s numbers were not staggering, especially when compared to the juiced ball era that we are coming out of. His lack of any dominating category explains why he wasn’t a first year Hall of Fame player. He got in by how he played.

Dawson began his career in Montreal with the Expos, now the Washington Nationals. Early in his career, Dawson was known for his speed and great hitting. He and Tim Raines were a lethal pair. Unfortunately, the artificial turf in Olympic Statium destroyed his knees, and he was unable to run like he did in his early years. Throughout the rest of his career, his knees bothered him. Dawson’s problems with his knees started from high school football. He added power to his skill set to offset his lack of speed.

After playing on the turf for 11 years in Montreal, he had to move. Montreal was not going to resign him as they were afraid of the condition of his knees. Most teams were unsure of his knees and were hesitant to sign him. Dawson also knew he had to get back onto playing on the grass. He talked with the Cubs to ask if they would sign him, and they did. He just wanted to play, and he told the Cubs he would play for what ever they wanted to pay him. He got paid $500,000 that year, compared to $1.2 M the previous year. That season (1987), he then went on to turn in his MVP season for a Cub team that went on to be last place in their division that year. That year he led the league in Total Bases (353), HR’s (49) and RBI’s (137). MVP’s typically get picked from winning teams, but Dawson played so well, he was able to secure the honor despite his team’s lack of success.

I can remember watching him play on WGN as a kid. He was a great player, a steady clean up hitter. He struck out a lot, but could hit. My favorite thing about Dawson was watching his fielding. He played right field in Wrigley. The winds in Wrigley make it one of the toughest right fields to play. I remember watching him throw runners out with is powerful arm. My favorite was when he would charge a hard hit single and throw out the runner at first because the runner wasn’t hustling. The Wrigley faithful respected him. The bleacher bums in right would bow down as he would take his position.

Dawson’s teammates spoke highly of him. Although his knees hurt constantly and limited his potential, he didn’t complain and he didn’t let his knees stop him from giving 100%.

Dawson played for the Montreal Expos (76-86), the Chicago Cubs (87-92), the Boston Red Sox (93-94), and the Florida Marlins (95-96). His highlights are as follows:

• Rookie of The Year 1977
• MVP 1987
• Eight Gold Gloves
• Eight All-Star games
• Four Silver Slugger Awards
  
• Third Player in history to have 400 HR and 300 SB

His career numbers:

Batting Average: .279
OPS: .806
HR: 438
RBI: 1591
SB: 314
Fld%: .983

Now, to find out what cap he is going to wear when he is inducted this summer. I’m hoping they chose a Cubs hat. Way to go Hawk!