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	    Sys Admin Magazine -- News and Reviews	 
		       August 28, 2003

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In this Web-exclusive article, Zonker spends some quality time with 
BSI Computer's R9 PServer, a portable dual Intel Xeon server.

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BSI PServer  
by Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier 

I have to admit, I love my job. Especially when it means I get to 
review hardware. It's all the fun of playing with new toys, without 
the misery of actually paying for the new toys. Sometimes it's not 
fun to send a machine back, but I still enjoy getting the chance 
to test hardware that I typically wouldn't buy for myself. Recently, 
I had the chance to spend some quality time with BSI Computer's R9 
PServer, a portable dual Intel Xeon server. 

Of course, all servers are portable to some extent. But the R9 is 
actually designed to be mobile and easy to transport. I really wish 
that I had found this machine about four years ago, when I worked 
for a company that was going to a lot of trade shows. It's great 
hardware for anyone who needs to take a server on the road. Sometimes 
a laptop just doesn't cut it, and packing a tower case or rackmount 
case, monitor and everything, can be a major hassle. 

Getting started 

The first thing that I did after receiving the PServer was to 
install SuSE Linux Professional 8.2. SuSE installed just fine --
 no problem recognizing the video card, SCSI adapter, or integrated 
Ethernet card. By default, the PServer ships with no operating system. 
The choices on BSI's site are, sadly, limited to Microsoft offerings 
-- but the good news is that you can opt for a "bare" machine and 
install whatever OS you want. You should be able to run just about 
any Linux distro on the PServer, though older distros may not recognize 
the newer SCSI adapter that BSI uses, the Adaptec 29320. I've seen some 
discussions that Red Hat 8.0 doesn't "see" the Adaptec 29320 during 
install, but this shouldn't be an issue with newer distributions. 

Naturally, I had to see just how speedy the machine was. Just 
like any Linux geek with new hardware, I had to see just how long 
it took to compile the kernel. The total compile time for the 
kernel on this machine was 3 minutes, 32 seconds. On a 1-GHz 
Athlon machine with 1 GB of RAM, the kernel compile takes 6 
minutes, 21 seconds. 

To read the complete review, visit:
http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maabncTaaZZdva2sokSb/
        
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