[LON-CAPA-cvs] cvs: doc / shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt

[harris41]

harris41		Tue Apr 16 20:06:32 2002 EDT

  Modified files:              
    /doc	shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt 
  Log:
  updating brief description of hardware and operating system
  
  
Index: doc/shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt
diff -u doc/shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt:1.1 doc/shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt:1.2
--- doc/shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt:1.1	Fri Mar 15 11:09:12 2002
+++ doc/shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt	Tue Apr 16 20:06:32 2002
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-$Id: shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt,v 1.1 2002/03/15 16:09:12 harris41 Exp $
+$Id: shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt,v 1.2 2002/04/17 00:06:32 harris41 Exp $
 
 INSTALLING LON-CAPA ON A REDHAT 7.2 SYSTEM
 
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@
 significant sense still is, located at Michigan State University.  
 The installation, software versioning, and specification is
 currently maintained by the freeware community which includes
-the document author and more importantly you!
+the author of this document and more importantly you!
 
 Your interest, questions and suggestions are enthusiastically
 invited for the specific development of the GPL code.
@@ -50,44 +50,58 @@
 system.  Please e-mail harris41@msu.edu or helen@lon-capa.org
 for help with software installation.
 
-System Requirements
--------------------
+Hardware Recommendation
+-----------------------
 
-It should be an intermediate-to-high-level
-performance workstation computer.  A ballpark suggestion
-is that it is PentiumII or greater, has 20 gigabytes of
-harddisk space, 256M RAM, and 400MHz CPU processing speed...
-Dr. Kortemeyer at Michigan State University can give a more
-thorough response if needed (he has experience with setting
-up high-performance web server clusters).
-
-A specifically high-level suggestion is a multi CPU machine
-(with a CPU speed of 1 gigahertz), a gigabyte of memory and
-at least 40 to 80 gigabytes of hard disk space.
-
-You can use a lesser machine for toying around with LON-CAPA (It will
-install an run for a single user on most anymachine) but if you wish
-to support students and you wish to support deadline crunches my
-suggestion is to go with the above.
+For full-time, classroom usage, an adequate LON-CAPA server
+should be/have:
 
-LON-CAPA will work on any Intel-based RedHat compatible
-hardware.  And, unlike other software systems, it works
-comparatively well on dusty old crippled machines without
-much RAM or processing.  I am just projecting the characteristics
-that make LON-CAPA nice to use without any unreasonable slowness,
-and in terms of hard disk space, how to make it at least 5 years
-down the road, if not more.
+* a multiprocessor machine,
+* a CPU speed of 1 gigahertz,
+* a gigabyte of memory,
+* and at least 40 to 80 gigabytes of hard disk space.
+
+A lesser machine can be used for toying around with LON-CAPA
+(LON-CAPA will run for a single user on most any machine).
+
+LON-CAPA servers experience significant peaks of activity
+before a homework submission deadline.  To support these critical
+peaks of activity, it is strongly advised that LON-CAPA machines
+fit the above recommendation.
 
 If thousands of students start accessing the box as a web server...
-well you may want to consider more options (LON-CAPA supports
-load-balancing on multiple computers for instance).  We like
-to think of high web server usage as "a good problem" though.. :)
+well you may want to consider more options.  The design of the LON-CAPA
+system is to naturally and transparently load-balance on multiple
+computer clusters.  So, a simple solution for running an entire
+college campus is to just have an adequate plurality of LON-CAPA
+servers rather than a single, particularly monstrous server.
+
+We like to think of high web server usage as "a good problem" though.. :)
+
+More Information on Hardware and System Administration
+------------------------------------------------------
+
+I find that LON-CAPA works nicely (for development purposes)
+on a Pentium II, 20 gigabytes of hard-disk space, 256M RAM,
+and 400MHz.  The consensus is though, that this may only
+be adequate for a class of a dozen students. 
+
+If you are making a serious investment, we suggest you
+join our mailing list by visiting
+http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users.
+By posting to this mailing list, you can learn about what
+solutions have worked for others.
+
+LON-CAPA works on any Intel-based RedHat-compatible
+hardware.  Unlike other software systems, it works
+comparatively well on dusty old crippled machines without
+much RAM or processing.
 
 We support Linux OS.  LON-CAPA has been shown to work on Debian,
 Mandrake, and RedHat.  Instructions are based on RedHat-centric
 installs.  Given the current level of new LON-CAPA feature requests
 and frequency of new software versions, we suggest that you stick
-with RedHat to reduce high frequency system administration overhead.
+with RedHat to reduce high-frequency system administration overhead.
 
 Strategy
 --------