Subject: Re: Help specifying new web server/database machine
From: Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk>
Reply-To: olly@lfix.co.uk
To: Rory Campbell-Lange <rory@campbell-lange.net>
Cc: William Yu <wyu@talisys.com>, pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
In-Reply-To: <20050609164420.GA3649@campbell-lange.net>
References: <20050608163418.GA3327@campbell-lange.net>
	<d87v84$2ihi$1@news.hub.org> <20050609164420.GA3649@campbell-lange.net>
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Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 19:00:19 +0100
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On Thu, 2005-06-09 at 17:44 +0100, Rory Campbell-Lange wrote:
> Hi All. Thanks very much for Joshua, William, Bjoern and Matthew's
> replies.
> 
> I've now looked at the famous "Server for 7K" thread. In my case we are
> looking for a server for around 3000 pounds (UK); the server is to be an
> all-purpose web and database server.
> 
> Processor:
> 
> First of all I noted that we were intending to use Opteron processors. I
> guess this isn't a straightforward choice because I believe Debian (our
> Linux of choice) doesn't have a stable AMD64 port.

Yes it does.  Now sarge has become the new stable release, the amd64
version has also become stable.  It doesn't have as many packages as the
i386 port, but those it has will be supported by the Debian security
team.  Look at the debian-amd64 mailing list for more information.

It only has PostgreSQL 7.4.  To run 8.0, download the source packages
from unstable and build them yourself.  You need postgresql-8.0 and
postgresql-common; if you also have an existing database to upgrade you
need postgresql and postgresql-7.4.

>  However some users on
> this list suggest that Opterons work very well even in a 32 bit
> environment. 

You can treat the machine as a 32bit machine and install the i386
version of Debian; it will run rather slower than with 64 bit software.

Oliver Elphick