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Gateway to Sell Cobalt Systems 128

Posted by Hemos from the selling-different-machines dept.
Manuka writes "According to news.com, computer maker Gateway will be selling Cobalt systems, such as the RaQ and Qube. Neat, but will it come in the trademark Cobalt blue, or will it have blue cow spots? " Cobalt, Amiga - GW seems to be all over the place.
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Gateway to Sell Cobalt Systems More

Gateway to Sell Cobalt Systems

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  • But the $3.75 question is....

    What the heck kind of hardware is in one of those blue boxes? They say '64-bit superscalar processor' and nought else. Are they Alpha? Sun Ultra? Or are they some 'special' Cobalt arch that isn't quite either?

  • go really slowly. it doesnt freeze because the connections are dropped if there are insufficient processess to fork and allow data transfer. AFAIK a 386/486 should be able to handle and saturate T1 lines.
  • has cobalt provided you the source ? just curious.
  • After reading the recent news.com article regarding Gateway selling Cobalt boxes, I started wondering about data caching.


    At my house, I have a dedicated internet connection (T1) which I use for a bit of web hosting. The members of the household, and a couple of the neighbors use the T1 link as their source to the internet as well.


    I realize that their bandwidth usage isn't that high, but since most users seem to be hitting the same sites over and over again, I think I would see a difference in usage (and speed visiting those sites) by using an appliance similar to CacheFlow [cacheflow.com]'s.


    Since their devices are more expensive than a regular linux box, and they run on their own proprietary OS (called CacheOS), I would presume I could set up a low end server with a 14.4gig hard drive and let it cache for me.


    My question is, what software (linux) have people used to do this? Are the advantages worth the effort?

  • Do I want a server to do that? No. A server should have the top of the line, state of the art hardware in it, at all times, if possible. Can Gateway do that?

    Please remember that Gateway is going to be reselling these Cobalt Qubes and RaQ's. Gateway won't have control over the hardware. Cobalt will continue the same kind of quality as they had before. Gateway will just provide greater product visibility.

    -Brent
    --
  • >has cobalt provided you the source ? just curious.


    SRPMS for everything on on their FTP site....
  • Using it right now, it's my home dialup gateway.

    Lovely little boxes. 64bit MIPS CPU, not the fastest things on the planet, but nice.

    The hardware platform is definitely cute. I could see them being used as turnkey application servers; Just drop it on to the customer network.

    Software is RedHat 4, plus some cobalt web admin stuff and a couple of web based groupware applications. Check out their page at http://www.cobaltnet.com/.

    The boxes are definitely "no admin required", perfect for the SOHO market, which is why Gateway are interested I think. Hey, even an NT admin could use them.

    The ONLY problem I have with it is: No Seti@home client. I've got a 250MHz 64bit MIPS system and no SETI client to use it to brag....

  • Yeah, I thought "Well when the hell did they BUY them whem I read it ..." too.

    Thought I may have missed an investment op ...
    glad I wasn't the only one. :)
  • Ahhhhh.... M.U.L.E. .......

    I had almost forgotten about that. I wonder, does anyone have a copy? That'd be a great port. Net M.U.L.E.!

    Irata here we come!

  • If you have sizable documents (such as PDFs) that multiple users will often be hitting, Squid will most definitely be of great assistance.

    I would still tend to expect that 500MB would be enough for most purposes; even with some fairly large PDF's involved, that's quite a lot of space, and I would find it somewhat surprising for there to be an "active set" of commonly-hit stuff that would amount to more than that.

    (Trying to stay at least a little on the main topic...) I'm not sure if Squid is installed by default on Cobalt Qubes; I kind of suspect not. I doubt it would be a problem to get it compiled and running...

    I have heard reports that putting a Squid proxy in front of Apache can improve performance over just plain hitting Apache, as this allows Squid to provide more efficient (possibly in-RAM) access paths to web pages that remain static...

  • I like the Cobalt servers, and I might even buy one soon. Maybe there is a similar products out there to compare against?

    A somewhat similar product is the StrongARM-based Netwinder, formerly of Corel Computer Corporation, now found here [rebel.com].
    Nice hardware, but a pity about that new domain name and logo...
  • what about application server ??

    xdm on the server and a bunch of diskless intel boxes running an X server ??
  • >And they make money how?

    A lot of people aren't comfortable buying a computer over the phone. They like to be able to see it, play around with it, talk to someone face to face. Country Stores allow this. Look at it from the perspective of a person that hasn't really used a computer, not sure of much. Would you want to spend 1000-2000 dollars on something you never saw or touched?

    --
    alSeen@narnia.net

  • I'll give Compaq and IBM credit for high-end PC servers. However, they both stopped making their own motherboards for mainstream PCs and even 'workstations' many years ago.

    (I have one of the last desktops that Compaq designed in house, and it's a Pentium 133.)
  • You can get cobalt servers from www.raq.net [raq.net]

    They are available as cubes (Qube - as the article shows) or 1U Rack mountable systems (Raq)

    The only product I know of that is similar is the netwinder, which is much more of a micro-workstation than server... and the cobalt interface gives you a really simple way of allowing the clue-impaired to manage email accounts, etc.
  • What would would be better would be to have something that is independent of the CPU or memory of the system. Maybe something with a LCD on the front running top or something so that one could see all the interesting things that are there.
  • ..
    more like family class or small business class. BTW: you got that price wrong by a 0, they sell for about $1,500. Good if you want to run your own server that won't get too much traffic (I haven't seen one of these /.'ed or anything, but I'm trying to get that effect for mine:)
  • Well for most sites that might work to have it updated in such a fashion. However for something like slashdot or perhaps ebay it would not. Due to almost up to the second updates.
  • There's a big problem with that unfortunately... Blue LED's are about 20 times as expensive as Red/Green/Yellow. They use Gallium, which is mucho expensive.

    Besides, the green is good, and now, we can think of it as cow-patty green.
  • Odd, That wasnt funny.

    -chain
  • GW had been making an effort to move into the business server market for some time. Note that they bought ALR more than a year ago.
  • Flamebait?! jesus. The above one should have been marked as flaimbait.
  • All of the admin stuff is passworded. You end up with the same issues you have on a regular linux box - e.g. do you trust your network enough to use telnet?
  • Anyone who runs a GUI on a server should be shot. Thier SERVERS, you don't run gui's on servers... you run server processes... and you don't waste time shelling out CPU to make some pretty pictures. If you want pretty pictures, stick to NT.
  • I believe you have part of the answer: they are approaching from the family market. However, how's this for a scenario:

    1) More and more homes have gravitated from being 2 TV homes to being 2 PC homes.
    2) Cheap, always on broadband access is becoming more and more prevalent (at least where I live - everyone has cable)
    3) Families will be looking for a cheap, easy way to split the access, allowing Jimmy to play Starcraft while Dad downloads pr0n.
    4) Enter Gateway, with the Qube, allowing an inexpensive solution to allow the whole family to share access. The fact that it's an out-of-the-box solution, and that it can be configured via a browser makes it less threatening than administering a server is normally viewed.

    Personally, I'm thinking Gateway is trying to get a jump on M$ before those X-Boxes come out requiring a Win200X Server to run. (one X-box per TV...we know what they're aiming for)

    From a personal perspective I imagine we're 5 years from having a home server being a solution that you can get at future shop, and maybe a couple more before it becomes a built-in option in new homes (widespread, not counting cutting-edge planned communities that are likely candidates for being early-adopters).

    Anyways, while we have the chance, lets make sure our little Penguin is the one thats purring away quitely next to the water-heater and furnace in the basement.
  • Of course it's a real Linux box. You're complaining about the Redhat Package Manager not working? So what if it isn't a straight Redhat box. Linux is the kernel.
  • They may be adding cobalts and amiga, but when
    will gateway sell Athlons? I really want to see
    one of those in action and I bought my last
    couple of computers through gateway. We've been
    reading how cool they are on slashdot, now I
    want to buy one for real.

    Paul
  • Hmm, Atari 800 for $40? M.U.L.E. for 4 players again?

    SIGN ME UP!

  • Gateway does use 3rd party support (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Title says it all. Well, not quite all...

    Gateway does have some in-house tech support, but usually if you call them, the first person that will troubleshoot your system will be a 3rd party tech support person.

    Very likely, this person will work for Sykes, a tech support company.

    Let me tell you about them a bit - they hire people off the street, give them minimal training, and do their best to get you off the phone as quickly as possible (they get paid per call) whether your problem is fixed or not. The employees are not encouraged to actually become technically proficient at all; they're told to work off their script. Due to a high burnout rate (caused more by poor management than taking calls from angry assholes who want their warrantee support) the employees there usually don't last long anyway. That's why they usually set up in small towns with high unemployment - anyone can get a job there, and when you're out the door, they can hire someone else.

    How do I know this? I worked there two years, and it got progressively worse every day.

    Anyway, not to sound spiteful of my ex-employer (although I am), I'd like to point out that this is extremely common. Gateway themselves want to have technically proficient people working for them. It's their customers, after all. The 3rd party people don't care - they just want to make money.

    And gateway's not alone in this.

    At the site I worked, Compuserve, Gateway, Digital Equipment, and Intuit all had accounts there. I worked for the Digital team... we were a bit better off than the others, since digital didn't rewrite the contract every week (like gateway) and didn't expect us to support brand new systems and hardware without training (also like gateway). At other sykes locations, you would find accounts from several other computer-related companies as well.

    My advice:

    If you plan on buying a computer/product/whatever and you need tech support, find out if you're talkin' to a 3rd party or not. That can be difficult - usually they won't tell you. I don't know how many people I told over the phone that I worked for Digital itself. Once you find out, if the problem is not resolved by the 3rd party people, ask to be escalated. If necessary, become irrational and angry - that will help, believe it or not. Once you get to a knowledgable person, cool your heels - they'll help you, but you don't want to be rude to the gurus. They aren't paid to take that crap. Find out if you can get a number to the company's tech support people - it's doubtful, but worth the shot - they'll be a lot more likely to be able to help you than the 3rd party people. Keep in mind, they keep a database of all their calls, and keep comments, so use your "rabid insane user" persona sparingly.

    Now, I'm not saying all 3rd party techies are morons - there is a handful of bright, knowledgable people working for these companies. They usually get fired or burnt out, or leave the company in search of better pay (tech support people usually don't get paid much, and believe they have the skills to get a real computer job. Some do. Most don't. I sure as hell didn't, and I was one of the better ones...). Take my advice; don't work for these places. It's a dead end. The only chance you'll have of getting a better job once you're out of there is if you're promoted internally to management or IT. Tech support people, for all the crap they take, are looked at as the lowest rung of the techie food chain. Hell, I had to join the air force to get me a better job.
  • I saw this too.. but I've heard of NetMax. They did FreeBSD way before linux, and only started linux fairly (meaning I believe near the beginning of this year) recently. Their setup is supposed to be quite nice. That's really all I know, but they've been in the game for a long time, and seem well respected.
  • CacheFlow's product is similar to NetApp's NetCache product, however the CacheFlow seems to be eating the NetCache alive in terms of hits per second and simultaneous connections. I would reccomend Squid for a 'home' or office installation because its cheap for client use. For Acceleration you'll definately want a CacheFlow. I setup an inverse-web proxy for one of the sites I worked on, and squid couldn't handle the hits per second, it had 0 problem with massive amounts of connections being open which was ok, but not my primary objective.
  • You have heard about displaying an xterm from the server box on your own desktop. Or perhaps you haven't.

    Whether you have or you haven't, it's one of the biggest and best real-world uses of X - you can run X applications on a distributed model and display them locally.

    --
  • Power3's are used in IBM's high end boxes.

    The Qube uses MIPS
    John
  • Agreed, I know many humans who won't buy without touching the hardware.
    But.
    The overhead on running these things, just from the lease and the power and the heat and not even getting into the sales drone salaries etc. is significant.
    It's why Dell and Gateway never sold direct via CompUSA or Best Buy, never went head-to-head with Compaq and HP.

    So, you've got most of the overhead (except inventory) of a traditional retail, and your targetted opponent is Best Buy, who are selling stripped-down Compaq or HP boxes for slightly more $$$$ because now they're cutting every corner too, right?
    Maybe it's because I'm just a cat, but I don't see how this idea would ever work.
  • actually, it has an LCD :)
  • The title makes it sound as if Gateway is selling off a subsidiary, when in fact they are going to be a RESELLER of Cobalt's products. Come on guys.

    -josh

  • great! (Score:3)

    by Suydam ( 881 ) on Wednesday October 13, 1999 @08:50AM (#1615846) Homepage
    This is great news for everyone!

    Cobalt makes Linux hardware (more or less) and it's great to see them get what ammounts to a large distribution deal.

    Gateway is nothing more than a distributor of hardware anyway. The don't actually MAKE anything, so this deal gives them an entry into the LInux market.

    The question I have is: Who will do the support? Coablt? or Gateway? Because if it's Cobalt, I think you have people that will incorrectly assume that Gateway has contracted their support to a 3rd party. If it's Gateway, I'd worry that they won't know HOW to support Linux systems.

    Other than that, this seems like a great setup though.

  • When I read it I must've had a touch of dislexia, because it looked like "Gateway to Hell Cobalt Qubes"--

    I don't know what that means, though.

    -Lung
  • Cobalt, Amiga - GW seems to be all over the place.
    Got that right.

    I still don't get the Amiga purchase. Apparently, neither do they. I think at least this one makes sense: Gateway couldn't get into the server closet if their lives depended on it, because of their (relatively poor) reputation as a desktop vendor. They needed some way to get their foot in the door.

    That the way to serverland is through Linux (and not on Intel!) is just gravy. :)

  • Box movers (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is a big difference between companies like Gateway and Dell, which are essentially just very efficient box movers and companies like IBM, Compaq and HP which are true technology companies.

    To try to get out of being perceived as a box mover Gateway is trying all kinds of tricks. Some of them fail, like the Amiga deal. Unfortunately, this makes them appear even more like wannabees.

    Don't get me wrong: I don't have anything against box movers. If the can get that box moved my way for a lower price, I'm all for that. When buying from a company like Compaq or IBM you pay for many more managers and overhead. They can't offer good deals direct over the net for fear of alienating their existing distributors. Dell and Gateway don't have so much of this problem.

    But when you buy from IBM or HP you are also paying for the R&D which will create the next generation. Don't expect the next innovation for Gateway or Dell and their starvation-margin suppliers in the far east.

  • Slashdot Problem (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think there is a bug in slashdot. This is a new story being reported by Hemos. I thought Hemos only posted previously posted stories. Better look into this...
  • The world is getting weird...
    who accidentally hit Gateway with the cluestick?

    Obviously this is a Good Thing (tm) for many reasons:

    (1) Gateway selling Linux boxen means more corporate awareness and more Linux awareness at Gateway (a very Good Thing (tm), no more Winmodems!!! (hopefully))
    (2) This means another Linux-corp is going to be rolling in dough, always good for those of us with Linux all over our resume ;-)
    (3) the publicity on news.com means user-awareness
    (4) Persumably Gateway will actually sell some units of these, which means more *nix shops instead of NT shops (I do not think they will be stealing from existing *nix resellers, as if I am a biig *nix shop I go to Sun or IBM or HP, and if I am a Linux-shop and have been, prob already have a commerical relationship with VA or Penguin (or I roll my own ;-)

    Companies (in my limited experience) tend to stick to companies that they have bought from before... Hence most sales of Gateway's with this product line are likely to be existing customers of Gateway's who have been buying win* only up till now...

    And damn that blue is cool looking ;-)
    We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde
  • With the increasing linux support of Dell and Compaq, and now with this happening, I think Gateway has no choice but to start supporting linux to stay on top of their competition. This is AWESOME news for me becaue the company I work for is huge on buying Gateways (unbeknownst to my superiors there are Gateways with linux lurking around here... shhhh!) and I think if Gateway started linux support it might encourage them to look into linux as an option.
  • Agreed, but do they really need to be _Silling_ their products?
  • lets not get too crazy....

    yes, its good (in general) to see another company pushing linux for various reasons that have already been stated, but you must keep in mind that theyre not offering linux on their desktop boxes, theyre reselling machines from another manufacturer.

    their primary market is still the windoze desktop and to me, this news does not in any way suggest theyre going to start offering linux as an alternative on their desktops. a move like that would require substantial reorganization in their hardware, support, and sales departments...

    dont expect to see the end of winmodems yet...

    --Siva

    Keyboard not found.
  • Thos cubes are very nice! Never got to play with one, but when we were spec-ing out a new mail server, I checked the cobalt web site. I begged my boss to get a cube - perfect solution for what we needed. (Love the color). No dice, though.

    Hope this deal helps cobalt sell lots of raqs 'n cubes. Perfect solutions for small - medium shops. Pretty good support, too. These boxen are inexpensive enough to have two configured mail servers, for example, a main and one in case the first one fails. Very practical.

  • Qube Owner Speaks (Score:3)

    by Wah ( 30840 ) on Wednesday October 13, 1999 @09:10AM (#1615856) Homepage Journal
    I've got two qubes, e-mail/web/file servers. They have been very nice and rather easy. The main one has been up for over two months with nary a whisper, set 'em up and forget about it, my kind of servers. I haven't done anything t0o strenuous (no SQL install), but as a basic web server, say for a small company like mine, they work great. I also have it doing NAT, DHCP, filtering, mostly configured through the browser-GUI. Coming with two NICS installed makes it that much easier. I must say I have been impressed, plus they're so dang cute, especially when you turn the lights out. Mmmm, glowing green lights...

  • The bought Amiga and have done nothing with it at all. This is fast cheap access into the server market, a market that GW has been weak in.
  • But when you buy from IBM or HP you are also paying for the R&D which will create the next generation. Don't expect the next innovation for Gateway or Dell and their starvation-margin suppliers in the far east.

    So when you buy a PC from Gateway or Dell you're not paying for the next generation of R&D? Who is then? Surely the margin (however small) that Gateway's suppliers are making is paying for the research. You are indeed paying for the research into the next motherboard, memory, and hard drive. You're even paying some of your money to Microsoft for its legions of programmers to perfect (?!?) Windows 2000.

  • Maybe things have improved, but...

    I bought a RaQ last year hoping to have another sort of Linux box to play with. It was quite a disappointment. They started with redhat but the package management was broken so you had to use --force-install (or whatever it's called). They had not ported the X libraries, although someone did and put binaries on his site. They had built Emacs, but it would not build out of the box. Getting a working kernel built was a struggle.

    Cobalts are great for one thing - hosting lots of unrelated sites. Don't think of them as Linux or GNU systems, though.

  • I think you have the wrong idea of Dell. Sure you got their Dimension line right, it is entirely what you described, but Dell does create many products. The may not create Hard drives like IBM, and they may not manufacture their own stuff, but much of it is designed by Dell.

    It has been a long time since I worked there, so I will not get too specific, as I may not remember the details and don't want to post incorrect information here. One thing I do remember clearly about when I did work there was the Latitudes were designed in house, but made by someone else, and many of the Optiplex and poweredge components were the same. (this includes everything from Motherboards and up).

    Gateway and Dell are simular because they got in on the ground floor of mail order computers, not because they are "Box Movers".
  • As I understand it gateway makes 90%+ of it's money from family systems and not from business class servers which these appear to be. How many people are going (besides geeks) to buy one of these? I really don't go to some computer store and buy a sytem for $15,000 just to have it outdated in a couple of years when a new motherboard design or a new chipset comes out.
  • That's silly. the RaQ is clearly intended to be a web-hosting appliance. why would you buy one and then complain about not having X? Why didn't you buy a Cube?

    I have PHP, mySQL, egcs, servlets (JSPs and JDBC, too!) all running on my RaQ. I even managed to build Orbit (why?)
  • A white cube painted with large black spots (with wiggly edges).

  • From a proud Cobalt owner... (Score:3)

    by joeboo ( 5182 ) on Wednesday October 13, 1999 @10:34AM (#1615866) Homepage
    We have 4 Cobalt CacheRaqs and a Cobalt WebRaq. These things are great. 3 of our cache raqs and out web raq have been up for over 190 days without a problem. The only reason that we had to reboot them was to throw a custom kernel from Cobalt on them for gated and assorteds.

    Great support from Cobalt...
  • Geez, all of a sudden i'm a Cobalt rep.
    If you want to buy a turn-key solution, look at the Cobalt CacheRaq. Or go to freshmeat and look for something called 'squid'. Or roll your own.

  • I would think you could compile squid on whatever OS you run. I haven't used it extensivly but from what I have seen it appears to be pretty powerful.
  • Why sell these? Because Dell is starting to kick Gateway's ass on family sales, that's why.
    Retail is not the way to sell computers (just ask Inca or Computerland or Entre' or Egghead) but what did Gateway do? Open Gateway Country stores!
    Gateway is in severe need of a server market to compete with Dell in the corp arena, and this will help. I just worry that they'll end up messing up a good thing.

    Meow.
  • hahahaha
  • Thanks for the info. I like the small size.

    Considering what you get, these things should be priced at about $500.

    The name Rebel is stupid, that is for sure.

    E
  • I looked at a bunch of our Dell desktops (many different models) here at work, they were all using Intel OEM motherboards.

  • >You dammmm right about that. The Gateway folks
    >are just as bad as Micro$oft in the "tech
    >support" arena

    Um, as a former Corporate and NT tech for Gateway (now in a different dept there), I have to disagree. Yes, the outsourced tech support can be bad, but that's true for any company. But if you get a tech that actually works for Gateway, it's a good thing.

    You compare us to MS, but we actually support our products. I guess it's true about those that have good experiances are silent, but those that have bad ones piss and moan.

    --
    alSeen@narnia.net
  • >Retail is not the way to sell computers (just
    >ask Inca or Computerland or Entre' or Egghead)
    >but what did Gateway do? Open Gateway Country
    >stores!

    Country Stores are not retail stores. You can't pick the computer up there. They are simply places you can go to see and play with the computers and then order. The computers are then built and shipped just like if you had ordered over the phone. Most also have a service center and software training classes.

    --
    alSeen@narnia.net
  • And they make money how?
  • Has anyone actually clicked on the "netmax" ads running on Slashdot now? It appears to be a Cobalt-type setup, but software only, and available for $499 (!) ... wonder what whiz-bang patch they applied to Samba or Apache to justify that... if course, you can somehow buy the file server, web server and firewall software separately for $99 each (this must be the special "sucker" package).

    They also seem to be a little confused; it's "just released for Linux," but:
    All the software components required to run any network, including the Linux operating system based on the Red Hat[tm] distribution or FreeBSD, are included. No other software is needed. The point and click user interface makes running a server as easy as browsing the web. Read more about the WebServer, FileServer, and FireWall products.
    Hm. Didn't know that there was a FreeBSD-based version of Linux. ... their site says "Simplifying Linux | Simplifying FreeBSD," and in their store you can buy the FreeBSD versions separate from the Linux versions ... but then the produce specs say "Complexities of Linux concealed."

    ... well, I suppose if you're really running FreeBSD, then yes, Linux is very concealed.

    Think perhaps they're trying to just shove copies of anything out the door, look nice in the media, and get handed a huge pile of cash by some sucker of suckers in an IPO or buyout? Or is tehre more to the story? Anyone know?
  • Yes, they have provided the source. I even have the home/work telephone number for their chief software engineer.

    Their support has been nothing but excellent!
  • Hmmm... interesting interface:

    http://livedemo.netmax.com/users/RootAccess.cgi?Co okie=939865502.1

  • Gateway support sucks.Period. No Offense, but you couldn't give me a Gateway. They had a fan blowing across the CPU, from the power supply to cool the CPU in my Gateway P-200. No case fans, no CPU heat sink...nada, guess thyat makes their computers cheaper. Eventually the power supply went out, and that was on a replacement P-5 200 they had sent. Oh, and when they sent it, they forgot to add the extra 128 mb of memory I had ordered. Tech support??Hardy har har!! I knew a WHOLE lot less then than now, but they managed to french fry my registries more than once. Turned out that tech support at Gateway was using the same knowledge base trouble shooting pages you can get at Microsoft knowledge base...word for word. 21 calls, 63 houirs....and when I was finally fed up...it took 21/2 months to get my money back.
    Gateway...BARF....
    Consumer be forewarned, Get me once shame on you, get me twice (never!!) shame on me.

    Simply put, this was the worst choice of computer manufacturer I ever made...Hmmm well maybe the UMAX I got was worse....but I'm still dealing with them.
  • Neither is Cobalt. For those who have never dealt with one, you can't install a distribution on the thing. You are stuck with whatever Cobalt gives you, including little nasties that like to rewrite certain config files such as /etc/hosts. Cobalt's machines are for non-linux people to setup web hosting services via a GUI.
  • Could Dell be just a facade for Andy Groves' operation?

    All PC manufactures are facades for Intel. They screw together the parts, take a small profit margin, and hope that an ongoing support relationship with the customer will lead to some real money.

    (Even the AMD systems often have Intel chipsets.)
  • I use cobalt servers, and the support they give is pretty poor.. The only thing they have is a mailing list (of users and developers) and a little knowledge base [cobaltnet.com].

    The e-mail support is getting better this days, but there is no documentation about the implementation of the server.

    Anyway, those servers are great..

  • Actually, Gateway's server entrance was the purchase of ALR whose servers we used until we recently replaced them with an SGI twin Origin setup. The Amiga situation was different that it seems to have been guided by a faction that has never persuaded the rest of the company. Cobalt however is a living breathing easy-to-sell commercial product, the kind which they generally do well with.
  • ... I ain't interested. Seriously though, I had the chance to setup a Qube remotely (and then visit it in action later ;) and it's neat for what it is, formfactor and all, but I don't think it's meant for the tinkerer. Not that that's necessarily a slam, but if you're the type of person who likes to install their glibc from source or recompile a kernel at every patchlevel, you'll be disappointed. LTIC, Cobalt had a piss-poor archive of pretested/precompiled RPMs for their machines, and they don't keep up with the latest kernels (which bugs me for performance, security, and feature reasons).

    Suffice it to say, they're interesting systems, but hardly flexible enough for a true tinkerer..
  • This story is false. Gway is not reselling or selling the Cobalt servers yet. It took me several phone calls and 2 and 1/2 hours to determine this. Just because they list the item on their website does not mean they are actually selling it (or so I've found out). SpotShop would not help me and passed me off to the main Gateway customer service. These guy's, who also do not answer their phone, had to speak with the Server dept. before discussing the product. They then came back with the "we will be offering the Cobalt Qube in 60 - 90 days, for now it is not available". They said they are going to be modifying the item slightly (painting spots on it?) after which it will be available for sale. Who was I kidding looking at buying from Gway - Dell rocks all the way.
  • >Maybe it's because I'm just a cat, but I don't see how this idea would ever work.

    I can see why it would be confusing, but it does seem to work. Gateway isn't big on wasting money, and they are opening new ones all the time.

    I think one of the big reasons is because they have the service centers in them also.

    --
    alSeen@narnia.net
  • Unless Cobalt has changed their policy, you're pretty much limited to using the software they provide. If you add other software, you void the warranty.

    We've had customer requests for our software to be built for use on Cobalt machines (yes, on web servers) but because adding software voids the warranty, we've declined to do so. Adding the database libraries we need would void the warranties on our devel machines -- adding these and our software too would void the warranties on our customers machines.

    Cobalt hasn't shown a great deal of interest in working out these problems.
  • I'm not certain about the Qube (although I think they do), but the Cobalt Raq does have a serial console port. No, it's not made to hook up a PC monitor, but they are an excellent "server appliance" and seem to save quite a bit of time with administration.


    You can get them at www.raq.net [raq.net]
  • True, but... only about $1.00 or $1.50 apiece.
    And they would be _so_ much cooler...
  • Mmmm, glowing green lights...

    If Cobalt was really cool, they'd use blue LEDs instead.

  • Re:great! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I do support for hateway and guess what... I read Slashdot and use Debian linux. Wish I could say as much for my comrades though. Nobody here I know uses Linux, not even our supervisors except for one that I know of. I think Gateways going to need to do a lot of hiring if they are doing the support.
  • I bought a Gateway system last year. It was cheap, they financed over the phone, and they mailed it to Japan, where I was living at the time. It is a great little system...

    But still.

    It was put together with the crappiest OEM parts I have ever heard of. There were corners cut on nearly every modular part inside the thing, from generic RAM to a seriously (non-Linux) flawed integrated video chipset. For what I paid from, I got a good deal, but I have replaced most of the parts in it to get it to perform like I want it.

    Do I want a server to do that? No.
    A server should have the top of the line, state of the art hardware in it, at all times, if possible.
    Can Gateway do that?
  • Let's see, Gateway selling Cobalt stuff...


    Would that make them Cowbalt products?

  • Where do I send my resume?
  • Didn't GW buy ALR? Thought that was to be their big entry into serverland...

  • Well the colo outfit had a special deal for RaQs. NB: I'm not complaining about the lack of X servers but it's nice to pop up an xterm or X-aware emacs from your webserver.

    I reiterate that these machines look great for hosting multiple sites, assuming you don't need any software that's only sold as i386 binaries.

    Oh and don't believe the marketing claim that it's a 64-bit system. The CPU can run in a 64-bit mode, but the kernel and operating system require it to be in 32-bit mode. At least that it what I grasped of the situation.

  • Web Cache - Squid + Friends (Score:4)

    by Christopher B. Brown ( 1267 ) <cbbrowne@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 13, 1999 @11:24AM (#1615904) Homepage
    The first thing for you to look at, run, don't walk, is Squid. [nlanr.net]

    Squid is a full-featured, free cacheing web proxy that is most certainly what you want to look at. It is available in RPM and DEB pre-packaged form.

    You might also want to look into filtering web proxies that might be what users set up to "hit," to do things like filtering out cookies and/or annoying banner ads. (Not the Slashdot ones, of course!). The "standard" one to mention is Junkbuster [junkbusters.com] but there are other possibly more sophisticated ones as listed at HTTP Links. [hex.net]

    I'd hazard the guess that you'd be able to get most of the web cacheing benefits from a 386 box with 8MB of RAM and 500MB of disk; moving up to 14.4GB isn't likely to increase performance vastly over that...

  • You can moderate me 'Offtopic' and call me Alice.. But MIPS?? ROCK!!

    Ah need me one of dem dere qubes!
  • Gateway selling Cobalt servers will open up an easy way for people to buy Cobalt products. I don't know why Cobalt just doesn't sell direct anyway...

    I have heard that the Cobalt servers are not very secure, probably has to do with the web-based administration. Anybody know anything more?

    I like the Cobalt servers, and I might even buy one soon. Maybe there is a similar products out there to compare against?

  • Well, i would think 14.4 gig hard drive would be nice. 500 megs isn't enough. I'm looking at twenty users using the thing. At least half of them are always checking the same stuff over and over... as reference material which never changes. These include PDF files and other very large files.

    Squid is the one that I found in freshmeat... and I'll probably give that a try...

    But I still haven't heard anyone say if squid is any good! Anyone run it?
  • Well, what I don't want is to buy a turn-key solution.

    I can't see myself buying a RaQ either. I can build a box for much cheaper than that.
  • It's a Qube with Moo in it! :-)

    Never mind... it wasn't very funny anyway.

    Gerv
  • I really like the idea of blue cow spots.
  • Then shoot ME....No, Virginia, the rest of the world does not speek geek!

    Using RaQs has given our web hosting customers an easy-to-use HTML administration interface and kept the help desk phones quiet....in my book that's a winning product.
  • Anyone else remember when Gateway bought ALR and started pushing their 4 way + servers? They were some damn nice boxes, too. Funny, I don't see many gateway-labeled major servers anywhere... Cobalts are interesting machines; I've been considering gettign one for quite some time. MIPS pounds intel performance-wise, its also a generally much sexier arch in general. (I've held off on buying a qube because, damnit, I want my XEarth! that, and I never was too crazy about Linux, but I'll swallow my pride. For now. :) ) Somehow I suspect this is going to look nice on paper, Ok in catalogues, and really crappy at the bottom line. IMO..
  • Cobalt, Amiga - GW seems to be all over the place.

    I'm just waiting for Gateway to start selling Atari 800's, Commodore 64's and 128's, TRS-80's, and PCjr's as "Sub $40 PC's".

  • They are used for web hosting primarily... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The RaQ is designed primarily for webhosting... They also make the CacheRaQ for use as a small caching server for an ISP. I currently work with over 16 RaQ2+s at work, and they rock. They are not designed to be normal linux boxes. Hell, they have no ports for a keyboard, mouse, or even a monitor. They are only supposed to be used for serving sites or serving as a mail server. The processor running in them is a MIPS processor, so RedHat i386 binaries won't work out of the box on a Cobalt (you need the source to make it work with a cobalt, so trying to get RealServer G2 working won't happen). Just my two cents... =) -shellx

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