Paul Mobbs/
Mobbs' Environmental Investigation & Research

The Container Project –
Fifth Report, 23^rd/24^th April 2003

It's been a busy couple of days, so these pictures span two days of work.

We've been working to connect the old Pentium 1 machines to the network. The problem is, when they were installed, no one checked whether the network cards worked properly – and they don't. So we've been tinkering to get them working.

I finished setting up the server on Wednesday. But to check the network functions properly we need some clients to interface to the network – and the clients don't have working network cards... Catch 22.

Anyhow, on Thursday, after a lot of fiddling, I got one of the client online and fully functional, and the network functions fine. DHCP to log the computers on to the network, DNS to make the naming system work, and the file shares, FTP and web servers to move data around the system, all work fine. This also means I can do remote administration on the server, so I don't actually have to sit in front of it any more. In fact, I'm putting this page together sat outside of The Container, in the cool breeze, at the end of a 20 metre ethernet cable. I can also work on the server from here (the wonders of Linux!).

The big problem we have is that these old Pentium 1 machines can't boot from CD. So we're going to have to search online to find some disk 'images' and make the floppy disks to boot the systems. Then we can re-install the clients, with the right drivers for the network cards, and get them up, running and on the network....

Meanwhile, for Mervin and Lisa confusion reined in the Mac corner!

Over the last couple of days Junior has been redecorating the site. Apart from the large yellow container, it's now really obvious where The Container Project is!

Jo-jo learing how the boxes work

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