[Slackbuilds-users] cardinal.lizella.net - help needed :/

[Robby Workman]

Well, we hoped it wouldn't come to this, but alas...

Those of you who are familiar with cardinal, I'll cut to the chase:
we have to replace the server and need help with money.

For those of you who aren't familiar, or perhaps need some justification
to consider helping, here you are:  :-)

http://cardinal.lizella.net hosts slackbook.org, slackpkg.org,
sbopkg.org, rlworkman.net, alienBOB's wiki and blog, an official mirror
for Xfce, an official mirror for the netfilter/iptables tutorial,
mailing lists for SlackBuilds.org, DNS and email for SlackBuilds.org,
and probably a few other things that have escaped my feeble and
frazzled mind right now.

Cardinal is an old 1u server with dual P3 Coppermine procs and 3G of
ram, and it's been a good one for us until recently.  We've had serious
issues lately with overall stability (primarly rtc/timer issues - it
was unable to maintain steady time), and now last night the machine
just crashed with no warning.   We've suspected hardware troubles for a
while, but we were determined to "prop it up" as long as possible.
However, we've now reached the point where the downtime is too frequent
(which inconveniences our users), but it also is an annoyance to our
colocation provider, since we have to contact them every time the
machine goes down.  Since they are providing our hosting and bandwidth
for free, we'd prefer not to continue that either :-)

Anyway, we've done some digging around, and Alan has spec'd out a new
machine for around $1000, which might be a bit more once we add disks
to it, but that's a rough estimate.  This particular machine comes with
a three year hardware warranty, which we see as a big plus given that we
have spent the past three or four years in a constant state of worry
over that, so yes, we want to buy something new as opposed to getting a
used machine.  That said, $1000 is not something that we can afford to
throw out at the moment, so we are asking/hoping the community will be
willing to chip in and help make this happen.

For those who are willing to help, PayPal will be the easiest way for
us to get money - you can send it to me directly using my @slackware.com
address:  rworkman -at- slackware.com   or using my personal email:
rw -at- rlworkman.net  -- they are both the same PayPal account, so it
doesn't matter which one you choose.  If you do not have a PayPal
account, or you do not like them or some such, let us know and we'll
try to figure out some other option.

Once we get a replacement server done, we'll create a "thanks" page on
it somewhere to publicly recognize everyone who contributed, so if you
wish for your name to be hidden or some such, make sure to specify that.

Finally, any excess money collected will be given directly to Pat V.
once we're done; we've never operated cardinal with the intention of
making a profit from it, and we're not going to start now -- this is 
our way of "giving something back" to the free software world that's 
done so much for us, and I sincerely hope that you can view us in the
same light :-)

Thanks in advance,

The Cardinal Crew
  Alan Hicks
  Eric Hameleers (alienBOB)
  Rob Ogilvie (AthlonRob)
  Fred Emmott
  PiterPUNK
  Rob McGee (/dev/rob0)
  Robby Workman (rworkman)
  Sally
  slakmagik
  stormtracknole
  Tom Rhodes (tom)
  Vincent Batts (vbatts)
  David Somero (XGizzmo)