A lot has happened since the end of the year, so let me try to catch everybody up to date….

Around Nov 2019, the Fedora Linux server sustained a system hard drive crash.  No big deal, right?  This is why I have spare hardware and backup sets and drive images.  To prevent, or minimalize the loss of data.  So, I couldn’t find any spare 250GB drives, so, I installed a 320GB drive as the boot device and restored the image.  The current Fedora OS at the time was F31, so, I figured that I would upgrade the server to current while I was at it.  The upgrade from F28 to F30 went fine, but that’s as far as it would go.  Awhile back, Fedora stopped supplying live 32 bit images, but would upgrade an existing 32 bit image.  That ended with F31.  The server was a HP D530 @2.8GHz, with 4GB of ram, and was 32 bit only, so I ordered a couple new servers.  I’m not really upset over that, as the existing D530 has been running 24/7 since September 2010.  Not a bad run for a server: 9 years.

I picked up a pair of HP Elite 8300 Convertible Mini Tower computers at a great price, both came with 8GB Ram (Expandable to 32GB).  The CPU is a quad core i5-3470 running at 3.2GHz (32/64 bit).  It has been running since Jan 2020 and rarely runs at less than 98.5% idle, with a load usually of 0.1. The four cores of the CPU usually hang out at about 80 degress Fahrenheit, and trying to push the CPU doesn’t get the temperature to move at all… The server usually never even touches the swap, instead staying within the 8GB of memory, so putting another 8GB into it isn’t really a priority.  I performed a fresh F31 install, and restored the KRAB server, and many more items.  I also had suspended auto backups for a few months, but the auto backup rotation is now up and running and the full backups run much faster now that the system is 64 bit with more memory.

On a side note, my friend, Duck Landes and I worked on, and got set up a KRAB radio relay.  He also expanded his existing four channels and added a couple more besides the relay.  The URL for the server is: quackhouseradio.net.  There, you will find the following channels:

QH1: Bootleg Rock and Blues, Duck’s Live Broadcasts
QH2: Bootleg Blues and Old Time Radio
QH3: History
QH4: Bootleg Concerts and KRAB Live Broadcasts
QH5: Horror
QH6: Old Time Radio
KRAB: KRAB Radio Relay

The streams are as easy as going to the correct channel, and just clicking on the winamp or media player icons.  (In the case of KRAB, you can either do that, or click one of the two listen buttons in KRAB’s left frame.) If you chose that method, it should ‘fall back’ to KRAB server, if  QHR server becomes unavailable.  The KRAB server URL is krabradio.net, fyi.

So, this all has kept me fairly busy since the coronavirus pandemic started, but keep your eyes open for an upcoming 10GB music upload that I am working on….