Hey guys, hopefully this will be a quick and easy thread.
I have a bunch of scripts that I would like to run full time on a dedicated machine. I am looking for something like a raspberry pi that is capable of running a full windows install. While I intend to run linux on it, there are some windows only programs that I would like to be able to run just in case my scripts break for what ever reason.
I don't need any real horse power. I really only need a computer that is capable of running google chrome and excel. And furthermore I am only using excel to read csv files. So all I really need is a toaster oven that runs windows.
I would like to keep the price down below 200. I have tons of spare SSDs and hard drives, so don't worry about that cost.
I would also like a cheap small screen to put on top of this thing. I just need something that would show me if the script ran into a web error or something, so a small little 7 inch screen would be fine.
One alternative is to ditch the display and remote in, but if you need the monitor then i'd just buy a second hand whatever for maybe 20 bucks max if information is all you need and not eye candy. We've got this
in our warehouse in a photo booth, works fine for the task but windows itself is horrendeosly slow.
100% agree with you, but I don't think ssh works in this situation. I can't give out any details about what I do, but lets just say that I basically make google accounts for people.
Sometimes the web page will throw an error and say that the email is already in use or some other bull crap. I THINK I need a screen to monitor those errors, but there could be a more elegant solution unannounced to me.
Also, I really like that PC, but unfortunately it is not sold in the US. Everything over here is completely bare bone for 50 bucks less.
No, and I can safely say that I would hang myself with a short piece of rope if I were. The google account thing is a pure analog. I try to stay away from google if I can tbh.
And the reason I don't use a crappy old laptop is because of 2 main reasons.
1: I already have a old crappy laptop that I use for linux development which is WAYYYYYYYY more important : P
2: All the ass hats on craisglist seem to think their laptops were blessed by jesus and want way too much money. I can easily get a brand new nuc and kit it out for the same price as a shitty dell latitude.
For windows I don't have the faintest notion (windows has 'events' while everything else under the sun runs syslog... but for reference: bash script outputs can be forwarded to rsyslog & rsyslog can be configured to send email alerts (as in actual email, not just a message in the root folder) when certain keywords appear in the logs. And since there's 3rd party syslog programs available for windows, maybe those support mailing too?
Well I am not too terribly concerned about the windows side.
Here is whats going on. I have a bunch of python scripts that run selenium to automate some webstuff. I want all of that to run on opensuse leap. The only reason I am hesitant to run everything off a raspberry pi is because I need google chrome. And because I might end up needing more software down the road that might not be compatible with ARM.
My reason for wanting windows is just in case I end up needing more windows based software, or I run into an issue on linux, I simply want that freedom, That being said, I am thinking about running a windows vm under linux to handle the windows only programs and then I could manage some fancy error handling just fine. The only issue I have with that is KVM hates me and nothing I ever run in a vm is stable.
If I do need to fall back and run a dedicated windows machine, I will probably just personally monitor it until such a time that I can get the linux box back up and running.
Yeah I'd definitely configure a 'fancy error handling' zydem and leave the server headless. Simply because it's better in the long run - learning new stuff, deploy and forget, give attention only when needed, more painless. And it's not all that complicated anyway, you just have to know what info to look for.
But of course there's more than one ways to skin a cat, any solution that gets the job done works.
