As a follow up to my previous post, I was wondering if an older Mac G4/400 (OSX, of course) could work effectively as a Moodle server. Don mentioned the much younger eMac 1.25 works well for such purposes. But I'm not sure how low we can go here. Currently I have about 210 students for a few courses.
I don't feel like running the risk of suspended accounts with web hosts any longer. ITS here does not want to deal with php scripting, and my department will not reimburse me for web hosting fees as budgets are tight (plus, they're paying through the nose for WebCT). So I'm thinking of setting up a server myself.
Thanks in advance.
Steven
Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
Number of replies: 12
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
I ran 220 Moodle students off a G4/400 connected to the internet via cable modem in my living room two years ago. It worked great.
Chug, chug, chug, I could even hear it spin and whirl when my students were hitting the books.
Chug, chug, chug, I could even hear it spin and whirl when my students were hitting the books.
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
Thanks Tom. May I follow up and ask how much RAM and HDD space you would recommend? The challenge of attempting to do this on my own is intriguing. Yet, realistically it may be too much for me in the middle of a semester. So I may very well be inquiring soon about the services your company provides as a Moodle Partner. I'd also love to hear how you use Moodle for teaching literature. Thus far, I have not tapped into the full pedagogic potential of Moodle.
Best,
Steven
Best,
Steven
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
We ran our Moodle server on an iMac with a G4/800 for a while with no real problems (but see below).
Tom may have more specific recommendations, but disk space probably isn't going to be an issue unless your students are uploading very large files. Moodle doesn't use much disk space in and of itself, and the text forum messages don't use much either. You may want some extra RAM, though.
The critical factor is how many students will try to use the system at the same time, not how many there are altogether. If you aren't doing a lot of synchronous activities (like chats) that machine might work fine. We went to a faster machine because we were running a lot of chats (this was before the chat daemon was introduced). I think we'd have been fine on the old machine other than that.
You may want to schedule the deadlines for different courses so they fall at different times, if you can manage it. Since students will be students, you can count on them all trying to log in ten minutes before the assignment is due.
Tom may have more specific recommendations, but disk space probably isn't going to be an issue unless your students are uploading very large files. Moodle doesn't use much disk space in and of itself, and the text forum messages don't use much either. You may want some extra RAM, though.
The critical factor is how many students will try to use the system at the same time, not how many there are altogether. If you aren't doing a lot of synchronous activities (like chats) that machine might work fine. We went to a faster machine because we were running a lot of chats (this was before the chat daemon was introduced). I think we'd have been fine on the old machine other than that.
You may want to schedule the deadlines for different courses so they fall at different times, if you can manage it. Since students will be students, you can count on them all trying to log in ten minutes before the assignment is due.
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
Thanks Tony.
The number of simultaneous users is indeed the crux of the matter. Right now, I'm curious: how many users constitutes a real strain on any system? To avoid having problems with shared web hosts, I do need another solution. So I may go ahead and try the ol' G4 since you and Tom were able to do so. No chat or much synchronous activity on my sites. More an e-syllabus with links and assignments.
Thanks again. I appreciate all your help.
Best,
Steven
The number of simultaneous users is indeed the crux of the matter. Right now, I'm curious: how many users constitutes a real strain on any system? To avoid having problems with shared web hosts, I do need another solution. So I may go ahead and try the ol' G4 since you and Tom were able to do so. No chat or much synchronous activity on my sites. More an e-syllabus with links and assignments.
Thanks again. I appreciate all your help.
Best,
Steven
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
Hi Steven,
200-300 students no problem if they doing things at different times. If you have lab times where they all sit down together to work on moodle, you will experience slowdowns after 20 users, long waits at 30 students, and stoppage over 50 students. RAM is the only thing to worry about--the above figures are based 800MB RAM. 1-2GB RAM will get you better performance. Don't even try chats.
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
Chats will work fine if you use the new chat daemon. Basically this means one constant process running for all users rather than one process running for each user and each update of the page.
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
I tried exactly that with a Mac G4/400 and dyndns and my ADSL service at home. A few users were fine, but a class of 20 to 30 students soon brought things grinding to a halt with time out errors from IE. I suspect the very very slow network at that university didn't help matters either 
so you might be OK with those numbers.
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
Most likely you ground to a halt due to limited upload bandwidth rather than running out of processing power. Most adsl are limited to 128k-256k upload, which won't allow more than about 10 students to get one of your course's pages (20x~10k=200k) at the same time.
We ran a couple courses with hundred or so participants on a g3400/500mb Ram on a 10mbit line, without overly taxing the system (that was Moodle 1.1).
We ran a couple courses with hundred or so participants on a g3400/500mb Ram on a 10mbit line, without overly taxing the system (that was Moodle 1.1).
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
Cool, good to know that. I may have a chance to use that same old Mac on a faster connection at work rather than at home. Good to know that it is worth a try. Thanks.
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
Looks like you have some good feedback about trusting the mac. The one I ran/run is 320 MB SDRAM...
Feel free to drop me an email sometime about teaching lit with Moodle. I'll share whatever tricks I've dug up so far.
best,
Tom
Feel free to drop me an email sometime about teaching lit with Moodle. I'll share whatever tricks I've dug up so far.
best,
Tom
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
Thanks Don, Martin, and Tom. I was using chat once a week for virtual office hours, but have stopped that now. No lab work or other intensive assignments. My only concern is having 10+ students hitting the site at once, which is apparently what got my account suspended in the first place.
From what you've shared with me, this weekend I may try converting my desktop computer into a server. Thanks for the very informative instructions Don. If things don't go smoothly, I may be contacting you Tom to set something up (provided I get access to my old account with the web host; I think they generally like to punish any abusers by leaving them in the dark a few days). And thanks for the offer to share your experience using Moodle to teach literature. I would like to hear about some of your tricks.
Best,
Steven
From what you've shared with me, this weekend I may try converting my desktop computer into a server. Thanks for the very informative instructions Don. If things don't go smoothly, I may be contacting you Tom to set something up (provided I get access to my old account with the web host; I think they generally like to punish any abusers by leaving them in the dark a few days). And thanks for the offer to share your experience using Moodle to teach literature. I would like to hear about some of your tricks.
Best,
Steven
Re: Possible to run Moodle on older Mac G4/400?
>I was using chat once a week for virtual office hours, but have stopped that now.
Sorry for my overly brief comment on chats. I meant that for groups of students under the old system. Office hours with 1-3 students should work even under the old system. I haven't tried the new daemon, but sounds like a huge improvement.
Of course, contact me anytime. You might try Skype too. My Skype name is "hinkelman".
Sorry for my overly brief comment on chats. I meant that for groups of students under the old system. Office hours with 1-3 students should work even under the old system. I haven't tried the new daemon, but sounds like a huge improvement.
Of course, contact me anytime. You might try Skype too. My Skype name is "hinkelman".