'search' button in the forum

[roberts]

I have two team members looking into possible alternatives.
Other recommendations are always welcomed.

[HawkH23]

Although they did have a blip in the last two weeks, I've been very happy with Dreamhost for four years. I have unlimited bandwidth, disk space, users, emails, domains, etc. with them. Very reliable and fast. I'm not doing anything like the kind of volume I expect this site is getting but I have a hard time imagining it wouldn't work. The shared server I am on is an 8-core Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X3440  @ 2.53GHz with 16GB of RAM. (I could also get a little referral bonus if you use a code I give you, but that's neither required nor my motivation for recommending. Just full disclosure.)

[vinnie]

I do not know provider from personal experience  (I could say tuxfamily just to not stay ot),  but really I just wanted to communicate my disappointment at what is happening.

[Guy]

Are you looking for a free host, or are you considering paying?

The free hosts I have used, I have found to be very unreliable. They promote it as free, as it gets a lot more publicity, but they want you to change to a paid plan. If you stay with the free plan, they continually cause problems with the website. At least some of them do this intentionally. It is blatant dishonesty. I would not use any of the hosts that have both free and paid hosting again, because it is false advertising. (Maybe there are good ones, but not the ones I have used.)

You probably need to look for low cost paid hosting.

Tiny Core has a policy of not taking donations. Why not make it possible for those who want to, to donate? Then you can afford to pay for hosting.

[tinypoodle]

Are you looking for a free host, or are you considering paying?

The free hosts I have used, I have found to be very unreliable. They promote it as free, as it gets a lot more publicity, but they want you to change to a paid plan. If you stay with the free plan, they continually cause problems with the website. At least some of them do this intentionally. It is blatant dishonesty. I would not use any of the hosts that have both free and paid hosting again, because it is false advertising. (Maybe there are good ones, but not the ones I have used.)

You probably need to look for low cost paid hosting.

Unfortunately what you state often applies to some degree to low cost paid hosting with the term "Unlimited" as well.

Tiny Core has a policy of not taking donations. Why not make it possible for those who want to, to donate? Then you can afford to pay for hosting.

FWIW, while the site had been taken off there were spontaneous offers of users on TC's IRC channel.

[Guy]

I have no idea how much disk space Tiny Core uses.

I also don't know which providers you are considering, or what they cost.

I have also not compared the prices of web hosting lately.

Consider http://webnet77.com/. I have found them to be very good and very reliable.

http://webnet77.com/ is run from South Africa. However, the server is in the United States.

They promote Christian web hosting. They will host things unrelated to Christianity. I went with them, because of the price, and I figured Christians are less likely to cheat you (theoretically). There are so many dishonest people on the internet.

Most of the plans now have unmetered bandwidth.

If the existing plans don't suit you, I would talk to them about your needs, and ask what it would cost.

If you find something better, good luck.

[roberts]

Thanks for suggestions.

FWIW I have been paying for our hosting. I have not wanted to accept donations, as that would entail setting up a business, taxes, forms, et al. Besides Tiny Core is larger than me, larger than the team, We have an active community all contributing code, extensions, documentation, and forum posts. We are a community.

[Michael Wells]

Just out of curiosity ... if it would not be inappropriate to ask ... how much bandwidth does this community consume on a monthly basis? 

[roberts]

Last full month, Feb 2011, 45.8GB

[thane]

FYI, the News section of the main page is blank in IE on my office Windows box (it has content in FF on my TCL box at home though).

[Lee]

IMHO, It is the people and policies that distinguish between hosting providers.

My personal web pages (nothing special from a technical point of view) are hosted on Virtual Avenue (virtualave.net).  When I started with them several years ago, they provided a free service, funded by banner ads at the top of each served page.  When that business model failed, they offered some discounts on their ad-less service which I took advantage of because I had been satisfied with their service.

Some of my work related web sites are hosted on Easy CGI (easycgi.com) under one of their higher-end hosting plans and I have been seriously under-satisfied with their service.

These two providers seem to use identical technologies - close enough that I initially questioned if they are really the same company with different skins on their home pages - yet, after a bit of experience with both, I see that their service is worlds apart in terms of both support and up time.


Might I ask who is the current hosting provider for tinycorelinux.com?

[tinypoodle]

Code: [Select]

traceroute tinycorelinux.com

[roberts]

Bluehost

[bmarkus]

Code: [Select]

traceroute tinycorelinux.com

More precisely first you need to know IP address of host. Ping for example is enough:

[root@zero ~]# ping tinycorelinux.com
PING tinycorelinux.com (69.89.31.92) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from box292.bluehost.com (69.89.31.92): icmp_seq=1 ttl=46 time=175 ms
64 bytes from box292.bluehost.com (69.89.31.92): icmp_seq=2 ttl=46 time=176 ms

I'm in Europe while host is in US, so 176 ms is an average typical value.

Next use

[root@zero ~]# whois 69.89.31.92

Result is:

# The following results may also be obtained via:
# http://whois.arin.net/rest/nets;q=69.89.31.92?showDetails=true&showARIN=false
#

NetRange:       69.89.16.0 - 69.89.31.255
CIDR:           69.89.16.0/20
OriginAS:       AS11798
NetName:        BLUEHOST-NETWORK-1
NetHandle:      NET-69-89-16-0-1
Parent:         NET-69-0-0-0-0
NetType:        Direct Allocation
RegDate:        2006-10-02
Updated:        2007-11-02
Ref:            http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-69-89-16-0-1


OrgName:        Bluehost Inc.
OrgId:          BLUEH-2
Address:        1958 South 950 East
City:           Provo
StateProv:      UT
PostalCode:     84606
Country:        US
RegDate:        2006-08-08
Updated:        2009-07-13
Ref:            http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/BLUEH-2

OrgTechHandle: NETWO2081-ARIN
OrgTechName:   Network Operations
OrgTechPhone:  +1-801-765-9400
OrgTechEmail:  netops@bluehost.com
OrgTechRef:    http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NETWO2081-ARIN

Now you have the administrative information on, but server may be anywhere around the Globe. Use an IP to GEO database like MaxMind's online lookup you see that server in fact is in CA, San Bernardio

Just for case if you want to know info on others or to learn how easy to collect info based on simple ping

[tinypoodle]

Code: [Select]

traceroute tinycorelinux.com

More precisely first you need to know IP address of host. Ping for example is enough:

[root@zero ~]# ping tinycorelinux.com
PING tinycorelinux.com (69.89.31.92) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from box292.bluehost.com (69.89.31.92): icmp_seq=1 ttl=46 time=175 ms
64 bytes from box292.bluehost.com (69.89.31.92): icmp_seq=2 ttl=46 time=176 ms

Well, 'traceroute' does the DNS lookup (like ping would) and shows in the end the name of the hosting provider, all-in-one  

[root@zero ~]# whois 69.89.31.92

I refrained from mentioning 'whois' - which would indeed be the appropriate tool for given purpose - simply because it is not included in TC base.