Cobalt’s Qube2

The Qube2 from Cobalt will remind you of

the crystal cube that belonged to Mandrake’s father, Theron. Only this one is

plastic-blue instead of glass crystal. Qube2 is a full-fledged Linux server that can

connect to your network and provide mail and Web services. And no, there’s no monitor

to spoil the looks. The monitor is a single line LCD panel on the back of the system.

Once you connect it to your

network and put it on, the system will automatically configure itself into your network

(if you have DHCP available) and assign itself an IP address, or allow you to specify an

address using the LCD panel at the back of the Qube.

The Qube2 is currently based on a MIPS CPU,

but as we were going to press, information came that future versions will use Intel CPUs.

Software configuration is minimal and you

can have mail and Web hosting up in a jiffy. All configurations are done using a browser

from a machine on the LAN–very colorful, and quite easy to setup.

After a bit of fiddling around, we were

able to telnet into the system to snoop around, where we got the first

shock–apparently, changing any software component on the system (like adding a new

kernel) voids your warranty. Given the rate of release of new software in the Linux

universe, this is definitely not acceptable.

align="left" hspace="3" vspace="3" width="175" height="189">The unit shipped to us used

Linux kernel 2.0.3x instead of the stable kernel 2.2 that’s been out since March

1999. The machine had probably come from an older lot. Software updates can be downloaded

from the cobalt Website, but no update to Kenel 2.2 is available.

Moving further, there are lots of potential

(and by now, well documented too) security holes due to non-updated sendmail, kernel, and

other components. Add to the list of oldies Samba, and you have a fairly ancient system in

your hands. Security tools like ssh are missing, and trying to compile it on the system

from source code failed probably because of missing libraries and/or header files,

pointing to bigger problems. If the system crashes for some reason, you will be hard

pressed to bring it back to its original state. A system re-install CD would have taken

care of this, but is not supplied. With no CD-ROM drive in the unit, it would seem

pointless anyway.

The Qube2 comes with a power supply without

earthing–we had several shocks and it definitely wasn’t good for the system

either. The set up program does not always seem to remember its settings. We had to repeat

the process several times before it would "take".

Once set up, the Qube2 offers a variety of

very useful services, including Fileprint services (via Samba, which basically emulates a

Windows NT server), Web services (including virtual domains), e-mail and ftp services, and

discussion groups. The Qube2 can connect to a modem and can then dial out to an ISP,

acting as an Internet gateway for the LAN, but the dial-out process is non-intuitive and

totally buried in the menus. The machine could be very useful to small

organizations that don’t have the in-house know-how or personnel to run a server for

the LAN. The Qube2 (and it’s big brother, the Raq2) are also highly useful to small

ISPs. At about Rs 30,000 to 50,000, the price of a good Celeron-based system, and with

more up-to-date software, the Qube2 would be a formidable choice as a mail and Web server

for small work groups, and highly recommendable.

But with prices starting at more than

Rs 100,000 and working their way exponentially up from there, Qube2 is grossly

over-priced. At this price, one could purchase a high-end server from IBM or Compaq and

still have money left from the budget, especially since Cobalt’s advertised price in

the USA for the same piece we reviewed was about $1000 (source: http://ssl.cobaltnet.com),

or about Rs.45,000.