Want to see it before I buy

Question

I am looking for a machine to run distributed computing projects. New to cloud computing - but I like the sound of it.

But, I haven’t seen what I am buying. What does it look like? Like my comp has an i7-blah blah. But what would my virtual workstation look like? I may start with a single Xeon core and some RAM which I may want to upgrade further.

So summary:

What am I buying/renting?
Do I have to install Windows/Linux on it?
Would I see a About page with how many processors and RAM I have?
Can I upgrade in say 3 days?

Ben B. · Answer

You’re renting a Cloud VPS/Droplet, you can pay hourly or monthly. On the setup droplet page you can install a linux distribution. Yes on the control panel, though you can install linux dash if you want to see exact specs. Yes, you can resize your droplet whenever you feel like it.

Doug C · Answer

Look around! DO used to offer a bunch of $10 free credit for new accounts. .

JonsJava · Answer

Here’s the specs that I get from different commands on a $40.00 system:

Geo-location: San Francisco.

/proc/cpuinfo:

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 62
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L v2 @ 2.40GHz
stepping        : 4
microcode       : 1
cpu MHz         : 2399.998
cache size      : 15360 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 1
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 1
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 13
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon rep_good unfair_spinlock pni pclmulqdq vmx ssse3 cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm xsaveopt vnmi ept fsgsbase smep erms
bogomips        : 4799.99
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 62
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L v2 @ 2.40GHz
stepping        : 4
microcode       : 1
cpu MHz         : 2399.998
cache size      : 15360 KB
physical id     : 1
siblings        : 1
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 1
apicid          : 1
initial apicid  : 1
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 13
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon rep_good unfair_spinlock pni pclmulqdq vmx ssse3 cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm xsaveopt vnmi ept fsgsbase smep erms
bogomips        : 4799.99
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

df -h

Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1        59G   39G   18G  69% /
none            2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /dev/shm

fdisk /dev/vda:

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/vda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


WARNING: DOS-compatible mode is deprecated. It's strongly recommended to
         switch off the mode (command 'c') and change display units to
         sectors (command 'u').

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/vda: 64.4 GB, 64426606592 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7832 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

free -m

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          3959       3514        445        104        360       2128
-/+ buffers/cache:       1024       2935
Swap:            0          0          0

/proc/diskstats:

   1       0 ram0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1       1 ram1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1       2 ram2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1       3 ram3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1       4 ram4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1       5 ram5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1       6 ram6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1       7 ram7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1       8 ram8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1       9 ram9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1      10 ram10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1      11 ram11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1      12 ram12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1      13 ram13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1      14 ram14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   1      15 ram15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   7       0 loop0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   7       1 loop1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   7       2 loop2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   7       3 loop3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   7       4 loop4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   7       5 loop5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   7       6 loop6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   7       7 loop7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 252       0 vda 295920 34310 32642332 151286 6702671 11078431 142254456 83305323 0 8882487 83437365
 252       1 vda1 295746 34300 32640860 151258 6702671 11078431 142254456 83305323 0 8882462 83437337

lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by
ipv6                  334932  22
ipt_REJECT              2351  56
nf_conntrack_ipv4       9506  1
nf_defrag_ipv4          1483  1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
xt_state                1492  1
nf_conntrack           80390  2 nf_conntrack_ipv4,xt_state
xt_iprange              2312  2818
xt_multiport            2700  9
iptable_filter          2793  1
ip_tables              17831  1 iptable_filter
virtio_balloon          4798  0
virtio_net             22438  0
i2c_piix4              11776  0
i2c_core               29964  1 i2c_piix4
ext4                  378476  1
jbd2                   93427  1 ext4
mbcache                 8193  1 ext4
virtio_blk              7132  2
pata_acpi               3701  0
ata_generic             3837  0
ata_piix               24409  0
virtio_pci              7348  0
virtio_ring             9115  4 virtio_balloon,virtio_net,virtio_blk,virtio_pci
virtio                  4977  4 virtio_balloon,virtio_net,virtio_blk,virtio_pci
dm_mirror              14384  0
dm_region_hash         12085  1 dm_mirror
dm_log                  9930  2 dm_mirror,dm_region_hash
dm_mod                 95622  2 dm_mirror,dm_log

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440FX - 82441FX PMC [Natoma] (rev 02)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 ISA [Natoma/Triton II]
00:01.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 IDE [Natoma/Triton II]
00:01.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 USB [Natoma/Triton II] (rev 01)
00:01.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Cirrus Logic GD 5446
00:03.0 Ethernet controller: Red Hat, Inc Virtio network device
00:04.0 SCSI storage controller: Red Hat, Inc Virtio block device
00:05.0 Unclassified device [00ff]: Red Hat, Inc Virtio memory balloon

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