These threads die quick.
>>> On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 3:03 pm, in message
<43ECF183.2010909@sigtom.com>,
sigtom@sigtom.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Ive recently started working at USF in the registrar/admissions
office
> as a support tech. Its part time, I like the work, and the people
here
> are great. Im not sure how many of you are familiar with USF in
Tampa,
> but here in the Registar's office, we have 10 PCs set up that allow
> students to logon to Oasis (which is the student/faculty web
> app/portal). It gives them access to class registration, paying for
> classes, etc. The PCs are now running Win 2000, using Active Desktop
to
> make the home page (set to the Oasis Announcment page) the
background.
> They do allow the students to check email thru their USF accounts,
and
> Ive been told they would like to allow students to access webmail esp
so
> they can check thier own email (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, whatever) in
case
> there are classes or professors listed in the emails that they need
> access to while using Oasis here in our office.
>
> Ive been told that I can switch all the PCs over to linux. My boss'
> like the idea of using linux, they like the fact that many students
wont
> be able to/arent able to 'mess up linux like they can Windows', and
that
> any web exploits are mainly targeted to IE and windows boxes, as well
as
> spyware/adware. Ive been thinking of how best to do this, and would
> like input from the list.
>
> Heres what Im thinking so far, please correct me if Im wrong.
>
> Id install Kubuntu (Im a KDE fan) Breezy Badger on a server. This
would
> be my LTSP server (using Ubuntu since LTSP has been integrated into
this
> distro). That machine would have either one 20 GB and one 100 GB
HDD,
> the 20 GB holding the OS for the server, the 100GB holding all my
boot
> images/kernels/fs needed for my clients and wold be exported w/NFS to
> each client for /home and the like. Ive never used LTSP before, but
> have been reading all I can on thier site and wiki to get some ideas
of
> the software. Is it correct in my thinking that I would make just
one
> boot image/kernel, and then all 10 PCs would be able to use that same
> kernel as long as each PC had the same hardware; or no matter what
> hardware the machines have, identical or not, they would all use a
diff
> kernel? Hope that question made sense. I thought that LTSP would
just
> use one kernel that all 10 PCs would use, so upgrading is as easy as
> just upgrading one kernel and fs, and all PCs would be updated, or is
> that incorrect? The 10 PCs we have now are all at least P2s Ive been
> told, but havent checked. Id hopefully be able to boot each one with
> netboot thru the BIOS using the network interface, but can always get
> around that with a boot floppy if need be.
>
> Im looking for a solution thats mainly easy to keep working (no
downtime
> is good, the PCs are only on 9 hours a day, so its not 24/7 at least)
> and is easy to deploy to at least 10 diff machines, maybe scalable if
> the powers that be like it enough. Does anyone have any suggestions
for
> that idea? Id like to be able to keep on using the PCs we already
have,
> as that keeps costs to nothing (well except my pay hehe). Is there
> anyone thats deployed LTSP in a similar env, and if so, have any
tips?
> I appreciate it, and look forward to the lists reply.
>
> Tom Craddock
What you describe is exactly what we setup daily (ok...a bit of an
exaggeration - several times a month) for retail customers worldwide.
Several servers (for redundancy) (SLES, of course) with in some cases
1000's of client desktops served up in a number of ways (PXE boot with a
slim image, HDD book, etc) all managed thru the management console of
NLPOS (Novell Linux Point of Service). I've also setup NOMACHINE to
front end a similiar setup. What's nice about NoMachine is that you can
manage the "clients" easily and even lock things down fairly well.
I've found that PXE boot is the best (depending on size of the image
and bandwidth constraints) and that remote X sessions, LTSP, or UML
sessions being more challenging due mainly to congestion (that's where
NOMACHINE's X compression is nice). The more images you have to manage
the harder it gets to update things.
I think you may be surprised to find that SUSE Linux 10.0
(www.opensuse.org) will have a very large hardware support
repository and it supports KDE and GNOME (you could give the user a
choice?) just the same. But, I'm also biased.
JP
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