Re: Setting up a bunch of boxen at a small school.
> dude ... that is so NOT a word!
yes, but fuck isn't a word, either, your point being??
>
> As to your points regarding application software, I'd tend to agree with
> your description of word processors, but I think you were a bit harsh on
> your treatment of browsers:
no, I even stated that technologies like mozilla were rapidly improving.
Wheil I maybe a full blown KDE user (compiles it, and tracks all the major
KDE mailing lists), I sure want to use Mozilla more than anything. Mozilla
is the only form of standardization we have. Not only does mozilla very act
the same on different OS'es (a big plus) but it has the XUL interface
(another big plus).
> Mozilla is very usable and very stable.
> Please don't wait for it to reach "perfect usability," as there is no
> such thing.
stop taking my words literally, mozilla is nice and all, but it sure is a
memory hog, and it even makes Konqueror look pretty fast.
> And when it comes to DEs, K does still feel like a much more
> "complete" environment, but gnome is getting there. I find gnome with
> enlightenment to be prettier,
I don't care about which one looks better. Any desktop can be skinned to
look like something else. I'm talking more about the internal technology.
KDE has cool stuff like Kioslaves, Mcop, Dcop, artsd, etc etc etc. What does
GNOME have??....
thats where iI make my stand on KDE and why I choose it over GNOME.
(Gnome has much prettier Icons, but I could care less)
<snip>
> Well, if you've got one/some machine(s) powerful enough to provide the
> backend, you could set up the multiple boxen as thin clients. That's
> really the zero-fiddling solution. The other way (which admittedly
> involves some fiddling) would be to just mount home dirs from a
> fileserver and have individual machines running potato for the
> less-fiddling solution or woody for a more up-to-date environment (this
> will be nice for things like mozilla, kde, and gnome without hassle).
>
> In short, the 2 ideas you already had are good ones; the decision comes
> down to just how little tolerance you have for individual fiddling. The
> thin client solution is definitely less maintenance at each individual
> machine; once they're set up, users really can't easily mess things up.
> Application maintenance would be zero, and OS maintenance only requires
> a reboot so that the new kernel can be tftp'd in.
>
no, in all honesty, install locally, it makes for a more secure eviroment,
and doesn't require you killing the network when 20 kids logon all at the
same time.
> > look into an application called Norton Ghost. What this app will let you
> > do
>
> ... is this:
>
> for OTHER_HOST in `cat otherhosts.txt` ; do
> dpkg --get-selections | ssh $OTHER_HOST dpkg --set-selections
> done
>
> I guess, to be fair, I should acknowledge that maybe it duplicates some
> /etc files as well.
>
> Sorry, buddy, I don't mean to be a punk and/or flame you, but
> recommending non-free software on this list is one of my pet peeves, and
> really pretty heretical!
and people like you are my pet peeves too
yes, OSS is great and what not, and yes I spend lots of time telling people
why they should use OSS, as opposed to CSS or OSSCCP (open source software,
closed community project). However there will forever be CSS software, and
everyonce in a while, the stuff does kick major ass.
Can you name me a single OSS app that can do what Norton does??
Can you name me a single OSS app that can take images of entire hard drivers,
or various parts, and send them over the network on the fly??
Can you name me a single OSS app that can multicast to an entire network,
there by speeding the time it takes to "create" computer setups??
Can you name me a single OSS app that can use just about every networking
card out there, provided that it has dos drivers?? (99% of all NICs have dos
drivers).
Can you name me a single OSS app that works on MORE than just UNIX? (windows,
9x, 2000/XP, AtheOS, et al)
OSS has its place, and we should use it when we can. But CSS isn't going
anywhere, and we need to use it when we can too.
As an employer (if I were one), I wouldn't mind spend the little amount of
money it cost to purchase licenses of Norton ghost and the clients. Why?
because this piece of CSS software would SAVE me money. Instead of paying my
sys admins 35~ an hour, to deal with computer crap just because they are too
stubborn to use CSS, I'd be paying them to have computers installed on the
fly, so they could do more productive things (and fun things too)
just my two food stamps, i'm up for flames.
Sunny Dubey
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