kingswood

I don't think any of us would mark you down as someone who takes ego trips Geoff. I've appreciated all your advice in the past when I ask questions about Linux. I think it's *obvious* that those used to Windows will come at Linux all wrong- it's a different beast. But by admitting that, haven't you proven Dave Moss right- he made reference to the fact that he had no training or expertise in Linux; he said that his qualifications were in Windows alone. He didn't profess Linux knowledge and knew that he would need training and so forth to make Linux work in his school. Now, I can install a Windows 2003 Server and set up AD on it within an hour. Easy. I can set up Mac OS X Server a bit quicker than that. I can probably get a SAMBA server running in a couple of hours- after running through some man pages and forums I guess...but most Windows Admins have spent their time with Windows networking, and that means a long hard transition. Your technician friend had the benefit of your time and your excellent skills and experience. Not all of us have that. Those that don't have to think "downtime" while they grapple with the intricacies that can be Linux. It isn't necessarily that my preconceptions of how it *should* work are wrong, it's probably more that a person who is changing from Windows to Linux needs to have the correct training and support. I said it before- but Dave Moss is right on the money about this. *Most* admins haven't the time or the inclination to retrain in Linux when they have invested heavily in time and training and with their own finances often to get to where they are. Especially if where they are now *works*. Was it Mark who mentioned Mac OS X? I agree with what he said- in my ideal world we would all run Mac OS X on school networks (that's my evil plan anyway), and though there would certainly be issues there is a better case for Mac OS X than there is for Linux right now. OK. Linux works for some schools. Tony made a good point about schools with little or no existing structure adopting Linux at the server end-- and this would be a good time to do it. But (for example) for Kingswood to change from Windows Server 2003/2000 to Linux (SAMBA) would be so much of a change that the heart of the LAN would have been ripped out. AD is at the center of our network structure, and to be frank I can't see a better solution (except in the form of an XServe) to that any time soon. Windows 2003/2000 Server works extremely well for the school; allows us to use all our needed software; gives the students real-world experience of what they will find out there; and (shock) is very stable. We cna centrally manage all our LAN, including GPOs and scripts, and if we want utilise Windows Terminal Services with a little more investment to give a unified- and productive- working environment. My question would be: why move to Linux? Take care- enjoying your posts by the way! Paul

I think you listed quite a few of the useful features right there. We use (at the moment) a CSE solution to do those things called the Application Toolkit, and they *are* useful. So useful in fact, that because we are planning on leaving them we are having to shop around to get a lot of the features we *need* as part of our in-house solution. Often this can be as costly. But let's put it into more perspective- even though we use CSE as a managed solution, we can still mess with GPOs and login scripts and all those other things you can do without having a shell experience on top of a normal Windows networked experience. What I would say in defence of these types of things is that if IT support staff left the school at any point, would the school cope without them? If not, then a managed solution is an added layer of security should things go pear-shaped. At the least it would help having that layer of support there. I won't tell you my gripes about CSE, but let's just say on the other side of the coin things look murky :-) Paul

@Tony: "Since then I have spoken with people like Andy Murphy a lot" Did you get baffled with science then? ;-) Paul

I doubt you can- but have you tried taking ownership of the file at directory level? If you have and you got an "access denied" or similar error, you could try a command line attack and change the permissions there (the link below takes you to a MS tool to do this with). http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e8ba3e56-d8fe-4a91-93cf-ed6985e3927b&displaylang=en HTH Paul

@Jonny: How can they be paying over 20k a year for CSE? Do you know why the cost is so high for them?? I think you are probably right though- CSE and Ranger are two important solutions that plug essential gaps in support needs for schools without the relevant staff. Paul

OK. I might suffer the collective wrath of our penguin loving friends on here, but I liked what Dave Moss said. Yes, it was a little biased, but it was honest. He didn't couch his article with a felt need to look "geeky" or "hip" (which is what happens sometimes when people discuss which distro they use lately, or how much they saved by recompiling their aged kernel to work with wireless or whatever). I think it was good from a number of perspectives: 1. Dave Moss is writing from his personal perspective and his schools' position with regards to specialist software and skills. Lets face it (and let's be honest) teachers like their specialist software, only limited amounts of which can be found among the ranks of Apple or Linux offerings (and if they are offered from the Linux camp just don't offer the documentation, training, or support required by staff, students, or support staff). With skills things look worse for Linux/Unix at the moment. There are plenty of people with pretty good to very good Windows knowledge schools can hire, and this means they get productive from the get go. Dave mentions this in part of his article when he refers to MCSE qualifications and self taught Windows skills. The reason for this is manifold, but primarily one of availability. Ever looked for decent entry level "we'll show you how its done" Linux server books? They are there, but they assume (generally) a certain level of Linux kowledge before using them. But look for a book on Server 2003, and you can get drowned in the options. For Linux to become more acceptable it needs that documentation and skills training (I know LPI and CompTIA are helping here- and its good). 2. Dave takes an honest look too at replacing the network with Linux/Apple equipment and software. Now, I'm a big Apple fan, but would be the first to jump all over the suggestion we move entirely to Mac OS X (although that's not as bad as moving entirely to Linux). Yes, he could have looked at integration but what's the point? After testing some integration scenarios the best I could think up to fit my own situation was to continue using smoothwall as a firewall. And even that wasn't convincing enough. Perhaps- as some intimated- it is because I'm lazy. Maybe. But with working full-time, studying for an MCP and HND and being a Dad and a husband I haven't the time to learn how to integrate Linux with our 2000/2003 servers or even replace desktops with it etc etc. And I sure haven't got the time to re-teach staff and students how to use an application over again (Open Office anyone?) when the current solution costs very little and works (they use it at home and mum and dad use it at work- they can all use it). So from two practical perspectives I think Dave hit the nail on the head. OK- so let's look at integration a bit more closely with an example Dave uses- Wine. I tried it some time back and it didn't work well at all, and it seems that this is Dave's experience too. In a school you can't "guess" it's gonna work- it *has* to work. And if it doesn't work as planned the support structure needs to be there to help get it working. Linux newsgroups etc anyone? Fine. But what you'll generally get are recommendations to try this, that, or the other distribution with it. Hmmpphh. Bang goes another working week of distraction and heart-ache. 3. Cost. Here's the big one. I have read the BECTA pamphlet about OSS in schools. It's pretty good. But really- is MS software really that excpensive- and are we saying that it is ethically wrong to have to pay for software in any case? The prices Dave Moss quotes are a little less than we pay for licenses, but it shows that MS are doing what they can to reduce the gap between "free" software and its own offerings (for schools at least). This is a good thing, and probably why many schools administrators have looked at Linux and just thrown their hands up in the air and submitted to the inevitable: Windows works well enough, Office is pretty good, the staff and students can use- we can even run all the software they want- and we can get training, documentation, and usually suitably skilled staff to support the whole. Here's the key: "The software landscape of our user base is too diverse, and the skill set of our user base is too diverse, and the skills sets of our users and managers mean they don't want to spend time problem-solving..." I agree. And I also agree with Dave's sentiments about having the desire to change the landscape- it would be nice to have the skills and support required to do this. But I don't see it happening in many schools at all. I understand that Karoshi is an option (and others like it)- a recent Linux Format whet my appetite on that one. But when you *really* look it isn't an option for our school- at least not right now (for a variety of reasons- some of which are above). In the final analysis it's bias that can read the article and find itself totally opposed to its premise without considering where it comes from and why- without really hearing what the guy is saying. He isn't anti-Linux; but he is anti-change for change' sake. And so am I. As a last point- hybrid pretty much means the same thing in this context as total rebuild of network. Why? Because you rip out the heart of the network by taking away AD and Server and then replace it with Linux solutions and XP clients. You lose what you had to gain what? It's all one and the same- same problems getting skills, support, staff retraining, and downtime... Now running for the bunker!!! Paul

@ashok: sounds like it went well- thanks for the details. One of the things that Tony has addressed is "content", and I know my Systems Manager and I discussed this during the past month or so as a major downside of EMBC. But it depends what you want from a broadband provider. I think primarily they have to be reliable and fast, and that content isn't king. Why is that? Because by definition what they do is provide a broadband connection for the school. The content is "out there". The only people I've heard complain about lack of content are the IT staff! lol! The students aren't interested with the EMBC page- they want "out there" where the real content is. Thanks for the summary of your experiences though ashock! @Tony: I think collaboration is a good idea, and having some kind of collaborative content is of course a great idea. What makes you think that EMBC will offer a decent level of collaborative tooling or content though? Have they said anything about this aspect of their bid? Thanks. Paul

Welcome to the "Mac user" club :-) Minis are really nice. I've had mine since February, and it's never failed me (with only 512MB RAM). The kids at home love it, and it runs 24/7 without a whisper! Enjoy. Paul :-)

Now this IS funny: http://www.rm.com/Secondary/Products/Product.asp?cref=PD149011&catref=1554.2.2.73 Where do they get these figures from???? Paul :-P

I'm not familiar with Ranger, so can't comment on it specifically; but I can say that I am more than familiar with what I think would be a close competitor- CSE Application Toolkit. It's a managed solution, generally used by schools that don't have a strong IT department (counts me in then- lol). But it's totally crap. I am counting the days to moving to Windows 2003 and Group Policy. I know this brings administrative problems of its own, but I think it would be worth your while staying as you are and looking around for tools you can use to do what you want. Don't get bound up in these "amazing" tools... Paul

All the best with your new job! Paul

I don't use Linux at all in the school (shock- horror-)- although I did trial it for a few things at the start of the year and got quite far thanks to Geoff and others here. Even so, I now run Apache Web Server on a Windows 2003 Server very happily. Easy to setup, and no fiddling with a new OS. Just fiddling with an existing one really Paul

Watch without laughing...if you can... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7193470719293309352 Paul

@ashok: How easy was the migration to NTL? Paul

Oh don't get me wrong- I agree! I think we do need to have something concrete from EMBC in the way of an SLA etc. If they are going to start operating as the supplier in the way they hope, then there needs to be some accountability and some communication. If Tony can muster up a document outlining these things I will certainly take it to the head and let him raise those things for us (and he would do that). I'm not anti manglement at all- though it probably seems that way to many of you. Carry on with the good work- it might seem we aren't interested or behind it, but that's not the case at all. Paul

Tony said: "Basically the teachers show the kids how to do stuff during the lessons and then bugger off during the test ... during a sodding pilot that the kids have had hardly any experience of and some classes need teachers in there for crowd control." Sounds familiar. Crowd control. Love it! lol! Paul

Ooooohhhh...I like it! And it's nearly Christmas. Thanks Ric ;-) Paul

Good post Tony. I think you have hit the proverbial nail on the head with your points (and your questions). I would love to see a big contender to EMBC appear as if by magic. Don't know if that will happen though. Seems to me this round of dicussions is really aimed at making management feel there really is no better option than maintaining the way things are. It'll be EMBC who get the contract again :-) Paul

Yeah- if you are a member of "Expert's Exchange" don't make that a point of reference in your CV to any special skills ;-) Some of those people actually think participation in a forum is correlative to having real skills in IT. We wouldn't think that here. Would we? Joking aside, there have been some good posts on this thread! Paul ;-)

Geoff is right- you can enable safe mode bootlogging which will (of course) put everything into a juicy file on your drive. It's called ntbtlog.txt file and found in %systemroot% folder. Paul

Yep- same here. If you need some invites tell me. Maybe we could exhaust them all? Google Talk is quite good- and I like it more since I can use it with iChat on my Macs at home. Paul

Sent that before I had finished! lol! If you can get away with it, just use a local logon with shortcuts to resources on your network. The problem will be that you might need to enter network authentication details each time you access those resources. Really depends on how many resources the Mac will need access to and how often it will be accessing the AD...if you don't mind typing in a username and password when you mount a directory via SMB, then use that. Of course because you aren't in any way bound to the AD you can't just browse for resources, so the down side is that you really need to know where those resources are and get that path correct. MS say this: "On a large network, problems quickly arise. You still need to log in to each and every resource you access. This quickly becomes cumbersome on all but the simplest of networks. In addition, the Mac client is not a domain member, which means that there is no domain login account for it. You cannot map your home directory during login. Browsing for resources is very limited—you can only browse on your local subnet. Security becomes an issue because the Mac can cache the user names and passwords for the resources it uses. Without an Active Directory login, someone could easily gain access to a Mac client and related domain resources with the locally cached login information." HTH (this time) Paul

Sorry- was just answering this: "ok not sure best way of doing this", it was afterwards you asked this- "right also could we set it up so that on local login desktop there is a shortcut or what ever mac alt is to network location..." Paul

Applications > Utilities > Directory Access You need to configure your Directory Access entry by clicking "Active Directory", click "Configure" and then fill in your AD forest and Domain Name. Change the Computer ID field if you need to make it room centric, and if you like expand the "Show Advanced Options" for things like creating mobile accounts, protocol, default user shell, mappings etc. When you're finished with the options, just click "Bind". It will ask you to authenticate- so use your Domain Admin account, put your password in and it should be fine. There's a pretty good article here about it all: http://www.certmag.com/articles/templates/cmag_howto.asp?articleid=1269&zoneid=91 HTH Paul

We've had this recently (twice now in the past year) and we can't turn on STP for various reasons (connections to hubs, possible unknown connections which might cause loops that would be hard to trace etc). You need to be careful when turning it on when you have services like DHCP running- those requests from clients might fail with errors that the server can't be contacted. There's a 15 second delay as the STP protocol configures itself (but this can be turned off). Paul