>On Tue, 2002-04-09 at 14:04, Robert Angell wrote: >> >> What would be the top >> 3 reasons that you folks have moved to a Mainframe Linux solution? >
Normally I would say geography, except that it was an intellectual exercise for us prior to any multi-national publicly expressing an interest in it. While we are not an R1 research institute, we also like to poke the stick at the blob on the floor just to see what it will do. I've been intriged by the idea since Rick Troth first mentioned the idea back in 1994, and wihle we never ran UTS, I followed his work on VNIX with the hope that it might be something we might do here. This time around, we've been able to interest people in our Computer Science department, and we are now offering some classes where the students get 1 or more Linux servers under their control. We're still working on details, but these server will remain the students while they remain here. This is something we could not have done with real hardware. It isn't that we saved money, its that we would not have bought or used old equipment to allow each student in a class to have a server for their own while they are here, much less 2 or 3 or 5. We've been able to improve the teaching and learning process, and that goes to our core business. I know that's management-speak, but it allows us to get the support of management. It's also allowed us to think about problems a little differently. Using an idea David Boyes first proposed, we're now offering Linux on Intel via VMWare. Students logon to a machine and get their virtual Linux whereever they want in the lab. There are several other things we do, but this is the largest by far right now in terms of Linux machines, and is one we're speaking out about. Some of the other things include an Web-IMAP gateway (IMP), web search (ht://dg), Audio Streaming (IceCast), and centralized SYSLOGD. There are several others that we are thinking about, but nothing I'm ready to talk about, as they are still very much theory. /ahw
