Nice email, though being a windows admin by day I wanted to comment on the last part
" I haven't ventured much into Vista land yet, since we don't use vista at all. Apparently Windows Vista and XP roaming profiles can't coexist, so it appears we won't be moving to a new version of windows until Windows 7 comes out. I use Windows 2003 servers, but haven't touched 2008 yet. Basically we were told by our Windows 2008 trainers that unless an application is certified to be 100% 2008 compliant, either don't run it on 2008 or test the crap out of it. Since we don't have time to mess with stuff like that, 2008 has gone from exciting to useless for us. So I doubt I will be working with 2008 anytime soon." I have been constantly surprised at the ability of 08 to support a variety of applications that are not certified. We have quite a few apps on our internal terminal servers that are not certified that have had no problem making the transition (and thats on Terminal servers for god sakes) All and all I have seen it run on everything from high end servers to laptop hardware without too much fuss We are about 3 months into the "testing" phase here and sure its a bit from deployment (specially considering terminal server licensing and the need to have an actual 08 AD which takes a lot longer to build out in a production environment) All in all my experience with it has been a positive it may be worth a look into, I know it has quite a few features we are looking at using On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 8:04 PM, Jason Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I work for CSBSJU, and we are mostly a Windoz shop. That said, I happen > to be the sole linux admin in charge of our Linux systems. Several > academic departments use Linux, so I maintain their desktops and > file/account servers. Our DNS servers are Linux and I maintain moodle > on Linux. (very nice Open Source course management software) Currently > I use Fedora on our desktop systems, and I am in the process of > switching from Fedora 7 to Fedora 9 for the coming school year. All my > servers run Red Hat Enterprise Linux since it is supported by VMWare ESX > and on HP servers (more importantly our HP SANs). Since RHEL is derived > from Fedora (at least version 5+), and since I use Fedora, when a new > RHEL comes out I'm already used to how it functions since I use Fedora. > (RHEL 5 is based on Fedora Core 5, which was our desktop environment 2 > years ago) > > Beyond the fact that Fedora and RHEL are intimately intertwined, I like > the fact that Fedora strives to be pure GPLv2 compliant. I'm a strong > believer in OSS software, but I'm not quite at the extreme that debian > is. For example, Red Hat trademarks the Fedora logo and Fedora includes > Firefox with trademarks. Although I understand debian's perspective of > a completely free distro with no trademarks, it is easier for students > to acclimate to Linux when they see Firefox since that is a known > browser to them. Obviously I could explain to them that iceweasal is in > fact firefox, but that kind of detracts from the credit that mozilla and > firefox deserve. In some cases, using Firefox on my Linux systems might > be the first time a student uses Firefox. Since I believe in OSS > software, I like the fact that a Windows/Mac user can use Firefox on any > operating system he/she chooses (well, any operating system a normal > user would use anyway....) The same goes for OpenOffice. It is really > sweet that if a student uses OpenOffice on my Linux system and then > wants to work on the document on his/her personal computer, he/she can > simply install OpenOffice for free. If that student wants his/her > mom/sister/brother/friend to review a paper he/she wrote, he/she can > send that paper in an open format to that person and he/she can use > OpenOffice to read and edit it for free. The truth is, the applications > determine what OS a users uses, so if one day a Windows user ends up > using OpenOffice/Firefox/Thunderbird/Pidgin, then a switch to Linux (or > Mac OS X, or FreeBSD, or ....) is actually pretty seamless. > > The fact that Fedora doesn't include any type of non-free repositories > is also nice, since it is an extremely good conversation starter. > Although it unfortunately turns many users to use Ubuntu. Quite > generally my conversations with users go like this: > User: "I tried to install Fedora, but that didn't go well. Then I tried > ubuntu and everything worked, like my video card." > Me: *Long explanation behind the difference between free and GPLv2 > software, and about things like software patents (leads to lack of MP3 > support)* > > The ironic thing is if these users knew about the livna repositories, or > other repos, then they could use all those non-free bits easily. So, in > the end the user finds out why Fedora is how it is, which I think is > good, because most people have no idea why Fedora doesn't have binary > drivers or mp3 support. However, it also really sucks since all my users > are now Ubuntu users instead of Fedora users. It's not that I don't > think they should use Ubuntu, it's just that I know a lot about Fedora, > so it is easier for me to help people with it. On my list of things to > do is to get better acquainted with Ubuntu for that reason. > > I also use Gentoo on one of our HPC clusters. It is a 16 node x86 > beowulf cluster which I built while I was a comp. sci. research student > at CSBSJU. I used gentoo for two reasons: Everything is complied for > the specific CPU architecture with full optimizations and I could > install a very bare metal install. Gentoo uses portage as its package > manager, so it is possible to set flags that control how software is > compiled from source. That is nice, since I can do things like exclude > cups (printing) support from everything I build. I think that portage > is very sweet since it can build customized systems straight from > source, but for the most part that power adds too much complexity for > most people. > > Our other HPC cluster is an 8 node dual processor x86_64 I built a year > or two ago. I built it using Fedora and its clustering support. (7 of > the nodes are diskless) > > At home I use either Fedora or Windoz XP. I find it is useful for me to > use Windows, since supporting it is half of my job. I'm only 50% a > Linux admin, the rest of the time I work with Windoz web systems, and > I'm the SharePoint administrator for CSBSJU. Whenever I'm in Windows I > always use Firefox as my primary web browser, except for things like > SharePoint. My primary desktop at work is Fedora, but I also remote > desktop to my Windoz box which is essentially a dedicated > Outlook/SharePoint box. I also use it when I need to deal with Office > documents. > > As I mentioned, I'm a big believer in OSS software. That comes from my > experience as an admin and home desktop software user. I hate dealing > with Microsoft products, and other proprietary software in general. > There are at least 5-10 major problems with sharepoint that I can list > off-hand that should be fixed ASAP. However, MS won't do it. That type > of disrespect for the user community with open source software either > wouldn't happen, or the source code would end up getting forked to > people who can do a better job. I've had similar dealings with citrix, > where they won't release fixes for the Linux client, even though there > are fairly painful bugs that need to be fixed. Whenever I encounter a > problem with fedora, or any other open source project, I like the fact > that I can track down the problem myself and either report it or check > on its status. A few weeks ago a bug with fedora's core utils package > messed up tcsh. I tracked down the problem, went to fedora's bugzilla, > where I found several ways to fix the problem. I picked one, and now > I'm set. With Microsoft, I'd be on the phone for hours, or I'd have to > wait 2 months until some random KB article came out. Then I'd have to > call HP (our windows support provider) and request that they get the > necessary fix for me from Microsoft, since MS doesn't like to release > most of its bug fixes to the general public. With open source software, > I really like being able to fix problems myself and collaborate with > others. I also like the fact that I can install and use the same > software at home as I do at work. To license MOSS 2007 (Microsoft > office sharepoint server) for home use would be ridiculous. Sure I have > tons of windows and sharepoint skills, but I can't use them at home or > with people that have a limited budget. That really irks me, because I > like using my skills for my own purposes and to help my friends. > > I haven't ventured much into Vista land yet, since we don't use vista at > all. Apparently Windows Vista and XP roaming profiles can't coexist, so > it appears we won't be moving to a new version of windows until Windows > 7 comes out. I use Windows 2003 servers, but haven't touched 2008 yet. > Basically we were told by our Windows 2008 trainers that unless an > application is certified to be 100% 2008 compliant, either don't run it > on 2008 or test the crap out of it. Since we don't have time to mess > with stuff like that, 2008 has gone from exciting to useless for us. So > I doubt I will be working with 2008 anytime soon. > > Jason > > _______________________________________________ > scalug-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/scalug-list >
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