New project for next January. We are getting ready to expand our lab and plan to install a terminal with large displays at each bench. The bench will support one or two projects and I hate the thought of setting up 6 new SL 6.4's so there is access to schematics, parts lists, layouts, and drawings. In the past we have used NFS to do this. I have thought about setting up a VMware server and running SL 5.10 and Windows under it. The problem is how to tie it all to one or two servers in the shop without this turning into a big dog performance wise. Since we plan to use the same hardware we need to mod all SL6.4 so that Ethernet works correctly. SL5.10 works out of the box. We really like the Gigabyte boards and AMD quad cores. We quit buying other brands because of bad brown capacitors that bulge and start leaking before the board / processor fails. When you start replacing 50 or so boards it is a real problem.
Wile we are at it we need to set up other boxes for shop, receiving and shipping with printers. I hate to say this we are still running a "sneaker net". We are basically an electronic engineering company that is looking more like a factory. Thanks Larry Linder