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Re: [LUG] Fwd: Linux @ School - Are we serious?
hi mike
i was being a bit tongue-in-cheek RE MS products but recent experience
has pushed me to it,
in work we bought new server and small business server 2000 for our own
use - the boss only really know MS whereas i did programming at college
and then mainly worked on DOS/UNIX/Progress for the next few years.
anyway - the SBS server,
wanted,
file serving,
print server,
proxy server,
shared internet access,
dial on demand dialling to the interweb,
VSS
SQL server 2000
exchange server so we could send and receive emails from our work domain
tape backups,
RAID 1
now - we spent 2/3 weeks leading up to christmas trying to set it up -
we enrolled help from a very experienced MS engineer - and a cousin who
is fresh out of an MSCE 2000 course...
...and the results are...
file serving,
sort of works - but network drives are not recognised until i click on
them in explorer - so most automated processes fail.
print server,
had to use
c:\net use LPT3
etc to get it to work - apparently HP have deliberately disabled the
networking part of the printer driver to 'encourge' sales of their
network printers - of course - if the driver was open source etc etc etc
proxy server,
worked for a bit then stopped after the third reinstall - anyway, does
not work with mozilla/opera (there is a bug at mozilla lodged concerning
the non-standard authentication) - and cos IE crashes my workstation web
browsing is not fun
shared internet access -
er - the firewall client (what is that for?) seems to be stopping this,
dial on demand,
takes ages to fire up - and then can not be shutdown manually -
according to a KB article this is by design to not allow a user to shut
down the link if they were not the user who started the link - and if
the link was brought up by dial-on-demand etc etc etc
VSS
working
SQL server 2000
working - (thank god - otherwise we wouldn't be)
exchange server
er... not likely mate - just never worked - kind of worked to send
emails to eachother - but gets confused because our domain logon names
are different from our email address names. (maybe we should reprint
our business cards)
tape backups
boss is still banging at this - but usually mutters bad things about it
every morning,
RAID 1
one drive has gone down already - because i have lost faith i would bet
that its the OS and not the hardware.
oh - and the error logs fill up with incomprehensible errors about every
week or so.
i see the problem as this,
active server directory depends on a DNS server for everything - dial on
demand is linked to the ISA proxy server which is linked to the firewall
software. and they all rely on DNS server. - they are too
interconnected for their own good.
and as for active directory services - it is such a confusing mish-mash
that it is extremely difficult to find what you want.
also, we have to connect via a router to a network with UNIX/NT4/win2k
servers - networking changes under 2000 but some NETBIOS stuff has been
left in for backwards compatibility. networking has been made too
confusing.
compared to a bunch of daemons each of which is set up by a .conf file
in /etc well... to me, it doesn't.
......and our client's main servers with approx 11k of MS software on
them just crash/reboot every couple of weeks - we now have a whole
network of servers monitoring each other and sending out text messages
when they have crashed - (including for all the batch processing which
occurs during the night) so the managers can restart the processes from
home when they happen...fun and it doesn't make us look good.
again - they've had some very expensive engineers checking it out - but
they still keep crashing. i know the DB's are sometimes very large - up
to 12/14GB but this is supposed to be well within limits - and to be
honset, i think SQL server is a good product.
led up.
thankfully - linux is being used more and more at my firm - i have
refused to spend any more time on the SBS server - even if i'm PAID!!!
kev
Mike Callaghan wrote:
Getting a bit off topic but ...
In article <3C606C34.70909@xxxxxxxxxxx>, kevin bailey
<kevin_bailey@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes
also - it is important that computer studies students learn about
computing as a whole - not just MS - because the important stuff runs on
mainframes/UNIX.
also - hpw do you teach MS?
I teach MS in the same way that I teach anything else. Give the students
a grounding in the concepts, show the application of the concepts and
then build on that to more complex ways of working.
with linux you learn how it works and them
implement it.
You make this sound so simple. Just how much does 'learn how it works'
cover? How much effort is expended on 'then implement it'. (Such a
wonderfully short phrase <g>)
I've been earning a living by working - on a small scale - with
computers for 20 odd years; Linux is just another bunch of software that
has good points and bad points. Ease of implementation is not yet a
*universal* good point. With my limited knowledge, I can make Linux work
on most of the computers I own but not always. I can usually get mail /
network / printer working - but not always. Sometimes it's a couple of
hours, sometimes a couple of days.
But exactly the same caveats apply to MS in its various flavours. There
have always been tricky cases but these are usually in the minority.
- with MS it is supposed to work out of the box - and when
it doesn't you just reinstall/bang about until parts of it do work - and
then later on it will stop working anyway :o)
A lot of *users* expect it to work out of the box. But then they would
expect Linux to work out of the box. Anybody that's been around
computers for a while will know to expect some problems.
To get back on topic ...
I'm interested in Linux in Schools. I don't have any departmental
responsibility but I can and do mention alternatives when there are
technical / budgeting / licensing problems. What's been missing is any
detailed information and knowledge on my part. Perhaps this event will
help.
Regards
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