Re: [seul-edu] Win NT w/Linux Server?

[Harry McGregor <micros@azstarnet.com>]

On Thu, 20 Apr 2000, Bill Tihen -- TECHNOLOGY wrote:

> Hi Harry,
> 
> What is a BDC.  I do very little with WindowsNT.  Why is
> an little NT server necessary.

In an NT domain network you have a primary domain controler, and backup
domain controlers.  Most authentification is done through the BDC, the PDC
stores the master records.

The last time I worked with samba, the PDC code was not considered stable,
the BDC was.  Setting up a small NT server as a PDC (and NOTHING ELSE)
gets rid if this problem, and makes setting up the intergrated network
easier.
 
> I have a mixed
> environment.  I would like to use Linux workstations,
> but convincing people to move away from Mac and windows
> is tricky.  I think I have found nearly enough stuff to
> do the trick, but now I will need to work on the
> teachers.  

Yes, it can be an uphill road to work.  We are working on development of
both hardware and software to try to make this easier.

> I would like to know how you have done this.  I thought
> most diskless workstations required special ROMs.  (Is
> it tricky to get those working?)

We purchased an EPROM writer, and are using etherboot,
http://www.slug.org.au/etherboot, GPLed software.

It is actualy rather easy to setup.
 
> I have lots of macs that I will need to turn into linux
> workstations.  How will I deal with a mix between PPC,
> i386 and some non-PPC macs running linux?  Is there a
> clever way around this problem?

At this time, even though I work closely with Tom Rini (LinuxPPC
developer), I would not use anything slower than an iMac to run linux on,
PPC wise.  M68K is worse than beating your head against a wall.

For i386, look at a minimum of a P133 with 64MB of ram to be a good
workstation.  You can have comon home space, but mixed environments can be
painful.

For file services for Mac, look at netatalk, we have about 150 macs using
it right now.

> I need to test our school's administrative software
> under Wine (rediker's admin plus), FileMaker Pro -
> admissions office, and a specialized version of MS
> Access -- for the business office.  At the moment
> though, I don't know if Abiword is good enough and I
> don't know if we could afford the Corel Office or
> Applixware Licenses (but at least they would have
> presentation software).

I would leave the office on windows until you can migrate that over to a
custom PostgreSQL database, with a PyTK front end.

When AbiWord hits 1.0 it will work great for the office.  Avoid Corel, it
is badly implimented, and runs slowly on my K6-III 450MHz with 128MB ram,
due to being a large program running through wine.

You can make star office work, but it is a fight to make it work over NFS.

Star Office is multi OS (Windows/Mac (old version)/Linux/Solaris), and
does work reasonably well, but it as well is bloated.

			Harry
 
> Bill
> 
> Quoting Harry  McGregor <micros@azstarnet.com>:
> 
> > Samba does support NT login, and it even supports PDC
> (unsupported
> > officialy) and BDC roles in an NT Domain.
> >
> > Normaly for an NT domain setup, a very small (low end
> pentium class, etc)
> > NT server with a very low license count should be used
> as a PDC, and the
> > Linux servers setup as BDCs.
> >
> > I would advocate the use of Linux on the desktop, as
> it does work rather
> > well, especialy in a very network centric environment
> (I am typing this
> > at a computer lab we (http://www.osef.org) installed
> in Tucson AZ, the
> > system does not have a hard disk drive, or floppy disk
> drive, it uses
> > NFS root, and swap over NBD, I could hit the reset
> button for all the
> > system cares, and the file system will still be
> perfectly intact).
> >
> >
> > 			Harry
> >
> > On Thu, 20 Apr 2000, Bill Tihen -- TECHNOLOGY wrote:
> >
> > > I would like to have a set up where linux/samba
> server
> > > acts as the file and authentication server for
> NT/2000
> > > boxes (as well as a file server for Win 98 boxes). 
> I
> > > have never seen a way to do the NT login
> authentication
> > > without an NT server.  Any ideas?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Bill
> > > __________________________________________
> > > TASIS (The American School In Switzerland)
> > > Lugano-Montagnola, Switzerland
> > > <http://www.tasis.ch/>
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Open Source Education Foundation, http://www.osef.org/
> > 
> 
> __________________________________________
> TASIS (The American School In Switzerland)
> Lugano-Montagnola, Switzerland
> <http://www.tasis.ch/>
> 

--
Open Source Education Foundation, http://www.osef.org/