Send later intentions aside, the comments are interesting. YAST and YAST2 are exactly *why* SuSE are effective in persuading new users that Linux is a "good thing". Moreover, I understand why they do not make all 7 CDs (of Professional) downloadable ISOs; consider the bandwidth - they do provide an ftp installation method, as well as their highly effective (7.2/3 onwards) online update. However, most schools will be more persuaded by "£50 site licence and look at this shiny media/manuals set" than "look at this CD I burned and wrote on", as would most companies.
You'll also find the source of all the open source software on the SuSE CD set. And the command line is still there if you want it.
We carefully considered all the major distributions before settling on SuSE 6 months ago. We also have RedHat, Debian (Corel...), and now (thanks to Fen Systems...) Mandrake. SuSE was selected as our defacto distribution of choice because it did everything it should, without fuss or much requirement to RTFM before we could get started, and it looks nice. We can sell it to the schools and the LEA, and, more importantly, sell the idea of open source as quality software (and have done - to all and sundry - watch this space for news).
By the way, all the above is IMNSHO... :-)
Regards
Chris Puttick
Central Manchester City Learning Centre
0161 212 1972/70
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Howells
To: suse-linux-uk-schools@suse.com
Sent: 2/1/02 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Plans for a Linux distro
Michael Brown wrote:
> Not sure that any of us have the resources to create a distro, even if
we
> all combine. Our preferred approach is to customise existing distros
(in
> our case, Mandrake, for now).
Yes, perhaps I didn't quite make this clear enough before ;) I certainly
don't intend to create a distro from scratch. Just take an existing one
(e.g. Red Hat 7.2, which I chose for a few reasons), rip out the
irrelevant
packages (games, GNOME, etc), hack the bootup floppies a bit, and burn a
CD
with the new system on.
I'm afraid SuSE is out for a few reasons. The main reason is that SuSE
do
not create freely downloadable/reusable ISOs of the system. Addtionally,
I
consider SuSEConfig and YaST to be largely a pain in the ar$e.
<snip>
> maintaining an enterprise-wide network of five thousand computers
should
> be barely noticeable.'
> A few of the features:
> o Allows installation of workstations with only a floppy disk and two
> keypresses (the two keypresses are required only as a safety check).
No
> further manual intervention required.
> o For all servers other than the first: allows installation of servers
> with only a floppy disk and about 10 keypresses. No further manual
>intervention required.
<snip>
> Although the design document is incomplete beyond the specification,
the
> code has passed proof of concept stage and is nearing alpha release.
> You might find this tool helpful; it's a lot easier to take a
'standard'
> distro and reconfigure it than it is to repackage everything with your
> desired configuration. :-)
Right, this sounds very good :) Have you thought about perhaps taking a
standard distro and adding this stuff to this, burning a CD and
distributing it? This is pretty much what I want to do.
You say that you can install a workstation by only presssing a few keys.
Does this work on all distros (or even FreeBSD?)? If so, how?
> Kickstart is nowhere near flexible enough to be relied upon as a
primary
> distribution method. Believe me; we have tried this type of method for
> some time and it is not adequate to the task. Essentially, it comes
down
> to a concept flaw shared by many, many systems (including some that I
have
> written myself): there is a reliance upon a known initial state.
Ah right. Well, I don't really understand what you mean by this. Would
you
mind explaining a little more?
> On the server side, CUPS would be used for the printing system and all
> machines will have ext3 formatted hard discs.
Reiser! ;-)
> * Have a central administration databases where:
> - User names and groups are managed
> - Print and disc quotas are managed
> - Software can be allocated to a machine/group of machines
> - The central configuration files are located
> <snip>
> If any configuration files (e.g. /etc/host or similair) have been
modified,
> the updated versions would be downloaded. Perhaps CVS could be used
here.
> * A database such as NIS would probably be used for the administrative
> database
LDAP is more flexible, has many desirable side-benefits and (in theory)
interoperable with Win2K.
> It will also be possible to define the desktop menus (e.g. KMenu) that
> will appear on the user's desktop. This will be based around .desktop
> files, and a utility will convert these files to Blackbox menus so
> that the menu is kept consistent between different desktops.
The Debian menu system (also integrated into Mandrake and probably a few
other distros) will keep all window manager menus synchronised. Well
worth a look.
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