Robb The Royal Latin School wrote:
I am the Network Administartor for a large 1500 user network, and next september I will be taking over two new IT suites. These have yet to be filled, and I would like to do it as cheaply as possible, whilst keeping security and stability high. How feasible do you think it is, and am I creating to much work by switching from NT4.0 to SuSE 7.0?
Questions of this sort are always difficult to answer but I'll try one of my own simplistic answers in the hope that it might help. Certainly creating 1500 users on an SuSE Linux box is not easy but there might be a quick and easy way of doing this if you think about it. The one outstanding thing about Linux when you compare it with NT4 is it's stability. Instead of spending Sunday afternoons at your school or IT centre you can sit at home and enjoy the Sunday roast - of course you might be a vegetarian ? In that case you might enjoy sorting out the garden :) Another issue might be one of internal security. Apache can be used internally for controlled data access. Apache is difficult to learn at first but there are plenty of good Wrox and O'Reilly books out there that help you to do something quickly. There are other network utilities that help the administrator to keep things rolling when NT 4 would have crashed and would be in need of re-installation. Most of the people I've seen who migrated their network from NT4 to Linux did so with either a dual boot machine or a new box that they either bought at a PC shop along the road or they built it themselves. Of course, Roger is very good at giving advice about all aspects of Linux in schools :) Thanks -- Richard Sheffield Linux User's Group www.sheflug.co.uk