--- Tony Whitmore wrote:

With modern hardware, the overhead of running an X server is rarely an issue, in terms of memory usage. OK, there may be issues with security on unpatched systems, but that's the same with any networking software that isn't kept up to date. If the X server isn't being interacted with,

then it should not place any load on the CPU.

Perhaps, perhaps. :) But the memory it still takes up is never released. But does it have to be X? There have been attempts to make the console more managable. YAST does this to an extent (albeit poorly at times, for some things). There used to be linuxconf, which was an amalgum of various things -- an all-in-one bundle for ease of administration, but it never really worked out.... I suppose the idea of using X is nothing new on a server. RH have been doing it for years..... -- Thomas Adam ===== "The Linux Weekend Mechanic" -- http://linuxgazette.net "TAG Editor" -- http://linuxgazette.net "<shrug> We'll just save up your sins, Thomas, and punish you for all of them at once when you get better. The experience will probably kill you. :)" -- Benjamin A. Okopnik (Linux Gazette Technical Editor) ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

--- linuxgirlie wrote:

The thing is we are designing this project with schools that are using RM and Microsoft systems. Now if both those systems ran there servers in console mode, then we would be aiming in the wrong direction. But seeing as they (esp. RM) are set up to be all 'point and click' this is a audience we are aiming for.

Basically people who want a cheap system, but don't want to learn anything classed as 'hard'.

I think you're spot on in your aims. I look forward to following this one. I've recently been using Debian at home (which I'm blown away by) - and that's lead me to notice Debian-based SkoleLinux. Also looks very interesting. Incidently - for Karoshi, does one download Mandrake *and* your iso? Or just your iso? All the best getting this into schools. Linux and academia should walk hand in hand. I'm amazed at the corporate attitudes of school management, who need to be educationalists: academics, who should embrace the concepts and underlying principles of open source. -- Matt ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

--- Paul Taylor wrote:

On Friday 13 Aug 2004 08:19, linuxgirlie wrote:

...

The thing is we are designing this project with schools that are using RM and Microsoft systems. Now if both those systems ran there servers in console mode, then we would be aiming in the wrong direction. But seeing as they (esp. RM) are set up to be all 'point and click' this is a audience we are aiming for.

I agree with Matt here and from experience within a school I can see exactly what you are aiming at. Also, despite managing to command some element of the CLI recently due to necessity and not desire (sorry Thomas) I am all for more GUIs.

Hmmmm. I've seen the power of working with text files over a gui. I'd advocate the gui as a way in, but would encourage working towards the command prompt. Incidently, 'mc' (midnight commander) was the way for me into a less gui'd system. It's a happy way into not installing X on servers. Not one to try to show management when they want a shiney RM/2000 interface. -- Matt ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

On Friday 13 Aug 2004 14:53, Matt Johnson wrote:

--- Paul Taylor wrote:

...

On Friday 13 Aug 2004 08:19, linuxgirlie wrote:

...

The thing is we are designing this project with

schools that are using

...

RM and Microsoft systems. Now if both those

systems ran there servers

...

in console mode, then we would be aiming in the

wrong direction. But

...

seeing as they (esp. RM) are set up to be all

'point and click' this

...

is a audience we are aiming for.

I agree with Matt here and from experience within a school I can see exactly what you are aiming at. Also, despite managing to command some element of the CLI recently due to necessity and not desire (sorry Thomas) I am all for more GUIs.

I was just speaking for a small minority on this list, including myself, who have managed to get this far with mostly GUIs and things seem to be heading that way, like it or not. Having said that, I managed to do far more with vi and ssh on my managed servers than I could with Plesk (Linux in a Nutshell in hand). I have also never used yast et al for samba as the smb.conf and a text editor is all you need. Also, it was the mystical power of the CLI that drew me to *nix in the first place as I watched SGI gurus churn out loads of code to get my company's DVRs to work back in the early 90s. Our main customer then was a little one called Pixar who were recording video of Mr Potato Head onto the devices from for some obscure reason.....

Hmmmm. I've seen the power of working with text files over a gui. I'd advocate the gui as a way in, but would encourage working towards the command prompt. Incidently, 'mc' (midnight commander) was the way for me into a less gui'd system. It's a happy way into not installing X on servers.

Not one to try to show management when they want a shiney RM/2000 interface.

-- Matt

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--- Adrian Bates-Holland wrote:

Hi,

I've recently taken over as ICT co-ordinator at a primary school. At the moment, we have about 30 computers running a mixture of Windows 98 and XP.

A familiar setting. I'm a primary ICT co-ordinator also. Ok - firstly, in my opinion... it seems much easier doing this with Win98 than XP. Again in my opinion, it is much easier to do this with one workstation OS (either 98 or XP) rather than both. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but you have to have a grasp of some extra stuff in order to do it. Again, 98 seems easier than XP, or NT for that matter. I've achieved what you're after. Where are you? If you're near Hertfordshire, you can visit...?

At present, we have no dedicated server and I am very keen to get one set up. Obviously, as Linux is free, it is my preferred operating system for the server.

I've found it to have more advantages too...

I have installed SUSE Linux 9.1 Pro on a computer at home and played around with setting up a server but I don't seem to be having much luck.

SuSE is a good choice for setting things up using a graphic user interface, which is a nice way in. What aren't you having much luck with? I assume you have a couple of workstations at home too, and are not being successful in setting up samba?

Ideally I want a server to act as a domain controller so that staff and pupils can login and access their own individual/class work areas with a shared space for staff to store planning, etc.

It will do this admirably. My experience is doing exactly this, but with 98 only. This is what I did... I'll happily go into this in more detail. I can supply you with smb.conf and other handy things, but not from home (where I'm typing this). Use security = user in your smb.conf (if you don't know what smb.conf is, let me know and I'll start from scratch). I use two groups (setup using YAST2): users (already exists) and staff (created myself). This allows me to do a very simple desktop for either pupils (who belong to the users group as their primary group), or staff (who I obviously assign to the staff group as their primary group). I use mandatory profiles for this in 98. That means that I've got a template user for the pupils. I get that desktop and all the settings setup exactly the way I want them, then copy that profile to all pupils (making is a user.man - which makes it mandatory). If you don't know what mandatory profiles are, you need to google it. I point everyone's desktop to /server1/%g/desktop where samba subsitutes %g for the group the user belongs to (this needs me to check - which I can't do until I'm in school next week). This way pupils get a different set of shortcuts on their desktop to staff. In a primary school situation, I don't use passwords for pupils. Only staff have passwords.

Does anybody have any suggestions for setting this up? I'm really new to Linux so any advice would be very much appreciated!

You can of course work up to this, by using security = share in your smb.conf, forgetting about profiles and policies, having no users and just having folders that have password access on your server. It's not very satisfactory, but it's where I started 6 years ago. * Look at skolelinux (which looks to be very interesting to me) * Possibly Karoshi also. Please let us know what you can't get working... I'm sure someone will lend a hand (another advantage of comuunity based software) -- Matt Johnson ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com