Re: [suse-schools-usa] We need a list charter [ was: Re: Whoa ]
On Fri, 12 Apr 2002, Lance Lane wrote:
1. Educators around the World. 2. Educational Developers (Interested of Course in developing applications) 3. Implementation of Linux in the classroom. 4. Practical Application of Linux in the Classroom (Activities) 5. No Tech support for Linux or SuSe. 6. Educational Desktop Developers (KDE, Ximian, Gnome)
Need Feedback on more specifics and covering the Bases!
I think some technical support (or at least ideas about technical implementations) should be allowed, as long as it is specific or common to an academic environment. I was recently thrust (okay, somewhat willingly) into putting together a 25 machine high performance computing lab and workstation cluster. I have used linux for a few years, but have very little experience in the administration of groups of systems. I think most of the questions I will have will be pretty specific to problems running in a university type environment, as opposed to managing systems in a business. For example, here are some things I am working on now, that others at universities or public schools may have dealt with or are dealing with also: 1) How do I easily create 25 identical systems (i.e. write a bootable cd that automatically partitions disks, loads the exact software I want off of NFS, and prompts me for machine name, IP, etc...) and, how do I keep all of these machines exactly the same? 2) Has anyone set up OpenLDAP to use instead of NIS so it can interface with the X.500 databases that many universities run? 3) Setting up systems (yes, windows and mac, too) so that students get their same home directory no matter what machine in the building they log onto, and how to keep this secure. 4) Clustering / Batching 5) How to keep the Linux systems attractive (read: **sexy**) to the students, so they will use it over the windows lab. I have some ideas on most of this stuff, but I don't really have anyone here to bounce them off of. I would like to be able to use this list for that. Thanks! And I'm glad to see this list isn't dead! I think it is a great idea. The more students we get using linux now, the less people we have to ween from microsoft in the future. Michael Stone Mechanical Engineering High Performance Computing / Linux Administration University of Texas at Austin ETC 3.130 ph: 471.5951 agentsmith@mail.utexas.edu Michael Stone Linux Administration University of Texas at Austin - Mechanical Engineering ETC 3.130 ph: 471.5951 agentsmith@mail.utexas.edu
* michael stone (agentsmith@mail.utexas.edu) [020412 14:12]:
I think some technical support (or at least ideas about technical implementations) should be allowed, as long as it is specific or common to an academic environment.
As long as you keep in mind that you'll probably receive a much better (meaning faster, not nec. higher quality) response on suse-linux-e. I think mentioning that you are working to help get Linux into schools will only help with this.
1) How do I easily create 25 identical systems (i.e. write a bootable cd that automatically partitions disks, loads the exact software I want off of NFS, and prompts me for machine name, IP, etc...) and, how do I keep all of these machines exactly the same?
Using ALICE or the new SuSE autoinstall that will replace it. Both of these are very specialized (I don't really know much about them) but they each have their own lists.
2) Has anyone set up OpenLDAP to use instead of NIS so it can interface with the X.500 databases that many universities run?
Yes, our business products are all based on LDAP. Again, it's highly specialized topic that's probably best handled on the Open LDAP lists or maybe SLE if the problem is specific to SuSE.
3) Setting up systems (yes, windows and mac, too) so that students get their same home directory no matter what machine in the building they log onto, and how to keep this secure.
SLE and suse-security.
4) Clustering / Batching
SLE, but only because those sort of "wastebasket" lists for topics that don't have their own list.
5) How to keep the Linux systems attractive (read: **sexy**) to the students, so they will use it over the windows lab.
This seems very relevant as it's more of a sociological problem than a technical one.
I have some ideas on most of this stuff, but I don't really have anyone here to bounce them off of. I would like to be able to use this list for that.
You probably won't get much feedback though. The security people all hang out on suse-security (and maybe SLE or SL), the alice/auto-install people are on their lists, etc. We don't really have a list for people who are interested in topics like 5) and some geek's concept of what's sexy or cool is probably very different from from what, say, a high school teacher would think-- That sort of issue is probably really important. -- -ckm
participants (2)
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Christopher Mahmood -
michael stone