Re: [school-discuss] Mac Linux network install failure

[Jim Thomas <jthomas@bittware.com>]

Doug Loss wrote:
[sad story snipped]
> I just thought you might be interested in hearing about an
> installation that went wrong for political reasons.  

I can share another.  I've got Linux pretty well established at my kids'
school where I volunteer as a sysadmin.  I have five servers set up,
including one K12LTSP server (which is down right now due to a lighting
strike).  As soon as I get it back online, our 18-client LTSP lab will
be back in business.

At the beginning of the school year a new parent donated four PC's to
the school for the Kindergarten class.  They did not come with an OS.  I
talked to the Kindergarten teacher about setting up another LTSP, and
she agreed that she'd try it.  But as it turned out, the beginning of
the school year is a really bad time to embark on a new setup like
that.  I was already buried in other network-related tasks (we had just
changed ISP's, and I was still tweaking the LTSP setup in the PC lab and
migrating our web pages and email accounts to a new server, etc).  

When the donor (a Windows guy) got wind that it was going to be a few
weeks before I could get to setting up the boxes he had donated, he took
it upon himself to shell out some bucks (and a lot of 'em I guess) for 4
copies of Win98.  

That money would have been better spent on some new monitors, but what
can I say about it now?  Since he donated the PC's and bought the OS's,
he is now responsible for the kindergarten room.  

Luckily, my existing deployments have not been affected.

I guess the lesson we can draw from these stories (Doug's and mine) is
this - when you get a green light, put the pedal to the metal.  If you
can.
 
-- 
Jim Thomas            Principal Applications Engineer  Bittware, Inc
jthomas@bittware.com  http://www.bittware.com          (703) 779-7770
The sooner you get behind, the more time you'll have to catch up