Re: [seul-edu] wine testing efforts

[James Oden <joden@eworld.wox.org>]

> 
> MS Office 97
> MS Office 2000
> 
> Symantec Ghost (apparently there is a problem with Linux, even on the 
> latest version -- two different sites have had issues)
>
Why even use ghost with Linux machines?  Actually, this one way you could
get Linux into the schools on the server side, as you can essentially do 
the same thing as ghost with a carefully crafted linux floppy (enough
to bring up the network on machines and start running a script that 
can load images onto harddrives from a network; when I did my RHCE trainging
eons ago, there was some discussion of this with the students).  Also,
for Linux only solutions kickstart is the obvious answer.  I have actually
done some work towards including the kickstart in the RH cdboot.img file,
and makeing customized cdrom distributions that fit on one CDROM, thus allyou
have to do put the cdrom in the machine and let it boot.  But in most
cases just a simple netboot floppy and the kickstart file being on the
net is sufficient.  Just some thoughts.


> an AS/400 terminal application from IBM (might not be necessary)
>
Yeah, that would probably be their Client 32 bundle.  You know you may not
need to get that working as much as getting the proper key binding to work
with the x3270 terminal.  I know for a fact that it works as far as connecting,
but I never had the time to figure out how to get the key binding working
exactly like the finance department expects them to be.  Also, for things
like transfer of their direct deposit file to a PC to be sent to a bank,
you can actually use ftp if their AS/400 has been setup with ftp.  They 
still use the old AS/400 filesystem that is 3-tiers deep, so its kind of weird
navigating at first, but its quite doable.
 
> ISIS food inventory/warehousing/lunchroom POS software (could have the 
> name wrong)
>
The program that originally ran on the AS/400, and they ported to windows
using a cobol runtime.  If you get the cobol runtime running you will
have their program working probably. 
> NCWISE (haven't even looked at what the setup is here yet)
>
When I left Lee County it was supposed to be a web based thing, but they may
have added win32 and Mac client side components more than java.  Unfortunately
I don't know for sure.  The biggest issue I have been hearing from my old
boss is that it consumes a lot of bandwidth, and thus schools are having to 
get bigger pipes to the internet.

Cheers...james