Sometime on Jan 25, Millenniums assembled some asciibets to say: > We have a small network with a NT Server + W95 + W98. My people are > not computer literate and their learning curve is not very steep. > I want to minimize their learning and adjusting to new environment. > I would like to have the suggestion as to what is the best flavour > of LINUX that we can go for and as to the benefits / pitfalls of > using and administrating linux.
I would suggest you do your crossover in a phased manner. first, move file servers, web proxies, gateways to linux. For these machines I'd suggest a debian stable or slackware. If you're confident of setting up a secure redhat/mandrake system, you can go for that too. Generally, you don't want anything X related on these systems. Your gateway/proxy can be a very light machine. If you don't have much load, a simple pentium class machine with sufficient (64M) RAM should do. You can set up a firewall on this machine too. Your file server will have to run samba. It should only be accessible from within your network. This machine should have plenty of hard disk space - about 100-200MB per user (depending on what you use it for of course) you may need less. You may also want an application server - a powerful machine (Dual processor Pentium III or IV, with plenty of RAM). This server would run all applications - StarOffice, etc. that people would use. The application would run on the app server, and desktop would be exported to each person's terminal. This would enable you to run very lightweight clients - possibly even dumb terminals. Since you already have a set up with lots of machines, I'd suggest you do this in the last phase, when everyone is comfortable, and you're thinking of hardware upgrades. In the first phase, I'd suggest moving maybe six or seven client machines to linux. A Mandrake system should be good. Redhat with Ximian Gnome is extremely easy to use on the desktop. Applications include - AbiWord for documents, Gnumeric for spreadsheets, Magicpoint for presentations (or maybe not). Gimp for image manipulation, Gnucash for accounting/finances, and all the other default apps that come with Gnome. All these machines would mount samba partitions on the file server where they will write data - the same way windows clients will write over network neighbourhood. Login authentication would be done using samba as well, or possibly NIS/LDAP (someone else please throw some light on this). I'd suggest gnome over kde because there are so many ways to make it look good. When you're trying to convince someone that his desktop is easy to use, having a good looking desktop immediately takes away that initial fear. KDE looks a lot like windows, but in my mind, if you give them KDE, they'll never change the way they think about the system their using, and will never really adapt to using linux. Give them gnome, let them fool around with customising their desktops, desktop themes, window managers, etc. Let them *like* using their systems. Let others get jealous of the ones that have gnome, and let them start asking to have it too. Then you know you're ready for phase two. Migrate other desktops to linux too, and at this time, you can give people the choice between kde and gnome, show them how to switch between them themselves. You might still require some windows machines if you have legacy apps that require windows. On a trial basis, have a single machine with wine and dosemu to see if these apps will work there. If they do, then you can shift these over too, if not, then you'll have to stick with the windows machine. Try using either citrix or vnc to export these apps to the linux desktops. Citrix is expensive, but allows many people to run multiple sessions simultaneously. VNC allows just a single session with many people sharing it. Phase three would involve the application server. Basically, by moving all apps to a single machine, it makes it easier to upgrade software from a central point, rather than managing every single terminal. You'll never have to ask people to give up their terminals for a few hours while you upgrade their software, and you can have less powerful clients. Come back when you've done this and tell us about it. > =============[ In God We Trust ]============= Quoting the US Dollar? -- He's just like Capistrano, always ready for a few swallows. _______________________________________________ linux-india-help mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-india-help
