LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: 9505886l <9505886l@lux.levels.unisa.edu.au>
  To  : linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
  Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 10:26:16 +1030 (CST)

OSS and the government (schools)

First a bit of a rant and rave, which leads up to some questions ...

On Fri, 20 Nov 1998, Tique Bennett wrote:
> > The MS rule only applies to new acquisitions, too -- Which lead to one
> > department (where I know a few people) refusing to upgrade their
> > department-wide email software for four years because they knew that
> > upgrading meant a forced migration to MS Exchange, whereas they could
> > continue to use WordPerfect Office for as long as they like if they
> > never upgraded it.
.
.
.
> Secondly, rumours have it that there is a kind of clandestine sub-network
> development happening - with servers hidden in back-rooms etc to just try
> an maintain efficient systems. Mind you - only rumour!

I work in an SA government school, and I am forced to live with these
policies day to day.  
All administration computers in government schools are installed and
maintained by EDS or a sub-contractor, and are supposed to be maintained
solely by EDS.  Hah! according to EDS, we (where i work, at a large R-12
school) are supposed to run almost 20 administration machines, most of
which are fast pentiums, off of a single DX2-66 NT 3.50 server with 64M
ram, 1G hdd, over a 10Mbit network.  The applications they must run are MS
office, on NT workstation, and the main administration program, based on a
relational database engine (the main culprit, but that's another rant
entirely)
Unlike many schools, we have a huge IT budget (in comparison to others,
but overall still pretty modest) and so have 2x techs, who between us do
almost full-time hours - so the decision was made to take it into our own
hands.  We now run our own NT 4.0 server on a pentium, with more of
everything and 100MBit fiber links to 10M switching hubs.  This is an
example of the "servers in back rooms etc to ... maintain efficient
systems" - it's physically actually in the back room, and EDS no longer
touch it.  I have also heard strong rumours, from contractors i have
talked to, that this is happening in most schools that can afford it.
 
> > The state of Open-Source advocacy within the Government is probably
> > at about the same point that Open-Source advocacy was at in the
> > non-Government Corporate world five years ago.  Not a happy scene.
> > It may change, but the MS agreement will probably prove to set them
> > back ten or fifteen years when we look back on it in a few decades
> > time.
> 
> Agree - this closed approach can't do anything but set back innovative IT
> development which is not what the Government intended. One has only to
> look at the mass migration of IT support companies that have left the
> State or downsized markedly in the last five years.
> 
> Tique

This last bit leads me to my questions:
I want to change this, and the school i work at is a good place to
start.  
After talking to everybody involved, it seems like i would be able change
all 5 servers (the NT box mentioned, 3x novell boxes, and a 95 machine) to
1 or 2 linux sesrvers made from their parts, if i know linux will be
reliable. 
I am confident of linux's superiority as far as sharing drives to NT, for our internet 
connection, and a few other minor thins, but i'm unsure of some areas:
- has anyone here actually tried out the new versions of samba, to
authenticate users at NT workstations ?
- has anyone had any experience, and could talk to me, about the
reliabilty of mars-nwe ?

If i can see that linux will log on the users, both NT and novell, the
migration will be fairly easy as we can leave the clients unchanged, and
the upcoming holidays would be a perfect chance.

I am planning to rig up a small test network, with a linux box and one of
each client connected to a separate hub, before i try the migration.
Would this be an appropriate thing to bring along to a meeting or
installfest and ask others to help ?

Thanks in advance,
Leigh.


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