LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Matthew Geddes <mgeddes@xavier.sa.edu.au>
  To  : Jason Tan <jason@rebel.rebel.net.au>
  Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 09:38:08 +0930

Re: MS Curriculum at schools and TAFEs ...

Jason Tan wrote:

> Yes which somewhat illustrates my point, that schools cant afford them.

Agreed.

> > setup machine would only have to be rebooted and be fixed up in seconds.
> 
> Sounds like a windows fix.
> And yes they are cheap consultants with all teh implications, they cant
> afford good ones.

But you don't necessarily get better as the price increases either.

> No but there si a certainlevel of hard won knowledge of windows with
> teachers. There is virtaully none with unix.

But as you run them through a brief training session (as we all do when
we install new software), you could easily draw parallels with what the
user does know. Like a staff member we had start here, who had never
used Windows, but had bought himself a Mac a couple of months ago. I
just pointed out the similarities between various parts of the two
interfaces and off he went.

> Setting up is not the issue.
> It is ongoing admin.

Which doesn't need to be an issue.

> If I thiughtit would help I would set up a machien for a school and say
> look here is an old 486, that you can now use as a fiel server.
> But that is not the problem it is adminsterign it.
> It is settign up shared directories for this project or that project.
> Which relaly is nto thateasy unless you understand the unix security
> model.
> 
> One thing I want to do "one day" is precisely this, but with approprately
> easy to use front end on it.

Have you started work on it? I would be interested to see what ideas you
had.

> > > A system that is flexible and multipurpaose cant be zero admin. It is a
> > > lie for windows and would be a lie for linux.
> >
> > That's completely not true, for UNIX. A system that's multipurpose can
> > still fit into the category of 'Zero Admin'. SunRay's pull it off quite
> > easily. Note that Zero Admin doesn't mean that you never touch it. It's
> > a fact of life that you have to do the odd spring cleaning job with your
> > boxes, whether they be Linux or Windows.
> 
> Which is whty zero adminis a lie. Because you always have to touch it.

But you could make it less of a lie. I strongly believe that you could
set up a linux network (servers and workstations) that would require far
less administration than their Windows counterpart.

Matt

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