[juneau-lug] Re: [luau] A Mission For Luau]

  • From: "James Zuelow" <e5z8652@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <juneau-lug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 21:38:26 -0800


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jacob Gemmell" <evilbob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Juneau Linux Users Group" <juneau-lug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 5:31 PM
Subject: [juneau-lug] Re: [luau] A Mission For Luau]


> Is there any organization is particular that you have in mind?  I received
> a call from the Tlingit & Haida Community Council (I think it was them)
> who said they were calling around to various state departments find out
> what OS we were using and whether we would recommend Windows XP.  Having
> not used XP, I told them that Windows 2000 was what we were using and
> would probably be the safer choice.  In retrospect, I wish I had inqured
> as to whether they had considered Linux as a viable option.

No, I don't have anyone in particular in mind.  Really, it would have to be
someone who we already knew was interested in a Linux/BSD solution to a
problem.  That means we have to advertise our services.  However - we
shouldn't advertise until we know we're ready for it.  We won't know we're
ready until we do it.  It's a catch-22.  If anyone else hears from an
organization asking similar questions, find out if they'd like to be our
guinea pig.

> > --Not every non-profit/church wants a 100% Linux solution, especially if
> > nobody at the organization is familiar with it.  You need to consider
> > working with other operating systems (Samba and Netatalk immediately
> > come to mind).  Therefore members of the Church of Linux who view any
> > proprietary OS as something to be exorcised (you know who you are) might
> > not be the best front men for the project.  Pragmatism is the rule.
> >
> Heathen!! Blasphemer!!  Heretic!!  I know you have been using Outlook
> Express.
>
> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
>
> I have seen your headers!!  Confess!!  Confess I tell you!!
>
Yes, yes, I spend a great deal of time on the dark side.  I'm even an "MCP"
to boot!

> All joking aside.  Some of the small organization that I have seen and
> worked with (several of the fishing lobbies around town) have little to no
> technical support, and even less of a budget to spend on IT.  One thing
> that freaked me out was when I went to a couple of them and saw that they
> had thier entire network (2 to 3 desktops) full of Windows shares (full
> read write access for everyone ) hangin directly off a cable modem.  What
> was worse what all the applications they had installed, and lack of
> patches they had applied.  Spyware, and trojans, and virii, Oh my!!
> Dropping in a firewall and maybe a Samba server would be a real help.
> Teaching the importance of keeping systems and Antivirus programs updated
> would be even better.

Postfix and Amavis anyone?  Here's a message header you didn't quote:

X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS perl-11

Which shows I'm not a complete MS junkie.

> Having a little security and a common place to share files is all a lot of
> them need.  Maybe a desktop running Gnome with AbiWord and Gnumeric would
> be nice too.

For what most people would probably want:

A single box running Samba and a mail server would suit any organization
with an existing Win9x peer to peer network.  They would get user level
security and possibly central virus scanning for mail (while Amavis is free,
unfortunately the antivirus definitions are usually not free for
organizations).  I have used my Amavis scanner before I had my cable modem,
using fetchmail and a dial-up connection.  So "mail server" doesn't
necessarily mean "expensive internet connection" - that is a point that is
important to make to budget conscious non-profits or churches.

For a complete *nix solution:

OpenOffice.org just came out with 1.0, which is more or less compatible with
Office 97/2000 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).  It has problems with documents
that use a lot of VBA, and of course Access databases need to be translated
to MySQL or something similar (not a difficult task apparently - there are
perl scripts to move data in both directions).  But for general office work,
there should be no problems at all.

I think we could set up a demo network with the 5x86 machines Sean got from
the FAA and a server.  Use the 5x86 as semi-smart terminals (use the disk as
local storage).  The server would act as the X server and OpenOffice.org
application server.  One of the 5x86 boxes could become a print server, and
another become a transparent bridge firewall.  I have access to an idle P233
server that might fit the bill for demo work if I can borrow it from work.
There are several Gateway Pentium Pro 200 servers at State Surplus we could
trick out as well ($70 for the box - probably negotiable since other PPro
boxes with better specs sell for $40, plus whatever we need for more 72 pin
SIMMs).  We could use the demo network to point out the fact that an
organization could purchase perfectly good State Surplus machines that come
without an OS, and using free tools build a productive office network.  With
our help.  (However someone at said organization will have to be willing to
learn how to become a *nix sysadmin, unless one of us volunteers to do it
for them.)

Cheers,

James


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