4 ms·

Well, once upon a time, I decided to break through the FUD, and convinced my local school to try teaching on Linux. Problem is, after three months of work, I w

Well, once upon a time, I decided to break through the FUD, and convinced my local school to try teaching on Linux. Problem is, after three months of work, I wasn't able to reliably deploy the OS to a room of computers and connect it to the school network - even though I worked as a Linux server admin before that. Every single computer (all the same, with serial number one after the other) had a different set of issues that made it completely unusable. Many of ones I got kinda working got broken after a few rounds of updates. Windows just worked right after installation. The year of Linux desktop is still not there.

dijit 4y ago
Interesting. Took me 20 minutes to fire up an installation of 50 machines in a company in 2012. Those machines ran without fault for multiple years until I had to add some additional support for caching the NFS mounts because we had added so many clients after the initial installation that we were overloading our NAS. No hardware errors for sure. But these were desktops (not of uniform origin). Windows machines on the other hand were a bit more painful, every single one had to be hand enrolled to the sambav4 “AD” (we didn’t have AD) and the instructions never worked the same way twice. So annoying.
- EUROCARE 4y ago
  My own desktop also works like a charm with Linux, but that changes nothing about the problems I encountered at the school. Yeah I can imagine that not having AD makes things more complicated, but once you have it, it works very well on Windows. Not being able to reliably connect to AD was one of the failures I had with this classroom.
  - dijit 4y ago
    It’s a really unfortunate set of circumstances that you need to run a Microsoft product for authentication in order to have a reasonable experience with the Microsoft operating system. Especially because that Microsoft product (AD) is usually the hardest thing to integrate with from other operating systems; and is contingent on owning all user accounts (and usually means you have to use their email systems and file sharing systems). Quite a lot of lock-in for a base level of user experience. But I guess that’s OK if you are a shareholder. :)
    - EUROCARE 4y ago
      My workplace MacBook has zero issues with working on AD-based network...
      - dijit 4y ago
        That's a very modern advancement, was not the case in 2014 (ask me how I know). I definitely wouldn't discount the amount of effort that Apple has put into that. Try doing it with linux or with OSX Mountain Lion.
        EUROCARE 4y ago
        Yeah, I bet it's been a lot of work. But that just underlines my point - you can't expect people to reinstall their school computers if it requires changing their entire network to something nobody there understands and the users (teachers of subjects other than computers) don't want it. The thing is, people (admin and users) are quite happy with the MS stuff - it's not perfect and costs a lot, but it mostly works without too much setup work.
        dijit 4y ago
        The solution then is to just give Microsoft control and money? For eternity? Nah. I’ll pass. I detest ecosystem lock-in like this. :) Especially from foreign entities.
        EUROCARE 4y ago
        Oh no, that's definitely not a solution, but at least until someone comes up with software that is at least comparable, Microsoft is what we're stuck with.
      - dijit 4y ago
        I saw a topic come up on macsysadmin that you might be interested in: https://www.reddit.com/r/macsysadmin/comments/w6tt99/sysadmin_first_time_dealing_with_mac_having_an/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macsysadmin/comments/w6tt99/sysadmi...

dijit 4y ago

Interesting. Took me 20 minutes to fire up an installation of 50 machines in a company in 2012. Those machines ran without fault for multiple years until I had to add some additional support for caching the NFS mounts because we had added so many clients after the initial installation that we were overloading our NAS. No hardware errors for sure. But these were desktops (not of uniform origin). Windows machines on the other hand were a bit more painful, every single one had to be hand enrolled to the sambav4 “AD” (we didn’t have AD) and the instructions never worked the same way twice. So annoying.

EUROCARE 4y ago
My own desktop also works like a charm with Linux, but that changes nothing about the problems I encountered at the school. Yeah I can imagine that not having AD makes things more complicated, but once you have it, it works very well on Windows. Not being able to reliably connect to AD was one of the failures I had with this classroom.
- dijit 4y ago
  It’s a really unfortunate set of circumstances that you need to run a Microsoft product for authentication in order to have a reasonable experience with the Microsoft operating system. Especially because that Microsoft product (AD) is usually the hardest thing to integrate with from other operating systems; and is contingent on owning all user accounts (and usually means you have to use their email systems and file sharing systems). Quite a lot of lock-in for a base level of user experience. But I guess that’s OK if you are a shareholder. :)
  - EUROCARE 4y ago
    My workplace MacBook has zero issues with working on AD-based network...
    - dijit 4y ago
      That's a very modern advancement, was not the case in 2014 (ask me how I know). I definitely wouldn't discount the amount of effort that Apple has put into that. Try doing it with linux or with OSX Mountain Lion.
      - EUROCARE 4y ago
        Yeah, I bet it's been a lot of work. But that just underlines my point - you can't expect people to reinstall their school computers if it requires changing their entire network to something nobody there understands and the users (teachers of subjects other than computers) don't want it. The thing is, people (admin and users) are quite happy with the MS stuff - it's not perfect and costs a lot, but it mostly works without too much setup work.
        dijit 4y ago
        The solution then is to just give Microsoft control and money? For eternity? Nah. I’ll pass. I detest ecosystem lock-in like this. :) Especially from foreign entities.
        EUROCARE 4y ago
        Oh no, that's definitely not a solution, but at least until someone comes up with software that is at least comparable, Microsoft is what we're stuck with.
    - dijit 4y ago
      I saw a topic come up on macsysadmin that you might be interested in: https://www.reddit.com/r/macsysadmin/comments/w6tt99/sysadmin_first_time_dealing_with_mac_having_an/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macsysadmin/comments/w6tt99/sysadmi...