Fedora Core 6

Another good Linux Distro is Fedora Core. Fedora is an RPM based distro that is sponsored by Red Hat. Unlike Red Hat though, fedora contains only free and open source software. Also due to Red hats involvement, the community is slightly more focused on making it easier to implement technologies that windows users take as given. This means that from a beginner’s point of view, networking and file sharing, or setting up basic servers for DNS or firewall/gateway purposes might be easier. Personally, if it can be done on Fedora, it can be done on Ubuntu. And I my self and more inclined towards the sudo side of the Sudo/Root implementation argument. But like I said earlier, my implementation choice will also depend on making the tech usable to the average John/Jane who are so indoctrinated by windows that it’s an effort just to get people to give OpenOffice or Firefox a chance, let alone switch OSes.

Ubuntu

At home I have been using ubuntu for a while now, so it was the logical place to start. Ubuntu is a Debian based distro that focuses on stability and ease of use. It comes with the GNOME desktop as standard, which I have always preferred to KDE for some unknown reason. If someone out there is a curious newbie, Linux doesn't get easier than Ubuntu. Some of the included features include aptitude for downloading all kinds of software that one could need and Synaptic package manager for handling download of updates, adding and removing software, and automatic updating. Ubuntu also ships with the OpenOffice and Firefox packages so it's pretty easy to get up and running in under 30 minutes.
Another plus for noobs is that the ubuntu-desktop installation CD is Live, so one can just insert it into the CD drive and boot from it into a complete and running OS without having to install anything. Its like test driving, there’s no commitment.
Those interested can just wiki it or go to ubuntu.com and download a desktop CD from torrent or http. Those on slow connections look for a link to ShipIt and get CDs shipped to you anywhere in the world for free.

Of course for a server install I will have different considerations. One of the biggest hurdles that I see is going to be getting LDAP, SAMBA, WINBIND, etc set up right.

To Tux or not to Tux...

As my friends know, every now and then I just “happen to” find myself in interesting situations. Well so it is that I just “happen to" find my self in charge of the IT implementation at work. Currently we are using two main techs. A windows based Active Directory implementation and a SQL based central database. This system is currently a very hackneyed implementation by the previous IT staff with resources just slapped together by wiring and users just thrown randomly into the AD. This is quickly reaching manageability limits as the number of users in now around 25. My goals are to move all this to a Linux based setup with the goal of easy future additions to the network. Some considerations are to use easily manageable tech so that I can teach administration to non-Linux IT team members. On big hurdle is to do all this experimenting after hours to minimize down-time.
Over the next few posts I will talk about the implementation that I… implement and how I got about it. This is going to be fun.