clutch

Just thought I would pose a poll as for your reasoning in selecting this OS. For me, the final kicker was the pricing on "upgrading" our Exchange server from 5.5 to 2000. As there is no longer an upgrade option, it will now cost at *least* $10,000US for us to REPLACE the licenses, rather than a few grand at the most to upgrade them. I decided that since many applications have matured, while many more new ones are coming down the pipe for Linux that I would try using it again.

http://forums.gentoo.org for Gentoo Linux users, and www.linuxcompatible.org are the ones I hit for my Linux stuff. I also go to www.vmware.com/community for VMware issues. Those are about it for my other options.

One option could be to use Windows (or Linux, if that's what you want) as the host, and use VMware to run your other OSs. This is what I do, and it's worked out well. I keep XP as the host OS (or 2003 Server, and use Virtual Server on top of it) and run copies of Linux, BSD, and Windows within that.

Well, you *did* bring up that your computer might be slow... In any case, Debian is fantastic as a personal server for me, or for getting new people into Linux. It's easy to update and upgrade, and you can select what feeds you run on in exchange for "stability" (old stuff for stability, cutting edge stuff with less stability, and many levels in between). I prefer Gentoo for all things Linux because: 1. The default installation installs almost nothing; it just boots and that's about it. I like this because I can choose to *add* packages to my install, rather than digging around the installer's package manager to add/remove things from its canned install options (web server, file/print server, desktop, etc.). 2. When I have need for certain things I can compile all new applications with the corresponding use flags, such as support for smb, alsa, ldap, etc. These are things that you might get into later on, but are not that important when starting. 3. It isn't biased to a particular desktop environment. I use Fluxbox, and I don't have to deal with the weight of KDE or Gnome being installed, nor do I have the hassle of removing them during the install process. 4. The community is awesome. I spent a great deal of time on the IRC channel a long time ago, and might return soon. Very cool people (if you have ever hit a BSD channel, then you might appreciate this ). 5. I love the name and logo. With respect to the 15 discs, that *might* include a great deal of their packages for that distro. You should be able to get by with just the first disc and "apt-get install" everything else you need. Debian, in plain vanilla form, does not favor any desktop environment (this is a good thing), while various Debian-based distros can do what they want. Xandros was KDE-based from what I remember, along with Knoppix. I can't remember what Libranet was, and I thought Stormix was Gnome. I like utilities from both environments, such a Gkrellm and K3B, but I usually don't install both sets of libraries anymore. This is personal preference, and varies from person to person.

By default, "Allow Zone Transfers" should be off in 2003 DNS, and if your server is the only one configured as a name server you should be OK. Now, if you have other domain controllers, the zone is AD integrated, and the zone is configured to replicate to other domain controllers in the domain then there could be an issue. Here is the order of DNS configuration to follow with Windows Server 2003: 1. First DC is configured to point to itself for DNS. 2. Second, third, fourth, etc. DCs point to first DC for DNS during setup and DCPROMO. 3. Once DCPROMO is complete, they may point to themselves as the DNS records will have replicated ("islanding" is no longer an issue with 2003). 4. Remember to configure forwarders on your "root" DNS boxes to point to the outside world if needed for Internet name resolution.

I don't care for any RPM-based distros, although SuSE is tolerable. I tried Fedora for about 15 minutes, and was reminded of all my other Red Hat experiences and canned it (although it was better). @1 - I liked Stormix (Rest In Peace), Xandros, and Libranet, all of which are pay-for Debian-based distros. The cool thing about these distros is that you get proprietary tools (installers, control panel apps, etc) and support (if needed) from the respective companies. @2 - Yes, it's slow ;-). It should work fine, but remember that all of those bells and whistles in the new interface take up CPU cycles. I prefer to use Fluxbox on all of GUI machines for this reason. @3 - Cool. @4 - The best thing about Debian is that you can shift from feed to feed (the place you get your packages from) or combine them (such as your normal Debian feed from your vendor, plus a feed for custom KDE packages). Debian is my second fav distro, closely behind Gentoo. As for 15 ISOs, that doesn't make any sense. You should just need disk 1, partition and format your disk, and then install packages from the CD and your feed (assuming you get online during installation). @5 - Ubuntu is cool, and I believe the installer is fairly intuitive (it's all a blur since I have installed Linux about two dozen times in the last few weeks). I installed it from an ISO, but I just got my free CDs from them last week and haven't setup a new VM for it.

OK, here's a link to the directions if you want to check them out: http://ntcompatible.com/pdf/Setting%20up%20a%20Virtual%20Router.pdf Post comments and suggestions here.

I am not sure about your sentence dealing with DHCP, but one issue is with the media sense functionality of XP. What can happen with certain NICs and drivers, is that during boot when running DHCP the NIC will get an address, and then when the OS needs to talk to the DC the NIC will turn off, and then back on. The client will then bomb and error out with a Group Policy processing failure (or a failure to contact a DC). Once booted and logged on, the client will behave normally. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;239924

Did you configure forwarders for the DNS installed on the NT system? If it is using root hints, that would explain the flaky performance (I can't remember the normal NT setup).

It should be running Samba 3.x, and it is activated in the services panel. It's something like "Windows Sharing" or something like that. That will enable the laptop to share files with Windows boxes. In order to connect to a Windows box, you use Finder and bring up an address line (command-k I think) to enter your desired share. Use something like smb://myserver/myshare, and you should get prompted for credentials to use. This will work on a share-by-share basis. If you join the Mac to your domain, it would then use NTLM (NT4 or AD fallback) or Kerberos (AD primary) credentials.

Samba is a Linux/BSD/UNIX thing, and it came with the Apple, provided you are using OS X. What version of the Apple OS are you using?

If you are performing simple file sharing and have Active Directory, then you might just want to have the Mac join the AD environment. As mentioned before, you will need to add the Active Directory authentication service to your Directory Access panel, join AD (make sure that you have DNS running properly, and that the Domain Controller has a valid reverse lookup record as the Mac checks it for validity) and you will be able to use Kerberos credentials for users in that environment via Samba (2.x for 10.2 and earlier, with 10.3+ getting Samba 3.x with Kerberos support). If no AD, you can still try using smb://servername/sharename in Finder, and then enter the credentials of a valid user on the system to that share. That should work, provided you haven't hardened the security of the Windows 2000 box (such as using NTLMv2 or SMB Service Signing).

No, we're not down with w4r3z here...

Originally posted by mthaler: Quote: Clutch, The printing is working great for me, but I am having some problems with the client that is 100 miles away :-) Anyway, is there something that would prevent the local drives from showing up. I am using the newest client that you can download for Windows Server 2003. -Maurice Right, but are you using the same printer that all of the users are? I am assuming that they are redirecting to local printers, and not simply printing to a network printer at the Terminal Server's location. If you run an RSoP on the TS, you can see if "Do not allow drive redirection" has been toggled. This setting is located at: Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Terminal Services -> Client/Server data redirection I do not run my TS boxes in Application Mode, so I don't bother with the Terminal Services Configuration console. However, I don't believe that drive redirection is fielded there. In the user's Environment tab in AD Users and Computers, you will see a setting for redirecting local drives. This only pertains to the Citrix client, and not to the RDP client: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;836420 So, if this setting was to be managed anywhere, it would probably be via a GPO template setting. I would just make sure that the clients are clicking the little checkboxes first.

Use the newest Remote Desktop client (like the one with Windows XP or Windows Server 2003), select Options and then Local Resources. You should be able to select "local drives" along with printers. Now, when the user opens up explorer during a TS session he or she should see the local drives listed at the bottom. As for the printer, it should be configured to connect by default, so check the logs and make sure that the proper drivers are installed for the local printers the users have.

I am l337 liek JeffK!!1!111 The Internet makes you stupid.

LMHOSTS is only useful for NetBIOS name resolution. If you have resources on your network that require it, and WINS isn't an option, then it will work. Even in that case, it is only useful for: 1. Crossing subnets/broadcast boundries 2. Speeding name resolution in the case of slow network response (too much broadcast traffic already) 3. "Spoofing" the desired name of a resource and pointing it to an existing machine (like "intranet" and having the IP point to your internal website or registering machines as specific resources, such as domain controllers) AD requires DNS, and more importantly the SRV record support. However, Windows clients and servers will try to failover to NTLM and NetBIOS (versus Kerberos and DNS) to resolve and access resources. This is why a horribly broken AD environment can appear to be working, but in fact have many issues that "occur" intermittently. While Windows 2000 and the first AD required DNS, Exchange Server 2000 still required NetBIOS for resolving Exchange servers. Clients also needed NetBIOS with Outlook XP and prior to connect to those servers. Exchange Server 2003 fixes *most* of this when combined with Outlook 2003, but might still need NetBIOS for console usage. Again, it just depends on the resources in your network.

Check in the router for something like "Enable WAN Response" or something like that. This lets the router respond to ping requests. Or, just check the manual for it. I am not sure that configuring your system to be the DMZ will still let ICMP through.

Don't know how I missed this one, but... Set your default forwarder for your ISP, and conditional forwarder(s) for the other domain(s) you need direct resolution. This is what we do in the lab (10 forests with about 25 domains) and it works fine. Stub zones require a connection with one DNS box (setup replication), and the stub zone then looks for other name servers in that domain to query and work with. A conditional forwarder, on the other hand, requires no such configuration and simply forwards all request to those DNS servers on the behalf of the clients (although default behavior would be recursive, where the DNS server tries to resolve it itself).

Well, I was going to post a screencap of my old desktop to the "Desktop Environment" thread, but I can't seem to find it. Anybody know where it's at? BTW, here it is: http://www.driventechnologies.com:8080/images/screencap-smaller.png

Cool. I kept using the search function, but couldn't find that thread. Might have to hit Philipp up on this...

What you could do is simply run the live CD, and see what module it loads for your NIC. There might be another one that it chooses. In addition, if the genkernel was used (I am not sure if this is the case from going through the responses) it probably has support compiled into the kernel, and hence gives the modprobe and insmod issues. I just recently tried using genkernel in my VM, and did not care for (too much stuff) and might go with a stage 1 (yeah yeah, I know, but it can make a big difference and it's the way I have done it for the last couple of years).

Indemnification from lawsuits is a big deal to many companies, especially when you develop a core application for an OS only to see that OS possibly taken away. This is happening to major companies all the time. Everybody likes to sue MS because they will probably pay off the suing party just to shut them up. Check out Novell, as that's been the only real income they have seen in a long time. With MS products, indemnification is not an issue, even if you have a million machines. Once the legal ownership of these stupid patents is done, you will see a giant leap forward in technology development for Linux (assuming that it works out). This is what large scale environments want to see, and these environments are what drives development.

So, what's your fav? I prefer Fluxbox on systems I use all the time, and on systems with low resources (or VMs in VPC). I also use KDE on systems that I just need up and running quickly, and on VMs running in VMWare Workstation, and now on VMWare ESX Server in the lab.

No desktop environment has a sound server, per se. I was able to use XMMS and mplayer in fluxbox without any problems. Here's my old desktop: http://www.driventechnologies.com:8080/images/screencap.png