Inquiry from the New Guy

Justin Bennett Justin.Bennett at dynabrade.com
Wed Mar 19 15:56:48 EST 2003


sounds like you have it all figued out but the network install correct?
You could also just start it in runlevel 3, and then in /etc/rc.d/rc.local
(kinda like autoexec.bat run an x server, window manager, and your
client). I can give you some help there.

Redhat offers KickStart which you can initiate from a network boot
floppy.You can do a NFS or FTP or HTTP install off the network, and run
post install scripts to do your special stuff.  It sounds like all the
pc's are the same? They doing DHCP? if so you could do something like a
Symantic ghost to roll them out, load one up store the image file on a
network, create a msdos network boot floppy boot the PC and run ghost off
the network. We do this for our PCs but ghost will do linux also. (this is
not as cool as kickstart though, but it may be tough to write all the
scripts to do all the post install tasks you want).

Justin

Charles H. Root, III said:
> Greetings All:
>
> I'm looking for some pointers regarding a Linux workstation rollout
> project I am working on. Here's the scoop:
>
> ASG has over 600 existing PC's running MS DOS 6.2, NIC & mouse drivers
> and the ICA Client for DOS. You power them up, autoexec.bat launches the
> ICA Client and you are presented with a Windows login screen. Simple
> configuration and a perfect end user experience for our environment.
> Over 90% of our staff gets their desktop environment from a Citrix
> server farm.
>
> However, I have another 100 or so used workstations we've purchased
> arriving soon. They are IBM 300GL PII 350's, 64 MB RAM, NIC and 4GB HDD.
> And (of course)
> no OS. Obviously, I don't want to spend over $20,000 in WinXP licenses
> just to
> dumb them down to MS-DOS.
>
> What I wish to accomplish is to build a Linux based PC that boots
> directly to
> X Windows and the ICA client (bypassing the Linux login) and present the
> end user with a Windows login prompt from our Citrix server farm, just
> like our existing DOS workstations.
>
> I've gotten some recommendations from Chad Robinson (A Linux Journal
> magazine
> contributing writer), an RHCE from UB and a few folks on the web. The
> flavor of
> these recommendations is:
>
> * Do a minimal RedHat 8 install.
>
> * Remove the getty statements in /etc/inittab to bypass the Linux login
> prompt.
>
> * Run the ICA Client as a shell in either run level 4 (Kiosk mode) or
>   run level 5 (X Windows).
>
> After I get a stable workstation config on one PC, the next step is to
> do network installs on the remaining units. They don't have CD-ROM
> drives.
>
> I've got management buy-in so I'm good there. I've already migrated our
> DNS, FTP and web server over to RedHat.
>
> Comments, tips, concerns? I'm admittedly a little inexperienced in a
> customized
> rollout like this. I'd love to hear your thoughts and see if anyone else
> locally
> is doing this sort of thing.
>
> Thanks for your time,
>
> Charles H. Root, III
> MIS Network Manager
>
> Account Solutions Group
> 205 Bryant Woods South
> Amherst, NY  14228-3608
>
> v: 716-564-4991
> f: 716-564-4440
>
> www.accountsolutionsgroup.com


-- 
-------------------------------------------
Justin Bennett
Red Hat (Linux) Certified Engineer
Network Administrator
Dynabrade Inc.
8989 Sheridan Dr
Clarence, NY 14031
716-631-0100 ext 215





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