From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Feb 16 14:41:31 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id OAA22934 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Mon, 16 Feb 1998 14:41:31 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from vipunen.hut.fi (root@vipunen.hut.fi [130.233.224.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA22603 for ; Mon, 16 Feb 1998 14:40:29 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jei@dopey.hut.fi) Received: from dopey.hut.fi (jei@dopey.hut.fi [130.233.200.33]) by vipunen.hut.fi (8.8.8/8.8.7) with SMTP id XAA263650 for ; Mon, 16 Feb 1998 23:41:55 +0200 Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 23:41:55 +0200 (EET) From: Jukka E Isosaari To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Advice needed. Message-ID: X-URL: http://www.linux.org X-no-archive: Yes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Hello! I am going to be providing unix support for about 15-20 different PC computers in the local University. Could you recommend an OS that would be easy to configure and install for a myriad of different computers? They have different processors (most are 586's), some have different display cards, network cards, scanners and printers attached, etc. The users are math professors, teachers, lecturers and assistants that use lots of mathematical software, Latex, Maple, Mathematica, Matlab, etc all the math software out there, plus some prefer graphical text editors. Most of the computers already have NT, Windows and/or Linux on them, and I suspect installing (FreeBSD?) on the NT computers won't be possible without repartitioning and reinstalling also the NT. However, I want to give everyone the option of installing the OS of my choice, and I would like to provide support and CD's, etc, for the one unix OS/distribution that I choose. Should I go for FreeBSD, Debian, RedHat or something else? I am dreaming of providing all the users with a bootable Linux/FreeBSD/Whatever CD that they could test the OS with. Is there an easy way to prepare a multitude of boot disks and a CD-R disk (with live-filesystem) for each of the different computers? Any help, tips and recommendations are very welcome. I have a lot of Linux experience, but I have never had to support lots of users with lots of different computers. I have only used RedHat and Slackware, but I am willing to learn myself any free unix out there if it makes this task any easier and helps spread the free unices. Thank you for your time! ++ J To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message