Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 15:58:02 -0500 (CDT) From: Chris Dillon <cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us> To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Network Computers Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.02A.9809211502590.530-100000@duey.hs.wolves.k12.mo.us> In-Reply-To: <199809211723.KAA17886@kithrup.com>
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On Mon, 21 Sep 1998, Sean Eric Fagan wrote: > The big push for the "network computer" was because it costs a hell of a lot > of money to maintain and upgrade thousands of computers. Most of this > maintainence and upgrading is with the software. So someone thought, Wouldn't > it be nifty if the software could be upgraded in one central location, and > then all of the computers in the company would automatically pick it up? Hmm, gee, sounds like something I do with some freeware utilities, PC-RDist (free to K12 schools), and a lot of custom batch files. For the Lose95 clients, of course. :-) Not even close to what a NC is supposed to do, but it still lets me manage software on the machines without needing to ever touch them. It only picks up the changes every 12 hours or if you do a manual run. It makes my life about 1000 times easier. > The easiest way to do that, of course, is with something like an X Terminal. > The next step up (doing local processing) would be a diskless workstation. > Both of these ahve been done before, and aren't terribly exciting. > > But the step above that -- which hasn't started to materialize, and I am > afraid it may be abandoned -- would be something that is essentially a normal > computer (PC, Mac, unix system, whatever) which periodically checked the > "central server," and, if there was some new versions of the software there, > would pick those up and install them. (There are a bunch of things this > requires which I am just going to ignore for the moment.) That is exactly what I'm doing at the moment, and it works like a charm. I am, however, probably doing it differently than most people would... With an iron fist. :-) The systems are very "impersonal", and any changes made by a user get changed back to the way I want them. I have a database which PCRdist looks at which tells it what hardware platform the machine is part of, what printer the computer should print to, what drives should be mapped, what software packages should be installed, etc... Very modular and easy to manage, and free of all user-isms. The whole "process" is also free if anybody really wants it, though I haven't documented it well yet. :-) I could do something very similar if I were using FreeBSD or Linux workstations here (which I would _really_ love, but alas, most people here say "Duh, What's Unix?" or "But, it doesn't run MS Word". Ugh.). -- Chris Dillon - cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us - cdillon@inter-linc.net /* FreeBSD: The fastest and most stable server OS on the planet. For Intel x86 and compatibles (SPARC and Alpha under development) (http://www.freebsd.org) */ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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