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A Linux Admin's Guide to Windows?
Rexburg asks: "I recently took a job managing an all Windows network. While my knowledge of the OS is enough to perform the functions of my job, I want to have my bases covered. Naturally, I began the hunt for documentation, but all I can find are books to help Windows users/admins understand and use Linux. I need the opposite. Can the Slashdot crowd point a fellow OSS-head in the right direction?"
Can't recommend titles of any specific texts. Go fr a rummagein the nearest Border's or B&N. Then check online.
Microsoft does publish large, thick texts on their network platforms. I remember them as being much better than most 3rd-party books.
Also, if you can get your hands on the books used in an MCSE course, you'll at least have something. My boss sent me to an MCSE course a long time ago. I remember the notebooks as being long on "click here" and short on "here's what the code does after you click", but you will get an overview of Microsoft's network model.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Go to MSN.com, and search for "Linux". The third result is how to switch from Linux to Windows.
I'm serious.
AND THEY ARE FREE!!!
:) It's very rare if I run into a
And this old white haired guy that has trained the
whole world is selling them and stuff. Strangely,
the shipping is 7 bucks.
Seriously though,
I knew UNIX first. When my buddies were raving about
dos and windows 3.0 being the next big thing, I was
busy with other stuff and kinda ignored them. Next
thing I knew I had NT 3.51 on a DEC workstation
staring me in the face in the form of a new
flight scheduling system. FUN! NOTHING like UNIX
in any way shape or form. So I started with the
basics. Operating systems all do pretty much the
same types of things. The idea is to find out how
to do those things. How do you:
Set up a network card
Install drivers
Configure user accounts
Change passwords
Modify the filesystem
Schedule jobs
and so on and so on.
The way I learned windows was to make a list of
all the things I could think of that I had to do
on a daily basis to admin a UNIX machine, and
do research to find out how to accomplish those
things on windows. After you've done that, you
can fill in the rest of the blanks later. I spent
a lot of time on USENET searching newsgroups for
answers to silly things. The Microsoft Knowlege
Database is an excellent tool. In the end, I
learned something truly valuable. Windows NT 3.51
sucked. Thoroughly. And I threw a party 5 months
later when they scraped the NT Alpha box and
replaced it with a Sparc running SunOS. Still,
that initial exposure to Windows NT has helped
me fix all kinds of things on family and friends
Windows machines for quite some time. You just
have to get used to touching a mouse a lot more
than a UNIX person should. You have to get
comfortable navigating point and click mazes
to find things that aren't always were you'd think
they would be logically. You have to get used to
not always having the blessed log file to look at
for help when something isn't working right, and
being fed error messages that make no sense at all
and give you no clue as to what the actual problem
is. Today, USENET can be searched very easily with
groups.google.com. A short time ago, you used
deja.com.
problem with any OS platform that someone else
hasn't already run into that problem and asked
someone on a newsgroup how to fix it. Hope this
helps.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Someone that knows Exim and Postfix would probably only be showing up at a site with clustered Exchange 2000 to replace it with something smarter. See, that's the point. UNIX IS smarter than windows for soooo many reasons. Chances are (like I did) a highly skilled Sendmail and Qmail admin can pickup Exchange over a weekend. I know I learned enough Exchange to help them significantly by replacing 4 clustered Exchange servers with 1 FreeBSD machine running qmail with tarpitting and spamassassin. Turns out they were doing nothing groupware related. This company didn't use project, outlook, or any of that crap. They just needed a mailserver solution that wouldn't cost a fortune and do pop, imap, and smtp. They were getting eaten alive by spam and it was bringing their cluster down. Imagine their surprise when I told them they could do whatever they wanted with the 3 machines left over.
You need to learn how windows authentication and permissions work. The NT model is more robust than most default Unix implementations, and difficult for many Unix-people to grasp.
If you are using active directory, you need to understand ldap.
If you are a good Linux admin, you'll be a good Windows admin too. Remember that groups.google.com is your friend.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
To everyone who has had something useful to say, thank you. Your suggestions are what I was looking for. I have found a few resources in my own searching's, but felt that having the eyes and minds of the /. crowd helping would yield far greater results.
As for the rest of you: I have long wondered how many /.'ers were real sysadmins and hackers and who wasn't. Thank you for removing all doubt I may have had about your status.
Several of you have tried to make an argument that I am under qualified for the job I've taken. I read over my submission again, and at no point do I say "I've never seen one of these new-fangled Windows machines before". My specialty has been with implementing Linux solutions to Windows networks via Samba. I have a fair grasp of Windows technologies and am quite comfortable in said environment. However, it would be foolhardy to assume that I know all there is to know about Redmond's offering.
It is made clear to me by your statements that either you are wishful thinkers straining to install Corel's distro or that you haven't the self motivation necessary to stay competitive in this field. To the later, I look forward to cleaning up your network once you've been dismissed.
I realize this is a bit off topic, but I felt that it would be unfair to those in similar straits watching if I didn't address these comments. Now, as promised, the links which I have found most useful.
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