First Alpha of Public Sector Linux Deployment System

New submitter mathiasfriman writes: SverigeLinux (SwedenLinux in Swedish) is a project financed by the Swedish Internet Fund that is developing a Linux deployment system for the public sector. It is based on DebianLAN and has just released its first public early alpha version. This 7 minute video shows how you can deploy up to 100 workstations with minimal Linux knowledge in under an hour, complete with DHCP, DNS and user data in LDAP, logins using Kerberos and centralized storage. The project has a home on GitHub and is looking for testers and developers. Don't worry, no Björgen Kjörgen; it's all in English.

Comments

Re:I like imaging systems like this, but...

[mathiasfriman]

First, this is not an imaging system, it's an install system which installs mainly Debian based distributions, based on Fully Automatic Installation (fai-project.org). FAI in turn is possible to use with multi-distribution capabilities to install CentOS, Scientific Linux and a few more. As a final twist, this project will also incorporate the possibility to install FOG servers but it is not our primary focus right now.

Re:Roger. We have full FOC on all underbelly syste

[Anonymous Coward]

..This is one of the reasons why companies may decide to go with e.g. Microsoft. Less uncertainty in terms of price and ability to meet delivery deadlines..

For your consideration, I was going to present you with a breakdown of the IT structure in place at my current place of employ, alas, I can't be bothered, I've heard all this crap before and am tired trying to explain why it's so wrong.
Our main IT system is all Microsoft based, all set up by highly paid external certified consultants, and isn't worth shit, trying to detail all the fuckups they've had with it would take pages, suffice to say, the bit that I really, really have to laugh at was your '..Less uncertainty in terms of price and ability to meet delivery deadlines.' bit. None of their planned upgrades of the servers and desktops have run smoothly, to budget, or to schedule. My particular sections planned upgrade is now 6 months behind 'deadline'..

..Simply because the people who design and implement the stuff have had time to learn from their wost mistakes, as opposed to the average Linux enthusiast (a definite no-go) or even contractors that set up Linux-based infrastructures (you can bet they use non-standard setups, non-standard tooling, and leave you with a system you probably need them for to maintain efficiently).

Wait, what? seriously?, It's really sad that you seem to believe all that is true..in my 20+ years experience the biggest bunch of shyster-hucksters I've come across in the IT world are MCxx qualified consultants, I really shouldn't complain though, I managed to make quite a bit by fixing their mistakes...not bad, then again, I'm probably not your 'average Linux enthusiast'.

Contractors, whatever flavour of system they're setting up, Linux or otherwise, are usually bad news. If a company has gone down the 'let's employ externals to implement our IT' it means either the management are technophobes, or they don't trust their own IT people, in which case, the contractors know this and have a license to print money by installing the most borked setups imaginable (I should know, I've had to untangle quite a few 'job creation schemes' from setups over a couple of decades..I'm currently watching an experienced Windows guy trying to unravel such a setup now, he's been at it for a couple of months..a complete reinstall is not an option)

Do you know what's most annoying about the above?, most of the people I've known in the past who've run Linux/Unix servers have all supported their corporate windows servers as well (myself included). We may be, as you put it, 'Linux enthusiasts', this doesn't mean we've never seen (or had to fix/work around) the 'worst mistakes' of borked windows systems.
You know you're in for a fun day when you pop open a cmd window on a Win2k3 server in front of its admin and run something with command line switches he never knew existed..and I'm not even doing IT support as a job these days..

Re:That's nice

[Kjella]

It's the best tool for the job if you want to run a Windows network? Seriously, it's not like you decide management tools and let your platform/applications revolve around that. This is the step after you've convinced everyone to give up Outlook/Exchange and Word, accounting to give up Excel, PHBs to give up Powerpoint, design/marketing to give up Photoshop and every other bit of Windows-only software they got and your server admins ask "So what's our replacement for AD?" and they're going to ask you if it has features X, Y and Z just like the others did.

My guess is that every argument you just said will be met with a shrug and "It seems to work just fine for us, don't know what you're talking about. So how do we push a group policy to all clients in Linux?" and if your best answer is to write a script to ssh into each box and patch a configuration file they'll just roll their eyes and say "Linux does not have the necessary management features we need" and you've got one more group added to the list of migration opponents. Contrary to the *nix philosophy, I've yet to meet anyone happy to replace one tool with five, even if each is arguably a bit better. Swiss army knifes works quite well in the real world.