Re: Absolute Beginner requests assistance

KuroNeko wrote:
I'm about to start a 6 week trainee program at a local company. I have some
experience in PC hardware and software and because of this I've been asked
to set up a test Linux server.

Ah, the manager asked who owned a PC and you lifed your hand. You poor
slob. ;-)

The idea is to start from a free Suse 10 distribution and install it.
Additional services to be installed start with a file server, and we'll see
from there. Preferably all this from a graphic user interface (KDE or
Gnome)

Do you want to start with SUSE Linux Enterpise Server? If so, see that
you can get a one year free licence. If you can not get it free, buy the
licence to do the updayes for a year.

If your company is notb willing to pay now, they are not commited to it
now and won't be commited to it in the future.

I'm to set this up and write a documentation about it for others.

Again proof never to volonteer. ;-)

Since my Linux experience is very limited (I had a small crash course in
Linux, on a Debian command-line installation) I'm looking for a place to
start.

openSUSE.org is a good place.

My search on the net yields a lot of information - too much actually -
geared at more experienced users.

Can anyone point me to a website or an old-fashioned paper book that would
suit my purpose to get beginner's information on installation of Linux,
installing applications and services afterwards, preferably from the GUI,
unless this isn't possible?

openSUSE.org boxed version. That will come with a book on how to
install. The thing is that I am wondering about, what are the other
people going to do with it.

I aplaud the idea of a company going to use Linux, but what are the
reasons behind it? Why do they use somebody who is so unexprienced?
I like it to succeed.

So first a fileserver. I asume then that all the other machines are
Windows machines. It makes things a bit more complicated.
This is the route I would advice people to take if I were in your case.
0) Start with step 5. ;-)
1) Take a dedicated machine and install openSUSE on it by default. Learn
to work with YaST, the installation and configuration tool
2) Work with it dedicated for at least a month
3) Start looking at what you actualy want to do with it. How many people
will be connecting to the fileserver, what machine will it be running
on. What backup (and restore) are you going to do.
4) Run a fileserver for a small testgroup (yourself and a few close
cow-orkers)
5) Do NOT forget to give them tasks. Things to do and test. Not so much
as the testing itself, but so it becomes THEIR project as well. They
will be the people who will advertise your project to others, including
management.
6) Roll out the file and backup server. storeBackup can be ideal. Easy
to use for both the sysadmin and the people who have deleted their files
by accident. There is zero need for systemadministrator intervention to
restore a backup from their own files.
7) Look at what other servers you run at your company and move them over
one by one. This is limitless. Some things that might be handy for a
company: printserver, faxmachines, phonesystem, scanningserver,
mailserver, viruschecker, (intra)web server, taskautomation, reporting,
monitoring.
8) Now you can start at what the people are running and using. Many
programs can be easily adapted. e.g. firefox can already be introduced.
OpenOffice is another. Mailclient is also already possible. Start with
yourself (remember step 5 all the time) and then go to other
departments.

In all this keep track of real costs. e.g. how much time does it cost.
Try to compare it to e.g. installing Vista. And don't cut back on
hardware.

All this can be done with or without GUI.

The first step is to buy the boxed set. It most likely will be
deductable as a cost, is not expensive and gives you some paper that you
can use.

If you still decide to go with SLES, see that you can take some courses
and run openSUSE on the side at home. That will make things a LOT easier
in the future. They are very similar.

houghi
--
All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust,
sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.
.

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