[rescue] off topic - red hat linux book

[Nadine Miller]

On Oct 20, 2009, at 10:30 PM, Lionel Peterson wrote:

> On Oct 20, 2009, at 3:05 PM, Robert Darlington  
> <rdarlington at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I have no books to suggest, but would like to say that you're on  
>> the right
>> track with RHEL.  Past a handfull of machines, it becomes extremely
>> difficult to manage systems when there is no sane way to patch  
>> them.  I ran
>> several thousand at a former job with Uncle Sam.  I can't imagine  
>> doing it
>> without RHEL.  Actually, then again, I did write that giant Expect  
>> script to
>> patch IRIX!
>
> At $WORK I am the resident *nix expert, since I've debated against  
> it with a few well-intentioned idiots in the community who feel that  
> we should trim our $70K license fees with MS and go from Apple/Win  
> environments to all Linux. Debian, to be specific.
>
> The issue boils down (for me) to the reality that you can't manage  
> 1,500 desktops as easily under Linux, since the tools either don't  
> exist or cost more than comprable MS/apple tools (depending on  
> distribution choosen). As a educational facility, we pay under $40/ 
> desktop per year for OS (WinXP, Vista, or Win7) and Office  
> Enterprise 2007. Server licenses are equally affordable.
>
> Is there a comprable management suite for Linux that is closer to  
> Free than $40/desktop? The Ubuntu management package is around $400/ 
> machine, but designed for servers, not really desktops...

Plenty of config mgmt tools out there that could do just that on  
Linux.  Puppet, cfengine, etc.  Sure, there's a learning curve, but  
that's what a lab and a few cast-off machines or a VM stack are for...

=Nadine=