Linux-related job postings - Hopkinton NH School District

[Dan Jenkins]

Fred wrote:
> Sounds to me you have a certain sense of dedication to keep them going.
> My hats are off to you. It's like trying to clean up behind 200+ cats
> all doing their own thing. I personally would not want to do work like
> that for anything less than a figure *well* into the 6-figure range.

It is not THAT bad really. We do get paid to support them - albeit not 
as much as the tasks needed. We do make out in the long run. We have 
excellent relations with most everyone there. We effectively are their 
partners and sole source of IT experience. This is true of most of our 
clientelle.

We consider our clients to be like a forest we are growing. We care for 
the trees when they are small, and help them to grow large. Like growing 
trees, it takes a longer term perspective than most businesses can take. 
It has generally worked out for us over the decades.

> Just a suggestion:
> 
> You might be able to force-phase in Linux by creating a bootable CD --
> say, a modified Knoppix or some such -- and then get control of the
> workstations that are doing that using scripts, etc.
 >
> I know that'll be an uphill battle, but might work for at least part of
> the deal. And, assuming they are using VFAT, you could even do some
> maintenance that way whilst leaving them in Windows land. Just tell'em
> to "boot this to clean your system" then you are off and running. That
> will at least get *some* of the cats hearded. At the very least you
> could "sneak in" an SSHD server on all of their boxes running Windows
> allowing you a bit more control.

That is a good idea. I've been putting something together to do just 
about that. We already have VNC on all the Windows systems. That helps, 
but it is manually fixing hundreds of Windows boxes. I was hoping to 
create a bootable CD which would allow us to manage them and restore 
them to a prior (known good) state. Sort of a Norton Ghost approach. 
This would be interim on the way to Linux desktops and applications.

We'll always have a hetergenous environment there (as at most of our 
clients). Just less monocultural and more manageable is the goal.

> Of course, any workstations that don't have CD drives or can't boot from
> CD are SOL. I've run into that situation before. I forget that people
> sometimes *still* have computers back from the dinosaur era...

That's another client, and another story...

-- 
Dan Jenkins (dan at rastech.com)
Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH, USA --- 1-603-206-9951
*** Technical Support for over a Quarter Century