Fedora, Public School budgets, Volunteerism??

[Sean]

It looks like there are a lot of like minded folks here.
I am a systems administrator for a school district in California.
I am actually planning on using Fedora , as well as Lindows for a few 
projects here.

I'd really like to get a mailing list or possibly a newsgroup formed for 
people interested in this topic, to share ideas and information.

Any suggestions?

Sean Branam




Ken Jones wrote:

> On Sat, 2004-06-19 at 10:20, Ken Jones wrote:
>
>>> Our Public School district needs VPN, but feels it can not afford it.
>>>
>>  
>>
> What do they need the VPN to do? Are they going to connect network to
> network with the VPN using public networks? Are they going to connect a
> bunch of managed clients to a VPN concentrator? The purpose for VPN 
> for our school district would be to allow staff to get at their shared 
> resources and their Intranet from home.  ie telecommute.
>
> I do not see a need at this time for VPN to VPN.  The connections 
> between the various schools are, at this time, private and self 
> contained.
>
> I thought that this application would be the least disruptive to a M$ 
> house because the VPN server would be located on the edge.  I could 
> manage it from my home.  The school's IT people would hardly know it 
> was there. 
> Ken
>
> David Vernon Wrote:>
>
>>> I have the idea that I could volunteer my LINUX skills to the 
>>> District (a strict MicroSoft house) by building and maintaining for 
>>> them a software freebie VPN system.
>>>
>>  
>>
> A strict M$ shop...I will echo someone else's recommendation to look
> into OpenVPN. Easy to set up and very forgiving of layer 1-3 problems on
> the network it is going over.
>
>>> It would seem that with the present budget crunches our public 
>>> school districts, LINUX, plus volunteerism make a natural combo.
>>
>>  
>>
>
> No doubt. However, "strict" M$ shops can display an irrational fear of
> the new and different. They seem to become strict M$ shops because they
> have a fear of anything but the "safe" and default choice.
>
>
>>> Do any of you know others doing anything similar?  If so, please put 
>>> me in touch.
>>>
>>> Ken Jones
>>
>>
>
>