[K12OSN] Cloning drives, no network or compression

[Steven Santos]

How are these machines connected to the network now?

---
Steven Santos
Director, Simply Circus, Inc.
 Email: Steven at SimplyCircus.com
  Mail: 14 Pierrepont Road
        Newton, MA 02462
 Phone: 617-527-0667
   Web: www.SimplyCircus.com 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com] On
> Behalf Of Scott S.
> Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2008 8:57 PM
> To: Support list for open source software in schools.
> Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Cloning drives, no network or compression
> 
> Thanks all for the replies. I had originally proposed a K12LTSP
> solution, but these machines are physically very spread out. We're
> talking many boxes of cable and there's three stories in the building.
> There's perhaps 100 of them total. I've replaced a few dozen already. I
> agree that bumping up the RAM on this mish-mash of old machines will be
> difficult.
> 
> Their needs are very simple, 256 meg seems to be very adequate. Most of
> them are only running a 5250 emulator to a couple of AS/400s, and an
> SSH
> session to an IBM AIX server. Some of them will need Firefox to use as
> a
> mail client. None of these machines will be exposed to the outside. No
> Flash, etc is needed.
> 
> I do have a decent machine with removable bays, that's what I have been
> generating the image and doing the dev work on. I had considered
> yanking
> the drives and sticking them into there for imaging. I normally use
> this
> machine for forensics and data recovery. There's enough Winderrs
> machines around that go braindead, that the ability to stick their
> drives into this box and suck the data off has proved very useful. That
> machine uses sidux.com for it's base OS.
> 
> This is a warehouse environment, and most of the machines are tucked
> into pretty tight cubbyholes and all wires are zip-tied every few
> inches. They are hard to get out, though some of them need it for
> cleaning.
> 
> I have been using a Damn Small Linux boot floppy, with a USB DVD drive
> to re-image them in place. The suggestions about the BIOS in the
> original imaging machine seem like a good thing to check.
> 
> My immediate boss is Linux-curious, which is how I got this far with
> it.
> Above him, they want Winderrs, which is a terrible waste of PC
> resources
> for the simple needs these machines have. I explained (and
> demonstrated)
> K12LTSP and was initially suggesting that as a solution. He said to get
> these old ones replaced first, then we might run a few runs of cable to
> try it on a few. Running enough cable to do them all would be a major
> project.
> 
> thx,
> Scott S.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> K12OSN mailing list
> K12OSN at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
> For more info see <http://www.k12os.org>