[Gllug] is this a big problem?

[Matthew Thompson]

On 25 Aug 2005, at 23:09, Mike Brodbelt wrote:

> You can reduce costs substantially by using Linux/BSD on the servers.
> Samba as a fileserver can remove the need for Windows CALs, and makes
> sense. You can get a good AD equivalent with Samba 3 and OpenLDAP,
> without too much hassle.

Can you really? On Windows you run a small program to enable the  
Active Directory and after a short while you have one. There's a full  
range of integrated DUI tools to help you administer it. Profiles can  
be created to apply to different elements and units enabling fine  
grained control of applications and hardware across the orgnisation.  
You can also use it to deploy software where packaged in MSI files to  
ensure that all machines are kept uptodate with the software the  
users need.

I learnt how to do  this in a couple of hours - on Linux/BSD it'd be  
a long process of finding hte applications and supporting  
documentation to get the DNS, DHCP, LDAP, Samba to all work together  
and possibly recompiling part of them.

> As far as mail goes, there are some Linux based groupware  
> solutions, but
> they're not all free software. You can get decent email and half  
> decent
> calendaring with Thunderbird and Mozilla calendar on the clients,  
> and an
> IMAP server (my preference is Cyrus, YMMV) and Apache/mod_dav for
> storage of the calendar data.

But how tightly integrated with your Samba 2/ OpenLDAP system is it?

I'm not saying that it can't be done but in a small organisation or  
small IT department where the bulk of staff are developers in  
Microsoft products there is a lo of sense in using Microsoft products  
to run the core of network services.

You may be able to keep everything running quite fine but the chances  
of youre employer finding someone else who will be able to step in  
and keep stuff running on day one after you've just been hit by a bus  
before being able to write any documentation is pretty low - with  
Microsoft software at least the basics can be covered almost  
immediately.

M at t :o)
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