[Sussex] A lurker steps out of the shadow.....

[Jacqui Caren]

Alan_Perry at amat.com wrote:
> 
> To All
> 
> Having been a member of this mail list for a long time I have learnt a 
> lot, but now I need some advice. But to show where I'm coming from....
> 
> Long long ago ( early 90's) I used a Unix system as part of a Test Rig 
> and I did the compilation of tweaked files etc and backed it up to tape.
> (This was really handle turning but as a 20 year old it was a bit of a 
> buzz)
> 
> Then came the long years in the wilderness....
> 
> For the last couple of years I have been using DSL (versions 2 and 3) on 
> an old 300Mhz 586 to get my hand in.
> The DSL boot cd has been a great help in wipping XP off my colleages 
> PC's when they had video / mother board driver issues (and needed to 
> re-install XP...)
> Now I'm running Suse 10.2 on a seperate HDD on my home PC ( I love Multi 
> Boot BIOS)
> 
> Now the problem I have.
> I am responsible test rigs with PCs running NT or XP (There is one 
> running Windows 3.0, but the least said the better....)
> The short of it is I want to attach a Lap top to the Rigs and back up 
> the files. I was given a solution by our IT department, but it was 
> unreliable.
> 
> Now I have found using a Router has been very successfull way of  maping 
> drives and copying files etc.
> 
> What I would prefer is to do away with the Router and use a cross over 
> lead. Is this possible?
> 
> I would like a boot cd for the laptop that starts samba , a dchp server 
> and lets the rig connect to the Laptop HDD. is this possible?

Yes - but here are the questions.

Q: Is the laptop NTFS or FAT32 formatted?

If NTFS, then pick your live distro carefuly NTFS write capability does
vary a tad.

If FAT32 then mots distros will be able to write to the disk.

Q: Does the Rigs instigate backup?

If yes then another option is to buy a network drive (~70UKP from
maplin or lidl). These simply plug into the box via an RJ45 and
appear as a netwrok share AND as an FTP server. If the rigs can
be told to backup, then you do not even need a laptop!

If no, then a portable drive may be usefull if you find problems
writing to the laptop hard drive. I have a usb based 250G external
which I plug into linux, windows and my XP laptop. It stores a
photo archive which I take "on site" :-)


> The only problem appears to be the Laptop runs XP, it seems to have been 
> an issue in the past, but things do move on...
> 
> regards, Alan
> 
> Alan Perry
> Manufacturing Engineer (but not for long......)
> MEPQ (Test Equipment Engineering)
> Applied Materials UK Ltd
> Tel: +44 (0) 1403 22 2327
> Main +44  (0) 1403 22 2345
> The content of this message is Applied Materials Confidential.  If you 
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> 
> 
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