Linux Servers vs latest Microsoft stuff
 

Hey all,
I've been an Microsoft Admin for about 5 years now and I'm trying to make the jump onto the Linux bandwagon. I have used linux as my workstation for about 3 years and I really enjoy it.

So I've been wondering what kind of setups people are "really" using in their linux production environments and how people like it. And if possible I'd like sort of a comparison to Microsoft products like exchange server, SMS, MOM, Active Directory, ect...

I've never seen a full linux production environment and I'd love to know how people feel about theirs.

Thanks

hey hey! I'm currently back in an MS shop - but am really missing the linux environment of my previous employer.

We had a thin client environment where most of our users were using SunRay thin client terminals. We had 2 RHEL4 thin client servers that served up the RHEL4 desktop for the thin clients.

Users' home directories were stored on a central SAN and mounted via NFS during login. Centralized user authentication was handled by NIS and Kerberos.

We used the Zimbra Collaboration suite for email/webmail, contact management, and calendars.

We had two Windows 2003 Terminal Servers - then gave each user an IE icon on their desktop which launched rdesktop and logged them into the Windows Terminal Server and launched IE automatically.

We had a CUPS print server which shared all of the HP JetDirect Print Servers we had around the office.

We used StarOffice for documents and spreadsheets.

And when I left we were testing out CrossOver Office to get IE6 to run through wine so we could phase out the windows terminal servers all together.

God I miss that environment...

Still too much Windows for me, so I wouldn't miss it. I miss our setup at a previous employer where all the developers had their own Linux workstation, with their /home directories via AFS and authentication done through AFS with Kerberos. I learned that if you want to do remote mounts of home directories on a central server, drop NFS and go with AFS. More redundant, faster and never failed. ;)

AFS = Andrew File System for those not familiar with it.

Unfortunately there are still some websites out there that require IE. The industry the company was in required us to log into a lot of industry specific websites that required users to use IE.

We had a single NFS server serving approx. 90 thin client users without any issues. There was only one time in about 6 months that the NFS service had to be restarted.

We had actually just started researching openafs before I left. From what I've read it's a dream to administer but a major pain in the butt to initially setup.

edit: http://www.openafs.org/