RE: tlug: Linux on the university Win LAN

["Frank Bennett" <bennett@example.com>]

>The classroom has about 60 Fujitsu computers 
>(probably about 5-6 years old) which all 
>run Windows 95. I suppose they are connected 
>with an NT LAN. They take a very long 5 
>minutes or so to boot up, as the computer 
>first goes through some kind of scanning 
>process and then asks for the user to login. 
>Students are not able to store any data on 
>the hard drive of the computer. 

It looks like the net admin has set up an NT server
to force parts of the user-level machine configuration.
If that is the case, so long as you're running Win95/98/
NT/whatever, you're stuck.  Booting another OS
or oiling up the admin are the only two pathways
to change.  ("poledit.exe" and "config.pol" are
the magic words)

Our experience has been that Win95/98 can
downgrade pretty badly as the disk becomes
full, too.  It could be that accumulated browser cookie and
history files (IE keeps megs and megs of this
stuff lying around for every user account recognized
by the local terminal --- even on a single-login
network) are contributing to the speed problem.

>Each computer has a name and requires a 
>password. I forget what's required, but 
>somehow the user has to input the day and 
>period into the thing as s/he logs in. 
>Applications usable during that period 
>are made available by the system. While 
>data can be written to the hard disk, it 
>gets zapped after the computer reboots.

Doesn't sound a very bad setup, in principle.

If the systems were up to carrying it.

[snip]

>I suspect that a lot of the speed problem 
>comes from a low amount of memory in the machine 
>and subsequent swapping to the hard disk. 


Sounds likely.

>Assuming no cooperation on the part of the 
>university (other than information regarding 
>the IP addresses of the machines) 


Given that they've gone over the top to prevent
users from taking control of the local machines,
they're probably allocating IP addresses via DHCP.
The NT DHCP server, as of about a year ago, was
tough to configure as anything other than a dynamic
DHCP server --- NT users told me, when I moved to
Linux-based DHCP, that the *protocol* was incapable
of statically allocating addresses!

So workstations probably won't have statically
allocated addresses, and the net admin will probably
hit the roof if you grab static addresses for floppy-booted
workstations without his approval (at least I would, if
it happened on our network).  Follow the network; if
 it uses DHCP, grab an address with the Linux DHCP
client.  Or bootp, or whatever is local practice.

>* will I be able to get Linux running from a 
>floppy and utilizing the NT LAN properly (will 
>I be able to get Lynx to function, for example)?


I once took a stab at setting up a set of NFS-boot
terminals here.  I got it to work, but it took a lot of
effort, and in the end I concluded that I wouldn't have
time to maintain it.  You're looking at a level of effort
close to that required to create and maintain a small
distro.  Not for the faint of heart.  Nor the sound of
mind, for that matter :-).

If Lynx, with no bells or whistles at all will be enough
to fill your students' needs, though, you might look at
modifying one of the Linux-on-a-floppy (or coupla-floppies)
that are available.  It should be feasible, particularly
if you abandon extras like printing, Samba-fs, mail,
Japanese input FEP and so forth.

If you do decide to go that route, you'll need lots of time
with a lab machine to hack at the configuration.  And you
should check early that you can get kon to work on the
machine console; if you can't bring that up, you can't do
kanji, and that will pretty well scupper things unless
all English is okay.  Fujitsu machines of that vintage
*should* be okay, but who knows?

Hope this helps,
Frank Bennett


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