Doing a Linux MASS install.

[Ralph Ellis]

On Thursday 20 July 2006 9:09 am, Colin McGregor wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I stick my nose in a LOT of things, including GTALUG,
> UU and the Toronto Free-Net.
>
> This past week the Toronto Free-Net got a donation of
> approx. 2,000 computers, about 90% of which are Dell
> Optiplex GX1 machines (Pentium II, 400 MHz) boxes.
> This of course means a challenge, the machines need to
> be made function, get a Linux (or other free OS)
> install and get pushed out the door to people who
> could use these machines :-) . Oh, and the machines
> need to be gone from where they are now by September
> 1, 2006 (no time pressure :-) ).
>
> So, I gather that Ubuntu has a tool for doing mass
> copy of a tailored distro. onto multiple hard drives,
> has anyone tried the tool? Are these tools available
> in other Linux distros (i.e.: ones that are friendlier
> to KDE than Ubuntu :-) )? How well does this work when
> the hard drives differ in size? Would there be anyone
> interested in doing a MASS (like over 1,000 machines)
> Linux install some weekend in August for the Toronto
> Free-Net?
>
> Colin McGregor
>
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Suse Linux has an AutoYast function that allows you to clone installs. Also 
Unbuntu has an alternative install CD that is targeted at doing OEM installs. 

http://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/ubuntu-release

I like Suse Linux better but you might have to use Suse 10.0 on the older 
hardware. 
I also like PC-BSD which will work on almost any old hardware, defaults to KDE 
and has an exceptionally easy point and click software add/install. Of the 
whole set, PCBSD is probably the simplest to put in. 
Alternatively, you could just ship them with Live CDs as long as the hard 
drives have been scrubbed.

www.pcbsd.org

I would be willing to help at a mass install.

Good luck
Ralph Ellis

--
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TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
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