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Sean picasso@madflower.com
Tue, 22 Aug 2000 17:10:36 -0400 (EDT)


On Tue, 22 Aug 2000, Adam wrote:

> 
> On Sat, 19 Aug 2000, Dan Nguyen wrote:
> 
> >Also it requires people to run and maintain these labs.
> 
> Windows requires it too, its literally my job, I know it does.
> The Advantage to UNIX is you do not have to be seen doing it :)

If you just dedicated a lab to it, you could just netboot the machines be
diskless then do something like nfs to _their_ shared space. Which would
be a huge advantage to the user. It would be kind of like having an
engineering account. You wouldnt have to transport any of your files from
lab to lab because they would all be on the server. 

Thus you probably wouldnt need floppies in them either. so your down to
keyboard, mouse, monitor, board/processor/video and a nic card and a
server. 

I have seen similar systems with macs OS9/multiusers doing netboot at
uni's. Its pretty easy to take care of because holding the N key down at
startup prompts open firmware to boot from the network. 
 
Lowered maintainence is the the key. I mean you only really have to worry
about 1 machine, the server. 

Thus fixing a machine becomes very trivial and lowers tech time.