So We're Rolling Out Linux... Somehow...

[Zaune]

(Cross-posted from Reddit because I need all the help I can get.)

A quick disclaimer before we begin. I have absolutely no idea what the hell I'm doing.

I'm a volunteer techie at a small not-for-profit with an IT budget of Sweet Fanny Adams; our hardware is 'donated' from companies who were throwing it away. Some of the two dozen-odd boxes we're responsible for are marginal for post-SP3 Windows XP, and several of them don't have antivirus software installed; our previous IT manager airily claimed it's 'all done through the server', never mind the fact that we don't even have a network drive working yet.

On the plus side, since we use free software for everything anyway, it wasn't terribly hard to convince the current IT manager to let me roll out Lubuntu to all our workstations. (Selling the whole lot for scrap and buying thirty Raspberry Pis was vetoed as too complicated.)

The trouble is, I barely qualify as a PFY in a Windows environment. I know from asking around elsewhere that Kickstart can automate the process of installing the OS and any extra software packages (primarily LibreOffice), but I have no clue how to set up user account control or map the default save directory to a network drive or... well, anything really.

Can anyone recommend some good how-to guides?

[Zaune]

Ghetto edit: Since a couple of people have asked elsewhere, no, 32-bit Windows 7 is not an option. For one thing we have no budget (and I mean that quite literally; any item that's not donated, bartered, bought with our own money or maybe funded by selling off surplus assets on eBay we just have to do without), and for another I've yet to work on a single PC in the building that has more than 512MB of RAM.

[Darth Tanner]

Can I ask why the need to get rid of Windows XP which I presume came with the donated PCs?

If your concerned about security simply take them off the net or just use a designated machine for internet access that does not store your charity financial files, alternatively there are plenty of free anti virus software suites.

[General Zod]

What you need to do is set up one PC with a base master configuration, then clone the whole thing as an image to disks. Something like Clonezilla would be a good starting point.

[Elheru Aran]

XP works fine, but I imagine he wants them all to work more or less the same and be able to run current programs. It is pretty old by now.

I don't have a whole lot to suggest except to pick up AVG as I'm not sure Microsoft Security Essentials will work on a Linux machine.

Wikihow does have an article, but I don't know how helpful it would be: http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Ubuntu-Linux

Cloning would work fine if it doesn't matter that they're all identical as long as the original works fine.

Apart from that... good luck? And don't connect *anything* to the Internet that you don't have to?

[Zaune]

Can I ask why the need to get rid of Windows XP which I presume came with the donated PCs?

If your concerned about security simply take them off the net or just use a designated machine for internet access that does not store your charity financial files, alternatively there are plenty of free anti virus software suites.

I'll go through the reasons in order:

1. We can't limit the entire building to one Internet-capable PC without making it needlessly difficult for the office staff to do their jobs.

2. We're almost certainly not going to get any more XP machines donated and standardising on one OS will simplify training, and we tried downgrading a Vista machine once and it was more trouble than it was worth.

3. The disk with all the service packs and other updates probably left with the previous IT manager and the update servers won't be online forever.

4. Absolutely every single piece of third-party software in use with this organisation is freeware and multi-platform, so why deal with the extra security headaches?

[Purple]

A question here. How much are you willing to invest into training people? Because most users will be used to some iteration of windows and teaching them to switch over to linux is not going to be cheap and cheerful.

[Zaune]

A question here. How much are you willing to invest into training people? Because most users will be used to some iteration of windows and teaching them to switch over to linux is not going to be cheap and cheerful.

Actually, that's probably the one genuinely easy part, because most of these computers are going to be used for teaching 'adult learners' how to use a word processor. All they've got to do is type in a password and double-click on a desktop icon. And our chosen distro uses LXDE, which is a close enough copy of XP's user interface that I suspect many users wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

And before you ask, I don't think this organisation even owns a copy of MS Office, but if we do it's probably several editions out of date.

[General Zod]

A question here. How much are you willing to invest into training people? Because most users will be used to some iteration of windows and teaching them to switch over to linux is not going to be cheap and cheerful.

That used to be true, but modern linux has really improved a lot. Ubuntu is reasonably user friendly for the most part these days.

[Purple]

A question here. How much are you willing to invest into training people? Because most users will be used to some iteration of windows and teaching them to switch over to linux is not going to be cheap and cheerful.

That used to be true, but modern linux has really improved a lot. Ubuntu is reasonably user friendly for the most part these days.

It's not a function of being user friendly or not but just that fact that linux is and works differently. And if you have people who are used to working with a certain system that basically means they have to unlearn all their skills and than relearn them. And for some, especially older people or the poor sods that get to educate them this can be frustrating.

[General Zod]

A question here. How much are you willing to invest into training people? Because most users will be used to some iteration of windows and teaching them to switch over to linux is not going to be cheap and cheerful.

That used to be true, but modern linux has really improved a lot. Ubuntu is reasonably user friendly for the most part these days.

It's not a function of being user friendly or not but just that fact that linux is and works differently. And if you have people who are used to working with a certain system that basically means they have to unlearn all their skills and than relearn them. And for some, especially older people or the poor sods that get to educate them this can be frustrating.

No more significant than upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7.

[bilateralrope]

A question here. How much are you willing to invest into training people? Because most users will be used to some iteration of windows and teaching them to switch over to linux is not going to be cheap and cheerful.

That used to be true, but modern linux has really improved a lot. Ubuntu is reasonably user friendly for the most part these days.

It's not a function of being user friendly or not but just that fact that linux is and works differently. And if you have people who are used to working with a certain system that basically means they have to unlearn all their skills and than relearn them. And for some, especially older people or the poor sods that get to educate them this can be frustrating.

Not as much as you think. You just tell them where the program they want to use it and they use it from there. I know this because I spent time volunteering at a computer hub that provided free computer and internet access to people in city council housing. All the machines ran Linux. The most I had to help people was telling them which program was equivalent to something on Windows and where to find it. Once they knew that, they figured the rest out for themselves.

Besides, even if this was a problem, Zaune is volunteering at a place which can not afford Windows for their computers. So what would you suggest using instead of Linux ?

[Purple]

Besides, even if this was a problem, Zaune is volunteering at a place which can not afford Windows for their computers. So what would you suggest using instead of Linux ?

Not suggesting anything. Just mentioning potential complications that he would want to be aware off and plan for so that they don't creep up and pose a problem.

[Zaune]

I appreciate your concern, but I took the precaution of having a couple of the office staff test out Lubuntu on the box I installed it on as a demonstrator. Their reviews were pretty positive.

[TheHammer]

Ghetto edit: Since a couple of people have asked elsewhere, no, 32-bit Windows 7 is not an option. For one thing we have no budget (and I mean that quite literally; any item that's not donated, bartered, bought with our own money or maybe funded by selling off surplus assets on eBay we just have to do without), and for another I've yet to work on a single PC in the building that has more than 512MB of RAM.

You may already be aware of this, but if its a recognized non-profit Tech Soup has software at free and near free prices that you might want to look into http://www.techsoup.org/

As for loading the OS on the machines, Zod's suggestion of Clonezilla is what I also would recommend. If you're looking to get fancy as far as customized configurations, and user accounts you'll need to look into setting up an LDAP server and familiarizing yourself with scripting. Microsoft tends to make that sort of thing easier, but there are plenty of resources out there if you want to move forward as linux boxes.

[Edi]

I expect that one of the problems with trying to use Clonezilla or the like is that since their hardware is donated, most of it is NOT identical, but various different configurations, so a single clone image is not going to work.

I suggest you start googling on how to set up the server side (user accounts central management, how to assign network shares etc) and then try a smaller test environment with one machine as a test server. Once you get it to work with a test PC or two, you can move it out to production.

As far as how to map network shares on already installed machines, google "mapping network shares in linux", you'll get plenty of detailed instructions.

EDIT: as far as using XP for anything if the machine is connected to the internet, it's an open invitation to get sodomized with 50 different kinds of malware. For anyone concerned with security, XP is simply not an option. It can be hardened, to a degree, but that takes more effort than switching the lot over to Linux.

[phongn]

You might want consider Google Apps for Nonprofits as well. It'll take a lot of the load off you to manage, give you basic office productivity and collaboration software and hosted email.

[Spyder]

What Phong said, a cloud based solution is going to save you a lot of headaches and get you up and running quickly, especially when it's only a small deployment.

However, if you absolutely must have onsite infrastructure for authentication, user accounts etc, something like Red Hat's Identity Management might be a place to start. https://access.redhat.com/documentation ... ent_Guide/

You can get it by installing Centos.

Note: Setting up automated builds using Kickstart scripts, setting up a directory service and maintaining it all is going to be a massive undertaking. Make sure you do your research.