moening_for_networks

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Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 14:26:30 -0700
To: svlug@svlug.org
Subject: Re: [svlug] Want a dial up server!
From: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com>

begin  David E. Fox quotation:

> Agreed. Having a CD-ROM is pretty necessary.

No.  Wrong.

It's rather depressing the number of alleged Linux users I encounter who
seem to be network-phobic.  Look, guys:  The strength of *ix systems is 
pervasively networking and long-lived processes.  It's time you got over
this standalone-machine fetish, which makes Linux user groups look like
a bunch of mouth-breathing MS-Windows weenies.

The twentieth century is almost over:  CD-ROMs are a cheap, relatively slow
place to to park half a gig of data, but NFS, ftp, and http
installations have been available and clearly preferable for machine
builds.  If you spooked by elementary ethernet and TCP/IP issues, it's
long past time to learn, for heaven's sake.

Jacob's installation options will depend on his choice of distribution,
which he has not specified -- but telling him he should
(unconditionally) load from CD-ROM is doing him no favour.

===

Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 17:46:43 -0700
To: svlug@svlug.org
Subject: Re: [svlug] Want a dial up server!
From: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com>

begin Ray Olszewski quotation:
 
> I don't know how easy or hard network installs of the more commercial
> variants of Linux -- Red Hat or SuSE, for example -- actually are. Do
> you have recent enough experience to know?

This is a very good point, and is why I stressed that Jacob's actual
installation options would depend on his choice of distribution. 

Certain distributions (Stormix comes to mind) have no direct
installation options other than installing from CD-ROM.  (This can be
worked around in Stormix's case by installing Debian first, and then
apt-getting the Stormix packages across a LAN or the Internet.)  

Other distributions such as Linux-Mandrake and Red Hat are routinely
supposed to support some subset of {NFS,ftp,http} installation methods,
and usually work that way, except that some of the methods are broken
in particular releases.  Sometimes, the only way one knows is to try,
and see which of (usually) multiple network-installation methods that are
supposed to work, do so.


But my remarks were _not_ predicated on high-bandwidth Internet access.
Let me use as an example the CABAL InstallFests[1] at certain Cow Palace
and Oakland Convention Center Robert Austin computer shows, where there
is effectively no Internet access.  We always have a LAN, there -- just
an ordinary, cobbled-together 10Base-T thing.  We always have at least
one Linux machine on that LAN with a bunch of free disk space.[2]

The idea is that, when someone wants a network-installable distribution,
we do it over a network protocol from the previously-mentioned machine's
hard drive.  This is way, way faster than from CD-ROM -- and more
reliable, and it scales much better to multiple target machines.  We
bring a few spare ISA, PCI, and PCMCIA NICs for people to borrow during
installation.  We furnish a few cheap 10Base-T hubs and home-made
twisted-pair patch cables.  We furnish a "Laplink" parallel cable for 
when PLIP installs are the best option (usually really old laptops).
We issue IP addresses, netmask, DNS IP on slips of paper.  It's the
right way to do things -- using available technology to decent effect.

I've been to InstallFests elsewhere at which some guy sits around for an
hour waiting to borrow a Red Hat 6.2 CD-ROM.  That's ridiculous!
Instead, you copy the files to a Linux machine, NFS/ftp/http-publish
them onto the local LAN, and as many people as wish can simultaneously
draw them down the local pipe, _all_ faster than any CD-ROM
installation.

One fellow at such an event _almost_ got the concept:  He mounted a
distribution CD-ROM under /usr/local/ftp/pub -- thereby allowing
multiple remote users to split the central machine's slow CD-ROM access
speeds.  Arrgh.  But we fixed that.

Typical Internet bandwidth at such venues -- if available at all -- is
poor[3], but can be useful for _information_ lookup during the event
(Web pages), and retrieval of small packages whose need wasn't
anticipated before the evernt.  Even Computer Literacy's slow,
port-80-only connection is good for that.

Additionally, people tend to forget about other installation methods
entirely:  It may be that Jacob's quickest and most troublefree
installation method will be to remove the hard drive from his Vectra
XP/60, temporarily put it in someone else's desktop box, do an
installation, move the hard drive back, and then re-do lilo and 
the kernel's hardware configuration.

The latter was at one time the only practical way to install Linux on
Z-series VAIO laptops, for example.

We're supposed to be the community's Linux experts, whom people come to
for information.  We ought to know about these options and be able to 
give good advice about them -- not just tell everyone to use CD-ROMs.

[1] I'm finally trying to work out the schedule for more of those.

[2] I'm personally a little handicapped in providing that, for the
moment, until I get around to rebuilding/replacing my very old and
somewhat defective 486.

[3] The Robert Austin people have a standing offer of ISDN (slow)
Internet access, but it's always been a bit too much trouble to try out.

===


Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 19:55:24 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com>
To: svlug@svlug.org
Subject: Re: [svlug] Want a dial up server!

begin  David E. Fox quotation:

> Agreed, it makes a lot of sense if you have a fast network connection
> to do the install from....

Um, no.

A cheap-ass 10Base-T network more than suffices.  In fact, such a
network might consist of two $20 Tulip cards and a $10 crossover
ethernet cable.

Are you one of those people who either think "network" means "the
Internet" or that servers are complex things run only by other people?

> But it is pretty time-consuming, admittedly, to bring a full linux
> distro over a dialup line.

And why on earth would one bring a full Linux distribution over a
dial-up line?  I don't think you quite get the concept, David.  Which
part of loading from a machine on the local LAN via NFS, ftp, or NFS was
unclear?

>> The twentieth century is almost over:....
> 
> I thought it was over last year :).

Heh.  Look it up.

===


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