Last year our print and file server (running NT 4) became very unstable..  On a bad day it would go down several times, each time requiring a restart. Having rebuilt this server a number of  times, my experience has always been that it would start out great and then performance would degrade with time.   I was not interested in rebuilding yet again.  Windows 2000 looked appealing,but we did not have the hardware and software in place to use this as a solution. So, what to do?  

We wanted user authentication with security (policies and profiles), print spooling, file sharing, and a shared public directory for our Windows-based Open Lab.  Our solution was to use linux as a server running samba and CUPS on a regular Dell desktop.  Samba providesWindows networking services and CUPS handles print spooling.   Although a fair amount of exploration was necessary, doing this is actually fairly easy, with many online resources to use as guides (see below).  Building the linux OS is not difficult at all, securing it requires some expertise (firewalling and turning off services), setting up the shared directory involved issuing a single line of code.  Getting the CUPS printing to spool printers took a bit of time.  The odd part was composing the policies using poledit on the NT server and then transferring the config.POL file to the linux computer for samba to push policies out to the client machines.  But that wasn't really hard either.

The result was fabulous.  The server - even running on low-end hardware- is rock-solid, and the client machines are locked down very tightly.  Only the applications we say can run can run.  After implementation, virtually all of our problems with abuse of client stations disappeared.  Best of all, there are no connection licenses to buy, no operating system to purchase (all upgrades will always be free), and no expensive server hardware is required to run the server OS.  In addition, there's no problem with the gazillion malicious worms and viruses that would like to crawl into our equipment and set up house.

Picture of Windows 2000 client desktop locked down by our linux server

Notice the truncated start menu
and the shared Public Folder

If we had decided to use this linux server for the entire building, there would have been significant savings (many hundreds of dollars) in connection licenses.   I decided against this for reasons of standardization.  In fact, despite the many advantages this setup offers, I could hardly recommend that others use it unless they are willing to ensure their own tech support in perpetuity, and have good skills at using and securing linux.  The District, understandably, wants nothing to do with supporting a system so far from their norms.   However by using linux, we were able to solve a problem for ourselves for zero dollars, and prove the point that this really could be a solution for a a school district if  certain decisions were made.   Would this actually be a good idea? I don't know, but it would seem to be worth some serious consideration to have a Linux strategy: it sure could save a lot of money if applied on a large scale.  

For an outstanding example of a school district using linux servers (and clients) in a sophisticated fashion (with great screen shots), see:

K12 Linux School Terminal Server Project
Using OSX with a linux terminal server (install X11 and issue a single line of code!)
Resources for using linux with samba to control Windows desktops

Linux Server on Dell desktop hardware pushing out a security policy for lab client machines

We have since purchased Dell server hardware and are now running Windows 2000 server for the clients in the rest of the building. We are very happy with it also.  I especially like that the group policies have so many offerings (in comparison with NT) and are so easy to use.  The lab is currently being switched over to the Windows server. 

Now we'll have to find the money for all those  darn (!)  connection licenses.

Credit to assistant Brady Young, whose efforts were instrumental in setting up this system.

Tony Hand
Former Technology Coordinator
Nathan Hale High School