[ale] Linspire chairman thinks desktop Linux is futile

krwatson at cc.gatech.edu krwatson at cc.gatech.edu
Tue Jul 8 12:26:36 EDT 2008


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Tim
> Meanor
> Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 11:14
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: Re: [ale] Linspire chairman thinks desktop Linux is futile
>
> On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 9:17 AM,  <krwatson at cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
> <snip>
> > There is considerable pressure to use the campus Microsoft Active
> Directory to solve the problem.
> >
> > At first we thought it would be no problem. Joining a Linux box to
> Windows Active Directory is a known process so how hard could it be. Well
> for one it doesn't work. I realize "them be fight'n words" so let me
> elaborate before the tar a feathering begins.
> >
> > After many, many, many long bouts of hacking, trial and error, googling
> (can you believe that's a word), and pulling out what little hair I have
> left. We have come to the conclusion that there is no easy way, if any, to
> join a Linux box to a Windows domain and then automatically mounting the
> user's home directory (NFS or CIFS). I'm aware of using local password and
> group files but we're trying to avoid the management nightmare we already
> have with keeping them up to date on several thousand machines. PAM_mount
> holds promise but so far no joy.
> >
>
> Quest Software makes a product that allows various flavors of
> Unix/Linux to integrate into Active Directory:
> http://www.quest.com/Vintela-Authentication-Services/
>
> It costs money and is closed source, so it may not be an option, but
> it's good to know that such options exist.  I've never used it, so I
> can't vouch for it, but the demo I've seen looks pretty slick (of
> course, most things look pretty slick in a demo).  Might be worth
> checking out if you have a budget for such things.
>
> -Tim
>
>

Tim,

We've been looking at their software for a few weeks now and I think we may have received a quote. Testing in still on going so we're not sure it will solve the problem but it looks promising.

keith

--

Keith R. Watson                        Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Support Specialist IV          College of Computing
keith.watson at cc.gatech.edu             801 Atlantic Drive NW
(404) 385-7401                         Atlanta, GA 30332-0280



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