Any thoughts? -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Linux build from ICT Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:33:54 +0000 From: Mannall, Adrian B <a.mannall@imperial.ac.uk> To: Colling, David J <d.colling@imperial.ac.uk>, Adams, Niall M <n.adams@imperial.ac.uk>, Moore, Dan R <dan.moore@imperial.ac.uk> CC: Mannall, Adrian B <a.mannall@imperial.ac.uk> Hi Niall, Dan and David, I’m aware that some people in the departments of Maths and Physics rely heavily on Linux for their computing requirements and that in the past we have often come in for some criticism about offering Red Hat Enterprise for our standard supported Linux build because it isn’t cutting edge and often doesn’t support the newest hardware available. A couple of us in Faculty Support are beginning to consider if there is anything that we can do to address this … beyond the current Fedora build and vanilla Ubuntu build that we have previously offered. I think that we are probably looking at a proposal to provide a core Linux build from one of the current “cutting edge” distros with authentication done through the College LDAP servers (to ensure that users can gain simple and ready access to College ICT provided services such as home and group storage areas, print services, etc). We may also consider provision of some applications to the build (in a similar way to that which we currently do with the Windows builds from ICT) – but this would depend a lot on what people wanted or whether there could be an agreed standard set of apps. In principle we’re really looking to help the departments with their computing and want to provide something that would be of benefit. If this is of interest I’d be grateful if you could (a) let me know that this is a good idea and (b) let me know how much / how far you’d want to see this sort of support provided … i.e. would you want just the core build or would you like some apps too (if we can do it)? We wouldn’t be wanting to take away anything from those within the departments who hold specific computing support jobs outside of ICT but we would like to offer some standardisation and support that can then be built on to meet the department’s needs whilst still offering the core ICT services too. Kind regards Adrian *Adrian Mannall Faculty IT Manager Faculty of Natural Sciences* ICT, Imperial College London South Kensington Campus 323, Sir Ernst Chain Building – Wolfson Laboratories, Exhibition Road London SW7 2AZ Direct Dial Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 1441 College Ext'n: 41441 Mobile: +44 (0)7834 083134 Mobile Ext'n: 57974 Email: a.mannall@imperial.ac.uk <mailto:a.mannall@imperial.ac.uk> Web : http://www.imperial.ac.uk/