Hi,
I'm running a small Linux consulting business here in a group of small villages in the South of France (http://www.microlinux.fr). I'm using CentOS for everything, servers as well as desktops. The desktop installs are usually highly customized. My approach is to list the client's needs, find the corresponding applications and then install these, to avoid the bloat and increase usability. So far, this approach worked quite well. One complete install and configuration takes about 4 hours, depending on various factors such as bandwidth (internet is not very fast in our remote places here) and sometimes exotic hardware that is tricky to configure.
Yesterday I had a conversation with the boss of a computer store in town. One of his standard PC models (desktop) is an ACER (PIV dual core, 3 GB RAM, 320 GB HD, ATI card) shipped with Windows Vista, and sold for a price of 315 euros. He told me he would be very interested to sell these machines with Linux installed, as this would allow him to lower the price.
Now I wonder:
1) Say I want to install my own customized version of CentOS on it, I usually charge a fixed amount of 240 euros for installing and configuring a complete desktop, tailored to the customer's needs (average: 4 hours of work = 60 euros / h). But I think that this is not what's expected here (neither the price nor the amount of work). How would it *technically* be possible to replicate these installs as easily as possible? The hardware is always the same, so I wonder: I have a vague idea about disk images (to be more precise: I know disk images well as far as burning CDs on the commandline is concerned, or when it comes to installing an OS in VirtualBox using the .iso)... but is there a way to somehow transform an existing install into a disk image, and then simply copy these over to all the other machines? (I've never done this)
2) Otherwise, go for a more mass-oriented distro like Ubuntu, Mint or the likes? What speaks for it: they can be installed very easily, insert the CD or the DVD, fill in the form (username, password, hostname, there you go). On the other hand, I've always been careful about picking my applications in a "best of the breed" way, and I would feel like a traditional taylor working for C & A.
3) Let's not forget about the users who are going to buy this. Whereas folks can always be expected (more or less) to "administrate" their own Ubuntu install, this looks less obvious with CentOS. Or let's say: forums.centos.org is not exactly a newbie forum, at least compared to Ubuntu. I guess your average newbie will not be very pleased with the prevailing tone of competent techno-laconism (compared to Ubuntu or the likes).
I'd be curious to read your suggestions about this.
Cheers,
Niki
Niki Kovacs <> scribbled on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 1:44 PM:
How would it *technically* be possible to replicate these installs as easily as possible?
G4u (Ghost for unix) is your solution. It's free.
Have a ftp-and dhcp server available on your network. Install one machine with your preferred linux distro and tweak it as you want it. Boot from the g4u-cd and ghost it to your ftp-server.
Boot from the g4u-cd on your next machine and dump the image from your ftp-server to the new machine. Kudzu will take care of everything else. You can do this with several machines at once. The nice thing with kudzu is that your image will work even with a computer that does not have the same hardware. Awesome is just scraping the surface.
I use this approach at our department. Works excellent.
HTH.
/S
Niki Kovacs schrieb:
Hi,
[snip... mass installation/customizations...]
I'd be curious to read your suggestions about this.
Use cobbler. https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler
You will have some work scripting your customizations (or not, if it's already scripted) but then, you can install as many systems at once as you have ports in your switches.
cobbler takes a bit of a learning curve, but once you've figured it out, it's going to save you a lot of time (which is the whole point).
Rainer
Niki Kovacs wrote on Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:44:19 +0200:
How would it *technically* be possible to replicate these installs as easily as possible?
Kickstart. I wouldn't be so sure that CentOS would be the best choice for a brand-new consumer desktop, though. You might want to use Fedora which is also kickstartable.
Kai
Sorin Srbu wrote on Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:24:59 +0200:
Any particular reason why not, if I may ask?
Because other distributions have better support for brand-new consumer hardware. Especially, if you consider the lifetime cycle of CentOS which spans to 2014. Look at this not from the viewpoint of your mom, but from the computershop that wants to sell lots of PCs to very different people (which will expect to see *recent* software) and with (over the years) quite differing hardware.
Kai
Any particular reason why not, if I may ask?
Because other distributions have better support for brand-new consumer hardware. Especially, if you consider the lifetime cycle of CentOS which spans to 2014. Look at this not from the viewpoint of your mom, but from the computershop that wants to sell lots of PCs to very different people (which will expect to see *recent* software) and with (over the years) quite differing hardware. Kai
But you don't want to supply consumers with an OS that gets unsupported before next christmas either, so Fedora is not the answer. Ubuntu LTS?
/jens
Kai Schaetzl <> scribbled on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 4:31 PM:
Any particular reason why not, if I may ask?
Because other distributions have better support for brand-new consumer hardware. Especially, if you consider the lifetime cycle of CentOS which spans to 2014. Look at this not from the viewpoint of your mom, but from the computershop that wants to sell lots of PCs to very different people (which will expect to see *recent* software) and with (over the years) quite differing hardware.
I see. Good point. However, brand-new hardware support would mean something like the bleeding edge Fedora (any other distro?). The disadvantage IMHO with eg Fedora is it's short life-cycle though. What is it, a year or so now?
FWIW, I've installed CentOS on pretty new stuff, like dual core-mobos with SATA etc, Broadcom integrated and Intel Desktop Pro/1000 NICs and so on. Works fine, so I still don't quite see why it'd not be suitable with settling on eg CentOS, especially if it's set up properly from the beginning by the shop. Did you maybe have some special hardware in mind?
Maybe I'm blinded by CentOS running fine on whatever I throw at it so far...
/S
Sorin Srbu wrote on Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:26:51 +0200:
Did you maybe have some special hardware in mind?
No. I just wanted to point out that for such a task another distribution *might* be better suited, that's all.
Kai
on 10-14-2008 9:26 AM Sorin Srbu spake the following:
Kai Schaetzl <> scribbled on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 4:31 PM:
Any particular reason why not, if I may ask?
Because other distributions have better support for brand-new consumer hardware. Especially, if you consider the lifetime cycle of CentOS which spans to 2014. Look at this not from the viewpoint of your mom, but from the computershop that wants to sell lots of PCs to very different people (which will expect to see *recent* software) and with (over the years) quite differing hardware.
I see. Good point. However, brand-new hardware support would mean something like the bleeding edge Fedora (any other distro?). The disadvantage IMHO with eg Fedora is it's short life-cycle though. What is it, a year or so now?
FWIW, I've installed CentOS on pretty new stuff, like dual core-mobos with SATA etc, Broadcom integrated and Intel Desktop Pro/1000 NICs and so on. Works fine, so I still don't quite see why it'd not be suitable with settling on eg CentOS, especially if it's set up properly from the beginning by the shop. Did you maybe have some special hardware in mind?
Maybe I'm blinded by CentOS running fine on whatever I throw at it so far...
/S
You just need to read this list to see people having hardware troubles, mostly with SATA and/or network, but those are pretty important to a PC.
Thanks very much everybody for your numerous comments. I guess I got much more than I expected.
Cheers,
Niki
Scott Silva <> scribbled on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 7:35 PM:
You just need to read this list to see people having hardware troubles, mostly with SATA and/or network, but those are pretty important to a PC.
I did have troubles with wifi, but that is kind off a specialty thing. It most probably was me screwing things up anyway. 8-/
Everything else has been good so far. I can also see SATA being a problem. I have had them myself, although not when using CentOS; mostly with Red Hat... 8-)
Your mileage may vary I guess, as always.
/S
Niki Kovacs wrote:
How would it *technically* be possible to replicate these installs as easily as possible? The hardware is always the same, so I wonder: I have a vague idea about disk images (to be more precise: I know disk images well as far as burning CDs on the commandline is concerned, or when it comes to installing an OS in VirtualBox using the .iso)... but is there a way to somehow transform an existing install into a disk image, and then simply copy these over to all the other machines? (I've never done this)
Clonezilla is probably the fastest/easiest way. There are 2 versions. Clonezilla-live boots from a CD or USB drive and lets you save or restore a disk or partition image using local or network storage via nfs, sshfs, or samba. For windows and most linux filesystems it knows enough to only save the used portions of the disk. You can also make a bootable DVD containing an image to load. For large numbers of machines there is the companion drbl to network-boot into clonezilla. http://clonezilla.org/
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Ian Forde -
Jens Larsson -
Kai Schaetzl -
Les Mikesell -
Niki Kovacs -
Rainer Duffner -
Scott Silva -
Sorin Srbu