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For the impatient, the link to where I have documented this process is at the end of this post.
Those of us who have to live in a mixed environment of Operating systems do not usually have the advantage of a friendly set of linux servers to do authentication, file and print services etc. for native Linux clients.
Although many pieces of Linux software have been packaged for windows use, they often do not work as well as a native linux versions. I am particularly taken with the Music applications available at Planet CCRMA http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/
Among those applications, which range from Audacity to replacements for software such as Sibelius and Cubase, is an application called Alsa Modular Synthesizer. This application is almost unique in that it is a software emulation of a classic analog synthesiser and the only alternative of any quality that I know of is a very expensive piece of software for Macs.
Native linux clients that act as stand alone machines raise obstacles of file security and handling that users find hard to cope with. When you try to use stand alone machines in a class room environment with children (who may be less than careful about file saving) they discover that the files they saved are not on their windows file space, they think it is because the stand alone linux machine is to blame rather than the fact that they did not listen to your careful explanations about how to manage files.
In short, file management and transparency of access to files is far more of an issue in my experience than lack of the users’ experience with the particular GUI they are faced with. I have found that even having to use relatively straight forward “connect to server” utilities to mount home directories is enough to render a system useless for many users.
What is needed then is a straightforward way of installing a Linux box on a windows network so that the users home directory is mounted where the natural Linux home directory is after the user has logged in using their windows login credentials.
Almost all of the entries that I have found on the net either recommend commercial middleware, SFU (which I think is just as bad as commercial middleware) or tell you to set up a linux domain which (for the time being) is just impractical for many of us if not most of us.
Other entries recommend using some form of GUI. Now if you like GUIs then fine but the advantage of what I present here is that it is transferable across a number of Linux platforms with little change and the file names are the same across even more. The thing with GUIs is that you don’t know what they are doing under the surface.
I have blogged the entire process here
Comments are welcomed.
Brian Lockwood 3rd May 2011
