There has been some discussion on limiting the Operating Systems (OS's) which are supported in the Department.
I think it's important to examine the issue from both sides.
There are many advantages and disadvantages to having a diverse computing environment.
Advantages
- A Diverse computing environment protects against virus problems. The fact that
the department is heavily Mac oriented, and few people use Outlook for their e-mail
program makes us much more immune to viruses than most places. The clean-up time after
ILOVEYOU was very high in some places outside of the U.
It should be noted also that the U's networking teams
at ADCS and NTS did a great job of filtering out the ILOVEYOU virus before it got to
the individual computers.
- Some operating systems just work better for some applications than others.
- It's important that students are familiar with a variety of computers in their
educational experiences
- The computer support staff will never get bored.
Disadvantages
- There are simply too many configurations for a small computer team to support.
Therefore response time will not be optimal.
- The increase in configurations greatly increases the complexity with networking
issues, and makes it much more difficult to, say, create and maintain good backups.
- It's much more economical to limit the number of OS's, because the .number of software
packages need to be bought are smaller, there are
PC's
Dell computers are great. They're fast, relatively cheap, and reliable.
And, we have a lot of them, so we're familiar with them. The U. also has a special deal with Dell, through
Techmart
Gateway also makes good machines. However, we have had some problems
with our virus protection on Gateways.
Reason Computers come highly recommended, if you want to buy from
a company that makes their computers locally in the Twin Cities.
Windows
Windows 2000 (Win2K) and Windows XP (WinXP) are the OS's which currently
are available when a person buys a new computer. I would highly recommend
Win2K and not WinXP. WinXP is designed for a home user, and therefore lacks
many of the components needed to work in the Dept. of Geology. Specifically,
it can't join the Windows domain, and therefore can't print. If you buy
Windows XP PRO, it can join the domain, but it costs more.
In addition, WinXP has many security concerns with which I am not familiar,
and am unlikely to learn anytime soon.
Therefore, Windows 2000 is highly recommend. The securty concerns are
understood, and it works on the Domain, and it prints just fine. If you do
buy a computer with WinXP, the Department has access to a copy of Win2K which
can be installed instead.
Macintosh
Please buy bonified Mac computers, not clones.
The clones quite often have problems with extra sofware, and
for instance I'm having a very difficult time getting the clones onto the new printing system.
If you buy new hard drives for your macs, get ones that are supported by Apple, not ones that require
extra software to run. Techmart has pretty good deals for U. people.
Computers running anything older than Mac OS 8.6 will not be supported in a priority manner. They simply
are not compatible with the network as it now stands. Hardware, software and networking files will not
be necessarily available for them either, as we clean up our software space.
Mac OS 8.6 is required for printing with the new printing system. OS 9 is great,
too. 9.0.4 and 9.2.* are fine, but there is a bug in 9.1 which prevents it from
printing. Upgrade to 9.2.2
Please wait before installing Mac OS X.
OS X is a fine operating system, and is getting better every month.
But since it is unix based, currently it cannot be put on the Printing System.
The vendor is aware of this issue, and hopes to have a fix by the end of 2002,
but for now printing has to be done from OS 9.
In addition, I currently do not have a copy of Microsoft Office which works
on OS X, nor do I have virus protection which works on OS X. Hopefully,
this will change by Fall '02.
If you do happen to end up with it, come see me and read these articles:
The Mac OSX Beta Survival Guide
The Mac OSX beta install guide
Unix/Linux
I do not actively support Unix/Linux as end-user operating systems. There are simply too many types to
support, and depending on the type, there are just too many security issues.
Red Hat linux is expecially rife with security issues. If you have unix/linux on your machine,
Make Absolutely Sure that you have the most current kernal/OS, and that you have all of the patches
installed. See your vendor site (i.e. Red Hat) for the most recent info.
KNOW THIS:
If your machine is compromised (hacked, cracked, broken into, etc.) the Network Administrator, and NTS,
has the absolute right to unplug you from the network until your machine is considered safe. If you buy
Linux/Unix, be absolutely sure that YOU are willing to learn what it will take to make sure it is safe.
This is not a trivial excercise.
Peripherals
I don't currently have any suggestions for scanners, ink jet printers etc. However, if you want to get
a peripheral, consider that the hardware in the computer industry is rapidly changing. USB is replacing the
old Mac ADB (those 8 or 9 pin connections that the mice used to use) and firewire is becoming very prevalent.
Other changes are happening as well. So there's a fairly large chance that your hardware might become obsolete
faster than you expected. This might be a good argument for going with departmental printers, scanners and the like.
There is also more robust computer support for the networked peripherals, as those located in offices
are lower priority.
Printers:
HP makes very good printers, at least the ones that are networked. I haven't had a lot of experience with the
desktop ones.
The new Tektronix color Solid Ink printers are great as well.
