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Richard Brown wrote: > Hi Guys > > I have been contacted by a local company that are interested in moving > to a network of Linux managed computers and servers. This is getting > beyond my knowledge base but the company are willing to allow me to > expand my knowledge and learn as I build, and they will in fact pay me > to do it as well! > That's good. > I have talked things through with the boss and he would like me to put > together a quote and a system that will work for them and also enable > the computer to cut software costs and be safer. The system is fairly > simple but does throw up some interesting issues. The big issue is > Sage. They run it for their accounts and grab various reports. It runs > as a server programme that also runs an .exe file on the clients. Is > anyone aware of whether it is possible to run Sage through Crossover > or virtualisation software please? Virtualisation will probably be the safest bet, that way you'll be able to run Windows. Haven't got a clue about the clients running in Crossover Office or Wine though, again you might find that there's a need for virtualisation. The problem is, if you're using existing machines, you won't be able to virtualise the copies of Windows legally unless they're retail boxed versions. Microsoft would consider moving a Windows installation from a real machine to a Virtual Machine to be a complete new 'computer' which would need a new licence. Is this client software required on multiple machines? Maybe you could get away with one or two machines dual booting with Linux? > Eventually the system will need to run about 8 or 10 pcs connecting to > a file server and running an intranet and a client/order database. Is > there software available that will run on Linux that will allow > multiple connections and provide some sort of client management system > please? Hmm, client management software is not really my forte. I guess something like SugarCRM might do the job? A server running Apache would work as a basic intranet server, the database could probably be kept on MySQL or PostgreSQL but the actual friendly front end may need to be written especially (maybe in PHP or Perl?). > > What hardware would you go for? - For a file server - a nas box or > purpose built system, for a server to run the client management > programme/sage etc. And the pcs themselves. I'd always go for a purpose built system. Yes it's a little more expensive but you could build a server using off the shelf parts. If a NAS dies chances are you'd have to send the thing back. If a server with standard parts dies then you can go down to PC World and buy replacement components in most cases (unless you go for something like a Dell PC which standard components may not physically fit). If the server is only serving to say about 8 to 10 clients then a standard Athkon X2 / Core 2 Duo with a gig of ram and a couple of hard drives in a raid array (Linux Software Raid or REAL HARDWARE RAID, none of this SoftRaid on cheap motherboards) will probably do the job. Components and memory are dirt cheap now with a gig of ram around the £10 to £20 mark, hard drives at reasonable sizes around £35 (for say 250GB) and dual core CPU's and motherboards are under £100. For the PCs themselves, personally I'd avoid NVidia with the proprietary drivers. I'm a fan of AMD so I'd recommend the Athlon X2 CPU's although performance wise the Intel Core 2 Duo does have a lead over AMD at the moment. You could probably get away with onboard graphics (I'd recommend ATI chipsets for AMD CPUs or Intel or AMD Chipsets for Intel CPU's). > Many thanks for all the help. No problem, where are you based anyway? If you need any help, give me a shout as I'm doing something similar for two clients. Rob -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html