[00:16] I may be stuck with the job of setting up a lab of 18 laptops [00:17] any advice on setting up linux for cloning? [01:19] azend Check out Clonezilla [01:20] There's a server component that does multi-cast. Boot each laptop from a USB stick (or even from PXE), when they're all ready select "go" on the server, and they all chug along at the same rate. [01:21] I used to update labs at The Working Centre (2 labs, 16 workstations each) with that. [01:21] Paul Nijjar set up the server end; you may want to ask on the KWLUG mailing list where he hangs out [01:23] Cool [01:24] yeah, I've used Clonezilla before but I've only ever used the one to one tools [01:24] I guess I'm more asking if there is anything I should know in terms of hiccups when you clone ubuntu/linux to another machine [01:25] windows isn't great at cloning either [01:25] The linux kernel is a remarkable beast. [01:25] you can clone it fine but all of the security keys stay the same [01:26] so if you crack one machine, you crack them all [01:26] I've pulled a hard drive out of one P4 single core machine and put it into a P5 four core with more RAM and a better video card and it just worked [01:26] very cool [01:27] When I cloned WIndows we had a license that allowed duplicates (some kind of low-cost institutional license) [01:27] There's also a way to set up a central license server [01:28] The biggest problem is that after the clone you have to bang each machine to change hostname [01:28] Of course, you can do that with a script, maybe based on MAC address or DHCP address. [01:28] Also, since we had two labs, on one we had to change things like default printer definition [01:29] But on Linux if you're not worried about customizing each box then you only have to worry about hostname [01:30] yeah, I'm not really worried about that [01:30] I figure I could just make the host names "DIYODE-" [01:31] ie. DIYODE-3E4F [01:31] Before we had the multi-cast server I just pulled the Clonezilla images off my laptop. Took more bandwidth (and was much slower), but easy to do [01:31] how much resources does the server take [01:32] can you run it on a raspberry pi with a hard drive? [01:32] Right, so set the hostname to "unconfigured", then have a bootup script check for that and change if necessary [01:32] or an nslu2? [01:32] rpi will probably work. [01:33] The multi-cast doesn't take nearly as much bandwidth. But images can be big, so you need storage. But you can probably keep an image on a 16 GB sdcard, so a rpi should be oK [01:34] * BobJonkman1 doesn't know what an nslu is [01:35] Gotta go. I'm changing the faucet on the kitchen sink. I hate plumbing, and it's already taken all afternoon. [01:35] It's an old linksys network appliance [01:35] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2 [01:35] It is a device that you plug hard drives into and it becomes your nas [01:35] but it became famous because you could reflash the firmware with debian [01:36] and could run whatever you wanted [01:36] You can boot each laptop with Clonezilla and just pull the image from any network accessible storage. So that nslu should work [01:36] we used one at hillside a few years ago to act as a wifi portal and web chat server [01:36] very cool [01:37] And if it runs Debian then you can run the clonezilla server (which isn't called "clonezilla server") [01:37] * BobJonkman1 goes to look for the web site [01:39] http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-SE/ [01:39] The server was DRBL [01:39] I'm there thanks [01:39] But Paul Nijjar set it up. [01:39] dribble is a terrible name :P [01:39] I seem to recall he had some issues before it worked [01:40] I pronounce it dur-bull [01:40] that makes more sense [01:40] (because dribble is a terrible name) [01:40] It sounds like a dog salivating on all of your machines [01:40] Anyway, I'm off to do some recreational plumbing [01:41] I love recreational plumbing! :_ [01:41] :) [01:41] It's like plumbing but with water everywhere [01:42] not to say regular plumbing isn't the same [01:43] but with recreational plumbing it's intentional! [01:43] As soon as I twisted the knob on the shutoff valve it started to spray water. [01:43] And things got worse from there [01:43] * BobJonkman1 is procrastinating [01:44] * BobJonkman1 hates plumbing [01:44] The only up side to having to do this plumbing is that I don't have to do the dishes. [01:44] But as soon as the plumbing is done then the dishes can be done too. [01:44] So the more I put it off...