Kick Sun out

My school's SunLab is a collection of aging UltraSparc5 machines, and an Enterprise server running NFS & NIS for the workstations.

The workstations run fine if you limit your session to CDE, but if you try to log in with JavaDesktop (a Gnome variant) the systems quickly run out of their 256Megs of RAM and begin to thrash the swap space.

The funny thing is that my school has no Linux/FreeBSD/whatever workstations available (that I know of), but is content to limit its UNIX activities to the 20-something Ultra5s that are rotting away.

My solution would be to install a high-end x86 Linux server, offering account management via LDAP, and a number of mid-range servers running KDE as remote sessions.

The Ultra5s would be upgraded to Solaris 10 (currently sitting at 7) and be able to either:

1. Log in natively using CDE or whatever
2. Log in remotely to the Linux/KDE servers and display the applications locally

Additionally, the school should offer a customized Linux BootCD with which students could place into any Windows XP workstation on campus and boot into Linux, and connect to the remote KDE servers.

The only additional hardware requirements would be the Authentication Server, and the Application Servers. The school could keep their crappy Ultra5s (they have nice monitors) and expand their UNIX footprint with Linux/KDE applications etc.

That said, a place like that would never be implemented.

Chubby Fin

Findley's doing much better. She was only in hospital for about a week. It turned out that her inability to hold down food wasn't surgically related, but instead she had (at some point) contracted a stomach virus that was causing her to throw up.

The surgeons had her on an IV to keep her fluids up, and after a week, the virus seemed to have run it course, so she was discharged. She has since been putting on weight again, and is finally back on her growth-chart curve!!

It's nice to have the girl back at home.