[kwlug-disc] suggestions for promoting linux for whitehorse makerspace

[Paul Nijjar]

I do not have a complete solution for you, but here are a few
thoughts.

Firstly, you should understand that you are going into a potentially
hostile environment by advocating some flavour of Linux to people who
use Mac and Windows. This has a few implications:

- There are effectively no replacements for the software you are
  listing. You might be able to make some software work with WINE
  (although see below) and there may be other software with similar
  functionality, but every quirk will be grumbled about unless your
  userbase sees Linux as a grand adventure. Expect a lot of threats
  that "if this doesn't work then I am going back to Windows"

- By advocating for Linux you are effectively volunteering to become
  the systems administrator. Over time you might be able to get other
  people sufficiently interested in helping you out, but in addition
  to helping research and implement this solution, you are also going
  to have to take care of it. 

Having said this I endorse your efforts to get free software into this
makerspace. I think that there is a lot of software available for
maker-ing that is available on Linux-type platforms, but little of it
will be a direct replacement for what is on Windows.

You will have to spend a lot of time figuring out whether you can
find software that will work with the 3D printers, CNC routers and
other toys. If there are not then you will need at least a few Windows
machines on site. (It sounds as if you are on this already.) 

Your comment about Deepfreeze inspires a rant. We use a competitor
called Drive Vaccine in our Windows labs, and we (okay, I) am very
unhappy with it. The big issue with these products is that you need to
allow changes to the Windows machines to do updates, but not to do
anything else. I would hope that Deepfreeze is better than our product
in this respect, but I have been pretty unhappy with our experience.

In contrast, using guest accounts in Ubuntu has worked really well.
The machines stay clean, and if you do the initial setup (which is not
trivial -- there are often custom modifications that have to go into
/etc/skel, and getting printers to show up automatically can be a
pain) and then allow unattended-upgrades then the systems do not
require a lot of additional maintenance (in our experience). So I
think an Ubuntu environment might give you a clear win there. You can
also have an administration account that has sudo access, but which
regular members of the makerspace can't log into. 

WINE can work for some programs, but in my experience it often is a
big pain. Trying to get Windows programs working in Linux overall can
be a big pain. One big issue is that we have not figured out how to
get WINE working system-wide (as opposed to installs on individual
user accounts) which makes /etc/skel really big, and in turn makes
logins painfully slow. 

Usually if I want to have access to Windows machines from Linux
clients, I just set up an actual Windows machine (physical or virtual)
and then use remmina to RDP into those Windows machines. This is not a
perfect solution, but it can be "good enough" depending on the tasks
you need. Screen sharing with VNC might be another option. 

If you are administrating computers where each user gets a unique name
and password (which I do not think is the case for you now) then
managing those accounts centrally can be a pain. You might consider a
Samba 4 solution, or even a distro like Zentyal which makes setting up
an Active Directory solution easier. The nice thing about this is that
then your Windows clients can join the "domain" and have similar
access and permissions as your Linux ones. 

I second the recommendation to raise this thread on the Kwartzlab
discussion list. 

I don't know whether any of this blather was helpful, but I hope it
was not too disheartening.

- Paul 


On Wed, Oct 07, 2015 at 11:46:04AM -0700, Jotham Apaloo wrote:
> 
> I moved up north a couple months ago. there's not many tech things going on
> here, but there are a couple of organizations around. One is the local
> makerspace, yukonstruct. They have a lot of competency in the area of
> mechanical devices, and there are a couple computing people but they are
> MAC/WIndows users with little time on their hands for administration.
> 
> They need to set up several computers this month. Their current system
> consists of 7 workstations in a main computer lab, and 3 or 4 other
> workstations connected to 3d printing machine, CNC router, laser cutter. I
> don't know the exact models right now. Some of the computers are refurbs
> for which they get windows licenses for $10, but a few new ones require
> paying for a full windows license. They will also have to pay for deep
> freeze licenses.
> 
> I am doing (i.e. emailing you lot) some research to see about putting linux
> on all/some of their computers. I think it would be simpler to maintain,
> less prone to malware, less expensive, and a better fit with the mission
> and values of the makerspace. There is already some resistance to
> introducing new things (which is really unfortunate for a makerspace), but
> if I can give some specs and pricing for a nice setup of the machines and
> network, they may be willing to adopt Linux.
> 
> I'm looking for a distro suggestion and package suggestions for:
> 
>    - *nonpersistent user sessions/data (comparable to deep freeze)*
>       - maybe since permissions and resource is easy to limit on linux,
>       users could have persistent data
>       - *software equivalents for *
>       - corel draw suite (inkscape?)
>       - sketchup,
>       - aspire,
>       - autodesk suite, (blender?, +?)
>       - preform (looks like no alternative)
>    - *best way to incorporate a windows station, if necessary*
>       - WINE?
>       - virtual machines?
>       - a windows server on the network and wine/vm on all other machines
>       as clients?
>    - *any other related suggestions*
> 
> it would be a bonus if each of the general workstations could send jobs to
> the machines connected to manufacturing devices. This could happen on a
> longer time frame but open to thoughts now.
> 
> Thanks,
> Jotham
> -- 
> Jotham Apaloo
> jothamapaloo at gmail.com

> _______________________________________________
> kwlug-disc mailing list
> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
> http://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org


-- 
"How to Win Proportional Representation" talk: Oct 28, 7pm, St John's
Kitchen. All welcome. (Contact me for more info.)