Linux Deployment Michigan Engineering

1
Linux DeploymentMichigan Engineering

• Mark Giuffrida

2
History with Linux

• CAEN's Linux lab deployments
• 2000 Red Hat 6.1
• 2001 (no change from previous year)
• 2002 Red Hat 7.2
• 2003 Red Hat 9
• 2004 Red Hat Enterprise 3
• 2005 Red Hat Enterprise 4

3
Why Red Hat?

• Party ended with free Linux in 2004
• We wanted a distro with timely updates
• Stability always welcome
• Redhat vs. SUSE was our debate
• We have expertise with Redhat
• University has Novell s/w which includes SUSE
• Redhat was market leader and arguably most common
  with Universities
• Red Hat Network web site is nicer than what SuSE
  was offering for departments that wanted
  automatic updates

4
Redhat Was Selected

• Redhat created new pricing structure
• Site license just for the College of Engineering
• All faculty, staff, students are licensed to run
  enterprise linux products on both UM and non-UM
  owned computers
• We purchased a 3yr contract at this rate

5
Why a Linux Site License Is Attractive

• We wanted to promote a common Linux distribution
  with other Engineering Departments
• Students and departments with no money will
  perceive it as a solid free distribution and
  will use
• Newly formed High Performance Computing area
  (now part of CoE-IT) will join in

6
CAEN Labs

• Dual boot Windows XP and Linux
• Approximately 800 desktops in 20 labs (soon to be
  1000 in 23 labs)
• Replacement hardware is strictly 64-bit capable
  (now eyeing dual-core)
• 64-bit Linux on the 64-bit capable desktops

7
Improvements Made This Year to Linux Environment

• Install over the network
• No CD needed to bootstrap
• DHCP at boot to set IP and Hostname
• Kerberos 5 instead of 4
• keytabs automatically kept in sync
• Basic support for SELinux security subsystem
• Take advantage of 2.6 kernel features
• Management (patches, config files) uses more
  native Redhat tools instead of homegrown tools

8
PC Desktop Purchase 2005

• Dell GX620 with 19 NEC Monitor
• Pentium 4 650/3.4GHz (64-bit EM64T, 2-MB L2
  cache, 800MHz FSB, HyperThreading)
• 2GB RAM
• 128MB ATI Radeon X600SE Graphics
• 160GB 7200 RPM SATA Disk
• Sun Ultra 20 with 19 Sun Monitor
• 2.2GHz/1MB (Opteron Model 148) CPU
• 2GB RAM
• NVIDIA Quadro NVS280 Graphics Accelerator
• 80GB 7200rpm SATA Disk

9
Observations

• Noticeable Price Decreases in Desktop H/W
• Price for comparable desktop and monitor is 30
  less this year
• 19 LCD is now the sweet spot in pricing
• Price decrease for 64-bit PCs now makes buying
  them a no-brainer over 32-bit PCs.
• Linux usage is light compared to Windows usage
• Linux is not perceived as a general purpose OS
  and thus personal productivity (email, web, word
  processing) is still done on Windows, although
  Linux is very doable.

10
Observations

• EECS Dept wants us to put Linux-only (no dual
  boot Windows) desktops in some of the CAEN labs
  located in their building
• Grad students in general like the computers
  booted into Linux
• Departments and Colleges want to consolidate
  their own Linux distributions to a common flavor