In helping a friend with configuring a computer for his work, I was reminded of a recent Slashdot article (“Stupid Unix Tricks“. Apparently at his work place (he works in the computer repair group) they need a backup server to store customer’s files. Some one decided that they should use netbsd on it. While netbsd is a great and solid system, he is haveing a heck of a time setting things up and is the most software based guy in his group.</p>
He was asking about Ubuntu Server, while a good system… I pointed him to Debian (as it is a bit more stable) and gave him tips about using programs like GNU Screen that will help make his life a little bit easier.
The other great info for the ISU campus is we have access to some great mirrors hosted at the U of Minnesota
for Debian debian-mirror.cs.umn.edu
and for Ubuntu mirror.cs.umn.edu
Iowa State and UMN are bolth part of the Great Plains Network and have some darn big pipes connecting us together (netview shows us with at 10GB pipe more here) Which reminds me the ISU netview server http://netview.its.iastate.edu/ is another great resource to tell you when a service is up or down with out calling the Solution center