3.
Linux desktops at Oxford
Performing a survey of Linux Desktops at Oxford to find out:
-
how many desktops at Oxford use Linux?
-
who is using Linux?
-
how the Linux Desktops are managed?
Jargon: distro, sysadmin, unit.
3.1.
Performing the survey
-
Produced a list of about 30 questions.
-
Trialled them by interviewing the sysadmin of one unit.
-
Then interviewed the sysadmins of nine other units.
-
Found it difficult to keep to the script.
-
So survey is informal.
-
Obtained other information from the replies to a message
to itss-discuss.
3.2.
Units that I've visited
Astro Physics
Atmospheric Physics
Chemistry
Comlab
Experimental Psychology
Mathematics
Medical Vision Group (Robotics, Engineering)
Oxford Supercomputing Centre
Physiology
Statistics
3.3.
Units that replied
Arch'y MolMed
Christ Church OUCS
Classics PartPhy
EarthSci Politics
Ecol and Hydro Psych'try
FMRIB St Anthony's
IMSU St John's
Invensys ScanOptMic
Jesus Sociology
Linacre SolidMechsAndMats
Materials StructGenCons
MolBioph SERS
3.4.
Number of Linux desktops
150 Astro Physics
150 Mathematics
110 Statistics
63 Atmospheric Physics
53 Comlab
50 Chemistry
50 Physiology
47 Molecular Biophysics
40 Experimental Psychology
36 OUCS
35 Ecology and Hydrology (Centre for)
33 FMRIB (Centre for)
20 Structural Genomics Consortium
17 Materials
15 Earth Sciences
15 Scanning Optical Microscopy (Engineering)
12 Medical Vision Group (Robotics, Engineering)
12 Particle Physics
12 Psychiatry
10 IMSU (Clinical School)
7 Solid Mechanics and Materials (Engineering)
5 Archaeology
5 Molecular Medicine
4 St Anthony's College
3 Oxford Supercomputing Centre
3 St John's College
1 Christ Church College
1 Classics
1 Invensys (Control, Engineering)
1 Jesus College
1 Linacre College
1 Politics
1 Sociology
1 Systems and Electronic Resources Service
3.5.
Summary of number of Linux desktops
==150 Astro Physics, Mathematics
>=100 Statistics
>=50 Atmos Phys, Chemistry, Comlab, Physiology
>=40 Exptl Psy, MolBioph
>=30 Ecol and Hydro, FMRIB, OUCS
>=15 EarthSci, Materials, ScanOptMic, StructGenCons
>=10 IMSU, MedVision, PartPhy, Psych'try
>=5 Arch'y, MolMed, SolidMechsAndMats
>=2 OSC, St Anthony's, St John's
==1 Christ Church, Classics, Invensys, Jesus
==1 Linacre, Politics, Sociology, SERS
3.6.
Total number of Linux desktops
-
That means I've been told about 965 Linux desktops.
3.7.
What distros are used at Oxford?
-
Debian (woody, sarge)
-
Gentoo
-
Mandrake (9.2, 10, 10.1, 10.2); now called Mandriva
-
Red Hat (7, 8, 9, FC1, FC2, FC3, FC4 beta)
-
Slackware (10)
-
SuSE (8.1, 8.2, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2)
-
Ubuntu
and
Kubuntu
3.8.
What releases of distros are used?
-
Although some units have all their desktops
running the same release of the same distribution, ...
-
... most have a mix of releases.
-
For example, one unit uses:
RH7, RH9, FC1, FC2, FC3 and FC4 beta.
3.9.
How did they choose a distribution?
-
Often, evaluation of the various distros was not done.
-
Often, decision made before the sysadmin arrived.
-
Sometimes a distribution was chosen because another unit was
using that distribution.
-
Some units moved from RH when licensing changed.
-
Although some did move to FC, some jumped ship, mainly to SuSE.
3.10.
What is the most used distribution?
150 Astro Physics Debian
150 Mathematics Debian
>100 Statistics Fedora Core
63 Atmospheric Physics Debian
53 Comlab Fedora Core
50 Chemistry Fedora Core
50 Physiology SuSE
40 Experimental Psychology SuSE
35 Ecology and Hydrology Bio-Linux (Debian)
33 FMRIB SUSE
26 OUCS various
3.11.
Who uses the Linux desktop?
At Oxford, different units had different policies:
-
Just one person: it's his/her desktop.
-
Principally one,
but others in same group also use it.
-
Anyone can log in to the desktop:
-
either physically;
-
or remotely.
3.12.
Who uses the Linux desktop?
-
One unit argues that often machines just sit there doing nothing.
Spare cpu time should be used.
-
They have a policy: people can use other machines.
-
The unit did a survey:
10 people said that
they sometimes used
10 to 20 machines concurrently.
-
One said he'd even used 60 machines concurrently.
3.13.
Where are the home directories?
-
The decision on who uses a desktop
may affect where home directories are located.
-
In some units,
home directories are stored on the local disc.
-
In other units,
a home directory is mounted from a file server.
3.14.
Who has root access?
At Oxford, widely different attitudes:
-
It is difficult to deny root access to the owner of the machine
as they bought the machine.
-
A small number of people in each research group have root access
to the machines in that group.
-
Only the sysadmin has root password because
he/she takes the responsibility that the machines are
secure and up-to-date.
3.15.
How are machines patched?
At Oxford, many different policies:
-
Test out the patch on a master machine
and then when happy tell each machine to update.
-
Every night, on each machine:
-
run a cron job that does the patching;
-
reboot may be required, e.g., if patch is to kernel;
-
negotiate with the user as to when convenient.
-
Leave it to each user to update their machine.
3.16.
When do machines get OS releases?
-
Some distributions have quick release cycles
whereas others have longer release cycles.
-
For example, SuSE releases every 6 months,
whereas the latest Debian took nearly 3 years.
-
If 3 years, need other ways to get new software.
-
If 6 months, then this can be disruptive to the user.
3.17.
When do machines get OS releases?
At Oxford, two common approaches:
-
upgrade when the machine is recycled to a new user
-
this means supporting different releases of the OS;
-
do a massive change occasionally
-
this means all the machines are the same.
3.18.
What software is installed?
-
Most sysadmins do a full install of the distribution.
-
This provides people with choice:
-
desktop environment: Gnome, KDE
-
web browser: Firefox, Konqueror
-
mailer: Evolution, pine, Thunderbird
-
Although choice provided,
usually more support given to one.
3.19.
What discipline-oriented software?
-
Many units use: the gnu compilers, java, TeX/LaTeX.
-
A lot of units install: MATLAB.
-
Quite a few install: Mathematica.
-
Other software includes:
bioinformatics tools, FDR, FMRIB, FSL,
Haskell, IDL, IRAF, Maple, R, S-PLUS, SPM
3.20.
Can other software be installed?
-
If the user/group has root access,
then they can install anything.
-
Otherwise, the sysadmin installs the software.
-
In some units,
it is installed locally,
whereas in other units
it is installed on a file server.
3.21.
Can the desktop run a webserver?
At Oxford:
-
The University's firewall only allows access
for incoming port 80
for registered machines.
-
In some units, there are other port 80 restrictions.
-
In most units, webserver is not installed.
-
So, only a handful of desktops run a webserver.
-
A user could install a webserver on port 8080.
3.22.
Can the user access MS Windows?
At Oxford, there are four approaches:
-
Some units provide the user with two machines.
-
Some units provide a Windows Terminal Server.
-
Some units install VMWare on the desktop:
-
Doesn't allow VMWare as he is unhappy about its security.
-
It requires too much resource and falls over.
3.23.
Can the user access MS Windows?
-
Some units allow dual boot:
-
If I allow this,
I won't be able to contact the machine
and do Linux updates.
-
Machine may be in Linux for a long time;
then very out-of-date
with Windows security patches.
-
This annoys other users because they are unable to remote login
when it is in Windows.
3.24.
Why is MS Windows needed?
-
Often the answer was: need access to MS Office.
-
But Linux provides Office clones, such as OpenOffice.
-
In some units, OpenOffice is only started when the user
is using a mail client and receives an attachment.
However, the user switches to Windows
if he/she wants to produce a document.
-
Elsewhere people extensively use OpenOffice.
3.25.
Can the user access MS Windows?
Tim Colles (University of Edinburgh) has two articles discussing:
-
being a user of both Linux and MS Windows;
-
accessing an Office document from Linux.
http://www.dice.inf.ed.ac.uk/groups/user_support/windows/windowsdice.html
The latter topic is also discussed in Section 4.2
of the Government's Final Report on the trials of OSS.