[Sheflug] Linux Newbie

[John <nospam [at] jrwsouthall.demon.co.uk>]

Hello Sheflug,
I am the network manager at Wickersley Comprehensive School in
Rotherham. We currently run the main academic network with an NT4 server
that functions as PDC, fileserver, intranet server and Internet proxy
server/firewall. With over 200 client machines it can get a little busy.
The clients are mainly NT4 workstations, but we have a few win95 and 98
machines too. I need to increase the number of servers and would very
much like to start using Linux as the server OS. We have done a number
of successful installations of SUSE and Mandrake distributions on test
machines and I am very impressed by the software.
First task is to get the proxy/firewall off the PDC and onto a dedicated
machine. We have SUSE installed on an AMD 450MHz PC with 20gig HDD, 64M
memory and two D-Link DFE530TX NICs. The OS works, and the two NICs work
on two separate networks, next weeks task is to get Linux to transfer
data between the two networks.
I would also like to run the Intranet and Fileserver on Linux. I have
used Apache on NT4 along with Tomcat, Cocoon and MySQL to support an XML
based Intranet system, this should run on Linux too. I am not familiar
with Samba, but I believe we can use it as the basis for a Linux based
Fileserver.
Is there any way we can get rid of M$ server operating systems
altogether and just use Linux on the servers?
Comments and advice are welcome. This is a major undertaking for people
who are new to Linux, but I would very much like to escape from the
commercial software cycle that takes up a large amount of the precious
little funding that schools get for IT.
Are there any other people out there who work in schools where Linux is
successfully employed?

Regards
John Southall
-- 
John
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