[CS-FSLUG] Churches Using GNU/Linux
Don Parris
gnumathetes at gmail.com
Mon Sep 13 18:01:41 CDT 2004
I appreciate the responses. This is actually quite helpful. I'm in
contact with a fellow in England, who is from the former Yugoslavia,
and is _very_ eager to advocate Linux within his church. He's
apparently doing some sort of speech & demo. Anyway, he just sent an
e-mail today asking for examples of other churches deploying Linux.
So the timeliness is uncanny. I have been eager to discover other
churches using Linux, and how they use it.
It would be good if we could highlight some of these deployments in a
decent article. I've got to write another article about migration
strategies for churches (religious groups). The benefits of knowing
about other churches' deployments should be fairly obvious.
<> Knowing that other churches use Linux in a serious deployment is
helpful for advocacy purposes.
<> Knowing how churches have deployed Linux is helpful for developing
migration strategies. As we share information, we can help each other
understand what obstacles have to be overcome. When I announced the
fact that CHADDB is now moving forward in one forum, a guy responded
effectively that our project would not match the quality of their
church management software, even though it's overpriced (presumably
because CHADDB is FOSS).
So the idea that FOSS = poor quality is an issue that needs to be
addressed. Other issues need to be addressed as well.
Don
On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 10:59:43 -0700, mcumings at cobalt.local.net
<mcumings at cobalt.local.net> wrote:
> Hi Don,
>
> Name : Somerset Christian Church
> Size : @160
> Denomination: None
> Location : Beverton, Oregon, USA
> How used : This will take more than one line. See below! ;)
>
> Okay, so I'm using my church as a testbed for a fairly complicated
> software deployment. I am trying to reconcile the primary forces
> driving my architecture:
>
> - Cost to install and maintain
> - Software application availability
> - Supportability over time
>
> Out of this I have created the following:
>
> - A single server
> - Multiple thin-client user stations
> (See www.igel.com for thin client details. My
> evaluaton of 9+ vendors showed them to be clear
> leaders.)
>
> The server has the following primary functions:
>
> - Web server (Apache 2)
> - Web cache (Squid)
> - Email (postfix)
> - DHCP
> - Thin client environment
>
> The way I laid things out are as follows. The server is a fairly
> high power box (AMD64 + 1.5GB RAM, 2x73GB SATA (Linux SW Raid 1)
> running Gentoo Linux. The trick was in how to provide the Windows
> application support to the user base. My original intent was to
> swap out M$ products with open source / free equivalents, but there
> are quite a few cases where the users had very specific requirements
> that could not be met. Because of this I chose to with a mixed
> environment. One of the server's applications is VMWare which in
> turn runs Windows Server 2003 (Terminal Server). WS2K3 fills in
> the applicaiton gaps while still allowing for stable runtime,
> internet servicing, and remote management best provided by a *nix
> OS. With a gigabit network between the server and the thin
> clients I should be able to easily drive the expected number of
> thin client seats (5).
>
> I have yet to deploy this infrastructure (I'm waiting on some
> security hardware to be fabricated), but based on the performance
> I've seen in my lab (i.e., my home!) it seems to run great! The
> nice thing about it is that upgrades will be very cheap for
> roughly the next 10-15 years. Initial deployment was only $300-ish
> USD more expensive than deploying Full PCs + Windows to each
> station and un-beefing the server.
>
> I feel like I'm breaking new ground here but as Solomon said,
> there's nothing new under the sun! ;)
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2004 at 02:47:37AM -0400, Don Parris wrote:
> > Does anyone know of any churches using GNU/Linux in any scenario? I'm
> > especially interested in desktop use, but any scenario will work. I'm
> > mainly looking for each church's:
> > <>name
> > <>size
> > <>denomination/structure
> > <>location (city, state, country)
> > <>how used
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Don
>
--
DC Parris GNU Evangelist
http://matheteuo.org/
gnumathetes at gmail.com
Free software is like God's love -
you can share it with anyone anywhere anytime!
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