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From: SLVQC@CUNYVM.BITNET (Salvatore Saieva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT lab advice
Message-ID: <91161.143520SLVQC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Date: 10 Jun 91 18:35:20 GMT
References: <9106061532.AA21620@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center
Lines: 33

I'm curious how you Lab Managers are using the 105MB HD on the client
machines. Do you netboot the clients mounting / from the server or do
you keep boot files (and other pre-installed files) on the local client
disk and do some other magic to access the extended release of OS
from the servers? I've been toying with both net configurations for the
past few days and (as you'd guess) there are drawbacks to each:
Netbooting and mounting / remotely doesn't make use good use of an
available 105MB HD and it's slow to startup NeXT apps; Booting the
NeXTstations from the local HD is faster, provides quicker startup for
the available pre-installed NeXT software, but it looks like a nuisance
to setup a NeXTstation to run the dev tool available on the server.

I've been thinking about some sort of compromise: Netbooting the
NeXTstations and mounting / remotely, using the local 105 HD for
/private files, and also installing  frequently used NeXT apps (such as
Terminal, Edit, WriteNow, Websters, etc) in a separate partition on
the local disk. If this were all possible it would seem to provide
the best features of both setups: Avoid the work to access dev tools
if / were not mounted remotely, and have local access to frequently
used adm files (/private is mounted locally) and apps. Does this
sound too nutty? Am I missing something, or maybe just trying to
complicate the issue?

How is everyone else setting-up their lab file systems and using
the local 105MB drives?

Sal.
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 Salvatore Saieva                            Internet: slvqc@cunyvm.cuny.edu
 Queens College, Academic Computer Center      BITNET: slvqc@cunyvm.bitnet
 65-30 Kissena Blvd, Flushing, N.Y. 11367     DeskNet: (718) 520-7662

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