[ale] Wanted: Linux guru in-the-making

[Charles Marcus]

Hi,

I am looking for someone who is looking for a real world
situation to hone their Linux skills.  Any pay, at least
initially, would have to come out of my own pocket, so I
would prefer someone who just wants a great environment to
hone their skills.  Work would have to be done in the
evenings and on the weekends until we convinced my boss and
went into 'production mode'.  We are located in Woodstock,
at Hwy 92 and I-575 (what is now exit 7).

We have 25 workstations right now (one doubles as a backup
domain controller) with one server (all Win2K), and I am
trying to sell my boss on going with a Linux Terminal
Services solution (www.ltsp.org for anyone who isn't
familiar with the LTSP).  We are growing fast, and will be
opening remote offices in Miami and Dallas within the next
month or two, with many more planned over the next year.  I
was looking at Applixware for our Office Suite, and remote
support will be a big issue, so I will also need to learn
VNC (unless anyone knows of a better remote control/support
solution for Linux).  Just getting LTS and VNC to work
together should be a lot of fun.

I am also trying to sell him on developing our own database
solution using PostgreSQL, instead of going with SalesLogix
(we are currently using ACT, but as you know this simply
isn't an option for a WAN, much less with as many users as
we will soon have - we are already having performance
problems as it is).  Jeff D. at PostgreSQL, Inc. has already
expressed interest in doing this with us.

I am a Mac/Windows man starting at about 1985, and don't
know anything about Linux/Unix, and don't have time to
learn - I have my hands full just holding users hands during
the day.  I need to get a working demo going within the next
month or so, and don't think I'm gonna be able to with a
little hand-holding of my own.

The reason time is so short is that I only stumbled onto the
LTSP site a couple of weeks ago, and though I had already
been thinking about slowly migrating our servers over to
Linux (starting with the VPN and Mail servers), I had not
even entertained the idea of putting Linux on the desktop
here (too many support issues - I'm a one man team right
now).  Once I learned of LTS, I just can't get over how
ideal it is for our situation.  This facilitated my
contacting the guys at PostgreSQL for programming contacts,
which resulted in their interest in doing it themselves.

Anyway...sorry to be so long-winded, and I hope you guys
don't mind this blatant, self-serving plea for help being
posted to the list.

Like I said before, I can't afford to personally pay anyone
very much, but this would definitely be a challenge, and a
lot of fun for the right person.  It is possible that this
could turn into a permanent situation, though I can make no
promises right now.

Thanks -

----------------------

Charles Marcus
Network Administrator Wanna-Be
Media Brokers International
770-516-9234 x123
fax 770-516-8918
CharlesM at Media-Brokers.com


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