The Debian Administrator's Handbook

GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) and KDE (K Desktop Environment) are the two most popular graphical desktop environments in the free software world. A desktop environment is a set of programs grouped together to allow easy management of the most common operations through a graphical interface. They generally include a file manager, office suite, web browser, e-mail program, multimedia accessories, etc. The most visible difference resides in the choice of the graphical library used: GNOME has chosen GTK+ (free software licensed under the LGPL), and KDE has selected Qt (from the company, Trolltech, who released it under the GPL license).

→ http://www.gnome.org/

→ http://www.kde.org/

Chapter 2. Presenting the Case Study

You are the system administrator of a growing small business. In collaboration with your directors, you come to redefine the information systems master plan for the coming year, and you choose to progressively migrate to Debian for reasons as much practical as economic. Let's see into more detail what's ahead of you...

We have envisioned this case study to approach all modern information system services currently used in a medium sized company. After reading this book, you will have all of the elements necessary to install Debian on your servers and fly on your own wings. You will also learn how to effectively find information in the event of difficulties.

2.1. Fast Growing IT Needs

Falcot Corp is a manufacturer of high quality audio equipment. The company is growing strongly, and has two facilities, one in Saint-Étienne, and another in Pau. The first has around 150 employees; it hosts a factory for the manufacturing of speakers, a design lab, and all administrative office. The Pau site, which is smaller, only has about 50 workers, and produces amplifiers.

NOTE Fictional company created for case study

The company, Falcot Corp, studied here, is completely fictional. Any resemblance to an existing company is purely coincidental. Likewise, certain example data throughout this book may be fictional.

The computer system has had difficulty keeping up with the company's growth, so they are now determined to completely redefine it to meet various goals established by management:

modern, easily scalable infrastructure;

reducing cost of software licenses thanks to use of Open Source software;

installation of an e-commerce website, possibly B2B (business to business, i.e. linking of information systems between different companies, such as a supplier and its clients);

significant improvement in security to better protect industrial secrets related to new products.

Underlying these goals, the entire information system will be overhauled.

2.2. Master Plan

With your collaboration, IT management has conducted a slightly more extensive study, identifying some constraints and defining a plan for migration to the chosen Open Source system, Debian.

A significant constraint identified is that the accounting department uses specific software, which only runs on Microsoft Windows™. The laboratory, for its part, uses computer aided design software that runs on MacOS X™.

Figure 2.1. Overview of the Falcot Corp network

The switch to Debian will be gradual; a small business, with limited means, can not change everything overnight. For starters, the IT staff must be trained in Debian administration. The servers will then be converted, starting with the network infrastructure (routers, firewalls, etc.) followed by the user services (file sharing, Web, SMTP, etc.). Then the office computers will be gradually migrated to Debian, for each department to be trained (internally) during the deployment of the new system.

2.3. Why a GNU/Linux Distribution?

BACK TO BASICS Linux or GNU/Linux?

Linux, as you already know, is only a kernel. The expressions, “Linux distribution” and “Linux system” are, thus, incorrect: they are, in reality, distributions or systems based on Linux. These expressions fail to mention the software that always complete this kernel, among with are the programs developed by the GNU Project. Dr. Richard Stallman, founder of this project, insists that the expression “GNU/Linux” be systematically used, in order to better recognize the important contributions made by the GNU Project and the principles of freedom upon which they are founded.

Debian has chosen to follow this recommendation, and, thus, name its distributions accordingly (thus, the latest stable release is Debian GNU/Linux 6.0).