August 21, 2004
All but seven of the computers in MathLAN have now been converted from Red Hat Linux to Debian GNU/Linux. We have been running Debian successfully on our home-directory server, home.math.grinnell.edu, for more than a year now, but most of the changeovers occurred at the end of the summer.
When the process is completed, our servers will run whichever version
Debian was distributing as its most stable product at the time of
installation (currently Debian 3.0, nicknamed woody
), and the
workstations in classrooms and offices will run the version which is
expected to be released in September 2004 as Debian 3.1 (sarge
).
Because the Gnome user interface has been extensively revised and does not
recognize many of the local customizations that we set up in user
accounts under Red Hat Linux, there is a special procedure for a returning
student's first login under Debian, to move the previous configuration
files aside, allowing Gnome to create new ones. The handout From Red Hat to Debian
gives detailed
instructions.
This document is available on the World Wide Web as
http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/mathlan/announcements.xhtml
