[Casper] Dual booting Macbooks!!!!

Mon Jun 30 12:58:20 PDT 2008

HAHAHA, oh yeah we made sure that web based meant safari, firefox,
mozilla, IE, netscape, opera, etc.

Our servers that run Citrix (we only run one server with Citrix for one
department) is rather old, and there is no way it could handle the 6,000
clients, with anywhere from 300 to 500 per a building testing at one
time.  so that would be 1,500 to 2,500 district wide.  I think we would
have to buy a lot of hardware to accomplish that and that is just not an
option.  I will admit my experience with Citrix personally is very
limited.

Oh well, I think I am just going to boot camp it now to be safe.  They
claim in December their product will be ready, but well we all know what
promises are from developers.

Thanks for the input.  I would think that the casper client will image
anything that is in dmg format, so I will give it a whirl.  Then for
post imaging config I will just run sys prep on the XP client side.  I
have imaged countless windows machines so its nothing new to me.

Thomas Larkin
TIS Department
KCKPS USD500
tlarki at kckps.org
cell:  913-449-7589
office:  913-627-0351
>>> "Leacy, Miles" <Miles.Leacy at PoloRalphLauren.com> 06/30/08 2:47 PM
>>>
FYI - I run roughly 250 Mac clients with line of business apps over
Citrix
every day.  The end users¹ only complaints are that they have to use
buggy
Windows apps.  The apps work as well as they would on a Windows box.

I would be sure to hound the vendor and make sure they understand that
³web
based² means ³based on open standards².  Too often in corporate
situations,
I¹ve been promised a ³web based² tool, only to find out that it requires
IE,
Active X, or some other MS proprietary and therefore Windows-only
technology.

Good luck.

On 6/30/08 3:39 PM, "Ernst, Craig S." <ERNSTCS at uwec.edu> wrote:

> That was going to be another suggestion, if they do a web based
product so
> again there¹s only one point of update and more likely easier to make
> cross-platform, aside from the server it¹s hosted on.
>
> Good Luck, Tom!
>
> Craig
>
>
> On 6/30/08 2:37 PM, "Thomas Larkin" <tlarki at kckps.org> wrote:
>
>> They already gave us a huge discount and my boss said keep it and put
it
>> towards your web based product.  I would love to deploy virtual
machines but
>> I am not in charge of money nor paying for things, and we don't know
if a
>> virtual machine will work.  We do know 100% that windows will work.
>>
>> thanks for your guys input
>>
>> Thomas Larkin
>> TIS Department
>> KCKPS USD500
>> tlarki at kckps.org
>> cell:  913-449-7589
>> office:  913-627-0351
>>>>> >>> "Ernst, Craig S." <ERNSTCS at uwec.edu> 06/30/08 2:21 PM >>>
>> Pay them what you would for Microsoft, Parallels or Citrix licenses
to make a
>> working Mac product. =)
>>
>> And was the Citrix expert actually someone from Citrix? I find it
hard to
>> believe the advice you were given about that product, but I wouldn't
be
>> surprised on the price you may have been quoted for it. Microsoft
also has
>> things up their sleeve related to Terminal Services I think.
>>
>> Maintaining dual-boot is probably what you should do as a last resort
in my
>> opinion. For the added cost I would do Parallels if you don't need to
>> leverage the native power of the hardware. Managing that many more
clients
>> and keeping them secure and up-to-date. I'd think you'd want a single
point
>> of update if possible instead of doubling the client base.
>>
>> We're still working on our dual boot environment because of some
really
>> SIMPLE tools an enterprise needs to properly maintain it. Like
booting from
>> Windows to Mac via a command line interface so you can script it or
schedule
>> it. (and if anyone has a solution for that I'm all eyes) There are
lots of
>> other good tools out there for cloning and what not.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>> On 6/30/08 2:07 PM, "Thomas Larkin" <tlarki at kckps.org> wrote:
>>
>> Ironically, Virtual machine licenses like Parallels of VMware Fusion
for that
>> many clients is actually more expensive than a 1 >> professional.  The developer is willing to pick up most of the tab if
we just
>> straight run windows.  Plus they can only guarantee us that it runs
on
>> windows, since it has never been heavily tested in virtual
environments.
>>
>> I have used Bombich's tools in the past, and I guess I could just use
them
>> again to deploy a dual booting image.  I have about a month to
complete this
>> and get it rolled out to 6,000 machines.  So, basically I have the
rest of
>> this week to get it working because next week we start mass imaging.
>>
>> Thomas Larkin
>> TIS Department
>> KCKPS USD500
>> tlarki at kckps.org
>> cell:  913-449-7589
>> office:  913-627-0351
>>>>> >>> Tom Welch <tom.welch at venturethree.com> 06/30/08 2:03 PM >>>
>> Hi Thomas
>>
>> Could you possibly look at using parallels? I know there is an extra
>> cost but it would be very easy to push out with Casper. Then you
could
>> either deploy the virtual hd image or a virtual cd image pointing
>> towards a ghost server to image the virtual machine. And if your
>> developer is paying :p
>>
>> I also think you might be able to use apple's net install to deploy
>> bootcamp. But it might just be the partition. I've not fully looked
>> into it.
>>
>> Good luck!
>> --
>> Many Thanks
>> Tom Welch
>>
>> On 30 Jun 2008, at 18:45, "Thomas Larkin" <tlarki at kckps.org> wrote:
>>
>>> > Guess I should clarify....
>>> >
>>> > The old mac version corrupts the database files on intel macs. 
The
>>> > windows version works with out a hitch, hence the need to load
>>> > windows clients on the macs...
>>> >
>>> > Sorry Should have pointed that out to begin with.
>>> >
>>> > Thomas Larkin
>>> > TIS Department
>>> > KCKPS USD500
>>> > tlarki at kckps.org
>>> > cell:  913-449-7589
>>> > office:  913-627-0351
>>>>>> >>>> "Thomas Larkin" <tlarki at kckps.org> 06/30/08 12:36 PM >>>
>>> > The problem is with this software to my knowledge is that it is
>>> > based on older PPC and classic architecture and while it does in
>>> > fact run under Rosetta when it writes results to their database it
>>> > corrupts it.  This is a problem particular to OS X so I think that
>>> > using a PPC emulator or even an API like crossover or perhaps even
a
>>> > virtual machine will all be moot.  We have unlimited windows 98
>>> > client and I am installing a virtual machine of it right now via
>>> > virtual box.
>>> >
>>> > We can't pick up a new product because there is no way to migrate
>>> > the database to another technology.  The developer says they
promise
>>> > a web based product by 2009, but what does that mean?  All it
means
>>> > to me is that this next school year I will be forced to do
whatever
>>> > it takes to get this software to work.
>>> >
>>> > This is a known issue and is why the developer offered to pay 90%
of
>>> > our one year lease costs of WinXP Pro on 6,000 clients.
>>> >
>>> > I have done this before in iMac labs with Bombich's software and
the
>>> > boot camp beta, and it all worked.  However, the 1:1 laptop
>>> > environment is a bit different.  After I get everything up and
>>> > running I got to make sure the machine is still locked down on
both
>>> > sides since our students take their machines home, and because the
>>> > FCC and CIPA require us to filter their Internet surfing.
>>> >
>>> > This will be a project indeed.
>>> >
>>> > Thomas Larkin
>>> > TIS Department
>>> > KCKPS USD500
>>> > tlarki at kckps.org
>>> > cell:  913-449-7589
>>> > office:  913-627-0351
>>>>>> >>>> "Smith, William" <william.smith at merrillcorp.com> 06/30/08
12:24
>>>>>> >>>> PM >>>
>>> > On 6/30/08 12:14 PM, "Thomas Larkin" <tlarki at kckps.org> wrote:
>>> >
>>>> >> Due to powers that be it looks like I must load Windows on all
of
>>>> >> our Macbooks
>>>> >> for one piece of software.  This is a critical piece of software
>>>> >> that our
>>>> >> users need and there is no alternative, for a long story short.
>>>> >> So, the
>>>> >> software company that is in question is offering to pay for 90%
of
>>>>>> >> based one.
>>> >
>>> > Any possibility at all that this could work in CrossOver Mac? I
know
>>> > not
>>> > every Windows application works but if it does work for your
>>> > application
>>> > then it means less overhead.
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> >
>>> > bill
>>> >
>>> > William M. Smith, Technical Analyst
>>> > MCS IT
>>> > Merrill Communications, LLC
>>> > (651) 632-1492
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Casper mailing list
>>> > Casper at list.jamfsoftware.com
>>> > http://list.jamfsoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/casper
>>> >
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>>
>>
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>>
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>> --
>> Miles Leacy
>> Senior Mac Technologist
>> ACTC|ACSA|ACT|CCA
>> Polo Ralph Lauren
>> 212-318-7603
>> miles.leacy at poloralphlauren.com
>>
>>

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