Ok, so I’m the assistant system admin at my (mostly) all-Mac school.
These infernal computers are the spawn of ! :<
EVERY DAY there’s a new schoolwide problem and I reimage all of the labs once a month. Ack…
who cares…
Ok, so I’m the assistant system admin at my (mostly) all-Windows school.
These infernal computers are the spawn of ! :<
EVERY DAY there’s a new schoolwide problem and I reimage all of the labs once a month. Ack…
(most of the above is actually true, though the every day statment is a bit much, ususally)
Windows isn’t any better, neither is linux. Get used to it
(I got to image 24 computers and do windoze update on them today, I still get to clean off more than 120 computers [their exteriors, there is still soot coming from somewhere] and create probably 120 more user accounts)
This post isn’t worth the DB space it takes up.
Blah blah blah this thing is better than the other thing blah blah blah blah the thing you like sucks blah blah people who like that thing are idiots blah blah blah evil blah blah blah blah blah.
This is a serious problem, which continues to plague most school systems.
Another reason why public schools are a sham.
Bloody socialism.
Just don’t give too much permissions to the users, that way they can’t screw things up.
Martin
i clicked that im over 35 and live at home
just for humorous purposes…
in truth, im only 16, so wutever,
i also hate macs, just because im closed minded and HATE the way there OS is, it just pisses my off
sometimes it just makes me wanna (BANG BANG BANG *head into wall)
It’s not the users…
The Macs have the same problem as Windows, they get “clogged up”, except they manage to do it in about a week. I’ve reimaged all the computers in both labs about 5 or 6 times the past months…
The only nice thing about OSX is that it’s UNIX based, so I can run a terminal and pretend I’m in Linux…
WeirdHat, why don’t you try using a Mac for about 2 days. You’ll discover that they are the root of all evil.
Why don’t you automaticly network reghost them each week? Would save you some troubles.
Martin
Any of these OSes can get the job done, and with proper admin they are reliable.
In one of my previous careers I worked in many different capacities managing PCs, Macs, and various Unix machines. Hands down the Macs and Unix machines were always lower maintenance and more reliable than the PCs, and now that Macs are also Unix (BSD) they are even more stable than they were in past generations.
My experiences are not unique, since most statistics show that Macs are much less expensive for IT departments to maintain than their Windows counterparts.
The only major downside I exerienced maintaining Windows labs in educational environments was that the OS itself is much easier to hack and modify even with proper admin settings. One semi-competent student on a Windows machine can cause more problems with freeware hacks than is possible on other systems.
The problems mentioned here about Macs being unreliable are contrary to every major IT study done, even by those who are blatantly anti-Mac. This sounds to more like a competency problem with the IT management rather than a problem with the OS itself.
No, in this case, it’s the main admin. As you say, Os X is unix, so a correctly configured computer can not be messed up by the user, period.
And it does not destroy itself magically.
For a lab, you can even make them boot from network and work as diskless station without anything the base user can do to mess it up.
Here, I have one which have not been shutdown for 7 month (it’s still in an old 10.2) and the system is in pristine condition, althougth the load is heavy on it.
Any Os can make the job done, but in my experience the needed support is much less for macs (classic or X) than for PC. And macs on shipping have less misconfiguration than any windblow version.
On a previous job, there was one support person for the 100+ slowlaris and 50 macs and he was not overtaxed by the work, wheras there was 3 for the 80 PCs. There was also admins for the servers but they did only that.
For unix (vendor sources or linux) things are heavily dependant of the knowledge of the admin. In the right hands they are perfect, but misconfigure them, and this is a nightmare.
I have used macs. I like them a lot. This is all just your opinion, not a proven fact, and not everybody agrees with you.
I see the same where I am, the macs just work, for maybe a couple years, then are fixed/upgraded, then a couple years later are replaced.
unlike the windoze machines which need to be fixed in one form or another monthly, however I think we have had the windows machines for longer (os9 imacs, and p3 800 and p3 450 systems here…)
however we don’t have as competent admins for the macs (myself included) the stuff that must be done to configure a mac makes sense and works.
I have used macs. I like them a lot. This is all just your opinion, not a proven fact, and not everybody agrees with you.[/quote]
No . Glad you explained this to me, because I wouldn’t have known already. And since apparently, if something’s not a fact, then it’s an opinion, then that would make all statements, even “2 + 2 = 4” purely opinion because nothing can be truely proven.
take two apples, then put another two apples next to them. If that ain’t for apples then i don’t know what is. 
jk
I have used macs. I like them a lot. This is all just your opinion, not a proven fact, and not everybody agrees with you.[/quote]
No . Glad you explained this to me, because I wouldn’t have known already. And since apparently, if something’s not a fact, then it’s an opinion, then that would make all statements, even “2 + 2 = 4” purely opinion because nothing can be truely proven.[/quote]
What? When did I say anything that suggested that?
You think macs are bad, I think macs are good. Those are opinions. Maybe you’re right from your point of view and I’m right from my point of view. Maybe you’re completely right and I’m missing something. Maybe I’m completely right and you’re missing something. But there’s no substantial evidence to prove which of those it is, and neither one of us is likely to change our opinion, which is why arguments like these are futile.
I would hate to be admin at my uni. Unix based, but we always find a way to stuff it up. Once we were given an assignment on unix proccesses. Some idiot had his fork call in an infinate loop. The system was running so slow it took the admin ages to kill the procces. This didn’t just happen once either, he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with his program and kept trying to run it.
I have used macs. I like them a lot. This is all just your opinion, not a proven fact, and not everybody agrees with you.[/quote]
No . Glad you explained this to me, because I wouldn’t have known already. And since apparently, if something’s not a fact, then it’s an opinion, then that would make all statements, even “2 + 2 = 4” purely opinion because nothing can be truely proven.[/quote]
What? When did I say anything that suggested that?
You think macs are bad, I think macs are good. Those are opinions. Maybe you’re right from your point of view and I’m right from my point of view. Maybe you’re completely right and I’m missing something. Maybe I’m completely right and you’re missing something. But there’s no substantial evidence to prove which of those it is, and neither one of us is likely to change our opinion, which is why arguments like these are futile.[/quote]
You’re right, it’s beyond futile.
Let’s just agree on this:
- Macs are preferred or even just liked by some people
- Macs, like almost any computer are a living hell to work with when you’re an admin of a high school with over 1000 computers.
(emphasis mine)
if there is any computer that can do something useful, and isn’t a pain to admin 1000 of I would very much like to hear of it.
Half of the problem with administiring a number of computers (even 2 or 3 home machines) is that their use and requirements change over time, you NEVER can do things just once.