George wrote:
> A friend has a small company with  Novell network.
> 
> It has served very well for many years.
> 
> He is having troubles finding someone to support Novell and wants to move to
> something else.
> 
> His work stations are basically MS (98, 2K, XP).
> 
> MS people are telling him to go MS.
> 
> I am telling him to go Linux and am leaning to CentOS.  He is willing.
> 
> I want to be absolutely certain (if there is such a thing) that CentOS Linux
> will not be a mistake.

I think is a good choice. I set up a small office w/ MS work stations 
with a RedHat9 (predecessor of CentOS) and have had no problems. It's 
only problem has been when there's a power outage. :)

I've since installed CentOS to play around with. Appears to be identical 
to RH, sans logos and such. I'd like to upgrade the RH9 box to CentOS 
sometime in the future. (Then again, if it ain't broke, ...)

> Any negative war stories about CentOS serving an MS workstation world?

Not that I'm aware of.

> What about Raid?

I set it up with software raid-1 (mirrored entire hard drive). Piece of 
cake with anaconda and disk druid (installers with RH, and CentOS).

> We are probably going to build the box and want quality components.  Any
> recommendations on the best (if there is such a thing) Mobo?

I used Dell Poweredge 400SC (now SC420). I even use that model as a 
workstation. Best bang for the buck I've found. 2.8G P-4 /w HT, 400MH 
FSB, dual channel RAM, SATA, GB nic, all for ~$400 (plus whatever more 
for add'l RAM, 2nd HDD). Dell has a linux mail list too.

> I feel comfortable with power supplies and memory.  Any other components of
> a critical (quality wise) nature?
> 
> It's a small co, less than 10 workstations in the foreseeable future.
> 
> Therefore what would be a good minimum for:
> 
>   CPU speed?
> 
>   Memory size and speed?
> 
>   Other?
> 
> Thnx,
> 
> George

I'd be eager to help your friend with the conversion. Please let me know 
if I can be of any assistance.

-- 
-Eric 'shubes'
"There is no such thing as the People;
  it is a collectivist myth.
  There are only individual citizens
  with individual wills
  and individual purposes."
-William E. Simon (1927-2000),
     Secretary of the Treasury (1974-1977)
  "A Time For Truth" (1978), pg. 237

 
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