[plug] y2k help

[Michael Hunt]

> Hi all Pluggers,
>
> This is my first request for help - but first some background our my/the
> schools connection/use of linux - you can skip this if you wish.
>
> I work as a computer technician/network administrator at Lake Joondalup
> Baptist College and was introduced to Linux when we had an internet
> server intsalled to connect our admin computers to the www last year.
> We converted that into a student file server and dual modem internet
> connection at the beginning of this year.  At present we are still
> running our library software on Window NT 4.0 and our Admin aslo has a
> NT 4.0 server for staff workspace/college database.  We are looking at
> switching these both to linux as well at the end of the year following
> Paul Baumgartens success at Kingsway Christian College in doing the
> same.

It is great to see linux in use in places like the college as I believe
Christianity and Open Source have a lot in common. Things like the freedom
to do what was meant to be done, reach the full potential, open etc ...  Did
you no that Larry Wall the creator of the programming Language perl was
originally going to be a missionary overseas !!! Because of some sickness in
his family at the time (I think it was his wife's health wasn't to good) he
stayed In North America and wrote perl instead.  He believes that he has
probably had more impact this way than if had gone with his first desire !!!
Interesting huh ? There is a good interview with him in the Linux Journal
May 1999 edition where he talks about this and other perl issues.

By the way I went for my first "computer job" interview at Kingsway. Pity I
didn't get the job (mainly due to lack of experience), but I did get a
really great reference from the guy there and it landed me my next job !!!

> y2k - help
> We are thinking of switching our clocks forward to test our software for
> y2k complancy - having checked out our hardware - but heard of someone
> who has done this with a Novell server and had a bit of a mess to clean
> up afterwards.  Does anyone know if we are likely to run into problems
> with logs etc by moving our clocks forward for a test and then putting
> them back again.

Well the best way to test a Netware box for Y2K compliancey is with Novells
tool .... but as this is a linux box I'm not sure. I'd say that you wouldn't
really have any problem if you are running a later version distro. It sounds
as if the apps you are running aren't going to be very date induced. i.e. to
use a Netware term there not going to cause your server to abend.

You probably want to see if you can make it to the PLUG meeting tomorrow
night and see if you can discuss this with some of the guys.

> dual modem connection - more help
> At present we are connecting to our ISP using Babylon - but not having
> much success with this - we are having a lot of modem dropouts
> occuring.  Can anyone steer me in the direction of how to acheive the
> same thing using ppp or something similar.
>
> Thanks
>
> Mike Hasleby
>
> Computer Technician/Network Administrator
> Lake Joondalup Baptist College
>