Best posts made by jfath

@scottalanmiller @dafyre
Thanks for the welcome! I'm a retired SW dev who now volunteers at 3 Boys and Girls Club locations keeping their network and servers running. I stumbled onto this great site when searching for info about XenServer since I'm being pushed into a switch from Hyper-V by the loss of 5nine Manager. I actually purchased the 5nine license a year ago, but no budget for renewal this year. I was going to get by with the limited, free version... so much for that plan.
As a side note, I've benefitted a good deal over the years by some of the valuable information provided by @scottalanmiller in posts on other sites, so I'm looking forward to lurking here for additional education

Although official support would be great (of course), I'm more concerned with a decent size user base, good documentation, and availability of configuration and troubleshooting information on the Web. VMware's pervasive presence makes it appealing in these areas. But, XS and KVM are also very well known and community support seems good.

After considering the options everyone has presented, I'm going to install and test KVM on a spare server, then move forward with either that or XS/XO. I think the value of an open source solution is the deciding factor for me in this particular case.

It does make me feel like less of a dunce that there are differing opinions even amongst smart, experienced IT guys like the group offering help here on ML I really appreciate all of the effort, information, and suggestions - thank you!

@scottalanmiller said in Hypervisor choice:

I often offer to volunteer my time as I think it is important. Most non-profits turn away IT volunteers, though... too much money to be made handing money off to friends reselling stuff heavily marked up. It's so lucrative that nearly all non-profits I come across will have nothing to do with anyone honest in IT.

Exactly the situation I found when I stepped in. I was disgusted by the waste I found, the unopened network equipment scattered around the offices, the contracts in place for unused support, and on and on. One former staff member had actually been hired by the IT services firm doing most of the work.

Luckily, a new director had recently been hired to oversee operations at all three clubs in the area and he questioned the spending taking place. At this point, they are probably a little too tight, but once bitten...

@hobbit666 If you want to stay with Ubuntu (which is based on Debian), you might have a look at NoMachine for remote desktop. The default NX protocol of NoMachine is a bit more responsive than VNC under Linux in my experience and gives you remote audio.

That said, VNC should work. You might want to try un-commenting the line ‘force_hdmi_hotplug=1’ in /boot/config.txt. That will force the pi to act as if a monitor is plugged into the hdmi port at boot if you're running headless.

@scottalanmiller @JaredBusch

Thanks for the suggestions. I actually evaluated Proxmox along with XS and liked the fact that it was KVM based, but didn't like the confused business model (free/not free) and the steep licensing fees for paying customers.

I want a management GUI and didn't know about virt-manager until I saw a reference here. Maybe I need to re-evaluate.

I run Linux on my desktop and laptops, so I'm not opposed to doing some cli management, but like XO (already built from source using @scottalanmiller 's script).

So, should I back out XS now while it's early? Maybe I need to move that question out of the Welcome section?

This seems like a small amount compared to switching the whole platform. Plus I thought they had no budget for the renewal? But now they can come up with $700 less?

See my comment above about loss of trust. What about next year when it becomes $5000 / year and this year's license expires leaving zero functionality? I'm out.

I had 5x s905x Android boxes scattered around my house. A different brand (Nexbox), but it seems all brands are pretty much an Amlogic reference design.

I really liked them - fast and flexible. I was able to set up the interface to be usable for family. Apps for everything imaginable and auto-update.

Unfortunately, we took a lightning strike nearby a few month ago and it fried every one of the boxes, plus a couple of network switches. No other end devices, just those TV boxes.

I added several network surge surpressors throughout the house and replaced the TV boxes with Fire TVs. I prefer the Nexbox to the Fire TV. Amazon makes it tough to change the launcher and the new interface is much more concerned with selling you something than helping you find what you want to watch.

I think you'll be pleased with the Android box.

I also understand that my use case is not typical. I believe strongly in the work the B&G Clubs do and am happy that the money they are saving on IT can be used to provide other services for the kids. If this were a for-profit or the unit directors I work with were pulling down big bucks, my criteria would be different. These local clubs do good work on a shoe string budget.

@dashrender said in AD best practices:
...

So in your case I would be more apt to setup an AD/DNS/DHCP VM and a file serving VM. At minimum I'd probably put DNS on the second VM as well - this would allow you use Windows DNS and reboot either VM without causing an internet interruption.

@wirestyle22 said in [AD best practices]

It can seriously hinder your work to not be able to reboot your domain controller at will.

Thank you - that's exactly the input I was looking for. So single DC with DNS, DHCP on one VM and another VM on the same physical machine running DNS and FS. Perfectly simple - easy to install and maintain.