[2756] in Release_7.7_team
Possible last minute change to Dell Athena config?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Thu May 24 12:12:04 2001
Message-ID: <Mv3H=E5z0001IHTJoZ@mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 16:12:00 +0000 ()
From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
To: owls@MIT.EDU, release-team@MIT.EDU
CC: kathleen@MIT.EDU, marion@MIT.EDU, bmurphy@MIT.EDU
I REALLY don't want to be sending this message, but I feel it is my duty
to go over this issue.
I just helped the Pismere folks cook up a configuration VERY similar to
the Athena Dell GX150 config. They wanted 2 differences:
Microsoft Intellimouse instead of our Cheapo mouse.
DVD/CD-RW combo drive instead of the CD-RW drive.
I didn't even know there WAS such a thing as a combo drive.
It's like $30 more. (This combo drive is normally only offered in the
mini-tower case, so Dell inadvertently helped me remain ignorant.)
QUESTION:
Do we want to stretch the Athena config a TEENY bit more and add DVD to
the CD-RW?
Risks:
Maybe the DVD won't work under Linux, and will throw us into turmoil.
Disadvantages:
We have a dozen machines with the wrong kind of CD drive. (We already
had half a dozen with no RW so this is not a big thing in my opinion.)
We are changing horses at the last minute.
We risk having cluster machines become movie watching systems.
Advantages:
We sort of were sad to see DVD leave the clusters when we opted for CD-RW.
Athena and Pismere will be deploying IDENTICAL systems. (I'll recommend
that staff systems get the fancier mouse, but that cluster Athena AND
Pismere go for the cheapo mouse.)
Brian?
Phil?
Andrew?
You are the ones who need to say yay or nay.
-wdc
