[gentoo-user] Putting gentoo to work :)

[Alexandru Mincu]

Hi guys,
I have(or better may have) a project to build and maintain a company's
network.
I was thinking into proposing gentoo since it's got my heart, but I have
some questions about which things should i use for a base installation.
My setup will look like this:
big server with 2 or 3 gigabit ethernet cards and lots of sata drives in a
big raid array.
disk less workstations with 512mb or 1gb of ram, nvidia or integrated video
and a gigabit ethernet card.
and of course a gigabit ethernet switch.

First of all let's start with the clients...
I am a Gnome fan and I think it is better and simpler to use, but them if
you have windows users that you want to put to use linux, kde might be a
better option... although this is a matter of taste I would accept some
suggestions(without killing each other here), bu please take in
consideration all the things i want to add.

Things required:
Email,
Calendar  sharing,
IM,
Office suite,
other bullshit managers use to put you to work(suggestions accepted here) :)
Web  browsing,
A content management system

I also think that some eye candy would be gr8 to have ... I tried both
compiz and beryl, but none were stable for me... it's true i was using
nvidia's beta driers but anyway. have any of you tried compiz or beryl?
which one is really stable and ready to use for a company? Is the
Xgl+(compiz|beryl) variant stable? I for one really liked beryl's features
but it seems to be more unstable than compiz.

Now for updates .. which profile do you think would better suit a company ..
should I use hardend gentoo? Is there a version of gentoo that keeps things
down with the upgrades to stable packages or I should keep my own tree and
sync only the stuff I want and test into it?

Now the nice part,
What about the disk less clients? is there a way to keep a stable file
system for all the workstations without requiring to copy all the base files
for each workstation? It would be nice to be able to dynamical add
workstations to the network without requiring admin intervention...
>From what I have seen in the gentoo diskless faq it suggested doing an
separate dir for each client in the network....

The big questions are:
What software/configurations would you use if you would want to do this with
gentoo?
What are the good points in using the system instead of using MS Windows
(besides the money)?

PS: Excuse my English.

Thanks,
Alexandru Mincu < mincua@×××××.com>
Tel: [phone]