The Institute Lorentz Desktops will be upgraded to a new version of the Fedora Core Operating System during Februari 2015. Last year we already introduced you to the Fedora Core OS as a preparation for the complete streamining of the Linux Desktops between the Lorentz Institute and the Sterrewacht. During this year's upgrade we will not only upgrade the OS to the latest version but we will also modify the boot system and disk partitioning of your machine. Once this is done all Linux Desktops, either IL or STRW, will be similar in configuration, decreasing the workload of the system management so that we will have more time for personal IT support and providing the means for customizing each Desktop software to your requirements.

The disks will be repartitioned to make available as much disk space as possible for local storage. The local disk will store the operating system and in addition one (1) partition will be available for storing data locally. This used to be named /export/data, but in the new layout will have the name /data1. For Desktops that have a second disk, that disk will be named /data2.

In fact the latest installs (dou, ravenswaaij, buytendijk, ruisdael and weenix) already have this layout for several months.

The new disk configuration will unleash the full remaining disk space (the area left over besides the OS required space). So there might become available a very large local disk space, much larger than the current 50GB of /export/data, even going up to 2TB in cases where a /data2 is present, such as ravenswaaij. It then becomes impossible to backup all those large disks to a centralized storage environment. When you want a backup of your personal data disks we advise you to order a USB-disk from bestellingen@lorentz.leidenuniv.nl and provide your SAPnumber. This way you have full control over the backups yourself. In fact this is the system in place at the Sterrewacht for several years now, to everyone's satisfaction.

The local disk is available to any desktop in the Lorentz Institute when you refer to it as /net/[SYSTEMNAME]/data1, where [SYSTEMNAME] is the computer name of the desktop. So if you want to access the second disk of the computer ravenswaaij you address it as /net/ravenswaaij/data2.

Contrary to the current setup where you sometimes were presented with a long wait at reboot of the desktop, the new system configuration should always boot within 30 seconds. Well, the very old machines might take some longer time. This is because updates to the system are done on a regular basis (during night time usually) and not at boot time anymore.

Since we need to repartition your desktop's internal disk and also need to reconfigure the BIOS we will have to physically interfere with your machine. This might take some time in cases where the /export/data partition does contain data. We need to secure that data onto a temporary location before we can repartition your disk. Upon completion of the upgrade that data will be restored to the new /data1 partition. Not all machines have data in /export/data. You probably know best if your machine needs this data copying exercise, but here is a list of special cases we have identified.

Please indicate a timeslot for which an upgrade is least intrusive and email that information to “helpdesk@lorentz.leidenuniv.nl”. We will schedule the upgrade accordingly.

In the mean time the maris cluster will also be upgraded to the Fedora Core 21 version so that both desktops and cluster machines will move to the same OS version as is currently the case with the Fedora Core 20 version. More about that later.