Geb and I had a brief discussion the other day about organizing computer usage and files on the computers. The general idea is to ensure that each computer (especially upstairs) acts as a workstation, so that it doesn’t matter which computer someone uses — the files s/he needs to get to will be accessible and persistent from any computer (with exception to OS-specific software). In other words, there should be one centralized storage location for project files such as code, Pro/E files, Eagle files, etc. Thus, there should only be one version (with a trail of older versions) of each file, rather than different versions on different computers. As far as design goes, this will become more useful as time goes on if we build part libraries with components such as mote boards (with mounting holes), bottles, baskets, etc as well as components that are accurate to the specific things we find in the electronics shop (accurate drawings of fasteners, battery clips, etc). It should be relatively easy to configure software to recognize this type of file storage. Both Pro/E and Eagle use specified ‘home’ directories where it will start looking for projects. It will also be important to use one persistent Eagle part library, whose location can be specified in the Eagle config…. The next step is to back up this file storage on to the external HD (Gregg is working on this, but his work may need to be adapted if we change the way files are stored).
This can be kind of complicated with both *nix and Windows computers. I think that using the grok-server computer on the northwest wall as a file server with a Samba server is the way to do this, but I’m not sure. This article, (found on the Samba website) seems like all the guide we will need to set this up. I’ve started by renaming each of the computers based on cardinal directions (east, southeast, etc) so we know who is who. The next step is to make sure the grok-server can see everybody else, and then to get an installation of Samba running. I know that I’ve played with Samba on that computer in the past (and I think Geb has as well). It may be easier to wipe the configs and start from scratch?