Brent, Several things here. First it is unrealistic to think they are going to have you install Linux on five servers. Second a machine boots fine without the synth present (at least my roommate's does) it just wont speak until the next go round. If you had to boot them all so that the synth was there for speach you would be forced to either use five synths, or a switch for the ports and boot them succesively. But back to reality. Reality is that you will probably never ever need to work on the console. Reality is that they will not take a production server down for no reason. They don't reboot their servers unless they are having serious problems or upgrading the kernel. Again reality is they won't do that unless there is a reason. If you are working on an established server you will telnet there. That is just the way life is. There are administrators who spend years never going to the console. They don't reboot the servers either. Think about it, if you reboot regularly how would you have a server up for five years? In fact, each of those long time machines without a reboot represents an outdated kernel. But if the machine works and there is not a security threat why take it down? ======= Kirk Wood Cpt.Kirk at 1tree.net
