FinalCut and Netboot --Can I make it work?

LoneWolf15 · #1 August 6th, 2007, 12:51 PM

Hi all,

I have to admit that while I've watched over a lab of Macs and an OS X Server for several years, I'm still a novice at it. Despite that, I've managed to keep it going amongst my other sysadmin duties in a K-12 educational environment.

We just procured a lab of 30 new iMac 20" models, a new XServe, and a LaCie Biggest RAID box for backup, replacing our aging Graphite G4's running 10.3 and our Quicksilver Panther server. My plan for this coming year was to make life easier by switching to Netboot, and making our logins more seamless as well. All has been going well with figuring out the transition, but I'm concerned about Final Cut Express HD, which I purchased bundled with our machines to expand our horizons a little. It appears that Apple does not support running it under NetBoot from the docs I've found.

Has anyone here set this up successfully? I'm concerned first about the 30 individual serial numbers causing issues. I think I can get around any scratch disk issues by making a partition on the local iMac a scratch disk, but as I said, I'm swimming in unfamiliar waters. Any help any of you can provide would be most appreciated.

Satcomer · #2 August 6th, 2007, 08:55 PM

Well I don't have the privilege of using Macs in my IT job. However at guest lecturing at different shops (in my field) I come across people (using multiple Macs, etc.) getting help from Bombich.com.

Other useful web sites include MacOSXHints.com, MacWindows.com, Accelerate Your Macintosh, Oreilly.com (for technical manuals) and this little neat opensource remote login video.

I sorry but I don't use FinalCut but I hope this helps you in your quest to know more.

Finally watching the multiple tutorials at Apple Remote Desktop that might answer your question. The videos even talk about school administration.

Go3iverson · #3 August 8th, 2007, 12:41 AM

Kind of a slippery slope here. You really don't even want to run Final Cut with a network home directory, let alone the whole OS, application and user home data.

LoneWolf15 · #4 August 14th, 2007, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Go3iverson

Kind of a slippery slope here. You really don't even want to run Final Cut with a network home directory, let alone the whole OS, application and user home data.

I don't plan to have users do their work in the home directory, nor save there. We have a partition on the iMac hard disks for that which also serves as the scratch disk, and we also have a number of external firewire drives. But that doesn't mean I don't need the program to run from our Netboot image.