Ted Roche wrote: > The K12LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) lets you take one powerful > machine and run a lab full of vintage machines (PII-300 laptops w/ no > HDD, for example) running images off the main server and allowing > centralized administration -- shades of mini-computers!
I've set up a lab in my wife's fourth-grade classroom consisting of a vintage server (P4; 512MB RAM; 80GB HDD), and historic computers of various grades. She switches on the server in the morning, and the kids turn on a workstation when they need it. The workstations are thin: they netboot Linux from the server. This is with KUbuntu which is based on LTSP. She's had no problems and the students each get their own login, a web browser with flash and javascript, the full OpenOffice.org productivity suite, and a networked laser printer. Not to mention some really fun games and educational programs. I set this up 2 years ago, and it has been near-zero maintenance. In the meantime, the school district purchased one MacBook for every fourth grade teacher, and a rolling cart of 35 MacBooks for each school that each fourth grade classroom gets access to one day a week. While this has generally been seen as positive, and it is good getting a laptop into each student's hands, IMO they did it completely wrong by not maintaining them centrally. Each MacBook installs its own applications, and things get screwed up all the time. I just wonder, if an objective assessment were made, if they would not have chosen to go with Linux netbooks and a beefy server for every classroom, which could have been had for (I think) a similar cost to the smaller number of MacBooks. Paul _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
