Re: Need Linux on a bunch of computers quickly and easily

From: Jacob Westenbach (westy528_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 09/17/03 

Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 18:49:26 GMT

"Jason Victor" <jasonv118@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:dd2b07b0.0309170802.27d5abec@posting.google.com...
> Hello all.
>
> I have a problem. I have fifteen kids with Windows laptops, and I need
> all of them to be able to use Linux as a programming environment.
> Basically, they need to be able to boot into Linux into some sort of
> programming environment, work on stuff, save stuff, and then reboot
> back into Windows. Partitioning is not an easy option... in this
> situation it is too risky and impractical.
>
> I considered VMWare. I could just have all of them install VMWare and
> then I could set up a Linux "VMWare install" on my own machine and
> simply give them the hard disk files. The problem with this is that it
> is oppressively slow, and they might not all of machines capable of
> running VMware at all. Furthermore, it is uncertain whether I could
> get the funding to get 15 licenses of VMWare.
>
> Off the top of my head, I can think of those "Bootable CD" distros and
> the distros that install into a FAT partition. Does anybody have any
> suggestions? I'm searching for simplicity... say, a bootable CD with
> IceWM, xterm and GCC or something, that can save files to a FAT or
> NTFS partition.
>
> Can anybody help me out with some ideas?
>
> Thanks!

One option not presented by others is to set up a Linux Terminal Server
Project server and the appropriate number of boot diskettes for the class.
Set up a common storage directory branch on the server so they'll have place
to store their files. The only "gotcha" in this is that all of the real
work is done on the server rather than the clients. Thus, the server needs
both ram quantity and horsepower.

JW

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