Re: Linux at school with notebooks

From: Dances With Crows (danSPANceswitTRAPhcrows_at_gmail.com)
Date: 10/13/05 

Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 13:47:00 -0500

On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 20:25:53 +0200, Geir Holmavatn staggered into the
Black Sun and said:
> "Peter T. Breuer" <ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote:
>> What the heck is a "half-fat client"? Don't speak in nonsense
>> jargon, man!

I was wondering that too. (Geir, as a quick groups.google will show,
Peter doesn't seem to know what "tact" is. Don't take it personal; he's
like this with *everyone*.)

>> If you want to use a file server offering SMB or NFS protocols,
>> what's the problem? Be specific!
> These 300 student's notebooks are of course by default loaded with
> windoze and the students want to use this as their 'offline' os.
> However when connected to the classrooms network I seek creative
> solutions on how to do this with linux servers and some kind of linux
> clients able to boot and run from these notebooks. Maybe boot client
> software from usb memory sticks or CDs?

I thought the Linux Terminal Server Project was developing something; an
"LTSP LiveCD", maybe? http://ltsp.org/ doesn't have any info on that,
but you may want to look at it anyway for future reference. Running a
terminal server for reasonably high-powered laptops seems like a waste
to me, but it means you only have one machine to administer. Or you
could customize a Knoppix CD and burn a bunch of copies of that.

> As mentioned they need print and file storage services

I don't print things, so I can't offer much advice on that. Every
distro in existence groks NFS and SMB, so no worries there.

> internet access, applications as OpenOffice etc. We (I) want as
> little and smooth administration as possible ;-) Now it's up to you
> guys. What options do we have...?

You still haven't provided any specifics about what it is that the
students will actually be doing. A terminal server may work, but it'll
require some setup time, a fairly fast CPU, and lots of RAM. Customized
LiveCDs may be better for some things. Heck, if you have a reasonably
fast machine and enough bandwidth, you could install the Cygwin X server
on the Windows machines, then run X clients on the fast machine and have
the laptops display them on their local X servers. That might be less
work than running Linux on the laptops. 

-- 
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin /    mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong
http://www.brainbench.com     /    "He is a rhythmic movement of the
-----------------------------/      penguins, is Tux." --MegaHAL

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