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<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS">[Background]</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">In March of this
year, THE fileserver for a school I tech at crashed.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">It was a Novell
6.0 server handling mail, and all file serving for the school(300
users).</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Linux
firewall/dhcp/proxy/content filter on an old old redhat system of course kept
running fine...</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">So users could
still do web research, visit favorite websites, yadda yadda
etc...</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">As soon as I
arrived on site, I grab'd the machine I was developing a WinXP image for their
'teaching' </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">computer
lab...and slap'd together a mail server in as much time as it takes to install a
bare linux system (25 min or so).</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Tension eased
instantly...only 3 or 4 of the 30+ staff seemed put off by losing access to
their files...</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">The overwhelming
majority were stressed because they lost access to communications via
e-mail.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Then, as I had
been fiddling with K12LTSP on a high end workstation(far from server grade
hardware), I created user accts,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">samba accts and
shares and VOILA! an instant file server for all student traffic the next
day.(with bugs worked out on a daily basis =).</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Windows '98 isn't
the most friendly OS to access a samba share...</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Now the library
computers were the large issue...so...I made a boot floppy...took the crashed
server...threw in some IDE's instead of SCSI hd's..</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">bumped the ram up
another Gig...and installed K12ltsp and 10 generic 'library1-10' users...gave
the floppies to the librarian...</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">re-named
'writer,presenter,calc' to *cough* a name the kids were already familiar
with *end cough*, and heard absolutely nothing from the
librarian</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">except the
printing was slow...so used CUPS instead of LPR and issue solved...nothing but
praise from the students and requests for copies of the CD's
</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">so they can
install it at home...</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Have handed out
nearly 30 'live distros', mandrakemove and knoppix...and 4 full sets of
K12LTSP...</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">unbeknownst to me
at the time...FreeCiv rapidly took over the library and thus I was required to
revert those files to non-executable status.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">The only
hesitation(aside from the printer) on behalf of the students was how to
save/access files from a floppy...</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Currently I have
2 other schools in the Portland area that I will be presenting to their board's
technology sub-committees in an effort to save them</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">a bundle on TCO
as well as make use of a plethora of donated "junkware"...Y'all might be amazed
at how many computers get donated to private schools, </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">and the quality
or lack-thereof of said computers...it's almost as if constituants regard the
schools as a recycling facility...and now with K12LTSP they</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">can actually
function as such to a large degree =)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS">--Huck</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=030335214-01062004><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN> </DIV></BODY></HTML>