[K12OSN] LTSP vs PC

Shawn Iverson shawn at nccsc.k12.in.us
Thu Apr 1 22:09:18 UTC 2004


I am responding to this thread because I am deeply concerned that the school
system at which I work will be throwing away the ability to pursue
opensource soon.  The school system wants to upgrade this network of 1200+
computers spanning 7 elementary schools, 1 middle school, and 1 high school
to Windows Server 2003 from NT 4. The network is almost entirely M$ (no
surprise huh?).  

I recommended turning over to Samba instead of a Windows upgrade, but that
idea didn't sink in.  Furthermore, I and an intern tried making an
opensource email server that could replace Exchange, but that didn't work
because the new server lacked such features as automatic name/address
completion (when a user's name is partially typed into the "To:" box in
Outlook).  Since I am unfamiliar with databases such as LDAP, I could not
provide an alternative to the Windows Global Directory either.

I noticed a while back that M$ released their Windows Services for Unix for
free (?).  The details of this service were unbelievable and seemed that it
would fulfill everything I need to integrate Linux into the existing
environment.  Upon closer inspection I found that M$ requires a CAL for any
machine, Windows or not, utilizing a Windows server service.  Furthermore,
my boss is requiring that in order for Linux to be used, the user
name/password must the same as in the Windows environment, and it must
provide access to the same home directories.  I have successfully done this
using pam_winbind and pam_mount, but apparently going this route would
require CALs too and may not even work at all with AD.  It doesn't look like
the domain controllers and the file servers will be replaced with opensource
alternatives anytime soon.

On Thursday, April 01, 2004 9:17 AM Jim Hays wrote:
> I started to answer this last night but didn't send it.  My answer was
> similar to George's.  Here is what I run into:
> 
> "This is not what the kids will see in college or the work place."
> "My software (Accelerated Reader, Inspiration, etc) won't run on this."

I am having problems involving just these two.  The school system here will
not let its grip loose on these applications.  Furthermore, I have been
unsuccessful in getting these apps to run under wine, especially from a
Windows network server, as it is set up here.  Another one is KidPix.  Tux
Paint would have worked just fine, but no, that wouldn't do because
everything was organized differently.





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