[K12OSN] one slow terminal - one fast one.

["Terrell Prudé, Jr."]

Petre, I think you're right; you probably do know the answer.  However, 
I'll say it anyway.

My district is completely and totally wedded to the Wintel upgrade 
treadmill, all in the name of "providing the latest technology to our 
children."  There are two problems in their minds with the Optiplexes, 
as far as I can tell.

1.)  They don't "look new".  They "look old".  Thus, we don't "appear" 
to parents like we're "providing our children with the latest and greatest."

2.)  They don't run Windows XP and MS Office 2003 lightning-fast.

The district *isn't* thinking.  That's the problem; you have people 
making technical decisions that know nothing about technology.  
Furthermore, anyone who actually has a clue is viewed as a "threat" to 
them, and they slam down any such clueful person by any expedient 
means.  It's really sad.

Ironically, the demo of K12LTSP 4.2.1 that I did last month was for our 
"magnet school", and it was a huge success.  I used Dell Optiplex GX1's 
alongside the Power Mac and UltraSPARC clients.  The kids were 
thoroughly impressed.

--TP

Petre Scheie wrote:

> I hate to ask this (because I think I know the answer) but why is your 
> district throwing out working terminals?  That's one of the selling 
> points of LTSP is that the terminals don't have to be replaced until 
> they die (and I know you know this, we've both been on this list a 
> long time ;-)).  But I have to ask what the district is thinking here.
>
> Petre
>
> Terrell Prudé, Jr. wrote:
>
>> Yes, I have seen this.  Many times.
>>
>> Dell Optiplex GX1's, of which my district has a ton, are known to 
>> have issues with the BIOS with respect to the built-in NICs.  
>> Depending on the BIOS revision, some will stay locked at 
>> 10Mbps/HalfDuplex, and others won't even PXE boot.  Your 
>> slow-responding terminal sounds like it likely has the 10Mb/HDX 
>> locking issue.  Flashing the Optiplex's BIOS has fixed the problem 
>> for me every time.
>>
>> Jim, if you're reading this by any chance, then just in case, it'd be 
>> a good idea to flash the BIOS's on all the Optiplexes you sell, if 
>> you're not already doing it.  And I agree with you; they make very 
>> fine LTSP terminals.  It's a shame my district is throwing them out 
>> (hint hint).
>>
>> --TP
>>
>> Joshua Sanders wrote:
>>
>>> I am setting up my 5th K12 terminal system and here in sunny st. croix,
>>> and i ran into a problem i can't figure out. I was wondering if 
>>> anyone had
>>> an idea.
>>>
>>> The walls are 4 foot concrete so i concerved on running cable by 
>>> running
>>> one or two runs from building to building and then putting a switch 
>>> in...
>>> (of couse following the swtich/hub/router guidelines.) I am in the 
>>> great
>>> room of this plantation home with two teminals and my wireless laptop
>>> here. I can log in from my laptop through VNC with no problem. One 
>>> of the
>>> terminals works great (speed wise) and the other one loads the 
>>> graphical
>>> greeter line by line.  The wireless router, and both terminals are 
>>> plugged
>>> into the same switch, and i tried switching the cables from the one 
>>> that
>>> is fast to the that is slow to make sure it was not a cable issue.
>>>
>>> The Terminals are all are the same model refurbished dells from
>>> disklessworkstation.com same mouse and key board. I cannot seem to find
>>> anything different in the .conf, and i am fresh out of ideas. Any 
>>> one seen
>>> this before?
>>>
>>> Joshua Sanders
>>>
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>>>  
>>>
>>
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