[K12OSN] LTSP sites in New York

Wed Aug 17 19:04:17 UTC 2005

Petre

Before accepting any slaps on the back, I should mention <shameless  
plug> that the funding was provided by the social responsibility wing  
of UniForum South Africa, a non-profit organisation that maintains  
the .co.za domain. They were founded several years back as a South  
African user group: the Unix Forum.

In response to your questions:

1. It's actually more than twice as much bang for buck, because for  
the Linux sites not only can we provide twice as many computers:
  a. we provide hands-on training (through a subcontracted training  
company). This training provides teachers with national level credits  
if they meet the assessment criteria. Training is critical as in many  
cases this is the first exposure of the school to ICTs.
  b. we provide telephonic and e-mail support for the first year  
while they get the hang of it
  c. and of course all software upgrades are free and gratis in  
perpetuity, unlike our early efforts, using that other operating  
system. We ensure that the schools get the newest release of K12LTSP  
as it becomes available. btw we have tried several LTSP offerings  
with varying levels of success and find K12LTSP to be the all-round  
best. It's rock-solid in hot and dusty African environments and, very  
NB for the schools we work in, it has a dead easy upgrade path.
If we were to remove the cost of training and support, we could  
install more equipment. However, these elements are important for new  
users and furthermore 20 clients is about right for the average size  
of classroom which we convert into a computer lab. Also, much of our  
expense lies in the logistics of installing in deep rural areas. We  
could do things cheaper in urban areas. Looking at the overall  
picture, considering such elements as refurbished PCs (environmental  
and economic benefits), less of a theft problem with thin clients,  
lower power consumption, ease of administration, range of  
applications that ship with K12LTSP etc etc I'd say LTSP is more like  
ten times bang for buck. If one considers all this from a perspective  
of sustainable ICT solutions, the facts speak for themselves. Now I  
am interested to see if this sustainability argument is relevant only  
to the under-developed world, or whether it is equally applicable to  
a leading global city such as New York. My hypothesis, based on  
lurking on a number of discussion lists, is that there are synergies  
worth exploring. In particular I am looking for irrefutable evidence  
that LTSP should not be read as carrying a "Good for Africa" stamp. I  
need to convince certain closed-minded bureaucrats that it's a world- 
class solution at a fraction of the cost of anything we have known  
before, and part of that argument involves illustrative cases from  
the developed world.

2. The 20-client sites are P4 (whatever is entry level at the time -  
currently 3GHz) with 2GB RAM, and the 40-client sites (only one so  
far) are dual Xeon with 4GB RAM on a gigabit backbone with 100mb  
clients. In fact all our newly deployed sites now run on GB backbone  
since it's become cost effective to do so, using entry level,  
unmanaged switches. The rest: as far as clients are concerned it's  
all the usual suspects - old P1's with 32-64MB RAM. Dells, IBMs and  
Compaqs are just great, but we use anything we can lay our hands on -  
and people are practically throwing them out - even in South Africa.  
Esigodini is working faultlessly, and interestingly I find that the  
40 clients running simultaneously with a range of apps, even biggies  
like OOo, open does not max out the RAM on the server - only gets to  
just over 3GB used, with the occasional spike to 4GB as the apps  
startup. It almost never goes into swap space. We upgraded the  
Esigodini Primary School site from 20 to 40 clients because of the  
oustanding enthusiasm we got from the principal there - they are now  
even conducting their own training courses for the local community.

cheers
ed

On 17 Aug 2005, at 4:35 PM, Petre Scheie wrote:

> Edward-
> Looking over the list of schools to which you've provided labs, I'm  
> impressed with all you've accomplished.   Congratulations!
>
> A couple questions come to mind:
>
> 1.  I noticed that prior to 2002, the labs consisted of 10 Windows  
> computers, but from 2002 forward, the labs are K12LTSP servers with  
> around 20 clients (the latest one has 40 clients!).  Is the same  
> amount of money being spent building the labs?  It appears you're  
> getting twice as much bang for the buck by switching to LTSP.  Is  
> that the case?
>
> 2.  What are the specs on the hardware you use for the servers? I'm  
> particularly interested in how the server at Esigodini Primary  
> School, with its 40 clients, is working out.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Petre
>
> Edward Holcroft wrote:
>
>> Hi list
>> I am visiting New York City in September (from South Africa) and  
>> was  hoping to visit sites there, preferably schools, that are  
>> using LTSP  or just plain Linux. Our small non-profit organisation  
>> has deployed  about 40 K12LTSP computer labs to severely  
>> disadvantaged schools in  rural South Africa with great success. I  
>> am interested to see how  differently things are done in the  
>> developed world, and what lessons  I can take back home with me.
>> Any leads will be really welcome. I already know about The Beacon   
>> School in Manhattan and have set up something with them.
>> You can see short summaries of  what we have done at http://co.za/  
>> cares/netday_proj.html
>> Thanks in advance
>> ed
>> PS It would help if any leads you give me are easily reachable by   
>> regular public transport from Manhattan.
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