[K12OSN] Workstation setup troubles

[Paul VanGundy]

Kari

>From my personal experience with both Ubuntu and Edubuntu, setting up LTSP
from scratch on Ubuntu is the better way to go then running Edubuntu right
now. LTSP just isn't working properly on Edubuntu. Seems to be very slow.
It's not just my experience either. However, I take it that that won't be an
option right now due to lack of some experience. That's ok. Although I
personally prefer Ubuntu with LTSP installed over K12LTSP (I'm a Debian guy,
give me a break :P) I believe K12LTSP is the place you want to start.
K12LTSP is *VERY* easy to set up, even for a Linux novice or newbie and it's
easy to use interface won't let you down. Besides, the community for K12LTSP
is much broader than any other LTSP community to date. 

I do agree with Barry, learning Samba and LDAP is a trial and error process.
It will also require you to do a lot of Googling. The majority of what I
have learned about Linux, K12LTSP, LTSP, Open Source (or OpenSource to some
;)), etc. was from trial and error and a lot of time researching on the web.
I'm sure I am not alone in that experience.

Scribus is, in my humble opinion, one of the better MS Publisher equivalents
you are going to find. After sitting down and playin garound with it for
awhile myself and a couple of others were able to make nice looking
publications. Like anything, once you get the hang of it....

Now, as far as Gcompris on Ubuntu, I can sympathize. I am having the exact
same issue on my Ubuntu boxes. Periodically Gcompris will just quit without
warning. This has happened on several different boxes and even different
machines. I haven't really looked into yet as Gcompris isn't highly used
yet. 

Finally, many of us don't just work with K12LTSP so you might find a lot of
help here. Always feel free to ask any questions you may have. The only dumb
question you can have, is the one you didn't ask. ;)

-Paul

--
Paul VanGundy
Information Technology Director
Epping High School
Epping Middle School
P: 603.679.5472
F: 603.679.2966
vangundypw at sau14.k12.nh.us
Registered Linux User #398783

-----Original Message-----
From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf
Of Barry Cisna
Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 1:38 PM
To: K12OSN
Subject: [K12OSN] Workstation setup troubles

Hello Kari,

Welcome to the K12LTSP world !.
In answer to your questions, SMB_LDAP, will take quite a bit of reading and
actual hands on experience to get acclimated with the inner workings of how
Winders & Linux authenticate to each other regardless of your particular
network layout. There are lots of little tweaks to make it come together,and
to do authentication, but once learned is the "only way to go".
I good "lightweight" word processor and is quite a bit faster than OOo is
Abiword. For most word processing, Abiword is adequate for a k-12 school
scenario.You should be able to do a search for "Abiword rpm for fc4" for
example and just do an rpm install of Abiword for whatever version of
K12LTSP you  are running.
In regards to GCompris, you shouldn't have any troubles with it running on
thin clients. The only scenario Ive ever had of GCompris crashing is at
first when setting up Imacs..to boot from Linux, and having to do some
tweaking,on the video driver to resolve the prob. Is the GCompris happening
on >all< terminals or just select brands of terminals for example? If it is
just a select terminals it may be a video driver prob.
It s a good idea when posting to give what version of K12LTSP you are using.
You will find in time how usable K12LTSP for general application use is. It
is a learning curve in getting a few things to dial in, like sound on
terminals, and flash player etc.
BTW Our school is in west/central IL.
Been using K12LTSP for three years now.
Hope this helps a little.

Take Care,
Barry Cisna


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