[K12OSN] Talking to school about K12LTSP

[Doug Simpson]

Henry Hartley wrote:

>I recently met with the technology guy at my daughter's school.  He's
>not really a Linux person but has no real beef with it.  He's just not
>needed it for much up to now.  He does use Linux for a proxy server and
>running DansGuardian so he's not averse to using it where it suits him.
>He's also got an engineering degree from MIT so I'm guessing he's pretty
>bright.
>
>The school is in transition right now, having moved out (in the summer
>of 2005 after 16 years) of a rented location into two temporary
>locations (one church for the elementary school, another for the middle
>and high school).  The school has purchased 60 acres and hopes to be
>moving into their new facility by January, 2008 (although it may not
>happen before the following summer).
>
>One topic of our conversation was K12LTSP.  Currently, the school relies
>almost entirely on wireless networking because of the nature of the
>facility.  Plans for the new facility, however, do include network
>cabling.  There is something of a lab right now but it is basically
>laptop computers that share storage space on a network server.  Windows,
>naturally.  I gave a brief overview of K12LTSP, as best I could.  He had
>a few questions and I thought I'd start with this one.  Actually, after
>this, I may simply suggest he join the list and ask for himself, since
>he'll be in a better position to ask the right questions.
>
>Sometimes, when students are using his lab computers, he wants them to
>have internet access, so they can do research.  Other times, he wants
>them to NOT have internet access, mostly because he wants them focused
>on what they are doing.  No point in tempting teens.  He wondered if it
>would be possible to schedule this sort of thing centrally, either by
>class, by student, or by hardware.  That is, let's say he has two carts
>of computers which can roam to the various classrooms.  From 8:30 to
>noon, he wants one cart to have internet access and the other not to.
>Form noon to 3, they both should.  Or, from 8:30 to 10:00, the students
>in this class have internet access, this other class does not.  That
>sort of thing.  Is that something that's hard, easy, or just too much of
>a headache to deal with?
>
>  
>
Yes, it is possible, while not 100% reliable, I do this very thing daily 
with some of our labs at school.
It does require the comuters to actually log into the domain and run the 
login script if you want to be able to single out certain comuters an 
allow others. But for blanket on or off, that is easily done with only 
the server and they don't have to log in and out or run the login script.

For more information and assistance, contact me offlist and I will see 
exactly what you want to do and see if I can help you.

For the best flexibility and etc, domain logons are best and the on/off 
can be set by period, by machine or by user and/or group.

Some may not like my methods (remember, I did say it wasn't 100% 
reliable) but it works for us on a daily basis.

Doug