[K12OSN] K12LTSP missing some important stuff for our school purposes

Wed Nov 1 22:25:17 UTC 2006

...can you recommend an inexpensive sound card that will work out of the
box?

thanks again,
Tom Wolfe
Morley, Alberta

On Wed, 1 Nov 2006, Gentgeen wrote:

> On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 18:24:59 -0700
> "Tom Wolfe" <twolfe at sawback.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I've been test driving K12LTSP a little, and have done some looking
> > around the lists and googling to see if any resolutions to some issues
> > I've notice are there... and thought I'd run things by this list.
> >
> > 1. A shortcoming in general with Linux is default support for
> > (proprietary) Internet multimedia formats. The typical response from
> > K12LTSP supporters seems to be "We decided to not support proprietary
> > formats"... but realistically, I need to provide students with *easy*
> > access, for example, to CBC's website (http://cbc.ca) which has
> > windows formats as its default (*very* limited .ogg support) :( Real
> > Player, Shockwave and Flash are other examples.
> >
>
> This is not a shortcoming of Linux, but a shortcoming (or at least a
> short sightedness of the manufacturers.  Mplayer, and some codecs will
> take care most multimedia files out there but you mentioned some of the
> ones that do not work.
>
> Real Player -- there is Helix, but I have not tried it.  Real Player has
> released a player for Linux, but if I recall it is out of date. You
> would have to check.
>
> Shockwave -- Talk to adobe on this one :-)
>
> Flash -- As you may have noticed, the Linux support here is a full
> version behind. The Linux version has always been a little behind, but
> now you may have noticed it is a full version behind.  It still works
> for many sites, but some insist on you having Flash 8, so that can be a
> pain. The reason it is a full version behind now is that Adobe has
> decided to rewrite the code for Linux Flash.  BIG KUDOS to them for this
> move, but it does put us at a disadvantage over the short run.  (see
> http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml;jsessionid=T3KZ3F51SMLPOQSNDLPSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleId=192501179
> for some details.)
>
>
> > We can philosophically decide to not support proprietary formats, but
> > in doing so we are also deciding to deny students access to (the bulk
> > of?) internet multimedia information.
> >
>
> It is not a philosophically issue, but a legal/tech issue.  Distros can
> not ship certain players, so you have to get it yourself (just like in
> the windows world).  Or there just is no player for Linux, and this is
> an issue outside of the communities control.
>
> > I believe that these need to be supported by any OS used in an
> > educational setting. Like pdf files, these are just way too entrenched
> > to dismiss, and they should be supported by default.
>
> But unlike PDF, they are still CLOSED.  At least PDF is an open format.
> (not as in FLOSS, but as in anyone can use it)
>
> >
> > 2. Sound -- I have about 25 workstations I'd like to use with
> > K12LTSP... but they are all pretty diverse platforms: many different
> > NICs, sound cards, and video cards. Is there any easy way to do
> > this...? Or is it a matter of researching each individual hardware
> > setup to get things rolling? I'm thinking of sinking for a couple
> > dozen $20 network cards so that at least I have that in common.
> > Besides, booting workstations with floppies seems to me to be too much
> > of a hassle.
>
> I would spend the $20 on standardizing the sound card, assuming your
> network cards are PCI and they are 100Mbps.  Sound is where all your
> "hassle" will be, not with the network card.  As noted, get PCI cards,
> and get ones that are well supported in Linux.
>
> An easy way to do what?  With video and audio, you can use the "auto"
> option in your lts.conf and most will automatically be detected.  (after
> that, I would find out exact what cards the "auto" option did find, and
> then change your config file.  This will make the boot process faster,
> and you don't have to do all the leg work in finding all the card info).
>
> With the booting from floppies... guess that depends on what you are
> doing.  If your clients have a hard drive, you could use this:
> http://www.wizzy.org.za/article/articlestatic/14/1/2/
> This is what I do here.  Another option would be buy NICs with bootroms,
> but I am pretty sure that is more then 20 buck each.  You could also
> check the BOIS of the machines, some might be able to boot from the
> network to start with (if they have the NIC on board I assume).
>
> As for booting from Floppy (if that is the road you must use) -- But the
> Universal boot floppy in the drive, then pull the drive back 1 set of
> holes.  Put a cover plate over the hole(s) (or maybe some duct tape).
> Hassle gone.  Now just like haveing a Hard Drive.
>
> >
> > 3. rdesktop -- why isn't this standard with K12LTSP installation?
> > Sure, it's easy enough to yum install rdesktop, but...??
> >
>
> Why doesn't Windows come with Quicktime standard?  Sure it's easy enough
> to exe install Quicktime, but...??
>
> Come on, is this really an issue for you?
>
> > 4. K12LTSP on Pentium I & II / 10 Mbps networks -- slow and unusable!
> > I see lots of people talking about using old hardware with K12LTSP but
> > I'm only getting acceptable performance from PIII/500+ MHz 100 Mbps
> > NIC, and this seems to me to be a minimum hardware requirement. Even
> > then, something like Celestia crawls compared to the way it does with
> > a local hard drive installation. Any tips? Am I missing something?
>
> I have a PI client, 64 MB RAM and a 2MB RAM Sis Video card.  Not the
> fastest of my clients, but for email, web, abiword, solitaire, and it
> does just as well as the others. Now I am useing IceWM and ROX and not
> Gnome/KDE but that is more a user decision then a hardware decision.
>
> Another client is a 233MHz processor, 128MB RAM and a 4MB RAM video
> card.  Works just as well as my fastest client.  That one is the same as
> above, but has a 500MHz processor.
>
> Your real issue here is the network speed.  You REALLY need to use
> 100Mbps - 10 is just TOO slow.  I've done it, and it works, but I would
> not want to do it for a long time and with 20+ clients. (I did it as a
> proof of concept with 1 off the shelf PC as the server, and 10 old PCs
> as the clients.  Then as we got the money, we did the various upgrades
> needed.  STARTING with the network backbone.)  And if you are going to
> have 20 clients, you need Gig at the switch.
>
> Have you tried Celestria on the PII as a native app (i.e. not LTSP).
> I am pretty sure that 90% of distros out there on a PII or less will
> choke.  Believe me, I have tried.  It talks a special distro to may
> my PI work as a stand alone.
>
> >
> > BTW, my Dell SC1425 server works fine so long as I don't use it as an
> > X terminal itself... something to do with the video card, but I'm not
> > worrying about it for now.
> >
> > ...and if any of this has been over-discussed already my apologies,
> > please ignore or refer me off list to the right place for answers.
> >
> > Despite the hurdles I'm pretty interested and optimistic. It seems
> > like an amazing project, though certainly NOT "easy and working, duh?"
> > yet.
>
> K12LTSP has to be one of the most "easy and working" distros I have
> seen. (And I have worked with all of the big names, and many of the
> little guys as well).  But you have to come at it with the right
> knowledge and equipment.  Would you send an American football player
> into an Australian Rules Football game?  Nope.  They are both football,
> both sports, but each require a different set of knowledge and/or
> special equipment. Same with the Windows World and the Linux world.
> Both are OS's, both use i386 architecture, but they require a different
> set of knowledge and/or special equipment.
>
> >
> > Regards,
> > Tom Wolfe
> > Morley, Alberta
> >
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> >
>
>
>
>
> --
> http://gentgeen.homelinux.org
>
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