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

[Tom Wolfe]

Thanks David for a few more ideas to add to the mix. The server is
powerful -- lots of RAM (3 GB) and a Gigabit card. I plan to use a switch
that will have at least one port with a Gigabit, and 100 Mbps NICs is
obviously going to be mandatory for the clients!

Regards,
Tom Wolfe



On Wed, 1 Nov 2006, David Trask wrote:

> "Support list for open source software in schools." <k12osn at redhat.com>
> writes:
> >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.
> >
> >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.
>
> Ain't always philosophical....in some cases it's illegal....thus by not
> putting them into the distro...it's left up to the individual to decide
> what is right and what is wrong.  You can install 99% of the codecs you
> need.  The win32 codecs will solve your issues in most cases.  We are able
> to play most any content.
>
> >
> >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.
> >
> >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.
>
>
> Booting with floppies is a piece of cake.  In fact, it's easier to make a
> floppy than it is to put in a NIC.  The Universal Boot Floppy (included
> with K12LTSP) will boot almost anything.
> >
> >
> >3. rdesktop -- why isn't this standard with K12LTSP installation? Sure,
> >it's
> >easy enough to yum install rdesktop, but...??
>
> Not sure this is the case with rdesktop, but in some cases....the
> development of a program is such that it never stands still....thus it
> makes sense to simply let the user install it and therefore get the latest
> version in the repository
> >
> >
> >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?
>
> First of all, a Pentium III is OLD hardware.  (we don't have anything less
> than P4's anymore)  We had PIII's and PII's but then we just ended up with
> way too many....so we weeded out.   Nonetheless, if you are going to use
> PII's and below, you'll probably need to use a lightweight window manager
> like IceWM.  (We use it even with powerful thin-clients as it's a lot
> faster and more configurable)  OpenOffice and the like will be deathly
> slow on 10baseT....use something like Abiword and gnumeric on those
> machines....or upgrade the NIC.  Celestia crawls on any thin-client
> because it's so video intensive.  Until we get local apps set up so its
> easy to use....Celestia is impractical.  Use KStars....that runs fine and
> is actually educationally "more sound".
> >
> >
> >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.
>
> Next, is the server beefy enough?  Are you using gigabit NICs going to
> gigabit switches or ports?
> >
> >
> >...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.
>
> No problem....this is how we all learn   :-)  Ask away!  :-)
> >
> >
> >Despite the hurdles I'm pretty interested and optimistic. It seems like an
> >amazing project, though certainly NOT "easy and working, duh?" yet.
>
> Everyone's situation is different...for some it's a breeze as they have a
> bunch of the same hardware, a good clean network, and a powerful
> server.....for others, they may be trying to cobble things together.
>
>
> David N. Trask
> Technology Teacher/Director
> Vassalboro Community School
> dtrask at vcsvikings.org
> (207)923-3100
>
>
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