[K12OSN] LTSP and K12LTSP in British Columbia

[Jim Christiansen]

I've been absent from the list for a couple of months- just lurking since 
getting K12LTSP5 up on a number of boxes, and I want to bring everyone up to 
date.  My school, Prince Charles Secondary, in Creston, is now running 3 
K12LTSP servers with a total of about 120 thin clients.  I deliver high-end 
Cad and several other apps through crossover- everything else FOSS.

A week or so ago my principal brought in a sub teacher for me and I went to 
visit Kamloops where EVERY elementary and middle school runs ltsp and high 
schools, I understand, have moved to ltsp or are moving over soon.  I 
visited the IT Manager and head Tech there for several hours and was amazed 
how they ran each school.

Each school server runs linux with ltsp buried into a vserver.  All higher 
functions run in the host- ltsp on the vserver.  Their mail, fax, backups 
... everything is linux.  Several school homepage use Moodle with other 
schools moving their old home pages to a customized moodle.  All schools use 
FreeNX for logons from home- so do I now!

I'm still the only school in our district running K12LTSP.  Last year, 
sitting on the Tech Committee, in was told that Prince Charles Secondary 
would be allowed to remain linux.  Later I was told that we were being moved 
to windows...  standardization...  So much for committee decision.  Our 
school is the only school to have fully functional computers EveryDay.  Our 
number of computers is still growing in our school WITHOUT a budget...  Our 
technician has said that there is no way our school would run as well as it 
dows it we used windows.  We can't switch over to windows without 
$100,000.00.  A principal from nearby came to visit our school on two 
occations last May to see how well our system worked.  He arranged for me to 
purchase a server for K12LTSP and I scoped out 25 HPt5515 clients for 120 a 
piece- total price of under $4000.00.   The lead teach found out- went to 
the Superintendent -did I say our school district is millions in debt?? and 
stopped the linux lab from happening.  THEN turned around and spent 
$30,000.00 on a windows lab instead...  Oh well- end rant.

As we are still in debt Prince Charles Secondary won't move to windows.  We 
offer so much with our system now it would take an army of technicians 
months to make the same things happen in windows and that is accordinbg to 
my local technician.

Thanks everyone for an awesome system.   Try out FreeNX!

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