[K12OSN] Just about ready to make a purchase

Tue May 8 17:51:18 UTC 2007

Hi, sounds like you are going to have a nice setup.  This is a bit off
subject, but I want to ask you something. How did you convince the school to
go Linux and spend only $40,000 instead of $135,000? What I am fighting with
here in this county is right now they are trying to come up with a
technology budget (they don't even have one currently). They are thinking
that they need to replace 700 computers initially and then replace 300 per
year and budget $700 per machine and that doesn't even include learning
software! Instead of fighting the County, would it be better to go to the
actual schools and show them what LTSP is all about? When I go to open
community forums about this and mention Linux it's like everyone shudders,
and the response is that we need nice multimedia workstations for our kids
to learn and they will get bored with DOS. DOS is not Linux and Linux is not
DOS!!

On 5/8/07, Jim Kronebusch <jim at winonacotter.org> wrote:
>
> I am finally ready to purchase the new server for our school and new thin
> clients.
> Below is what we'll be starting with, making the switch on labs and media
> centers first,
> next year adding teachers.
>
> -Dell PowerEdge 6800
> -Quad 3Ghz/800Mhz/4mb Cache Dual Core Intel Xeon 7130 Processors
> -16MB 400Mhz DDR2 RAM (8x2GB to start, will handle 64GB total)
> -Embedded PERC4e/Di RAID Controller
> -6 300GB 10K RPM Ultra 320 SCSI hard drives configured in RAID 10 (3
> striped 300GB
> mirrors for a total of 900GB storage, machine will handle 10 SCSI drives
> and a 2 drive
> media bay for future expansion, from my research this will give me the
> fastest possible
> read/write speeds while maintaining full hot swap redundancy)
> -2 Intel Pro 1000MT Dual port adapters for a total of four gigabit NICS
> teamed as one
> with ALB
> -64 Bit XUbuntu with LTSP 4.2 (I am thinking XUbuntu will give me some
> extra speed by
> not hogging as much resources as a Gnome or KDE based distro, 64-bit so
> that it can
> handle over 4GB of RAM, LTSP 4.2 since that is still the most scalable and
> stable
> version, and Ubuntu based distros seem to have a much larger software
> repository now
> that they have the full Debian repository included)
>
> I hope this will handle 90 workstations with heavy use.  I plan on
> purchasing 90 of the
> DevonIT 6020P thin clients.  They seem to be the fastest clients I can
> find in the sub
> $150 price range.  Also in talking to DevonIT they are very familiar with
> LTSP and say
> they fully support it on their clients.  Also I have seen posts on this
> list that say
> they have worked 100% out of the box.  I will be purchasing 17" flat
> screens with USB
> keyboards and optical mice.
>
> Each lab will be fed by 10/100 switches with a gigabit uplink directly to
> the main
> gigibit switch that the server will be plugged into.  Each lab/media
> center will never
> exceed 30 workstations.
>
> Total we will be spending around $40,000 for everything.  I plan on the
> teacher machines
> being some sort of fat client derivative using full local XUbuntu clients
> and pulling
> /home and login information from the server.  There will be about 60
> teacher machines.
> I hope this server will be able to run everything from a single
> location.  If I do need
> to get more horsepower I plan on adding specific application servers to
> offload tasks.
> Say if KStars drags things down too much I will add in a KStars
> Application server.
>
> I had looked at using SMB/LDAP along with multiple less powerful load
> balanced LTSP
> servers, but from my testing the NFS shared /home and the remote users in
> LDAP had a
> significant effect in speeds.  Machine bootup and general navigation
> seemed delayed.
> This is why I am looking at keeping storage and user accounts local on a
> single server.
>
> We will also implement weekly 45 minute training sessions for
> teachers/staff.  First
> these sessions will be about familiarizing them with XUbuntu,OpenOffice,
> and Firefox in
> general.  Then we will move towards application suggestions for specific
> tasks and then
> walk them through how to accomplish the tasks.
>
> Also I plan on having a teacher machine in each lab (4 total to start).  I
> plan on
> making this teacher machine in the same fashion as future teacher machines
> will be.
> Full featured fat clients with NFS mounted /home and pulling login info
> from the server.
> This will allow easy addition of a scanner or other peripherals.  And it
> will provide a
> means to read CDROMS when needed or plug in a digital camera or media
> reader etc.  Any
> suggestions on the fastest method for distributing login information would
> be great.  I
> know LDAP which leans me towards it, but I also see NIS mentioned a lot
> for running
> local apps and such.  I wonder if this would be better to use since it
> would allow the
> possibility of local apps when/if desired.
>
> Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.  This switch is making
> me nervous.  I
> really don't want to spend $40,000 and have everything be slow, I want the
> users to
> think these are stand alone 3Ghz machines.  But compared to the $135,000
> they were going
> to spend on iMacs and MS Office, I think it is worth the risk. And I can't
> wait to be
> able to increase our software offerings by ten fold or more.  If all goes
> well this will
> be a showcase of how well FOSS can benefit a school and will be a model
> for our area.
> If this doesn't go well...it better go well.
>
> Exciting.....Scary.....Worth it :-)
>
> Jim Kronebusch
> Cotter Tech Department
> 453-5188
>
>
> --
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>
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-- 
Shawn Maggard
Maggard Computing
http://maggardcomputing.com
931-629-6258
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