[K12OSN] teaching kids sys admin with VM's

[Eric Brown]

Too bad you can't come across 10 or so adequate computers.  In my
computer repair class, we took our thin clients, installed hard drives
(we had a stack of 6.4 GB), and then installed Ubuntu.  With only a
400 MHz processor and 128 MB RAM it wasn't fast, but they did enjoy
the opportunity.  When they were done, we unplugged the hard drives.

One kid also brought in an OpenSuse CD, but it didn't want to install.
 We've also played with our thin clients and Knoppix.  So long as
these thin clients will boot, they're easy to re-configure to work off
the K12LTSP server.

Good luck.

Eric

On Jan 17, 2008 10:48 AM, Robert Arkiletian <robark at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wondering if I could run k12ltsp 5EL for a full class of 30 kids. But
> in addition to the ltsp environment, each kid also have a vmware VM so
> I can teach them to install/configure a Linux OS.
>
> My students like Linux but many of them are not comfortable installing
> it at home. One of the main barriers is that they have no experience
> installing/configuring an OS. They never get a chance to be root in my
> class. I could also teach them how to setup their own apache web
> server.
>
> Problem: what are the sys req of such a box?
>
> Could this handle it:
> dual  -  quad core Xeons/Opterons (8 cores total)
> 16GB ram (approx 512MB per person)
> 4 15k rpm scsi in a raid
>
> Any pitfalls people see?
> For one I am wary of kids installing games in their VM's. I can't
> restrict what they do in their own VM's.
> I am also worried their VM's may break my ltsp setup. Could that happen?
> Also that they would start services on eth1 (outside network). Maybe I
> can restrict this, not sure. Wondering if this idea would be better on
> it's own box on the internal network. If so then how would they access
> it, vnc, nx?
>
> ideas, comments welcome.
>
> --
> Robert Arkiletian
> Eric Hamber Secondary, Vancouver, Canada
> Fl_TeacherTool http://www3.telus.net/public/robark/Fl_TeacherTool/
> C++ GUI tutorial http://www3.telus.net/public/robark/
>
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