[K12OSN] teaching kids sys admin with VM's

[Steven Santos]

Do your clients support booting via USB drive? If so, that might be your
simplest and most cost effective option.  Install the OS to the stick, and
then the students can take the stick with them.



  _____

Steven Santos
Director, Simply Circus, Inc.
Email: Steven at SimplyCircus.com
 Mail: 14 Pierrepont Road
       Newton, MA 02462
Phone: 617-527-0667
  Web: www.SimplyCircus.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com]On
> Behalf Of Robert Arkiletian
> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:49 AM
> To: Support list for open source software in schools.
> Subject: [K12OSN] teaching kids sys admin with VM's
>
>
> 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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