[K12OSN] Preparing K12Linux F11
Steven Santos
Steven at SimplyCircus.com
Thu Jun 4 18:05:52 UTC 2009
Terrell,
I think the case for LTS is as strong today as it always has been.
I completely agree with you on including LTS 4.x in a Centros version.
Where I disagree with you is on legacy hardware being the driving factor.
Cost of operation is still the leading factor as far as I am concerned.
---
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 Terrell Prude' Jr.
> Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 1:52 PM
> To: Support list for open source software in schools.
> Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Preparing K12Linux F11
>
> Jeff Siddall wrote:
> > It seems like there are two user communities here. One has legacy
> > hardware (like 486 machines, with no 64 bit servers) and the other,
> > which is the group I belong to, has modern hardware -- exclusively 64
> > bit servers and generally 586+ clients.
> >
> > Given that there is a decade, or perhaps more, of Moore's law
> separating
> > the two groups it's pretty tough to make both happy!
> >
> > My impression as a relatively new K12Linux user is that it is perhaps
> > the most bleeding edge of all LTSP distros, largely due to the fact
> that
> > it is based on the latest Fedora, which is one of the most bleeding
> edge
> > distros. As such, K12Linux really does not seem like the right place
> to
> > try to support legacy hardware.
> >
> > Further, LTSP5 is perhaps the wrong version to base a legacy hardware
> > LTSP distro on, given it's significantly increased resource
> requirements
> > from LTSP4.
> >
> > Two solutions for supporting legacy hardware come to mind. One is
> for
> > "someone" to continue to maintain a LTSP4 based distribution on an OS
> > with long term support (ie: CentOS). The other is for "someone" to
> > create a custom K12Linux spin that takes out a lot of the weight of
> > K12Linux and optimizes it for legacy hardware. Not sure of the
> > viability of these, or who the magical "someone" might be.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
>
> Fortunately, we already have an excellent LTSP4-based distro today, and
> that's K12LTSP 5EL, which will be supported until the year 2014. I'd
> suggest that any CentOS 6-based K12Linux also include LTSP 4 as an
> optional "for legacy hardware" installatation. The Fedora releases
> should stay bleeding edge, because that's the whole point of Fedora.
>
> But now we're getting to a point where LTSP might no longer be a good
> business case.
>
> The whole point of LTSP was to be able to reuse old computers as thin
> clients to save both money and the environment. IIRC, for a time, Jim
> McQuillan himself even resold Dell OptiPlex GX1's as a thin-client
> option not so long ago. If we're now going toward super-powerful (and
> increasingly expensive) thin client hardware, then we have a problem.
> As a buyer, I'd be better off spending the extra $20 for a full-fledged
> PC and install my choice of distro on the hard disk (Ghost, Kickstart,
> however). Oh, and I just saved the expense of buying an LTSP server.
> Whoops....
>
> Here's an example of what I mean.
>
> http://www.zareason.com/shop/product.php?productid=16183&cat=249&page=1
>
> --TP
>
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