[K12OSN] Feedback from a teacher on FC10/LTSP and Tuxpaint

David Hopkins dahopkins429 at gmail.com
Sat Mar 28 15:27:01 UTC 2009


Yesterday, the 1st grade kids used the new FC10 server.  This was the
feedback from the teacher:  I am not sure why this package would have
these issues.  It is not running as a local application, the old
server and new server have the same amount of memory, same speed NICs.
The new server has faster drives and faster CPU's.

Anyhow, ideas?

Teacher's comments:

"Today, first grade students experimented with the new features in Tux
Paint.  In most classes, I had 22 computers in use.  Here are some
things of notice:

* Most workstations took anywhere from 15-30 seconds to change a
custom paint color.  Oddly, there were two computers that did it in
only 4-5 seconds. For most, as soon as they selected this feature,
there was an 8-10 second delay getting to the next screen.  Then the
delay to complete the task could range from 10-20 seconds more.  I
stood and watched--it was not related to students impatiently clicking
repeatedly.  Plenty who were very minimal in their requests waited
what seemed endlessly.

*Today, while the rest of the room continued working, I asked groups
of 6 to select a new piece of paper.  The first group waited 15-20
seconds for each step of the process.  (There are 4 steps.)   As there
were fewer students using the program, the process quickened, so that
by the last group, this took only 3-5 seconds for each step.

* I left the program open all day, because it took nearly 4 minutes
for 22 computers to open Tux Paint first thing this morning  (I
started them in groups of 6 at a time, as always).   My little people
need practice opening and closing programs, double clicking, finding
things on the desktop, etc.

*One system was painfully slow in all tasks.  There was a significant
delay when using any tool except the paintbrush tool. "

As I look at that list, the common theme seems to be waiting for apps
to load which is what? Disk access issue? Authentication issue?  The
thin clients all have 256Mb of memory and run fine with the K12LTSP5
version. The reason for moving to FC10 is sound support and the
ability to run FF locally with better sound/multimedia support.  To
get this to work well, I know I need to upgrade these systems to 512Mb
 of memory (tested this already), but even at 256Mb, they are 'ok' for
FF locally.  I can go into the lab and start the app on all systems
but I don't have access from the lab to IRC (blocked at the state
level).

Sincerely,
Dave Hopkins




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