[K12OSN] K12LTSP status

[Rob Owens]

On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 12:50:53PM -0400, William Fragakis wrote:
> I'm taking particular note because we've just bought some atom based
> all-in-ones that won't boot under ltsp 4 (K12ltsp 5 el) and I've been
> pondering how to at least migrate to ltsp 5 without being brutally
> hackish. It's a professional work environment where stability and uptime
> are the prime considerations so messing about with F13 like I do at home
> isn't my first instinct. I'm used to the fedora schema so moving to
> edubuntu involves some learning curve issues I don't want to deal with
> at the moment either. And seeing the issues that cropped up with 10.04
> which I run on a couple of boxes reminds me that ubuntu is more
> fedora-ish than centos-ish, ie they'll include the latest and greatest
> at the risk of breaking something.
> 
> sidenote - how surprised was I when our centos ltsp server updated to
> Firefox 3.6. I moved from F12 to F13 when F12 wouldn't support 3.6. I
> thought Centos would never get around to it - I was hoping they'd simply
> go from 3.0 to 3.5.
> 
> Robert's note led me to exploring. It does seem that with hardware
> getting so cheap that the landscape will be changing. 
> 
> these articles looked like a good place to start playing:
> http://www.linux-kvm.com/content/getting-started-spice-fedora-12
> http://www.linux-kvm.com/content/experimental-spice-repository-now-available-fedora-users
> 
> Now wondering if I can get the atom-based clients up by Monday...
> 
> regards,
> William
> 
It is possible to run LTSP 4.2 and LTSP 5 on the same server.  
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ltsp/index.php?title=Ltsp5SameServerLTSP42
You need a distro that supports LTSP 5, unless you're willing to jump
through some hoops.  There is a guy on ltsp-user who runs LTSP 5 on
CentOS.  He uses a chroot environment built on Ubuntu, I believe.

I primarily use Debian these days, so I'll tell you what I like about
it.  

I'm running Debian Stable.  Updates are few, which I like (low
risk).  I can't remember an update ever breaking my system.

By using the backports.org repository, you can get current
software.  For instance, I'm running Iceweasel (Firefox) 3.5.10.  Not
the most current, but not ancient.

The Debian package maintainer for LTSP does a pretty good job of
backporting the latest LTSP software for Debian Stable.  I've got
ltsp-server 5.2.2 running right now.  (I'm not sure what the most
current version is).

In summary I think Debian is very CentOS-ish, but with very strong
support for LTSP 5.  The package maintainer is a regular on ltsp-user,
and he's very responsive.

I hope nobody is insulted by my post.  I'm not trying to disrespect
Fedora/RedHat at all.  Just giving some ltsp-related input that I think
might be helpful.

-Rob