[K12OSN] Any New K12LTSP deployments

[Robert Arkiletian]

On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 3:02 AM, Gavin Spurgeon <gspurgeon at dageek.co.uk> wrote:
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> Please dont take these next comments the wrong way, It seems no mater
> how I word them, they sounds very mean... That is not my intention @
> all. I hope the following 2 points will help.
>
>> CentOS6 should be released within the next month. That leaves around
>> 6 months to get a stable K12Linux 6EL  release out. Considering
>> CentOS6 is largely based on FC12
>
> a.) Fedora is no longer known as Fedora Core, We dropped the Core bit @
> FC6 (2006) It is now just 'Fedora'

Sorry, I knew this. It's just out of habit I wrote FC.

>
> b.) RHEL6 is based on Fedora 14, not Fedora 12, So CentOS6 *should* be
> based on the same code.
>

My assumption was based on the package versions listed on distrowatch.
It seems on the surface that RHEL6 is a hybrid of F12 + F13. But I
don't work for Red Hat so I could definitely be wrong.

>> The big question is who would build it and be the maintainers?
>
> I have built and released LTSP 5.2.4 as .rpm's and I know from this list
> that people have been using the .rpm's in production environments.
> I do need to update the .rpm's to the latest stable release of LTSP, but
> due to some Major changes in Fedora 14, this is not as simple as it sounds.
>
> The Kickstart files used to create the LTSP Images in Fedora 13 and
> below are fine, but Fedora 14 has removed a lot of the packages that
> LTSP used to use, So we now need to replace/rebuild these kickstarts
> with the correct packages and make sure that the LTSP Clients can still
> boot and run as they should. This is going to take a hell of a lot of
> testing and so on.
>
> I can build and test the .rpm's and get them released, but I do not have
> a test enviroment where I can boot serveral clients and really
> functionally test them all. That is where the comunity needs to help me
> with the testing.
>
> Along with some friends I have been working on trying to get these
> .rpm's added back into the official fedora repos but even for a Red Hat
> Employee, it is not as easy as you would think. We still have to follow
> the procedures and this again all takes time.
>
> I have taken over the Fedora .rpm's and will continue to do my best to
> get them released as soon as I can.
>
> We have a Bugzilla Open @
>
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=598134
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=652896
>
> and my temp repo is @
> http://www.dageek.co.uk/ltsp/
>
> I also have a screenshot of LTSP v5.2.4 Running on Fedora 13 @
> http://www.dageek.co.uk/ltsp/LTSP-Server-5.2.4-5.png
>

This is good to see. Those bug report threads really fill in the
blanks I had about what was happening with the project. I am happy Red
Hat has not dropped K12Linux and LTSP. Thank you Gavin.

However, I'm *assuming* that there are many schools that would prefer
to go with CentOS6 or RHEL6 as compared to Fedora because of the work
involved in upgrading every summer.  This is why, I think, K12LTSP 5EL
was so popular. But maybe I'm wrong and most people want a K12Linux
based on Fedora. People should speak up as to what they need/want.

I'm wondering if you are planning to release RHEL6 or CentOS6
packages? I'm not sure about the pricing of RHEL6 as an LTSP server
but I recall an edu version with no support was $50/year.

-- 
Robert Arkiletian
Eric Hamber Secondary, Vancouver, Canada