Edubuntu or K12LTSP on servers for Schools

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Edubuntu or K12LTSP on servers for Schools

1180 points posted to Education, Sales Strategies, Servers and Storage by jkorz 06/19/07

As a Network Administrator for a large public school, I would like to see servers with K12LTSP or Edubuntu preinstalled (and fully supported). The thin client computing model is becoming very lucrative for school districts with small tech departments because these systems are robust, inexpensive, simple to maintain and can do 95% of what school children need computers for. Dell could offer a bundle of high end servers and thin clients. There could be an option to upgrade to slightly thicker clients that could run LTSP local apps to boost performance.

Schools are going to do this with or without Dell. It makes sense for Dell to get on board rather than be left behind.

fredes 06/19/07	I am a computer teacher and If we used servers with K12LTSP or Edubuntu preinstalled the school would save lots of money. If Dell Promoted that they use servers with K12LTSP or Edubuntu preinstalled they could make lots of money.
sumyunggai 06/23/07	Actually, I disagree here. Here's why. While I'm all for running Edubuntu and K12LTSP on a server, I much, much prefer to install it myself. The chief reason is partitioning. Generally, pre-installed server OS's have three partitions on them: /boot, swap, and / (root, that is). I always--ALWAYS--make, at a minimum, a separate /home, and I used to do this same kind of thing back in my Windows days. I never, EVER put the user home directories on the same partition/filesystem where the OS lives. This also makes backups easier. Additionally, preinstalling Edubuntu or K12LTSP means that Dell would have to choose the IP addressing scheme. Well, what if that doesn't work out for your school? Yes, there are such situations. So, what I would suggest instead is that Dell ensure that all of their hardware in any servers that they sell has drivers maintained in Linus Torvalds's source tree at www.kernel.org, or, for graphics chips, at upstream X.org. Fortunately, Dell have indicated that they already do that for their PowerEdge server line. Preinstalling Ubuntu on a workstation for typical home or corporate end-users is one thing. Preinstalling a server--especially a LTSP server--is quite another. Better that we do that one ourselves.
edvim Jan 28	--- sumyunggai, you can install your K12LTSP Server with whatever partitioning scheme you prefer. All the clients' home directories will by default reside on a /home directory on the Server, with the option of saving files to a USB flash drive or whatever by manually navigating through a directory tree. Hard drives in the client computers are not even necessary -- less heat in the case, saves energy, and one less thing that might fail. (A bigger issue if you're dealing with relatively old computers.) The client computer users don't even need to be aware of any of this -- their home directories are just links over the network to the Server, and backup for the admin are easier to maintain because things are located centrally. Also, all the necessary tools to tweak your network settings are already included so if you're tapping into a network that uses DHCP or assigned IPs you can just make whatever changes from your Server. The K12LTSP developers have done a great job making a project like this available to the general public.
xmcc Jan 29	Hi, I agree with edvim, I don't think necesary to make the partitioning by my self, think that the idea is save to costs for the schools, in fact, change the partitioning in Linux is not so complicated than in Windows
jdelidc Jan 30	no need for another entirely seperate distro that just has XDMCP logins up and running

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