Thoughts on computers in schools

I've been working recently with Shiva and my sister-in-law's school, up 
in Lopinot. The experience
has brought into focus some aspects of the "necessities" that weren't 
apparent to me at first blush.

It's the little things that slow one down. I mananged to get from Shiva 
what I thought would be
everything needed - a hub, a couple of PCs, cables, etc.

Well, the cable terminators have lost their clips, so they need to 
re-done. The PCs have no hard
drives. Etc. Little things. It goes on.

Anyhow. I wanted to interject some ideas.

One is that school computers may need to support any of the following 
environments - Windows
3.1, Windows9x, WindowsMe, Windows2000, WindowsNT, WindowsXP, Linux in 
any of its
various forms. Linux may be installed onto a local hard drive, simply or 
in a dual-boot scenario.
Or it may be booted disklessly. Diskless boot may be managed in several 
ways. I've encountered
straight DHCP, DHCP mingled with PXE, DHCP + PXE +VNC. Diskless boot may 
also be either in
GUI or non-GUI,  though non-GUI isn't that interesting for us. Further, 
diskless boot may allow
local execution of programs or only server-based execution or both. 
Diskless boot may be based on
LTSP or not. It always requires a BOOT PROM, but that BOOT PROM may 
support one (or more)
of several boot systems, ie. Etherboot, PXE, netboot etc.

While NICs are now cheap in T&T ($45), no-one seems to supply EEPROMs. 
If we had EEPROMs,
we could upload the PXE BOOT PROM code into them, right on the NIC, 
using utilities off the net. GRRR!

Diskless boot can also be managed by Windows Terminal Server but this 
requires paying per-seat licenses
and different BOOT PROM code called RPL, I believe. Haven't done this 
yet. However, you can boot
Linux disklessly and then use the free rdesktop software to connect to a 
Windows Terminal server. I've
done that and it's easy. But it means having both a Linux server and a 
Windows Terminal server. It *does*
provide the best of both worlds, though.

(On the plus side, there's a company called Neoware which provides a 
thin client for US$200. I've used
Neoware ThinStations in the past and they're great. Perfect 
no-maintenance solution.
http://www.neoware.com/products/capio/capio_one_linux.html)

Simply put, there is an enormous range of technical requirements and a 
correspondingly large range
of possible solutions. A diskless Linux boot "seems" to require the 
least amount of hardware, since
it can be based on something as light as a motherboard/CPU/RAM if the 
motherboard in question
comes with on-board video and network card (as long as the 
motherboard/video/NIC are supported
by Linux). The minimum CPU/RAM combo for diskless boot seems to be a 
Pentium/32MB. I have someone
using a P166/32MB RAM at work for several months now. The key element 
seems to be the server, rather
than the client.

On the Windows side, the lightest scenario seems to be Windows3.1. 
Problem is, almost nobody is
interested in using Windows3.1. The world has moved on, it seems. For 
Windows95, the minimum
acceptable solution seems to be again a Pentium/32MB. However, this is 
the absolute workable
minimum and you have to be an absolute dragon to enforce it. Children 
simply do not have the
patience for such an arrangement.

So even though an LTSP solution seems ideal, it may not work. The Linux 
diskless scenario is only
interesting when
a) the hardware can support it, at speeds where it is really useful - 
ie. fast server
b) there is educational software and games that run on Linux available
c) the school has more computers that it can administer
d) viruses/worms are making life hell for the administrator
e) there is absolutely no previous experience with Windows, so no-one cares
f) there is no money for Windows licenses

To my mind, some solution that provides the best of all worlds is 
needed. Something that
can manage both Windows and Linux, that protects against viruses/worms 
and makes
administration less tedious. Something that is infinitely flexible.

One solution I have found, is Bpbatch. Though it has limits, I have been 
able to use it
at work to install/manage
DOS/Windows3.1
Windows9x
Windows2000
Linux
diskless Linux boot

The limitations generally have to do with the filesystem type supported. 
Bpbatch supports
FAT up to FAT32, I believe. It doesn't support NTFS. On the Linux side, 
it supports ext2.

How it works basically

You install the OS on a PC. You create an "image" of the installed OS. 
You store the zipped
image on the server.

When the target PC(s) boots off the NIC, it contacts the server and runs 
a script. The script
may be as sophisticated as you like, but basically its purpose is to 
download the zipped image
to the target PC. The script can partition, format and install the OS in 
about 3 minutes, depending
on the size of the OS and installed apps.

Where this gets interesting, is that one can have OS images with 
different apps installed. So for
example, each class can have an OS image tailored for their needs. 
Different OSes can also be
pre-installed on the client's hard drive and a boot menu can allow the 
user to select the
appropriate one. Viruses vanish as a practical threat since a download 
wipes the whole thing clean.

Though it takes a bit of work to setup, the Bpbatch system is extremely 
flexible. I spent some time
last weekend creating an install CD which provides Bpbatch as one of its 
options. (The other is a
diskless configuration based on VNC). The install CD is based on 
Slackware. This DOES mean
that some technical background is needed. Ie. the person installing must 
understand what a swap
partition is, what a filesystem is, etc. So there is needed for some 
training to install. I recognise
that a perfect install would be

a) insert CD
b) boot computer
c) drink coffee

but I haven't gotten there yet.

I am investigating the use of Webmin to handle the system administration 
tasks. Hopefully, I'll find
a way to provide a point-and-click interface to handle everything. But 
so far, the basics of setting up
DHCP, TFTP and Bpbatch is handled automatically.

The administrator still has to add MAC addresses and IP addresses, 
though I am thinking of setting
up a hundred dummy hostnames and IP addresses beforehand. That leaves 
only the MAC addresses,
but Webmin provides a screen to enter those, so it isn't *that* bad.

The server install provides Apache, PHP, Perl, Python, CUPS, PPP, a 
firewall as well. Basic server stuff.
Other than Webmin, I'm investigating eGroupware as a possible add-on. 
Abiword, Mozilla, OpenOffice
are also on the install CD.

I'm also trying to extract from the Tootbee CDs Shiva gave me, a set of 
educational programs and
games. Some are really funny, but the quality varies. (Where/How does 
one install the Java Runtime
engine?)

Anyhow that's what I've been doing/thinking about.

Later,
Richard
-- 
A couple who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in 1995, were both
born on August 16th, seven years apart. The man is 2,555 days older than
his wife. In what years were they born?

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