RE: Thoughts on computers in schools

Sounds good so far RHS........some comments within. 

> 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.

I have access to a crimp tool if you need it.

> 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.
> 

Do we know what may be a school's requirements?  I assume it differs by
school.  Shiva, what would be the requirements for your school?



> 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!

Do these cheap NICS come with EEPROMS or do you still need them?


 
> 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)

Right now, purchasing computers in not an option we have.........maybe
later.

 
> 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.
> 


What hardware requirements do you recommend for a server for this
application?




> 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.
> 

I think the lowest version of winndows we should be looking at is Windows
2000, if we are to look at windows at all.

> 
> 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.

We may be able to live with these limitations in certain situations, eg a
pre-school, primary school and possibly a secondary school.

Keep up the good work RHS......


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