Hi Steen, On Monday 01 July 2002 13:11, you wrote: > > But I need all the info I can get: > > Who is using LTSP? (Especially schools)
We. There is a project in Goa /India (www.goasudharop.org/gscp - sorry not much usefull information YET) where we distributed around 350 machines (Pentium 1) to schools all over goa. Around 100 were sent out configured with ltsp. I am one of the main volunteers to support these machines. We used RH 7.2 the servers are 166 - 200 mhz with 96 -128 mb of edo ram clients are 66 - 166 mhz 16 - 32 mb of ram we're using Gnome and additionally windomaker. We customized the installation procedure and are writing some script to automize some things. The problems so far: a lot of hardware probs (old buggy, hardware in a very tropical country (at the moment my t-shirts are rotting :-))). gnome crashes sometimes (the server is just too slow, but what to do - 6 slots for edo ram only and edo ram is not easily (cheap) available). people mess up the settings (panel mostly) - need some recovering scripts for the teachers to refresh some configs or create user-accounts new. not too much educational software (that might be your second biggest problem - support is your biggest - but we'll come to that later :-)) many programs don't run in 640x480 proper and some teachers insist on it (I have to add that we are mostly using 14'' to 15'' monitors). we are using gnumeric (sometimes buggy and limited) and abiword (teachers are okay with that - by now only complain about missing tables) xpaint (ugly - but nothing better available - couldn't get gpaint running yet) opera (addversion) xwc (lllllighter than bloody nautilus) we still need to keep mozilla (for some helpfiles, etc.) and nautilus (as it is the backend for gnome - we would like to replace it with gmc - anybody any idea how or some directions - nautilus is too slow for our machines) no mail software yet (I am hoping on evolution - didn't get my hands on it yet though) the only time teachers have to use the console is to mount (will try to integrate supermount - which doesn't seem to be too easy) and use the scripts we built. Perhaps you should use Mandrake for the ease of supermount - don't think that'll be easy to do it with any other distro (please correct me if I'm wrong). > > Has anybody made some economical com- > parison between the two? we had toooo many systems without hdd and we couldn't afford putting new ones. We are (or where) as far as I know the least-cost project in the world in providing schools with computers in that dimension :-). The schools will be (hopefully) supported by volunteers (update, install new (if, ...), help with hardware probs, etc.) if I'm not there one day (I am one of to guys doing this fulltime at the moment). The best is to have some paid volunteers to develop your own distro and support the schools for unpredicted probs (you never know - he?) - here one brain (Arvind Yadav - I gotta mention that name! :-)) customized RH 7.2 (put packages in or out set all the settings for the ltsp-install, ETC.) in order to give us a cd which is pretty straight forward to install. Because of time pressure he couldn't make it perfect (will hopefully in the future if he got time one day) but it fits our needs more than well. We got around 15 - 20 volunteers to support 20 schools (1 server 3-5 nodes each) - around 10 are deep into linux. That should do if we can rely on them (in the end they are only (busy) volunteers). You will definetely need commercial (paid full-time) support. Not people who know LTSP - but people who know linux. LTSP-install can be done by (almost) every (...) as everything is well documented, if you don't use exotic hardware and if somebody compiles a straight-forward install-cd. As soon as you want to update, face problems (any kind of) you will need some people who know their stuff. Remember - Mexico failed because of the lack of support (as far as I know). Some teachers here had some Unix-programming-experience (!) some years back and so are okay with learning something new (similar). It depends a lot on the teachers (their attitude) if they are lazy (or dumb :-)) they might be not willing to learn linux (something new). They'll be afraid if one of their students will ask them questions regarding the backround. With windows it's like this: the user-part is completely seperate from the programing- /administration-part. So you just teach somebody how to use the main apps to get your work done. As in Linux the shell (means the commands and the scripting) is too powerfull and widely used (by linux-users /-programmers) a teacher might feel lost if a pupil tells him that you can do a search much more efficiently with grep /locate than with the GNOME-SEARCH-TOOL. There is no border (line) between the linux-users and the linux-admin /-programmer. If you want to spread linux widely in schools (and want the teachers to really use the systems and not leave them getting dusted) you have to teach them proper (not only linux BUT WHY linux). Here we (or the schools had no choice). We told them: we can give you 6 slower systems where 6 kids can learn at the same time or we could have given you (not even) 1 new fast system where you can have linux (we paid 40$ for each system - shipped and packed from the US to Goa - all non profit organisations involved). Or to put it the other way round: we haven't got harddisk for the systems - sorry. If you want to install windows - just go forward, buy harddisks (100$) and licenses for windows ($$$), office ($$$$$), etc. (the time of pirated software at least in an governmental environment is getting over - Microsoft starts complaining ;-) - even here in chilling Goa :-)). So they were kinda forced to take our systems and get used to them. Most of them though are pretty fine with the systems, ask a lot of good questions, give feedback, etc. and regard this as a challenge they have to take in their job. I know things are different in Europe (I'm basically German). Teachers won't be convinced if you tell them "but it's free" - they will just laugh at you and tell you that government has to pay for licenses or faster (or more) hardware because the teachers need their time (time is money in Europe - remember?) to teach and correct kid's exams. You have to get Linux (and /or computer aided teaching) deep into their syllabus and give them some good reasons (that's a different topic and there are lots of them). Perhaps somebody should open a website www.reasons_for_linux_in_schools.org :-). Also don't rely on free support by commercial companies like RH for example. They talk a lot - but in the end you're on your own (that's why they're called commercial :-)). As you see my mail looks sceptically, but I still believe that it is possible. It's better to tell you about the problems first - later you won't blame me ;-) and you will think twice if you can really DO this thing. First you should look up if there is enough voluntarily or commercial support support - start at your local-linux-user-groups. Here some people got a law through that in government linux shall be used in the first place if the problem (gap) can be solved (filled) by linux somehow. This will really help linux in schools in the future here in Goa I believe. And just to keep in mind: we had around 40 volunteers for our first meeting (or on the volunteer list) in the beginning. Now it dropped down to around 20 or less and so far only 6 or so are really helping :-(. People are very enthusiastic in the beginning - if it comes to real work - hmmmm (nobody to blame - we got little time today and a lot of other priorities). I know that a lot of stuff I talked about was not really necessary for your questions, but it is also for to give some people an idea about the problems they might be facing if they want implement linux (especially ltsp and especially in 3rd world countries at a low cost). Currently I see no better, cheaper, easier maintained solution to give computers to poor countries than ltsp (IT ROCKS!). I, in general want to post all the information about how we made this work here (including our distro) on the net one day. Currently we haven't got enough time to do this. We found a way to involve government, get the computers damn cheap and set them up by nearly only voluntarily help. They shall also (hopefully) be used as community centers for the village people one day (but there might be a long way to go). hope I didn't bore anybody :-) and was helpfull somehow, warm regards and good luck, Tom(my)___ PS. our mailinglist (looow volume and hardly any technical discussion) is: [EMAIL PROTECTED] There has just another project started round one month ago to put linux-systems into Delhi school: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I tought some guys in Nepal linux and ltsp. They put systems into schools in some far-off places - hardly anybody knows linux there. Don't know how far they reached - didn't get feedback in the last weeks - contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Welcome to geek heaven. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _____________________________________________________________________ Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.openprojects.net
