So...

I've been lurking on here for a few months and although I'm
impressed and excited about all the great work you're all
doing, there is really nothing going on here that is useful
to me or that I can be useful to (the more important issue,
IMHO).
 
I love that you're working so hard on bringing computer
access to resource-light areas of the world. I am from a
third-world country myself (Venezuela), and belong to the
national Ubuntu users group there.
 
I've introduced myself before, but let me do that again as
it's been a while:
 
My name is Simón Anibal Ruiz Rolfs, and I am the Technology
Assistant at Bloomington High School North in Bloomington,
Indiana. Some of you may know that the Department of
Education in Indiana is moving towards Open Source
integration for the purposes of facilitating a 1:1 computing
environment in classrooms, an environment that some research
points to as having beneficial effects on education. At my
high school we have received, through two separate instances
of grants from this program, nine 1:1 computing classrooms
(279+ workstations) which are required to run Linux.
 
Our existing tech support structure has abandoned this
program, and I have become the de facto support for this
entire program.
 
I blog at indianalinux.blogspot.com about the experiences
I'm having, if you're interested.
 
Anyhow, these workstations are far too beefy to be LTSP
clients (that is, it'd be a waste to use them as such), so
they all run as desktops. Last year I used Edubuntu on the
first batch of computers, and this year as I'm redesigning
the system we're using I've honestly started using plain
vanilla Ubuntu.
 
In my work, I'm concerned with managing a large network of
"modern" desktop computers and integrating them
with the existing Windows network. I don't use the LTSP
component, and since these computers are in Language Arts
(English) classrooms, all the nifty educational packages are
just games as far as the teachers are concerned.
 
Since I'm using Ubuntu in an educational setting, flying the
Edubuntu flag may seem the obvious answer. As I said,
though, the project doesn't really bring anything useful to
me, or allow me to bring something useful back to the
project.
 
I've stayed on this list in case circumstances change,
though, but I figured I've waited long enough and should say
something.
 
So, any ideas? How can I be useful to Edubuntu? Or should I
just stick with vanilla Ubuntu?
 
Hope this finds you all having a great day!
 
Simón

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On Tue, 10 Oct 2006, Simon Ruiz wrote:

> Anyhow, these workstations are far too beefy to be LTSP
clients (that is,
> it'd be a waste to use them as such), so they all run
as desktops. Last
> year I used Edubuntu on the first batch of computers,
and this year as
> I'm redesigning the system we're using I've honestly
started using plain
> vanilla Ubuntu.

> So, any ideas? How can I be useful to Edubuntu? Or
should I just stick
> with vanilla Ubuntu?

There is such a thing as diskless clients which run all of
their own
applications.  This might suit your requirements well.  The
idea being that
you provide a PXE boot image and then an NFS shares with
home dir and
system image.  Then the desktops do all the work.  This
might work well for
you because:

  - it'll make use of all of your good cpus
  - adding new machines involves zero install, you just plug
them in and PXE
    boot them
  - client disk failures are not an issue
  - installation of software is only done in one place
  - home directories are stored centrally (although that's
easy enough to
    arrange with nfs anyway)
  - you get much better performance on video, sound, etc. as
the data
    doesn't have to stream across the network

I don't think edubuntu supports this mode of operation at
the minute, but
I imagine it could.  One implementation is called lessdisks,
LTSP has
something called LOCAL_APPS, though I'm not sure exactly
what that does.

If that would be your ideal Edubuntu setup, maybe you could
propose working
on a project to implement that.  I'm only another user of
course, it's
possible the Edubuntu people will think this a horrible
idea.

Gavin


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hi,
Am Dienstag, den 10.10.2006, 16:55 +0100 schrieb Gavin
McCullagh:
> On Tue, 10 Oct 2006, Simon Ruiz wrote:

> > So, any ideas? How can I be useful to Edubuntu? Or
should I just stick
> > with vanilla Ubuntu?
> 
> There is such a thing as diskless clients which run all
of their own
> applications.  This might suit your requirements well. 
The idea being that
> you provide a PXE boot image and then an NFS shares
with home dir and
> system image.  Then the desktops do all the work.  This
might work well for
> you because:
> 
>   - it'll make use of all of your good cpus
>   - adding new machines involves zero install, you just
plug them in and PXE
>     boot them
>   - client disk failures are not an issue
>   - installation of software is only done in one place
>   - home directories are stored centrally (although
that's easy enough to
>     arrange with nfs anyway)
>   - you get much better performance on video, sound,
etc. as the data
>     doesn't have to stream across the network
> 
> I don't think edubuntu supports this mode of operation
at the minute, but
> I imagine it could.
well, it can ;) see /usr/share/doc/ltsp-server/workstation
on edgy ;)
its some manual setup required but that describes
essentially whats done
to set up such a system ... it could need some scripting
love so we
could have an ltsp-build-workstation script like the
ltsp-build-client
one ;) and the issue with login/passwd and /home directories
must be
solved...

ciao
	oli
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Oliver Grawert <ograubuntu.com> writes:
>it could need some scripting love so we
>could have an ltsp-build-workstation script like the
ltsp-build-client
>one ;) and the issue with login/passwd and /home
directories must be
>solved...

Now that is a cool idea....I can think of lots of schools
that might like
to go in that direction....I wonder how hard it would be to
tie into
something like samba/ldap?  Currently in my situation at our
school all of
my K12LTSP servers authenticate to a separate Samba/LDAP
server where the
/home dirs live and are exported. It'd be interesting to
explore with
Edgy.......

David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Director
Vassalboro Community School
dtraskvcsvikings.org
(207)923-3100



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Edubuntu Devel Group <edubuntu-devellists.ubuntu.com> writes:
>LTSP has
>something called LOCAL_APPS, though I'm not sure exactly
what that does.

Pretty much means what it says....by enabling local apps you
are
essentially using the workstations or terminals resources
such as CPU and
RAM to run the application.  There are many benefits to this
as well as
some drawbacks....  Benefits include less load on the
server, ability to
run video intensive apps such as Celestia, runaway apps
don't affect
anyone else....and sound is easier to work with....drawbacks
include
authentication (NIS seems to be the method of choice at the
moment),
launch speed as the app needs to mount over NFS, greater
workstation
demand (you need more RAM..etc), and you lose the benefit of
multiple
instances of an app running on a server (shared code
segments) as each app
is running on the workstations own CPU instead of the
server.   Hope this
helps!  

David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Director
Vassalboro Community School
dtraskvcsvikings.org
(207)923-3100



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Edubuntu Devel Group <edubuntu-devellists.ubuntu.com> writes:
>LTSP has
>something called LOCAL_APPS, though I'm not sure exactly
what that does.

Pretty much means what it says....by enabling local apps you
are
essentially using the workstations or terminals resources
such as CPU and
RAM to run the application.  There are many benefits to this
as well as
some drawbacks....  Benefits include less load on the
server, ability to
run video intensive apps such as Celestia, runaway apps
don't affect
anyone else....and sound is easier to work with....drawbacks
include
authentication (NIS seems to be the method of choice at the
moment),
launch speed as the app needs to mount over NFS, greater
workstation
demand (you need more RAM..etc), and you lose the benefit of
multiple
instances of an app running on a server (shared code
segments) as each app
is running on the workstations own CPU instead of the
server.   Hope this
helps!  

David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Director
Vassalboro Community School
dtraskvcsvikings.org
(207)923-3100



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Hi Simon,

> I've been lurking on here for a few months and although
I'm impressed and
> excited about all the great work you're all doing,
there is really nothing
> going on here that is useful to me or that I can be
useful to (the more
> important issue, IMHO).
> .....
> Since I'm using Ubuntu in an educational setting,
flying the Edubuntu flag
> may seem the obvious answer. As I said, though, the
project doesn't really
> bring anything useful to me, or allow me to bring
something useful back to
> the project.
> .....
> So, any ideas? How can I be useful to Edubuntu? Or
should I just stick
> with vanilla Ubuntu?

I believe that Edubuntu as a solution, a product and a
community can benefit
immensely from the input of someone like yourself in a
University
environment, handling a project of the size and scope that
you are.

Edubuntu is far more than Ubuntu, possibly with LTSP, and
educational
apps/games. It is an application of Ubuntu into an education
environment.
The feedback and requirements of the education environment
needs to be
voiced and mapped in these channels. We, as a community,
need your
experiences to continue creating a product that fits your
needs.

Best regards,
Will van der Leij


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