[K12OSN] Pilot Success Story

[Huck]

[Background]
In March of this year, THE fileserver for a school I tech at crashed.
It was a Novell 6.0 server handling mail, and all file serving for the
school(300 users).
Linux firewall/dhcp/proxy/content filter on an old old redhat system of
course kept running fine...
So users could still do web research, visit favorite websites, yadda
yadda etc...
 
As soon as I arrived on site, I grab'd the machine I was developing a
WinXP image for their 'teaching' 
computer lab...and slap'd together a mail server in as much time as it
takes to install a bare linux system (25 min or so).
Tension eased instantly...only 3 or 4 of the 30+ staff seemed put off by
losing access to their files...
The overwhelming majority were stressed because they lost access to
communications via e-mail.
 
Then, as I had been fiddling with K12LTSP on a high end workstation(far
from server grade hardware), I created user accts,
samba accts and shares and VOILA! an instant file server for all student
traffic the next day.(with bugs worked out on a daily basis =).
Windows '98 isn't the most friendly OS to access a samba share...
 
Now the library computers were the large issue...so...I made a boot
floppy...took the crashed server...threw in some IDE's instead of SCSI
hd's..
bumped the ram up another Gig...and installed K12ltsp and 10 generic
'library1-10' users...gave the floppies to the librarian...
re-named 'writer,presenter,calc' to *cough* a name the kids were already
familiar with *end cough*, and heard absolutely nothing from the
librarian
except the printing was slow...so used CUPS instead of LPR and issue
solved...nothing but praise from the students and requests for copies of
the CD's 
so they can install it at home...
 
Have handed out nearly 30 'live distros', mandrakemove and knoppix...and
4 full sets of K12LTSP...
unbeknownst to me at the time...FreeCiv rapidly took over the library
and thus I was required to revert those files to non-executable status.
The only hesitation(aside from the printer) on behalf of the students
was how to save/access files from a floppy...
 
Currently I have 2 other schools in the Portland area that I will be
presenting to their board's technology sub-committees in an effort to
save them
a bundle on TCO as well as make use of a plethora of donated
"junkware"...Y'all might be amazed at how many computers get donated to
private schools, 
and the quality or lack-thereof of said computers...it's almost as if
constituants regard the schools as a recycling facility...and now with
K12LTSP they
can actually function as such to a large degree =)
 
--Huck
 
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