[K12OSN] Given this situation, why bother continue with LTSP?

Josiah Ritchie jritchie at bible.edu
Wed Apr 20 20:50:21 UTC 2005


On Wed, 2005-04-20 at 14:51 -0500, Bill Bardon wrote:
> On Wednesday, Apr 20 The Prof wrote:
> > Given that the major driving force which helped me discover LTSP was
> > the ability to afford Windows, with that roadblock gone, what reason
> > is there not to go with Windows?
> 
> The key thing here, which some have touched on, is this - don't make the
> argument for Linux about price!  Make it about licensing, make it about
> open formats and data ownership, make it about security.

I'll second this! Check out case studies. Show them that it isn't a
sacrifice and that companies throughout the US are moving towards Linux.
Toss out names like Novell, IBM, and HP. It isn't just PC companies. For
musician's, Ernie Ball (guitar strings) has been without Windows for 5
years. Governments, like Germany, are transitioning large portion. China
is making its own distro, Red Flag, for their government. Those are just
the first in a few groups I can put together. This is not a save cash
thing. It's just how it gets in the door of small organizations. Then
you see what it really is. :-)

You could also tell them that the unix style of computing is one of the
oldest and most proven. Mac has moved to a unix like OS. It seems the
only people not recognizing the *nix style superiority is MS and they
are silently soaking up features. The MS commandline is getting more
similar to bash each time I try a new version of Windows. 

Cost is a minor advantage. Administration time is a major advantage.
Teaching your students flexibility is a major advantage, not only in
computing. The concepts they learn on Linux can be taken to Windows
easily. but now they also have a skill/experience that is somewhat
unusual on top of it.

If you do go with Windows, absolutely buy DeepFreeze for them. You can
lock the machine down so tight and loose almost no functionality for the
students. We have labs that we run the users as admins so they can do as
they wish. When they walk away and the machine isn't used for 1/2 an
hour it automatically reboot. Suddenly, it's like we just installed it
all over again. Very impressive and time saving. You don't need to
monitor the lab anymore.

Others have mentioned removing the LTSP idea. I recomeend against that.
This is where much of your admin time is saved, fix once for all. You
will gain a lot of benefit by using the same hardware on the clients as
you will be able to have one config and only need to know one set of
specs. Hardware can be swapped among them. If you can get a new server
out of the deal, even better.

Like minded Christian Linux users:
ChristianSource Free Software and Linux Users Group (CS-FSLUG)
http://cs.uninetsolutions.com/

JSR/




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