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

Wed Apr 20 23:19:50 UTC 2005

My decision to put my Son's school on LTSP was somewhat originally financially based.
Over the last two years we've have had a couple of technology fundraisers that could have gotten us a few windows licenses. Instead, we decided to spend the money on cool new hardware.
The school now has disklessworkstations.com thin clients and a whole lab full of LCD flat panels. We've also put the money into things like gigabit networking infrastructure and better server hardware.

I'm not an educator, but I know that it should never under any circumstances be the responsibility of a school teacher to teach children brand loyalty.

My son's school now has more than adequate facilities in the lab and classrooms to teach computing concepts like word processing, spreadsheets, internet, databases, and programming.

Luis

> 
> From: Rob Owens <hick518 at yahoo.com>
> Date: 2005/04/20 Wed PM 06:20:35 EDT
> To: The Prof <joseph.bishay at gmail.com>, 
> 	"Support list for opensource software in schools." <k12osn at redhat.com>
> Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Given this situation, why bother continue with LTSP?
> 
> How about adding Windows Terminal Server if people in
> the congregation really want Windows?  That way people
> will have their choice of what to use.  You keep the
> thin client setup the way it is, and the users can
> ctrl-alt-f2 to get to the windows server.
> 
> If the donor has access to it, I'd prefer to get a
> bunch of 19" LCD monitors to use on the thin clients.
> 
> Another thought is you could accept the generous gift
> of all those Windows desktops, but don't get rid of
> the Linux ones.  You maintain the Linux system and let
> other volunteers maintain the Windows system.  See
> which system gets more use after a year of viruses and
> spyware.
> 
> You're not there to dictate to the congregation what
> they should use, so you're gonna have to get Windows
> if they really can't be talked out of it.  But it
> might be a blessing in disguise to have Windows
> machines sitting next to Linux machines -- you might
> win over a bunch of new converts.
> 
> As a side note, I have been slowly transitioning my
> family members to linux, because I am tired of helping
> them scan for spyware, etc.  My sister was the
> toughest one to convince.  But the other day, my
> sister's friend started asking me about linux because
> my sister is now apparently recommending it to people!
> 
> -Rob
> 
> 
> --- The Prof <joseph.bishay at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > Thank you for the prompt replies.  I'd like to
> > continue the
> > conversation by addressing some concerns which have
> > been raised, as
> > well as providing some more information.
> > 
> > In regards to the person doing the donating - the
> > hardware must be
> > given to a non-profit organization, and we are not
> > allowed to re-sell
> > the licenses. The hardware is coming from one place
> > and it doesn't
> > have any OS on them.  The number of software
> > licenses available is
> > very high so we'll never run out, and it includes
> > ALL microsoft
> > products.  I do not think there is a time-limit, so
> > to speak, for
> > these licenses, but I do not know.  The person doing
> > the donating
> > wants to help us out very much, and doesn't have an
> > agenda of any
> > sort. He has been trained extensively as a MSCE and
> > other
> > microsoft-related things, so he does know it all
> > very well, but he's
> > not going to gain anything one way or another.
> > 
> > In regards to the future upgrade of these donated
> > machines - I would
> > argue that the turn-over rate of computers in a
> > church or elementary
> > school is much slower than in a company - we were,
> > until 1.5 years
> > ago, running pentium 1 windows 98 machines on a
> > WinNT server a little
> > slowly, but no problem. Only reason we had to ditch
> > that system was
> > because our NT server died a horrible, smokey death
> > and we wouldn't
> > have been able to afford to upgrade all the clients
> > to XP.  I think
> > that if we had a lab of pentium 4 machines and a
> > dual Xenon SCSI
> > machine as the server (that's the type of hardware
> > he can get us) that
> > it would last us for a long, long time.
> > 
> > In regards to the spyware situation - doesn't
> > microsoft now have
> > anti-spyware software? If so, that would be included
> > as part of the
> > donation.  For the viruses, I'd assume that we'd
> > have to install a
> > server-based antivirus program to take care of that,
> > along with
> > locking down the clients a bit. That does require
> > more work and admin,
> > which brings me to the next point...
> > 
> > Administration:  Currently with a linux lab I am the
> > only one who can
> > administer it because no one knows how or is
> > interested in this
> > 'new-fangled stuff'. If it was a Windows lab, that
> > responsiblity could
> > be spread out among at least a few people who have
> > this ability,
> > lightening my load. In addition, most of the
> > admin/setup/etc. is done
> > for free as we volunteer our time.  So it isn't like
> > we'd cost more
> > because of the increased work to them :)
> > 
> > Learning a word-processor vs. learning MS WORD: This
> > is an interesting
> > argument. Since many people are educators here, you
> > are approaching it
> > differently than the parents/admin staff. They are
> > looking at it from
> > a certain perspective.  IE: I use MS at work. I use
> > MS at home. My
> > child in university uses MS and her prof uses MS in
> > his lectures. My
> > resume says that I know MS Office. Where does Linux
> > fix in?  Bank
> > website X and company website Y say that I need to
> > get IE to make it
> > work.  When I walk into BestBuy or open the paper I
> > see the computers
> > are being sold with Windows XP. So why are you
> > forcing this
> > non-Windows stuff on me? So what if it is less
> > administration? Why do
> > I care?  That's the dilemma.
> > 
> > As sad as it is to say, MANY people do not view
> > education and school
> > as a way to increase their child's capability of
> > thought, but as a way
> > to get a professional high-paying job. And I'm not
> > about to take on
> > the ideology of an entire culture. :)
> > 
> > Joseph
> > 
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> > 
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