Observations so far

[Rick Fitzsimmons]

Here are some thoughts and ramblings from my testing thus far. I've 
played around with the preview release, and currently the 20050921 daily 
build. Before I say any more, I must say that I'm well impressed with 
what's been achieved. I hope my comments below will be seen as 
"constructive criticism", and not just moans.

Installation:
-------------
Generally feels good. Just the IP address and associated dhcpd.conf 
building needs to be fixed. Still displays message saying "If you see 
this template you've found a bug". Maybe the installation could present 
both the IP and dhcpd.conf settings together - seeded with pre-set 
values for everything and allowing manual edit for those who know what 
they want.

I think an option to select PXE or Etherboot would be useful. Otherwise 
a post-install message to warn the user to set up Etherboot if it's 
needed (which it will be for older thin client boxes).

Usage:
------
khelpcenter seems to be missing, so no help for kde apps. (Installed OK 
with synaptic, but surely should be there by default.) Most target users 
won't know anything about most of the apps, so help is essential.

It's not clear from the menu what most of the apps actually are. This 
will not gain us any friends among potential users! And where there is 
help, it's not really user friendly. KTurtle is "A KDE Logo programming 
environment". Most users won't know (or care) what KDE means, nor what's 
meant by environment. And as for Kig...

There doesn't seem to be sample data to go with the apps. So e.g. KTouch 
says "No training lecture loaded", but when you go to load one, there 
aren't any. Presumably not just an Edubuntu issue, but this will not 
help our cause. Maybe we need to generate some Edubuntu-themed content 
for some of the apps?

Thin client seems very responsive on a 100MBit network, although 
start-up and log-on seem slow. (My recollection of LTSP4 was that it got 
going a lot quicker).

Thin client currently lacks sound, but still has the "Sound & Video" 
section in the menu. OK, I know that menu configuration is set for 
breezy+1, but I do feel uneasy about inviting thin client users to try 
sound and video applications. Similarly, the thin client desktop still 
has a volume control.

That's enough for now. I'll let my children loose on it next...

Cheers,
Rick.