First Installation Impressions

[Pete Savage]

Hi all,
I recently starting installing edubuntu at the school i work at.  I
documented some of my thoughts and was asked to mail it here for all to
see :S


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Background I'm a network/IT manager for a secondary school in
Southampton UK. Being involved in Linux at many levels already, I
recently started a small LUG at the school called YouthLUG. The pupils
have been mostly used to Ubuntu after I distributed CD's to them. It
seemed a natural choice to move to edubuntu at the school.

First impressions Installation of the server ie the entire LTSP package
seemed a little strange to be the default. Although it's great to have
everything in front of you, to me workstation would make the better
choice for the default installation. I was not even aware that edubuntu
had the LTSP package, which is something I think should be made a lot
more of. We have been investigating into LTSP and the like for a long
time, and to have a distro available that comes with it all setup to
begin with is a fantastic advantage. Especially in the field of
education where most things are done in spare time.

The installation proceeded as normal but I was only aware I was
installing some kind of server installation because I was asked for an
IP address when I am used to a DHCP assignment in a standard ubuntu
installation. A problem which slowed my progress considerably was the
lack of allowing for adding a proxy server at the installation stage.
Especially in an educational establishment, proxy servers are extremely
common. In our LEA, Local Education Authority, all schools use the city
as the internet provider. The city uses a central proxy server. It would
have been really useful to have the proxy setup in the default installation.

Is there even the possibility to search for the wpad server provided by
some networks for auto configuration of the proxy server. I have a wpad
server on the school network.

After finishing the installation, it would have been great for some help
screen to pop up straight away on first log in. I know this is a step
towards Microsoft protocol, but for a server in an educational
establishment, if it's going to work, it has to be easy. Especially for
people who are trying linux for the first time.

On installing the client, I was using a Vmware machine. After taking
about an hour to install, the procedure bombed out due to insufficient
disk space. It would be great to have an estimate for the disk space
before beginning installation. Fedora have this as default, and since
the default package installation is set, an estimate of the diskspace
should be childs play. It was frustrating for me to have to start all
over again. This re iterates the point of not having enough time to do
things. I want edubuntu to exceed.

My last point is Microsoft integration. I know we are trying to provide
a better solution but, as you are all aware, especially in an
educational establishment, moving from one program to another is a
process that can take up to 5 years. We have to transition from one to
the other over a long period of time. SADMS, is a package that provides
authentication to an active directory domain, this is just a thought,
but could possibly give some more selling points.

Conclusions This is a summary of my experiences so far. I have yet to
start using the packages as I ran out of time. It is however on the
cards for the next few days/weeks.
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