Does Open Source make life easy????

[Jim Kronebusch]

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:28:44 +1030, Karl Goetz wrote
> On Wed, 2007-11-14 at 10:41 -0500, Jim Kronebusch wrote:
> > Does anyone think local installs of Knoppix or Damn Small Linux running from a local HD
> > or flash drive in these laptops would be a good suggestion?  Something like this would
> > loose some eye-candy but should run great with the stated hardware.  Then the wireless
> > could be used for Internet Access, Central Auth (LDAP), and possibly NFS homes such as
> 
> 54mb router.
> 20 clients
> =
> 3mb each.
> I'm not sure i can agree running NFS homes over 3mb wireless is a good
> idea tbh.

I'm also a little iffy on NFS over wireless, but I don't know what the options are.  I
personally would stick with local storage in that case.  Or maybe configure the storage
to be the users USB sticks.  Many of these tiny distros allow your profile and /home to
be stored on portable media....just a thought.

> > Gavin suggested.  There are many solutions for mass cloning that I'm sure could be
> > figured out fairly quick.
> 
> The ongoing maintainace is the real kicker.

I think this will be a kicker with anything, Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.  The only thing
that could simplify would be Diskless remote booting or thin clients.  But I'm not a fan
of wireless, let alone trying to run either of those over wireless.  A good central
imaging system is likely the best way to solve this.  You hosed your machine, boot from
rescue disk or similar, restore image.

> > 
> > If you wanted to stick with an Ubuntu derivative I'd definitely stick with Xubuntu. 
> > This will run much better with a local install than Ubuntu or Kubuntu.  The window
> > manager is largely what limits your hardware.  I've ran Xubuntu on an 800Mhz PIII with
> > 256RAM and it performed fairly well.  I too would not suggest trying to run any type of
> > LTSP over wireless, you'll end up writing another letter of frustration :-)
> 
> I have to agree with the LTSP over wireless comments - try not to(!).
> kk
> 
> > 
> > Jim

Again, these are all options, something you don't have with the alternative OS's.

I wonder how OLPC and the Intel guys plan maintenance on their 1 to 1 implementations? 
I'll bet they have some creative ideas/solutions that could be applied to this type of
situation.  Local restore partition?

Jim

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