Planning the rollout

[Dmitri Minaev]

Dear colleagues,

I plan to install Linux in a school classroom and I have some
questions regarding the very basic questions, from the choice of the
distribution, to network planning.

What we have right now: a network with a 100Mbps switch, 1 server
(Win2003 Server, 256Mb RAM) and 13 workstations running XP Pro (128Mb
RAM). No internet connection right now, but ADSL is possible in the
near future (not at the moment of the installation and with limited
traffic). There are no systems administrators in the school.

What we need: an environment where students would be able to log in
from any workstation, get materials from a read-only location, perform
tasks on the workstation and save the results to another network
location, not accessible by other students. Preservation of the
content of home directories is not necessary. Probably, even otherwise
-- it might be preferable to restore the home dirs to their original
content from time to time.

The questions are:

1. Edubuntu is a natural choice for a classroom, but since LTSP is not
an option due to the server configuration, should we consider another
distribution? Plain Ubuntu, for example?

2. To log into one account from different workstations, we could, at
least in theory :), use: NIS, LDAP, Samba, rsynced system files. What
would be more appropriate, in your opinion?

3. Should the home dirs be located on the server? If so, should it be
NFS or Samba? The same about other network resources?

If possible, could you, please, give links to some docs on the setup
of the recommended software? Thanks!

-- 
With best regards,
Dmitri Minaev

Russian history blog: http://minaev.blogspot.com