Edubuntu Feisty

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi,

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007, Cedric Janssens wrote:

> I'm planning to deploy a demonstration classroom of Edubuntu server
> with thin client.

I can give you my opinions, but I'm not sure if others would have different
views.

> I'm looking for information to make the best choice for the server,
> but didn't find anything really relevant.

If it's for a classroom, you'll have lots of users at once.  In that case
I'd suggest:

1. As much RAM as possible (high priority).
2. 2x CPUs if possible, the quicker the better.
3. Plenty of disk space, preferably using RAID for reliability.
4. Although it would be nice to recommend 64-bit, my experiences on a
   desktop have found it a little unstable (eg firefox crashing).  You
   should be able to get a 64-bit machine and run 32-bit edubuntu fine 
   though.  This allows you to easily use the adobe flash plugin too which
   is only currently available in 32-bit.

> Also, I'm looking for the future changelog in Edubuntu Feisty to help
> me to choose the right version to make a good demonstration : Dapper,
> still in LTS ? Edgy ? Feisty ?

Dapper is very stable, but as time goes on it'll lack newer features, eg it
still uses Firefox v1.5 not v2.0 and in particular its thin clients don't
support printers and sound so easily.  However, it is very stable.

Edgy (among other things) added easy support for sound and (though I
haven't really tried it) printers on thin clients.  It improved lots of
other programs in various small ways and is pretty bug-fixed now, I think.

Feisty is not finished yet so use it at your peril.  If something crashes
or doesn't work right, it might give a bad impression.  Feisty will again
give newer versions of software and these is supposed to be a better sound
infrastructure (PulseAudio), particularly for thin clients.  There is a
list of goals and their statuses for feisty here (many will not make it for
this release):

	https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty

If it's a serious demonstration, I'd be inclined to go with edgy for now so
it's stable.  Feisty should be out towards the end of April and you can
always upgrade or reinstall at your leisure.

Gavin