Advice on getting a computer lab server

[Bill Moseley]

On Thu, Jan 10, 2008 at 03:37:12PM -0800, Joseph Hartman wrote:
> Gavin, thanks for all the advice, it is immensly helpful. I actually started
> rolling out an edubuntu lab earlier this year and it became painfully clear
> early on that the server I have (3.0 GHz P4 Dell with 4GB Dual Channel DDR
> RAM) was not going to be adequate to handle all the thin clients. I have
> since dedicated my efforts towards setting up MiniLANs in each teacher's
> classroom with the P4 servers handling just 3 to 6 thin clients. This seems
> to be working alright, although things are still pretty slow. At least I
> don't have to worry about viruses any more though. To answer your question
> about software, my current curriculum for grades K-8 includes:
> OpenOffice Impress, Writer, Calc, Scribus, Inkscape, GIMP, kturtle,
> Kompozer, Tuxtyping, Tuxpaint, and various Web 2.0 apps like Google Docs,
> Bubbl.us and Blogger.

Hi Joe,

Would you mind commenting a bit about how you are using the software
above at different grade levels?  Do the programs you mention meet the
educational needs of the kids and teachers?

Is there software you miss from your old setup (I assume Windows since
you mention viruses).


> I was hoping to use Kino and Blender with the middle schoolers at some point
> in the future, but it isn't a big deal to postpone those plans if need be.

I'd hope that the savings from using ltsp would help buy a few nice
machines for video editing.  Seems like a few nice iMacs would be a
nice addition.


-- 
Bill Moseley
moseley at hank.org