Acer Netbooks + Edubuntu

[David Van Assche]

The acer laptops have been shown to work exceptionally well under LTSP
(especially Ubuntu, Debian and OpenSuse. There are various howtos on
the Internet that describe how to get this working withotu too many
glitches and I believe the latest releases of these OSes have fixed
almost ll bugs. The next step would be to have a semi-fat client that
connects to the shcool centralisation, while taking advantage of the
LTS P centralisation and monitoring capabilities. Sort of the bost of
both worlds. The idea is to let  user tha comes in from home to synch
with the school server, while loading LTSP, and then running the
majority of its services (those that benefit from running on the
server) directly from there. This could be sensitive data that
shouldn't be copied, or jsut simply syncing Moodle and other services
in use that can synchronise when it finds another copy of the program
in question running on the computer. In a school-university or even
much more serious settings liike contractual work for CIA, MIT, FBI,
etc, the guarding of data is paramount. When the computer leaves the
scene (primary or uni) the systems synch up, leaving the local users
with  his latest files (via a possible restart of laptop, and the
server with the last known working image. Then, upon entering, the
ltsp env. it synchs up files and services, as well as newly installed
programs (though the sysadmin may only allow this from the server..)
Using GPS, as soon as the connection is severed (wireless) we give the
local system back in use tot he client, and vice versa.

This last integration into LTSP mayb not have been done yet, but I
think it is absolutely the way forward.... Thin/fat client environment
the offices, especially those static systems. fat clients/laptops for
use by children say 13-, as older kids are actually still use to
normal computers., they can actaullyn understand the difference
between running a thin terminal or that.

kind regards,
David Van Assche

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 1:03 PM, Charl Wentzel
<charl.wentzel at vodamail.co.za> wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-08-23 at 12:15 +0200, Lenin wrote:
>> Looks promising.
>>
>> We have to set up the lab in one of the primary school classrooms. For cost
>> considerations we most probably will have to go for a thin client setup, but
>> I do agree (the admin people at school also) that portable solutions are
>> better and we need to look at it.
>>
>
> Hi Lionel
>
> We've been working with small a device called an eBox (not related to
> the eBox Platform software).  The specs on these units are:
>
> 1 GHz processor (non-Intel)
> 512MB RAM
> built-in sound card
> 1 x VGA port
> 1 x PS/2 port (keyboard or mouse)
> 3 x USB ports
> 1 x 10/100 Ethernet port
> 1 x Compact flash slot
> 1 x SD card slot
> 1 x mic socket
> 1 x earphone socket
>
> I have been using these devices with Xubuntu and Ubuntu Server Edition
> installed on an SD card.  They work nicely.
>
> However, I does take some work to get Ubuntu installed, you can't
> install directly.  Since it requires a special kernel it may take some
> work to get it working with LTSP as well.
>
> The devices you need start at around R1,600.  You can add an LCD +
> keyboard + mouse to it for about R900-R1000.  So the total cost of the
> thin client is in the same ballpark as the Netbooks we are trying to
> get.
>
> If you interested in going this route let me know.  I've been planning
> to use these guys for the same purpose (i.e. Edubuntu LTSP).  Maybe we
> could work together.
>
> There are still some negotiations to do before we could get the netbooks
> and I have no timelines.  But with the eBox option we could start
> straigh away.
>
> Contact me off-list if you want to talk details.
>
> Regards
> Charl
>
>
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