What Thin Clients for Edubuntu LTSP in an Irish Primary School

[Bob Jolliffe]

Hi

Can't say I've got too much recent experience of LTSP in the
classroom, but I'll throw in my two cents in the hope that it might be
helpful.

Firstly I think Rob's request for a bit of horsepower on the clients
and probably a consequent softening of the barrier between thin/thick
server/local seems to be something of a growing wish.  See for example
this post:

http://www.stgraber.org/2009/03/31/ltsp-past-and-future

Nice to see Jaunty fitting this scenario well.

Regarding the thin client hardware itself, the edubuntu-users list is
showing a good number of folk deploying Asus eee PC's (perhaps with a
reasonable LCD monitor thrown in) in this role.  This doesn't sound
like a bad idea at all.

1.  They are cheap (the market price-war dynamics driving down netbook
prices is more dramatic than the more niche specialised thin client
market).
2.  Running ubuntu on eee pc is pretty well understood by many -
including here within Ubuntu-Ireland team.  I think quite a few have
them.  I still get a lot of use out of my trusty early model 701 -
just upgraded to jaunty.  The newer ones are much nicer.
3.  Whereas they should play happily within a thin client setup they
are also useful when detached from "the mothership".  Of course this
is a mixed blessing - making them more desirable as stolen hardware -
but I don't think that's the most useful way to focus the mind on
moving forward.

I'd be happy to let mine be borrowed for an LTSP experiment if that's
useful.  Maybe others with eeePC's might want to join in.  A sort of
eeePC LTSP connectivity fest.  Might even work over a beer.

Regards
Bob

2009/5/14 Maciej Danielski <mdanielski at ubuntu.com>:
> Hello fellow Ubunteros,
>
> I was contacted by a school teacher in Lucan asking for some thin
> clients recommendations.
> Please see email below.
>
> Do you have any experience with thin clients?
>
>
> Your suggestions are very welcome.
>
> Looking forward to hearing from you,
> Maciej Danielski
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Rob OBrien <mr_roboito at yahoo.ie>
> Date: Wed, May 13, 2009 at 10:42 PM
> Subject: What Thin Clients for Edubuntu LTSP in an Irish Primary School
> To: mdanielski at ubuntu.com
>
>
> Hi Maciej,
>
> How are you?  I found your E-mail address through
> https://wiki.edubuntu.org/IrishTeam  My name is Robert O'Brien, I'm a
> primary teacher in Lucan and I'm running a small Edubuntu LTSP network
> at the moment.  Our school is looking to expand the network
> considerably in the near future using new thin clients rather than
> donated pentium 2 and 3 PCs.  These PCs have been doing the job fine
> up until now and will probably continue in the computer room but we
> have funding for technology at the moment and we would rather use this
> to purchase thin clients for the classrooms to take advantage of their
> lower running costs.  My only problem is I don't have much experience
> with thin client hardware and I'm wondering if you or any of your gang
> in the Irish Ubuntu team could offer some impartial advice.  We will
> be using the system mainly for office applications, web browsing,
> e-mail, educational games/software as well as image manipulation (GIMP
> or similar) and simple animation/video films.
> I know the server will be the workhorse here but I think the clients
> should have a bit of power themselves, I'd love to hear your
> recommendations.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Robert O'Brien
>
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