[ubuntu-florida] who's using Edubuntu?

[Casey Doran]

Martin's right there, so it seems that XOs are out of the question in
this situation. An edubuntu thin (or relatively lean, considering their
hardware) client system should be fairly easy to set up anyways and
would offer a lot more in terms of configurability  and available power
for probably a lot less. If they really did have their minds set on
laptops, remind them that the minimum system requirements for a full
edubuntu install are well below the average specs of the cheapest
laptops on the market today, and they could probably get a better deal
if they order in bulk from the manufacturer (and also not have to pay
for an OS). Really, you would only set up a thin client network if you
had to start it up from scratch. If they have existing hardware and
networking, you might as well just do a rather ragtag LDAP or Kerberos
system. Its fairly easy to set up and is more network-reliability
independent: If the servers down, you could still boot and logon to a
generic account.

Just another Idea.

(A message came in the middle of my typing this, hope this aint obsolete
already.)

_e/C
On Mon, 2007-10-22 at 15:52 -0400, Martin Wilson wrote:
> I hate to chime in mid discussion here, but aren't the XO laptops not
> available for sale in North America?  I don't mean to take down such a
> good argument, and trust me I think XO laptops would rock for this
> school, but I believe OLPC has announced they will only be selling
> their laptops to governments.  The only way to obtain an XO at the
> moment is to participate in the "Give 1, get 1" program, in which you
> donate $399, and one child in a developing world obtains a laptop and
> you also get one for personal use.  And this program only runs from
> November 12th for a short period of time. 
> 
> On 10/22/07, Andrew Watts <systemstalker at gmail.com> wrote:
>         You need to sell it to them that this is the future for their
>         students, including the parents.  Honestly though i would talk
>         to the school and the parents about the XO laptop.  If they
>         can afford to send there kid to a private school they should
>         be able to cope with the XO laptop.  It's $180.  the kids will
>         be able to bring the system home with them and be able to
>         everything that they can do otherwise.  It may not be Ubuntu
>         but remember, the system was designed for kids, what ever is
>         best for the kids is the most important part.  They will have
>         the ability to communicate and if you were to have a server in
>         every class all the lessons could be put on the XO.  I bet if
>         the school were to work with One Laptop Per Child that they
>         would be all for working out something where each child spent
>         200 per laptop and the extra $20 went to OLPC.  Again, this IS
>         a private school, don't let those parents tell you they cant
>         afford it.  Those kids wont be able to break anything and will
>         have a laptop that they can take home and work on.  If you are
>         planning to buy new hardware anyway this would be the best
>         solution.  Thin clients cost money and the last time i checked
>         the XO OLPC was alot better than a thin client PC, its small,
>         portable, about the same price as a thin client and best of
>         all the student can OWN it and use it at home too.   The
>         biggest bonus is that if the kid breaks the OS he/she or a
>         parent can easily fix it at home without any CD or other
>         extraneous software, everything that is needed is already
>         there.  its an all in one solution to the problem and costs
>         the school nothing, everyone wins.  The kids won't care what
>         it's doing nor will the school.  The beautiful thing is that
>         these laptops are self networking, you won't need to add any
>         major network infrastructure it should just work out of box,
>         so easy a child in the 3rd world can do it.  this is a lot
>         cheaper than any PC on the market and its virtually zero
>         configuration, with thin clients and the like it there is a
>         problem it can take days or weeks to fix, money always needs
>         to be spent setting things up.  Thin clients are difficult to
>         setup (for the average user, try telling a teacher to set one
>         up, HA) and if you leave the program goes belly up.  With the
>         XO all you need to have is a few wireless access points and
>         the mesh network in the XO does the rest.  if one child in the
>         room has internet/network access, all of them do.  The teacher
>         can also run all the notebooks at the same time, say during a
>         lecture the teacher takes control and provides an up close and
>         personal interactive lesson right there.  The perfect solution
>         to a very difficult problem.  Not only is it cost efficient,
>         its also time efficient for both the school and the students.
>         The only problem with it is, how ever, getting OLPC to sell
>         the laptops to the school.  Personally i think that every
>         child in the world should have this laptop issued to them
>         every year in school, there just isn't much you can do to
>         break them. and as they progress through grade school give
>         them more advanced laptops.  The XO is water resistant, drop
>         resistant and most importantly kid tested to work every time
>         with a great battery life (8+ hours) so it will last most, if
>         not all of the day.  Any open source software you want to use
>         should work on it too.  Let me know what you think. 
>         
>         Andrew