School Project; please read

[Robert Hodgins]

On Tue, 2007-16-10 at 15:46 -0500, Brian Fahrlander wrote:
> Well, for the first time in literally years, a break appears: if I 
> can write a how-to on setting up an "Introduction to Linux" class, the 
> local college will PAY me to do it.  Teaching...getting paid...two 
> things I thought I wouldn't really see again...   :>

Congratulations!

> 
>      Technical questions: ('cause this is that list)
> 
>      They have all Windows boxes; probably 2k3 or XP. Vista, if they 
> hurt someone in a past life...it is enough to have them resize, say, 5G 
> of their drives to install Linux?  How tough is that? (I've not 
> maintained Windows this century...)
> 

It "shouldn't" be a problem (gparted). Having said that, I have had some
problems resizing NTFS partitions, though. (Since I didn't really care
about Windows, I erased it and gave the whole drive to Linux.)

>      Is it possible to hand out "Live" CDs and do anything meaningful on 
> them, like learning spreadsheets, word processing, etc?  I'm assuming 
> any school work would have to connect to a shared-space, someplace...

Knoppix is loaded with stuff. Try to get the DVD version (it has NVU, a
web authoring tool on it.) And you could have them save things to a
floppy (likely the schools still have computers with floppy drives?) or
a USB key.

>      Are there other low-cost ways to present Linux to a room full of 
> students, easily?  (I'm aware of LTSP; I'm also aware of netbooting 
> having changed drastically since I used it...but I love the idea)

Don't know much about LTSP.

> 
>      If we can get this class going, there's a good chance of exposure! 
> (And I stay out of child-support prison...)

Exposure could land you in another kind of prison ;)

Good luck!