Potential School Wide Linux Implementation
Eberhard Roloff
tuxebi at gmx.de
Sun Apr 5 18:14:52 UTC 2009
Tim Holmes wrote:
> Hello Folks:
>
> I am the One Man IT shop for Medina Christian Academy, and am facing a
> potential situation that i am trying to avert in the future. I am
> currently a largely Windows XP (fully patched and updated) network built
> on a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory domain. I have some samba
> servers for file servers and an APACHE web development server. We have
> ~150 desktops spread between the classrooms, offices and computer lab.
> The computers are mostly roughly 5 year old Pentium 4 gateways mostly
> have 40 gb hdd, onboard sound and video cards and between 512 and 1024
> mb memory
>
> I am seeing a problem in that XP support ends here in the next few days
> / weeks. Our hardware will NOT support Windows Vista , and some of the
> reviews that I am reading are beginning to indicate that we will not be
> able to support Windows 7 (even if we can afford the licenses).
>
> I spoke with our Executive Director today and he indicated a willingness
> to at least consider moving the entire school to linux as a potential
> solution.
>
> We need to be able to do the following things...
>
> - most of our computer classes use Microsoft Office -- thats covered
> with Open Office, so no problem there, the same for our teachers using
> office and the folks in the front office.
>
> - each classroom is equipped with a SmartBoard interactive white board,
> -- SmartTech has linux software and drivers for them, so it may be a
> little bit of work but should be workable.
>
> -- Printing -- we have a number of printers across the network -- couple
> of which are all in one type units by keyocera - and all stations/users
> need to be able to print -- so that means samba print server -- again --
> probably take some development work but i am pretty sure it can be done.
>
> -- domain (or whatever its called in linux) -- users need to be able to
> sign in on any computer, and have their files accessable similar to what
> happens when a user logs into a windows domain.
>
> -- Our School management software / gradebook -- not available in linux,
> but im wondering about using crossover office / wine or possibly VMWARE
> -- i'll need input on that -- its a client server app sort of the
> gradebook writes out text files that are imported into the main
> application which is based on microsoft access databases with a custom
> written interface -- might have to run a Virtual windows 2003 server to
> run the server portion of it -- and like wine or something for the users
> to access it -- i dont know
>
> -- backup -- we have a quantum loader, so one way or another we'll need
> to be able to back stuff up
>
> -- file servers -- ive got a couple linux file servers now -- but they
> are running samba i dont know how to share stuff via linux
>
> im sure there are things that i have forgotten so if anyone has ideas /
> suggestions please chime in.
>
> I am tentatively planning to use kubuntu, for the desktop environmen,
> and this project (if it goes) at least for now would be deployed summer
> of 2010 for use beginning in the fall of 2010
>
> ANY and all input is welcome
>
> Thanks
>
> Tim Holmes
> IT Director
> Medina Christian Academy
>
Imho this cries for LTSP, also to lower your adminstartive burden.
Everntually you might consider using MS-Terminalserver for your
remaining windows needs that you cannot rework with Linux.
see:
http://www.ltsp.org/
and
http://k12ltsp.org/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
for a more school centric setup
Kind regards
Eberhard
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