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Re: [school-discuss] Possibilities



Jeff,

Your best bet would be to use those 486's as dumb terminals connected to 
a much more powerful server - here's how:

http://www.k12ltsp.org/

An adequate server that would serve a lab (20-30 clients) could be built 
easily for $2000 from commodity parts, maybe much cheaper (been awhile 
since I built a new application server for our project 
<http://www.silvervalley.k12.ca.us/~chobbs/xterms>) .

Other than that, I'd be very surprised if you could turn those 486's 
into really useful standalone machines - it doesn't matter what OS you 
put on them, they're going to feel very slow - but as terminals, they'll 
get new life.

Chris

Jeff wrote:

>I can spell Linus and I do have it installed as part of a dual boot 
>system on my computer(RedHat 6.2 from the CD). From this point
>on I am supremely ignorant of the system. I did install a TInyLinux
>at school - but other than the fact that it works, I haven't had 
>much time to deal with it.
>
>Here is my question:  Is it feasible to create a distribution of 
>Linux which could run on old hardware - say 486 with 16MB that 
>could do JUST the following:
>
>connect to a Win2000 netrwork to access the internet with a JavaScript 
>(not Java) capable browser?  There would be no need for any 
>sort of additional peripherals except a floppy (no CD-NoPrinter-
>No e-mail ABSOLUTELY no sound)   Obviously size is a major 
>consideration. (I've heard this somewhere before...)
>
>This setup would be great for my classroom since most of what
>I would like my students to do can be done with a web browser and 
>JavaScript.
>
>
>Jeff LeMieux
>
>
>
>

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