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Re: [school-discuss] K12Linux Release Candidate 1 Now Available!


Daniel Howard wrote:

Great work Peter and the team!!  A few questions:
Most of the credit goes to Warren who has done an enormous amount of work on this all while living with some medical maladies.
1. For systems with only 1 or 1.5 Gig of RAM and no DVD drive, when will a 6 or 7 disk CD direct install version be available? For systems with 1 or 1.5 Gig RAM and DVD drive, can we do a direct install instead of live?
To my knowledge, no one is working on an automatic installer via CD such as there is in K12LTSP. If the server has no DVD drive, why not install via USB key? The other option ATM would be to install Fedora and then install LTSP manually, which really isn't very hard, mostly a bunch of yum commands, and it's documented on the k12linux.org website. This is one of the primary goals of LTSP 5, that it can become a simple add on to any distribution using the distro's tools. The entirely-self-contained aspect of K12LTSP provided certain conveniences for new administrators, but also created problems in that it was essentially its own distribution, which was a development nightmare. Eventually, I think we may try to have a simple tool or script to automate the steps for installing LTSP on top of Fedora. But for now, the feeling was that providing a live system from USB key was eye-catching and usable in most cases such that it made sense to pursue that route.
2. Will Flash 9 sound on the clients work out of the box or do we still have to go through the agony of getting that working?
Flash 10 is out now for Linux and there are reports are that it's easier to get working than 9, but I haven't had a chance to try it myself yet.
3. Will HP/Compaq thin clients (like APS used, the 5000 series) still require the kernel downgrade to boot, or will they work out of the box with the new version?
It depends. I don't have any HP/Compaq thin clients, so I can't test it. You could just specify a different kernel for those machines in the dhcpd config file, but depending on how old a kernel you use, the necessary libs may break things. There's not a simple way to provide different libs within the chroot for different kernels, although I've heard that it's theoretically possible. 

Peter


Thanks again!  Daniel


Peter Scheie wrote:

All,
It is with great delight that we announce that K12Linux Release Candidate 1 is now available for download. K12Linux is LTSP 5 built on Fedora 9, and is slated to become the successor to the highly acclaimed K12LTSP. K12Linux comes as a live image which can be used to create a LiveUSB or LiveDVD with the client chroot already installed & configured. Install the image onto a USB key, boot from the key, follow the simple README, and you have a running LTSP5 server from which you can boot clients. Like what you see? Just click on the install icon 
and K12Linux is installed to the hard drive.  Get it at
http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/ltsp/rc1/i686/

RC1 includes
* Fedora 9 & Updates as of October 12, 2008
* LTSP-5.1.26
* ldm-2.0.13
* ltspfs-0.5.5
* many bug fixes
* New K12Linux-themed artwork for the login screen

Thanks go out to all who contributed to making this release possible.  In
particular, we'd like to recognize:
* Warren Togami for doing the lion's share of the work to get LTSP 5 working on 
Fedora 9, and for making the LiveUSB system work.
* Maureen Duffy for creating the artwork used at the login screen and elsewhere. 
* All those who tested the previous Beta and reported & fixed bugs.
LTSP 5 on Fedora 9 with Updates is currently considered to be production ready, and development of improved features continues rapidly. Check out our homepage 
at http://k12linux.org for the latest news and updated instructions.

How to Use LiveUSB
===================
* From Windows: Get LiveUSB Creator at https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator 
and use it to make a bootable USB stick containing this Live image.
* From Linux: Download the livecd-iso-to-disk script from the same URL as the 
Live image and use it to make a bootable USB stick.  Alternatively, the
livecd-iso-to-disk script is included in the live image file.

 From either platform, it is highly recommended that you use a persistent
overlay file of at least 800MB because this reduces the amount of memory needed for your demo. For this reason you should have at least 2GB free on your USB 
stick (~920MB image + 800MB overlay).
* LiveDVD works, but is not recommended unless you have at least 2GB RAM
for your demo.
* You should install to your hard drive if you want to do more than just a quick 
demo.


    FAQ
===========
1) Why is this not called K12LTSP?
It is the plan for K12Linux technology to be the successor of Eric Harrison's highly successful K12LTSP distribution. However, we had planned on changing the name to "K12Linux" to be friendlier sounding and easier to pronounce when people 
explain it at educator conferences.

2) Is this the only way to install a K12Linux server?
This Live LTSP Server image is only a convenient way for new users to get
started with K12Linux. Note that it is always possible to enable LTSP5 on any existing Fedora 9 server by following the instructions on the above homepage. 

3) Why not LiveCD?
LiveCD was not possible because we simply cannot fit Server, Client and apps 
onto a single disc.  If all you have is a CD drive then your hardware is
unlikely powerful enough to serve as a LTSP server. In any case you should be able to install from the LiveUSB without dealing with discs at all, and the 
performance is much more impressive.


Please send questions or comments to the k12linux-devel-list.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12linux-devel-list

Peter Scheie