Re: [school-discuss] So long windows... With some trepidation ...

[Michael Shigorin <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2007 at 08:45:42PM -0400, John Mitchell wrote:
> >Well, I had to nix the Ubuntu. My hardware simply was unable
> >to handle it. Now I'm trying SimplyMepis 6. So far so good.

I can also suggest having a look at ALT Linux 4.0 Desktop.
It does have its deficiencies, especially outside ex-USSR
(due to the main language supported being Russian, although
English is of course there too); still, release candidate
installed and worked on PIII-500/64M which is normally used
as a terminal.

> >I'm installing on some NCS laptops that are about 7 years old.
> >I upgraded all of them to P3-750 and have memory of 192-256MB.

Wow, no chance to build a teminal server at all?  It could be as
expensive as $400--500, depending on whether you buy second hard
drive for RAID1 setup or postpone it (which isn't recommended...)

I guess you have easily spent more on older laptop RAM than would
have spent on decent *fast* TS.  Now if that's reversible I'd go
back, if not, I'd consider budgeting for a sub-$1K server still.
It would be so much better performance-wise...

> >Each has 2 usb ports, a firewire port, floppy, cdrom and 6gb
> >hdd. They are originally manufactured by Kapok - probably the
> >easiest to configure and get into notebook I've ever worked
> >on. Will update again soon.
> I can report SUCCESS!

Good :)

> However, does someone have a recommendation on how to enable
> the playing of windows media in Linux Firefox? I'll research in
> the meantime...

mplayerplug-in for FF (or some other universal one I've already
forgot by name plus VLC) plus codecs, *or* current FFMPEG with
WMV3 support enabled.

For the record, another "deficiency" of ALT is that we can ignore
software patents (invalid here) and so the packages are built
with concern for copyright and quality only.

IOW 4.0 does have FFMPEG built with that codec, as well as
MPEG/MPEG4 and the plethora of others (skipping only amr-wb
and some other copyright-unknown codecs).

If anyone cares, here's current "default" installation DVD
(English is chosen by pressing F2 on the boot and selecting 
the item at bottom -- they *all* got translated!):
ftp://ftp.altlinux.org/pub/distributions/ALTLinux/4.0/Desktop/current/iso/
ftp://ftp.linux.kiev.ua/pub/Linux/ALT/4.0/Desktop/current/iso/

There's a "lighter" image, these weren't built for official
release but RC is mostly the same; includes IceWM:
ftp://ftp.linux.kiev.ua/pub/Linux/ALT/beta/desktop/RC-20070809/installer-RC-20070809.iso

The "educational edition" is being worked on, should be available
till the end of month IIRC.  We've also integrated LTSP5 in ALT
but it's not yet integrated by us (in Kiev) or ALT (in Moscow)
into any distro -- maybe gets into a companion for SchoolJunior.

> I am in the process of making 21 copies of the SimplyMEPIS
> disks for a mass installation tomorrow! Be gone you
> monopolizing, worm-attracting OS!

Likely you didn't want to make lots of install media, as folks
told already.  If you go installing by yourself, most probably
you'll be able to care for e.g. 5--10 systems being installed
at time without mixing things up, and that's pretty unproductive
as well.  Doing in a few hands helps to bring in differences
which will take the time to diagnose later, as usual (unless
one has paid enough time to write detailed instructions for
aides... but then one could have prepared automated tools in
similar time).

More proper way is imaging, if the disks are identical and easy
to pull, then doing one setup and replicating on a desktop system
with "dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdc bs=1M" (if desktop boots from
SATA disk sda, "master" notebook drive is hooked onto first IDE
channel via an adapter, and "target" drive is hooked onto second
similarly); but that's still a lot of hassle.

So if you have ethernet, consider SystemImager.org -- decent tool
to both initially distribute a master image via network that
I can thoroughly recommend; if you don't (did I miss NIC in the
above description?), then look at mkcdrec.ota.be which can image
the setup onto CD/DVD -- you might still need either a USB DVDRW
or something like that.

Typically, 1.2--1.5 Gig installation can be squeezed into a CD-R.

-- 
 ---- WBR, Michael Shigorin <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  ------ Linux.Kiev http://www.linux.kiev.ua/