EDUCATIONAL LINUX THREAD -NEW

[Malonowa <malonowa@wanadoo.fr>]

I think this should be on a different thread if we're going to continue with it.

Ray Olszewski wrote:

> This is an interesting idea, and I think it is easier to do than many of you
> seem to assume (or, to be more exact, the parts you seem to think are hard
> are in fact fairly easy - for me, the hard part would be identifying the
> actual applications to use, but other on this list seem quite expert there).
>

We can do the apps if you can do the cd.

> Here are a few options.
>
> 1. Build a 100 meg distribution based on Zipslack. This is a Slackware
> variant (included on the Slackware CDs) designed to fit on a 100 meg
> Zipdisk. It would need to be customized - take out a lot of the devleopment
> tools to make room for the X server itself and the applications. Maybe in
> the end you wouldn't fit in 100 megs, but you'd make 150 megs.
>

This indeed very interesting to me...

For older machines, yes great...

For new machines I know that you can install Linux on a DOS partition - or I think
you can - using umsdos. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone. If you can get it all down
to a reasonable 150Meg then it'd be no bigger than your average windoze program.
Then boot it from the windows startup menu?

1) It'd be a very easy way for people to try Linux.
2) They could have there Linux programs (that we're all going to produce) running
on all machines easily.

> The problem with this idea isn't disk space; it's memory. 16 megs isn't much
> for running X and any interesting apps. I can't say for sure without a list
> of candidate apps, but I suspect memory would be big trouble.
>

Yes, when you want sound etc. etc. then it all takes RAM. But if you have a smaller
kernel.. smaller window manager.. I'm not sure. I had Linux running on a Cyrix 300
with 16Meg and it was slow to start apps. But when apps were running it wasn't so
bad. You could use Gimp OK on it. That was with KDE running as well and sometimes
with enlightenment. So 16 Meg probably aint all that bad - you can certainly live
with it.

> 2. Cluster machines into small networks. For example, get an 8-port hub and
> network 7 workstations to a server. The workstations get set up as X
> terminals, an off-the-shelf setup documented at a couple of site on the Web.
> The server then runs the apps. For this, I'd upgrade the server to 32 megs,
> and perhaps the hard disk space to 300 megs, both by cannibalizing a ninth
> machine, so there's no actual cost for that part. The cost here would be for
> the hubs, cables, and perhaps for NICs for the machines, maybe a total of
> $200 per cluster.
>
> 3. If the $200 per cluster is too much, do the same things with serial
> ports. Run 2 or 4 workstations to one server (depending on how many serial
> ports you can get in the server), using ppp to make the links. Again, the
> workstations are X terminals, and the server runs the aps. With only 2to 1,
> you probably don't need to enhance the server's memory, though even 4 to 1
> would benefit from doing so.
>

You don't have to do this with old machines. You could get cheap new ones with the
cheapest components cyrix chips or low end celeron - no hd, no fd, 10Mbit ethernet
or just serial cables.

> As to making the CDs ... I haven't burned CDs myself, but I have friends who
> have, and they generally say it is easy if you have the appropriate
> equipment. Creating a "distribution" to go on the CD should be easy in a
> mechanical sense. Start with Slackware (my distribution of choice for
> situations involving weird, old hardware), or perhaps Debian, and add the
> apps in the format appropriate to the choice of base distribution. The main
> work would be writing a decent install script.
>

Making CDS is very easy. Yes you'd need a good installation program.

> I tried to work up some interest in this sort of idea almost 3 years ago,
> back when I was still working in education. I couldn't get enough interest
> locally even to get the equipment to do a prototype ... everyone I spoke
> with thought their time was better spent trying to get newer equipment
> donated, so I gave up and went back to my day job. But if there's interest
> .... too bad Bob and I are on opposite coasts.
>

I think what people might need is different little distributions for different
things instead of those big generic jobs like Redhat. For instance, an old computer
installation/cheap computer installation, a print server installation. All with the
simplest possible installation interface. But then we get the problem of detecting
hardware etc. etc. The same probs. that the bigger distributions have right now.

Roman.