[seul-edu] Lean and Clean Linux

[Robert Maynord <maynord@terracom.net>]

Dear Educator Friends:

I am working at a small parochial elementary school, teaching technology
and installing networked computers. Previously we have had W95 machines
loaded with Netscape, Word, and All the Right Type.  This has worked fine.
However, I have decided to convert the school (gradually) to Linux.  I'm
sure you all know the multiple good reasons for doing this.  The problem I
am having is that the standard machine at the school has 16mg RAM and 450
HD (Pentium 90).  Linux will load on this, but things really slow down if I
use a desktop such as KDE or Gnome. Yet, such a desktop is important for
those of our teachers who are only beginners, and have some reservations
about computer use.

I started with Debian 6.1 and all went reasonably well.  But Debian has a
steep curve when it comes to detecting network cards (we have many generic
brands).  I tried Red Hat, which is much better about detecting network
cards, but which has no support for the micro-channel machines we have.  I
then discovered that Debian will not work with the micro-channel token ring
cards we have, so I went back to Red Hat and decided to forget the
micro-channel machines.

The problem with Red Hat is that it loads all sorts of stuff into memory
and on the hard drive that are not essential.  This is fine on our few
Pentium 300s.  But for the 16mg ram machines it really slows things down. I
end up running much of the basic desktop in virtual memory (on the HD).  My
hope is to find a way of loading Red Hat or some other distribution so that
only what is necessary for KDE is loaded.  I do not need all the
development tools, desktop backgrounds, etc.  And yet, I would prefer not
to do all the modification by hand, re-loading the kernal and deleting
packages.  We have over 50 machines, but most of them are older and
smaller. Upgrading ram is out of the question because the cost of 72 pin
memory has skyrocketed beyond imagination.  

I thought that perhaps someone had traveled this road before, and had some
suggestions...

Any help would be greatly appreciated!


Robert Maynord