Re: Re: [seul-edu] Fw: Linux in schools?

[Dave Prentice <dprentice@uno.edu>]

Rasjid,
    I forgot to mention that I have upgraded the processors in all 486's to
Overdrive 100's. The performance is not great, but it's acceptable for a
high school classroom.
Dave Prentice
prentice@instruction.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Loss <dloss@suscom.net>
To: seul-edu@seul.org <seul-edu@seul.org>; kmself@ix.netcom.com
<kmself@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Monday, July 30, 2001 7:22 AM
Subject: Fwd: Re: [seul-edu] Fw: Linux in schools?


>>From owner-seul-project@belegost.mit.edu Mon Jul 30 07:48:04 2001
>
>Sender: rasjidw@seul.org
>To: seul-edu@seul.org
>Subject: Re: [seul-edu] Fw: Linux in schools?
>
>Dave Prentice wrote:
>>
>> Karsten,
>> Your situation sounds similar to mine. I set up a classroom lab
>from
>> scratch, with 14 machines now running and 9 more in the works. A
>few
>> suggestions:
>> 1. Ask universities in your area if they have any old hardware to
>donate to
>> your school. You may catch one right after they've decided to
>upgrade. Even
>> if all they have are 486's, those are still OK for Linux. Cost=$0.
>
>> You don't need a very powerful server if each client has its own
>hard
>> drive and does its own processing. All the server needs to furnish
>to the
>> clients is NIS (or equivalent) and perhaps NFS.
>> 2. Search the net to see if there is a computer recycling
>organization in
>> your state. You may be able to get some free hardware there too.
>> 3. You can get pieces and parts like NICs, hard drives, and so on
>pretty
>> cheap through such sources as ebay.
>> 4. You only need one Internet conenction for a network like yours.
>I set up
>> a 486 as a router using Freesco. Any 486 with 16meg and a floppy
>drive will > do.
>> 5. Find out if there is a Linux user group in your area. Linux
>people
>> practically trip over themselves to help you.
>> 6. Everybody has their own favorite distro. I like RedHat, but any
>of them
>> should work.
>>
>>From personal experience, you can put together a pretty good
>network for
>> well under $1000.
>> Dave Prentice
>> prentice@instruction.com
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> From: Douglas Loss
>> To: seul-edu@seul.org
>> Date: Sunday, July 29, 2001 6:17 PM
>> Subject: [seul-edu] Fw: Linux in schools?
>> >
>> >On Sat, 28 Jul 2001, Karsten M. Self wrote:
>> >
>> >> To: Doug Loss
>> >> From: "Karsten M. Self"
>> >> Subject: Linux in schools?
>> >>
>> >> Doug:
>> >>
>> >> What I'm seeing right now are efforts to set up "a small
>> >> GNU/Linux lab
>> >> in a secondary school, 4-20 boxes, for a small budget, $1000 -
>> >> $50,000", thereabouts. Not sure if this is enough to make a go
>> >> of, but
>> >> I'm willing to wing it. Hoping that something bigger and/or
>> >> more interesting might start showing up after a time.
>> >>
>> >> Thoughts?
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Karsten M. Self
>> >> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
>
>Hi, I'm new to the list, and I assume that many of you will have
>seen 'Using X-Terminals in a High School'
>(http://www.silvervalley.k12.ca.us/~chobbs/xterms/index.html) and in
>particular the updates as at January 2001
>(http://www.silvervalley.k12.ca.us/~chobbs/xterms/200101update.html)
>For those that have not, it is well worth a look. As Chris Hobbs
>states at his site, using anything under a Pentium 100 [actually a
>Pentium 75 should be okay] will in a noticable performance drop even
>when just being used as a 'dumb' X-terminal, although I think you
>could get away with some of the last of the 486 line. I have done
>some testing myself, and I found that a 486DX66 was simply too slow
>for anything much more than console use. (ie, would probably work
>happily as a router, but don't try and do too much in X.) However,
>given that here in Australia I can pick up P133 boxes for around
>$A120 (about US$70) or so, and I assume that it is similar in other
>countries, I don't think that this is a major problem. And even a
>P75 box will work fine as a 'dumb' X-terminal. Use of the boxes as
>X-terminals of course requires an application server which will need
>to be a moderately high end desktop or low end server if it is to
>service 15-30 users at the same time. Which brings me to the project
>that I'm just starting out on. I would like to promote Linux in
>Schools here. My idea is to offer a 'risk free' approach that allows
>Schools (and potentially businesses) to use a Linux 'application
>server' in a Windows / Mac environment. Additional terminals can be
>added either keeping the current Windows / Mac setup, or much more
>cheaply by using Linux only X-terminals. This can be done either
>with commercial X-servers for Windows (starting from US$25 per
>seat), but I'm hoping to put together a cut down version of
>cygwin/xfree that would be easy to install and free. A free
>(commerial) X-server for Mac already exists. And Linux of course
>comes with Xfree built in. I would like it to provide file sharing
>via Samba, and to make it scalable using Linux clustering. It is
>then a matter of finding / creating the tools to make it easy to
>install and administer, and colating appropriate educational
>software together. My main goals would be to provide a system that
>is: a) inexpensive b) easy to install and scale c) easy to
>administer d) allows any existing Windows / Mac computers to run as
>X-terminals e) allows any existing (Win/Mac) file servers to be
>integrated into the system f) allows the easy addition of (cheap)
>Linux X-terminals All of the above are relevant in both an
>educational and business environment. So also, g) comes packaged
>with as much stable software relevant to education in schools. h)
>comes with documentation appropriate for a teaching environment.
>That is my dream / vision. I am not a Linux guru. I have only been
>using Linux for around 3 years. But I think the above is possible.
>Any feedback would be welcome. If you think someone is already doing
>this, please let me know. If you are interested in helping, let me
>know. If you think I'm mad, that's okay too, and you can let me know
>if you must, but I'd rather you didn't. ;-) Cheers, Rasjid.
>
>--
>Doug Loss                 Always do right.  This
>Data Network Coordinator  will gratify some people
>Bloomsburg University     and astonish the rest.
>dloss@bloomu.edu                Mark Twain
>
>
>