Re: [seul-edu] Linux in the homeschool environment (1 man's setup)

[Leon Brooks <leon@brooks.smileys.net>]

Jim Wildman wrote:
> To begin with, of course, I use a Linux box to connect to the Internet.

    http://laughs.linuxlots.com/miscellaneous/mobile/en/

> Within the house we have the 2 Linux servers, 3 Linux workstations
> and 3 W95 boxes.

Our house uses 3 linux boxes as workstations, plus the 486SLC40 as a
gateway, name and SQL server. My 10yog is responsible enough to not need
web filtering, but I'm tempted to put another motherboard into the
gateway so I can install enough RAM to run a proxy on it (it has 12M at
the moment). I might upgrade it to a 486DX-2/66 in the process. (-:

> The dialup/firewall machine is a 486 and the main
> server is a Pentium 166 with around 14G of ide disk drive and 64Meg of
> memory (need more memory).

My machine is a K6-II-300 (64M/8.4G), the wife runs a WinChip-240 (which
sucks, and is about to become a Cyrix-333) (64M/10.2G), and 10yog a
Pentium-133 (64M/4.3G).

> The Linux workstations run RH6.0 and the Kde desktop. I have a licensed
> copy of WordPerfect 8 for Linux which they share.

Mandrake 7 and KDE all round, with StarOffice 5.1.

> Since we use WP on
> the Win boxen, this gives the kids a consistent interface.

No win boxes, no problem. (-:

We ripped all of our CDs, and serve them as MP3s from the wife's HDD.
The wife would object strenuously if you tried to take away her assorted
solitaire games, xkobo or xpuyopuyo! Daughter has customised her desktop
to gross semi-flouro pink and purple colours. Since I also maintain the
ISP the we connect through, *all* inbound email winds up in one mailbox,
and gets ripped apart by PostFix on the way in. PostFix is much easier
to set up and manage than SendMail. You can sometimes see my gateway at
http://leonb.yi.org/ - shortly the ISP will be radio-enabled and I'll
have a permanent connection.

Cheers!