Re: Older Equiptment

[Bill Tihen <bill@tasis.ch>]

>It's not just an argument, it's reality.  Do more, with less :) Who do you

Just to show how much of a reality it is.  My school here in Germany is one
of the richest.  We are supported in part by the US embassy if an embassy
student comes to the school.  So we are allowed some extra funds.  In
anycase, I am expected to create now 2 labs.  One with 20 computers and one
with 30 computers.  I am also incharge of starting a comprehensive computer
curriculum.  To do all this I have about $7,000.  The bummer is that we are
a public school competing against the private schools for these same
students (however we are the only bilingual school in Berlin) and many of
the American parent want their students to have access to the best
technology and curriculum possible.  However, the private schools put much
more money into their technology, I am not convinced we can compete with
them.  So what ever money I have to work with this year could be gone next
year.  (We get about $1000 to take care of the computers from the school
system directly).  We of course have 20 administrative computers which has
to share this budget.   I am not convinced that this is a doable mission,
because I have a lot of restrictions from other departments.  I have to
simultaneously please my Dept. Head, and 3 other Dept. Heads -- we work in
"teams" (okay that's what we call them but I think they are closer to
groups -- so I am not able to make all my own decisions, but I am still
responsible for my assignments).  This is to say that I will need to create
a good demo to convince people that Linux is a good solution.  I will
probably also need some decent propaganda -- easy stuff otherwise I don't
think it will be read.  I have a lot of donated computers -- 20 286's, 20
386's and 10 486's & 10 586's.  Some with network cards many without.  

The hardest think will be accomodating the needs of the other teachers
(english, science and math).  They want Windows 95 and StarOffice or MS
Word -- that is what they know how to do.  They will be using the computers
while I am not there.  I will at least have to make the set up capable of
taking RTF files -- unfortunately this will require trainning everybody how
to do this, because they are so used to just sticking things into the disk
and having them translate automatically.  This of course means every
computer will need to have access to  the floppies.  I am a little worried
about having to teach everyone: (1000 students and 100 teachers) mount ,
rm, mv, save as, ls, etc.  I am hoping most of them will have enough RAM so
that I can run X windows (even B&W) with TKDesk -- that will make files a
little like Windows 3.1).  

If I use Linux -- which seems like the only hope for the 386's and 486's
(most of these computers only have 4 MB RAM). The math department wants the
windows version of Derive (is there a Linux equivalent -- I must admit I
don't know what derive does -- I have just installed it -- not used it.  I
am relatively busy).  They have several DOS programs that I figure I can
run off a Linux server.  What is the security like though on a DOS
partition?  My guess is that it is non-existent.  (Yikes!  Anybody done
this?)   

I require the system to be secured, because I teach full-time in addition
to running the computers.  I am not interested in replacing video drivers,
etc on a daily basis.

If I ever figure out how to network StarOffice I will hopefully run that
from a server to the different workstation, but it eats up so much RAM, I
don't know if that is possible.  I am hoping Maxwell or the other simple WP
will soon be finished.  Of course all these are hoping for an X Windows
environment.  I would very much like it to be as close to what people are
used to.  

I am interested in suggestions.  Mostly ones that have been tried out and
are successful with an untrained public.  But that is probably unrealistic.
 So I will take what I can get.  I look forward to input.  

By the way is this off topic?  Is this list just about programs and
programming for schools or can we get into the gorey details of configuring
workstations, network services and servers so that they can be used in school?

If it is off topic -- I appologize.  However, I think this is important to
school using Linux, so I hope it is on topic.  (PS I assume that the
politics of Linux is the most likely to be off topic -- but it is an
important consideration in my case).

Bill Tihen