Re: EDU Win Lab

[dpmcmen@bellatlantic.net]

Harry McGregor wrote:
> 
> I am using StarOffice in an elementary school Linux lab (site license =
> $295! not bad).  In fact we were the first school in the US to order a
> site licence (Corbett Elementary School, In Tucson AZ, USA).  We did
> find that 32MB of ram was rather painful, but 64MB is doing grate.
> 
> This summer I am reabuilding the lab (software wise, we originaly built
> the lab over the winter break, I need to redo/polish the software
> though).  Here is a short list of what I intend to impliment.
> 
> New NFS server (NFS v3 support, via kernel mode NFS, the normal
> implimentation on linux is VERY slow).
> 
> Full SNMP monitoring of each stations bandwidth usage (every system I
> can impliment on, including macs, If I can do it).  MRTG graphing.
> 
> KMuser for user administration
> 
> Install of Star Office for each student user (currently we are kludging
> it via every one loging in with the user "Student", but this creates
> issues with the NFS mounted /home.  Doing this will take about 2.1GB of
> space on the server (3MB per user).
> 
> KDE 1.1 (with Slackware linux 4.0)
> 
> Killistrator
> 
> many more education/semi educational games (students use the lab during
> lunch for recreation/exploration).
> 
> Router/Firewall, to force use of the district proxy server (the router
> is IPchains based, unfortuatly we don't have rights on the schools Cisco
> router (another department in the district no less), so we are adding
> our own firewall.
> 
> IP Masq router (with bridging support for IPX), for one hall of the
> school.  We have run out of IP addresses (1/2 class C space, the
> district was lucky enough to get a class B, but the district has 102
> schools, and Info tech (admin side) gets 1/2 of each class C, and the
> high schools needed more orignialy, this is f*cked up, since the admin
> use is only 5-25 systems per school...).  This will have an effect on
> the district loggin of the proxy server (30 systems will be on one ip),
> but is neccessary to deal with all of the donated systems.
> 
> I need to get DOS/Win3.x on the lab systems to support some legacy
> software (mostly for K,1,2, the school is K-5)
> 
> possible implimetation of Mozilla, though it is not quite ready at it's
> current state.
> 
> If anyone has recomendations on howto LOCKDOWN KDE, please let me know.
> Most of the general linux security will work, but I need to get it so
> the student's can't f*ckup their own desktop settings, etc.
> 
> The lab has been doing well.  We started with 30 donated P90s, put about
> $2000 into soundcards, networking cables, hubs, heatsink/fans, etc.  We
> have just ordered about $7000 worth of stuff on this next years budget
> (the 2K was PTA funds), including an LP225 projector, an HP 4000N printer,
> and 17 17" monitors (doing about half the lab, will try to scrape the
> funds up to get the rest of the lab to 17" monitors.  We have also ordered
> 9 UPS (500va), one for the few servers, and then one for every 4
> workstations.  I want to try and avoid ext2 corruption, considering these
> things are taken down and started up every day, we have enough stress on
> the system, I don't want 5 sec power outages to kill them.
> 
>                         Harry
> 
> On Sun, 9 May
> 1999, Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
> 
> > > Productivity Software (connecting to linux):
> > >         Word processors:  maxwell, Abisource, koffice, gnome, star office, word star
> >
> > We should only tell about the one the kids can use without repeated
> > crash. I don't think anyone there wants to receive comment from student
> > who loose data because of a crash
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Hilaire Fernandes
> > Dr Geo project http://www.drgeo.seul.org
> >
Harry,

While I'm new to this and don't know if there's a Linux equiv, a
software called "Fortress" is what some libraries use to keep the
patrons from changing settings.  The one I've seen runs on Win95/98.
Dan McMenamin