Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Lotus 1123 & Wordpro Under WINE on LTSP?

THANKYOU thankyou thankyou. There was me thinking what a shit week I've had, running a 3 man dept all by myself, doing nothing but chasing phones and getting no work done, and here you come. I feel much better now. ta Gary On Friday 20 July 2001 9:01 am, Alan Harris wrote:

Hi Ian et al,

The issue is this: we have £61k to implement a public facing ict system which must also have a curriculum and community benefit.

I am having a major debate on this with my immediate line manager which goes along these lines:-

Me: We should use LTSP with Thin Clients because:- [1]. It's physically secure - it's not worth nicking a NIC and if they did it would'nt work! [2]. If it's facing the public then floppy disks are a bad idea - let's start a virus collection shall we? [3]. There are no desk tops that can be 'messed up', no hdd's to reformat, no cd drives to pick 'things' out of [4]. The biggest requirement fron joe public will be for Internet Access [5]. The area we are based in indicates that joe public will not be likely to have a home pc, they will traverse between schools / libraries / cybercafes / pubs in the area that have internet access. therefore let them sign up to something like Thinkfree office and use an asp model where they can obtain thier documents from anywhere - a true 'community' solution!, rather than carry lots of floppies around building up a massive virus challenge for any ict system. [6]. We can offer office functions via StarOffice [7]. We can offer lots of other applications (and therefore courses) for little cost eg: SQL/HTML/Pascal/C++/PERL/Python/Graphics Manipulation (GIMP) [8]. It will be a 'cheap', low tco solution [9]. Pupils will be able to 'log on' to the LTSP and obtain access to thier NT4 work areas via SAMBA, joe public won't be allowed to get that far. [10. We should be providing access to different systems running different os's and applications so that pupils can actually learn some 'real' ict skills which will bring benefit both to them and, at a later date, the country. [11]. We have StarOffice 5.1/5.2 installed on everything except out apple ibooks.

Him: No, joe public uses M$ office or works, therefore we must provide it, School uses Lotus smartsuite, therefore we must provide it. In order to do this we must provide floppy disc access on windows systems to all pupils, staff and joe public. Joe public will not be able to use StarOffice and we cannot expect teachers to run two applications and transfer files between them. The benefits arising from free packages and languages under linux are irrelevant because we don't teach them and joe public does'nt use them or does'nt now how to operate a linux system (same argument used against apples). We need to buy laptops with office on or ibooks with office on (oops - no fdd's - scrub that idea) and use fdd's to transfer data. If Lotus Wordpro and 123 will run on LTSP then I'll consider it!

Me: well, Corel Office runs under WINE on Linux and LTSP....

Him: No, joe public does not use it in this area and anyway, teachers will have to learn a different package so that's not an option.

Me: If my six year old can deal with this concept, and the 10 year old routinely switches between os's, then I cannot see the problem,

Him: yes, but your children are different

Me: Leaves room in frustration, finds empty soundproof room equipped with large, well built wall, proceeds to scream loudly , bang head against wall and prepare to do battle with the unholy demons of M$, viruses, messed up and seriously damaged PC's.......

Need I say more?

Alan

Ian Lynch wrote:

...

From: Alan Harris To: Schools List ; Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 12:22 PM Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Lotus 1123 & Wordpro Under WINE on LTSP?

...

We have been allocated approx £61K for ICT developments leading to a community school . I have proposed an LTSP based solution BUT, can only go ahead if present software will operate under WINE. I hope somebody can help here as the future otherwise becomes to horrible to contemplate (If it does not then the horrible solution that will be imposed on me involves M$ office) and I'll have to resign and go find a job in IT on the Indian Sub-Continent!

Hang on a sec. Are you saying that if Lotus doesn't work they want to switch to M$ Office? If so, why not just use Star Office as its far closer to M$ Office than Lotus is so less of a learning curve, its free and it will run on Windows and Linux. So you could set up Linux thin clients to run StarOffice and say all your Internet stuff from a server and still use existing Windows based machines with their programs on the existing workstations that people are used to. In fact you could either set those machines to dual boot or use a Linux thin client access application on the Windows machines to access the Linux server. If you use Samba on your fileserver it can also then handle all your Windows file serving too. If you want to do thin client and some of these other things you might be better with 2 servers but building 2 machines even with 2 gig of RAM and dual processors is not much over £1000 each on current component prices. When people realise the cost-benefit and the number of free applications increase you can gradually build more on the Linux side and let the Windows stuff wither on the vine.

...

Sometimes I think (well in fact I'm convinced) that ICT education and the future of this country are on a fast and very slippery downhill road to oblivion!

Nah, I have plans that will change everything, give us a year :-)

-- IanL

-- Gary Stainburn This email does not contain private or confidential material as it may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown and undisclosed purposes - Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000