James Tremblay wrote: I have a number of schools in the uk running on LTSP. We currently use SUSE 10.x as the base. I am in the process of moving our core images to Ubuntu. We as a company feel that Novell has lost part of the plot and that the Ubuntu/Edubuntu teams are heading in the right direction (not there yet but go forward in a great way). If your below question is based on fact, it is even more reason to jump off now. I can see very little advantage in using Novell products in the school environment, there is very little value add over and above *buntu. I think your time and ours would be better spent adding input to the momentum behind Edubuntu. No point re inventing the wheel. The core of LTSP technology is sound and a no brainer. The killer here in the UK is the lack of "quality" educational apps. Everyone can see that thin client is a great way to get value for money, but until the environment can be taught on, then it will always be an issue. More education apps is what is needed, not another distro doing LTSP.

I have an important question. If I told you that LTSP5 was not going to be adopted in either openSUSE or SLE's thin client server (which only supports those 500$ type thin clients with flash drives, like those from Wyse and HP), would this influence your decisions about using Novell products? Would you be less inclined to buy an SLE based agreement if your thin client interests were only being met by Ubuntu? Would you simply say well I need a Linux server and I already have the Ubuntu server disk and I know how to use it so....?

I'm being told that Novell can't find a fiduciary reason to support LTSP and I keep saying that giving us this feature means that, we can and probably will use an SLE server to host the applications we want to go with it, we can and probably will use e-Directory to manage our user ID's, but if we have to support multiple technologies (Ubuntu and SLE) we will probably shift to the one that cost us less at the desktop (both monetarily and intellectually) simply because supporting the desktop translates into learning to support the server very easily. Reminiscent of the shift to MS servers from Novell servers, in my opinion Novell lost the school server battle simply because schools don't have the time \money to learn\support two OSes. For how many of us is the History teacher who is good with windows XP, the guy who helps us maintain the 2003 server in that building?

Is there really no money in supporting LTSP and Education specific products? If your answer is, "I don't really care about LTSP and it won't effect my decisions about my Novell purchases" then ignore me, but if the answer is "I rely on LTSP to help me put more desktops in the classroom and I really would prefer to have it managed with my other Novell products", then I must inform you that the likelihood of you being able to use LTSP5 with Novell products is slim, there are two of us working on integrating the bits and both of us are non-coders, we are merely translating some batch scripts that we can understand and borrowing the best parts of KIWI( a new Novell imaging technology) to make most of it work, which leaves: local device support, network sound, a descent disk-less boot process and much more undone and likely never to be done.

Please respond to this list thread and any Novell employee you know, if you want this to change.

-- *Andy Trevor* Technical Director *Cutter Project Limited* 18 Lynn Rd, Ely Cambs, CB6 1DA Phone: 08704902068 Mobile: 07983616419 http://www.cutterproject.co.uk ------------------------------- Sun Partners http://uk.sun.comUbuntu Partners http://www.ubuntu.com/ -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-edu+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-edu+help@opensuse.org

As a long term user and supporter of SuSE, sadly I have to reinforce Andy's comment about Novell having lost the plot - both morally in their MS dealings, and technically with their replacement of the rock solid Yast online updater with their zen based effort. I suspect that, like me, most people who would have previously been keen for SuSE to build LTSP5 into the distro, are busy working out how to move to suppliers that they can trust to do the right thing. I've moved one LTSP setup from SuSE to Ubuntu, using the LTSP5 stuff built into Ubuntu. When I move my next LTSP installation to Ubuntu, I will use LTSP 4.2 downloaded from www.ltsp.org, as fast boot times are more important to me in this instance than the ease of running local apps. LTSP5 does make a lot of things easier, but there is a pretty high cost to pay in terms of boot times and memory on the clients. Cheers -- Phil Driscoll -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-edu+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-edu+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 16:24 +0100, Phil Thane wrote:

At the moment it's more likely they'll do a deal with PTC to buy ProEngineer for Windows. That really p****s me off because, freedom issues aside for a moment, it's way too complex for most kids (and teachers) and just helps entrench Windows as the de facto OS for schools for another (school) generation just as PTC's ProDesktop did in the late 90s.

Get them to fund Dial Solutions to port PDT to Linux and Windows and Open Source it. Ian -- New QCA Accredited IT Qualifications www.theINGOTs.org You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-edu+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-edu+help@opensuse.org

Come on Phil! There is so much more than CAD out there. Truly, I know how you feel because some one left the idiots in charge. They can't see the forest for the trees. What we have here is one software package dictating what operating system you have to use. Really now, what we need is to experiment with other packages on linux. OK VariCAD works on Linux. Is it cheaper than AutoCad? Well then, problem solved. Maybe? As for educational software, try kidport.com. Check out the Web. There are many sites with educational software. There is nothing, no subject that cannot be taught on line. Make sure you have flash installed. While at it, also install realplayer. I just finished my sixth research for my PhD. All assignments the teacher gave my kids 1-5th grade were accomplished with free software. While we were at it, we had a lot of fun with other free software. Rodney On Thursday 19 July 2007 10:24, Phil Thane wrote:

...

The core of LTSP technology is sound and a no brainer.  The killer here in the UK is the lack of "quality" educational apps.On Thursday 19 July 2007 07:18, James Tremblay wrote: I have an important question. If I told you that LTSP5 was not going to be adopted in either openSUSE or SLE's thin client server (which only supports those 500$ type thin clients with flash drives, like those from Wyse and HP), would this influence your decisions about using Novell

On Thursday 19 July 2007 14:16:58 Andy Trevor wrote: products? Would you be less inclined to buy an SLE based agreement if your thin client interests were only being met by Ubuntu? Would you simply say well I need a Linux server and I already have the Ubuntu server disk and I know how to use it so....?

I'm being told that Novell can't find a fiduciary reason to support LTSP and I keep saying that giving us this feature means that, we can and probably will use an SLE server to host the applications we want to go with it, we can and probably will use e-Directory to manage our user ID's, but if we have to support multiple technologies (Ubuntu and SLE) we will probably shift to the one that cost us less at the desktop (both monetarily and intellectually) simply because supporting the desktop translates into learning to support the server very easily. Reminiscent of the shift to MS servers from Novell servers, in my opinion Novell lost the school server battle simply because schools don't have the time \money to learn\support two OSes. For how many of us is the History teacher who is good with windows XP, the guy who helps us maintain the 2003 server in that building?

Is there really no money in supporting LTSP and Education specific products? If your answer is, "I don't really care about LTSP and it won't effect my decisions about my Novell purchases" then ignore me, but if the answer is "I rely on LTSP to help me put more desktops in the classroom and I really would prefer to have it managed with my other Novell products", then I must inform you that the likelihood of you being able to use LTSP5 with Novell products is slim, there are two of us working on integrating the bits and both of us are non-coders, we are merely translating some batch scripts that we can understand and borrowing the best parts of KIWI( a new Novell imaging technology) to make most of it work, which leaves: local device support, network sound, a descent disk-less boot process and much more undone and likely never to be done.

Please respond to this list thread and any Novell employee you knOn Thursday 19 July 2007 07:18, James Tremblay wrote: I have an important question. If I told you that LTSP5 was not going to be adopted in either openSUSE or SLE's thin client server (which only supports those 500$ type thin clients with flash drives, like those from Wyse and HP), would this influence your decisions about using Novell products? Would you be less inclined to buy an SLE based agreement if your thin client interests were only being met by Ubuntu? Would you simply say well I need a Linux server and I already have the Ubuntu server disk and I know how to use it so....?

I'm being told that Novell can't find a fiduciary reason to support LTSP and I keep saying that giving us this feature means that, we can and probably will use an SLE server to host the applications we want to go with it, we can and probably will use e-Directory to manage our user ID's, but if we have to support multiple technologies (Ubuntu and SLE) we will probably shift to the one that cost us less at the desktop (both monetarily and intellectually) simply because supporting the desktop translates into learning to support the server very easily. Reminiscent of the shift to MS servers from Novell servers, in my opinion Novell lost the school server battle simply because schools don't have the time \money to learn\support two OSes. For how many of us is the History teacher who is good with windows XP, the guy who helps us maintain the 2003 server in that building?

Is there really no money in supporting LTSP and Education specific products? If your answer is, "I don't really care about LTSP and it won't effect my decisions about my Novell purchases" then ignore me, but if the answer is "I rely on LTSP to help me put more desktops in the classroom and I really would prefer to have it managed with my other Novell products", then I must inform you that the likelihood of you being able to use LTSP5 with Novell products is slim, there are two of us working on integrating the bits and both of us are non-coders, we are merely translating some batch scripts that we can understand and borrowing the best parts of KIWI( a new Novell imaging technology) to make most of it work, which leaves: local device support, network sound, a descent disk-less boot process and much more undone and likeOn Thursday 19 July 2007 07:18, James Tremblay wrote: I have an important question. If I told you that LTSP5 was not going to be adopted in either openSUSE or SLE's thin client server (which only supports those 500$ type thin clients with flash drives, like those from Wyse and HP), would this influence your decisions about using Novell products? Would you be less inclined to buy an SLE based agreement if your thin client interests were only being met by Ubuntu? Would you simply say well I need a Linux server and I already have the Ubuntu server disk and I know how to use it so....?

I'm being told that Novell can't find a fiduciary reason to support LTSP and I keep saying that giving us this feature means that, we can and probably will use an SLE server to host the applications we want to go with it, we can and probably will use e-Directory to manage our user ID's, but if we have to support multiple technologies (Ubuntu and SLE) we will probably shift to the one that cost us less at the desktop (both monetarily and intellectually) simply because supporting the desktop translates into learning to support the server very easily. Reminiscent of the shift to MS servers from Novell servers, in my opinion Novell lost the school server battle simply because schools don't have the time \money to learn\support two OSes. For how many of us is the History teacher who is good with windows XP, the guy who helps us maintain the 2003 server in that building?

Is there really no money in supporting LTSP and Education specific products? If your answer is, "I don't really care about LTSP and it won't effect my decisions about my Novell purchases" then ignore me, but if the answer is "I rely on LTSP to help me put more desktops in the classroom and I really would prefer to have it managed with my other Novell products", then I must inform you that the likelihood of you being able to use LTSP5 with Novell products is slim, there are two of us working on integrating the bits and both of us are non-coders, we are merely translating some batch scripts that we can understand and borrowing the best parts of KIWI( a new Novell imaging technology) to make most of it work, which leaves: local device support, network sound, a descent disk-less boot process and much more undone and likely never to be done.

Please respond to this list thread and any Novell employee you know, if you want this to change. -- James Tremblay Director of Technology Newmarket School District Newmarket,NH http://en.opensuse.org/Education "let's make a difference" ly never to be done.

Please respond to this list thread and any Novell employee you know, if you want this to change. -- James Tremblay Director of Technology Newmarket School District Newmarket,NH http://en.opensuse.org/Education "let's make a difference" ow, if you want this to change. -- James Tremblay Director of Technology Newmarket School District Newmarket,NH http://en.opensuse.org/Education "let's make a difference"

I'm pushing Linux and FLOSSIE in Wales (with zero success so far). As an ex-Design & Tech teacher a real sticking point is CAD. There's plenty of high end pro CAD out there at a high end price, but I think the UK is pretty unique in doing D&T the way we do so demand for a child proof CAD package is limited.

Two bits of good news;

1. TechSoft's 2D Design works OK under WINE. I used to be support manager at TechSoft and tested it years ago. Two minor snags, toolboxes take on GIMP like qualities and don't stay with the main window when you minimise. Filled arrow heads on dimensions produce a screen draw error, but filled arrows look ugly anyway so choose open and it works OK.

2. VariCAD is a simple 2D/3D CAD package that works well on basic PCs under most forms of Linux. Imports and exports all the usual CAD formats. Only snag is it's not free. The student version is £50, I'd like to see some schools or education authorities get together and persuade VariCAD to do school site licences a lot cheaper.

My personal preference would be to get the Welsh Assembly to sponsor an Open Source educational CAD package, taking some of the good stuff that's already out there and developing a kid proof version.

At the moment it's more likely they'll do a deal with PTC to buy ProEngineer for Windows. That really p****s me off because, freedom issues aside for a moment, it's way too complex for most kids (and teachers) and just helps entrench Windows as the de facto OS for schools for another (school) generation just as PTC's ProDesktop did in the late 90s. -- Regards Phil Thane

Bryn Villa Penycoed Road Llangollen LL20 8LR

01978 861677 07971 087623

phil@brynvilla.llangollen.co.uk www.brynvilla.llangollen.co.uk

-- Rod Donovan Systems Support Specialist II Texas A&M University Corpus Christi College of Education Early Childhood Development Center 361-825-3080 rodney.donovan@tamucc.edu -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-edu+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-edu+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 19 July 2007 17:44:26 Rodney Donovan wrote:

Come on Phil! There is so much more than CAD out there. Truly, I know how you feel because some one left the idiots in charge. They can't see the forest for the trees. What we have here is one software package dictating what operating system you have to use. Really now, what we need is to experiment with other packages on linux. OK VariCAD works on Linux. Is it cheaper than AutoCad? Well then, problem solved. Maybe?

No, not really. Yes VariCAD is cheaper than AutoCAD, but then very few schools use AutoCAD over here anyway. About 8 years ago PTC did a deal with our govt to distribute ProDesktop free of charge to all UK secondary schools. It's not especially good but it was a good deal, PTC got the publicity in return for some CDs, the government paid for support and training by leaving it in the hands of the Design & Technology Association (DATA, trade body for D&T teachers in England and Wales). DATA charged for training and the money came from the schools' training budgets. If you did the training your school got 'free' software. Now ProD is obsolete (see reply to Ian) DATA is trialling ProE in some of our more adventurous schools, chances are it won't be free but probably highly subsidised. DATA have already told me they aren't even considering supporting the Linux version in schools. I agree about other software, and as far as I can see in UK secondary schools most of the other sujects use Office and IE for almost everything, so moving to Linux, OO and another browser is no problem, but D&T departments are generally the most demanding computer users in our schools. They've struggled to master ProD, are sort of used to it now and if Linux cannot offer a simple (preferably free) alternative it stands no chance. It's not stopping me pushing, and in the absence of any official encouragement I'm starting an unofficial YouthLUG in my school in September using kit dragged out of the school skip (dumpster to US readers). I'll probably use Edubuntu though, I gave up on SuSE with 10.1 since then my desktop and laptos have all been Kubuntu. -- Regards Phil Thane Bryn Villa Penycoed Road Llangollen LL20 8LR 01978 861677 07971 087623 phil@brynvilla.llangollen.co.uk www.brynvilla.llangollen.co.uk -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-edu+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-edu+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 19 July 2007 23:47, Ian Lynch wrote:

On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 19:22 +0100, Phil Thane wrote:

...

On Thursday 19 July 2007 16:29:49 Ian Lynch wrote:

...

Get them to fund Dial Solutions to port PDT to Linux and Windows and Open Source it.

Am I missing something here? Dial Solutions I've heard of, but their CAD package is Oak Draw originally for Acorn I think (hence Oak) but now for Windows. It's basic 2D proabably comparable to TechSoft's Primary Design.

What's PDT?

Parametric design tool developed for the Acorn Archimedes back in the late 80s. I think considerably more powerful than Oak Draw but Phil Driscoll is better placed than me to say what it can do. I think it was written in C so might not be too difficult to port.

...

ProDESKTOP which is common in UK schools (but now obsolete) is often referred to as ProD. It was produced by Parametric Technology Corp (PTC). Back in the day when a specialist CAD workstation was needed to run PTC's ProEngineer, ProD was the Windows desktop PC alternative for smallish designs. These days a decent Windows or Linux PC will run ProE so commercially ProD is pointless. It continues in schools becase a) they've already got it, and b) it's reasonably simple as 3D CAD goes.

Thing is that thin clients are not ideally suited to specialist CAD but as servers are getting more powerful that is becoming less of an issue. Also in a school, I suspect teaching the principles of vector graphics is not generally highly developed in any case. I see very few examples of kids stretching inkscape or OpenOffice Draw (or proprietary equivalents) never mind professional CAD tools. If a school needs 500 terminals for general productivity tools and 5 specialist CAD machines hooked up to CAM then it seems more sensible to have 500 Linux thn clients and if necessary 5 workstations running Windows or whatever. We don't have to have every machine identical. Let's fit the technology to the educational need rather than having a one size fits all applications mentality. Hello all, We use thin clients exclusively for all our ICT and Graphics teaching. The system is built on LTSP and Inkscape is our main vector graphics tool. Our DT department uses ProDesktop for CAD and we serve this up on a Windows terminal server through Rdesktop to the Linux thin clients which are all HP models and work great. All have USB stick access for transferring files. So, when you ask what does LTSP/thin client technology mean to you, then the answer is everything because we use nothing else. We are also starting with Ingots next term. We tried DiDA but it is an almighty fudge heavily weighted in favour of proprietary software; its initial simplicity in aiming for a total web based solution has been removed by the approval of ppt and xls files in an eportfolio -- because there are free viewers available!! King Regards Garry -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-edu+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-edu+help@opensuse.org