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CongoJim
October 1st, 2009, 01:39 PM
A how to that I'd love to see.

I live in the DR Congo. To say money is scarce is an understatement. A school here just received 2 new desktops and 10 very used ones, very, very used, they have Win98 on them. What I'd like to do is to set up the old ones to run off of the processor and store on the hard drives of the new ones through a network, essentially using the old ones as basic workstations without an OS. This would be a Godsend to us in the third world because it would greatly reduce the cost of installing systems, particurally in schools.

Anybody know where there is a step by step how to to do this?

By the way Ubuntu in the local language, tshiluba, means the spirits of the community, including those already passed and the living. Kinda like the "Force" from Star Wars.

Mighty_Joe
October 1st, 2009, 01:47 PM
It sounds like you are describing a Thin Client (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client). There are many resources available, for example, the Linux Thinclient HOWTO (http://wiki.tldp.org/Thinclient-HOWTO) and the Ubuntu Linux Terminal Server Project (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP).

pawhtiobo
October 1st, 2009, 01:48 PM
Hi :)

Why not installing a lightweight linux system in those old machines? Something like Vector Linux Light, Slitaz, etc...

se ya...

CongoJim
October 1st, 2009, 02:07 PM
Hi :)

Why not installing a lightweight linux system in those old machines? Something like Vector Linux Light, Slitaz, etc...

se ya...

Damn you guys are good, thinclient looks like what I need. Why not install the others you ask? Because I want the students to have access to far more than I can install on them without new hard drives. My remaster ISO is pushing the 4 gig limit! So much good stuff so little space!

arpanaut
October 1st, 2009, 03:05 PM
Have you considered this:

http://edubuntu.org/

Lars Noodén
October 1st, 2009, 08:29 PM
Any of the following could be combined later with multi-seat:


K12LTSP (http://k12ltsp.org/)

http://k12ltsp.org/


Skolelinux (http://www.skolelinux.org/en/)

http://www.skolelinux.org/en/


Edubuntu (http://edubuntu.org/)

http://edubuntu.org/




Multi-seat means adding additional keyboards, mice and screens to an existing computer so that several users can work on the same box at their same time as if each has their own separate station. Whether you can do it with your existing hardware is a question of how much the above tax the client. If there are resources to spare, multiseat might be a cheaper option than buying new machines to expand the classroom.

These following multi-seat articles are old,
it is gradually getting easier:

http://www.linuxtoys.org/multiseat/multiseat.html
http://linuxagora.com/vbforum/showthread.php?p=3924
http://education.tmcnet.com/topics/education/articles/50828-userful-thinnetworks-deploy-356800-virtualized-desktops-schools-brazil.htm