Re: Wine and Linux termincal services

[Bert Obbink <bert.obbink@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Scott Van Singel wrote:

> We are going to upgrade the OS to Win 2000 Pro and have Office 2k Prem on them. Once this is complete, the teacher will be able to
> take thier work home with them and run applications there.

For the time being, Windows XP will annoy you again.

> This will force teachers to learn some bacis functions of computers and should
> lighten our load for the IT techs.

The government here forces teacher to get a "digital drivers licence". Unfortunaly the only learn word, excell and powerpoint. So
much for driving...

> But, most programs for education is written in MS forms. So, if I could run the education
> programs on a Linux Termincal Service Thin Client (old Computer) then I can save a
> ton of money.

I have heard that some university, whom's name I can't recall the name right now (shame), will open there educational software to
the GPL this summer. This could very well solve your problem.
I know for sure it was some US university.

> I would love to have more Linux stuff here at the school but, I can not get the linux stuff to function the way I need. Plus, most
> linux applications now require high amounts of Administration to setup and run. We do not have the time or
> experiance to handle some of this linux stuff (yet).
> Now, if I can get some of the work completed with Linux and it makes sence I will look at it.
> First thing I need is to get these old computers to run the Office 2k and other programs,that is why I am looking at the Linux
> Terminal Service stuff.

I have installed the Linux Terminal Stuff. I can boot serveral pc's from a central boot server. Installing is was basically simple.
You need to know what network card is sitting in the pc and what kind of video card it has. You configure X on the server to load
the proper video drivers for the workstation. You need to configure DHCP (or BOOTP) to be recognize the mac address of the network
card. DHCP supplies an ip address and gives the workstation a kernel to boot.
You can make floppies to test your configuration. I have my floppy now asking what to boot, a local system or the remote kernel.
Once all works make a boot-prom and place that on your netword card. There are companies where you can order boot-proms for a few
dollars each.

I myself are in the stage of getting wine to work acceptable enough. After I reached that, I will put wine and Linux Terminal
together. I have just one problem, time. My time is very limited to do this.  Due to the fact this stuff is not related to my work
and there are some wife and kids to share time with too, it will take some time to complete this. Although I want to complete this
very much it has a lower priority than my family... :-)

You can find some good documentation on www.ltsp.org.

Bert