I talked to our Tech Director after doing talking to some people. (see previous blog post) He suggested we put a server and a couple clients in the back of my room right now and see whether they will work. If they work, then I can show my principal that they work and how I would use them.
I have the newly released Edubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) installed on a server in my room. I used the Ubuntu-alt download cd and installed the LTSP option (press F4 on the install menu). It installed nicely, but I had trouble getting a connection to the internet gateway. Our network manager figured out the gateway was on ETH1, fixed it, and then it worked fine. I could not get the Edubuntu 8.04 cd to read, so I just installed it via Synaptic Package Manager. It took a while, but installed just fine….So far so good.
I was just about to this point at home. It’s installed on the server and hooked up to the thin clients through an 8 port switch. The clients will preboot with a PXE enabled network card (very cool!). This is better than my home set-up because I don’t have to boot from floppy. It still gives pretty much the same message at home.
Boot from (N)etwork or (D)isk
Searching for server (DHCP)
<sleep>
Boot from (N)etwork or (D)isk
It’s still not connecting.
Marshal, the network manager asked whether the DHCP was running. <:-{ I told him didn’t know since I hadn’t done anything but install the Linux OS.
I installed Webmin from Synatic. Webmin is a DHCP server control panel that is accessible through the web browser on http://localhost:10000. However, we couldn’t access it.
Marshal deduced that the plug on the end of the cable was the culprit. He didn’t have the tool with him to fix it, so we’re stuck until Monday.
I’ll let you know if we get it to work.
All that work learning about 
Edubuntu Linux thin clients may pay off. I talked to our district’s IT department this week. I asked whether I could experiment with an Edubuntu thin client mini-lab in my classroom. The Tech Director said they had tried an LTSP thin client network in the Junior High a few years ago and pulled the plug after one year. They also use 
SUSE linux, too.They now use MS Windows thin clients. He sent me to the Junior High computer lab teacher and the Network Administrator.
The computer lab teacher said that they tried running all the windows program she had used before on Linux. Any time they tried to scale it up to more than a few machines it would lock up. The windows applications in a Linux environment did not play nicely together on thin clients. I think user resistance (especially teachers) to open source software in teaching is a very real barrier, as evidenced here.
The network admin said that the Linux distros were very resource hungry. They were running 90 thin clients on two servers and he was spending 2 hours a day getting them up and running. He didn’t put much stock in claims that people were running thin client labs from simple desktops. He said the servers need multicore processors with lots of RAM (8 MB). I had asked for a 3GHz 3MB RAM desktop from the computer lab, and he said it would probably run the 14 or so computers I wanted to use in my classroom. We may use two 8-port switches to connect the old computers.
He also said that hooking the thin clients up through the network was an issue, but since the clients in my room would be behind the server, it would be much easier.
He mentioned the lack of adequate support since he was spending 2 hours a day at the Junior High working on the thin client system. I am glad to say that 
will give professional support if the forums are not enough.
I sounds like a lot of the problems they had was from teacher resistance to giving up MS Windows applications. People issues have to be considered seriously when change occurs…and change will occur whether we want it to or not. The tech issues seem solvable, but the issue of scalability worries me about future implications of a pilot.
Next I need to go back to our Tech Director and see whether he will give his final approval. Then I have to get the go-ahead from my principal. If I can clear those two last hurdles, I will have computers for my student next year in my classroom. Yippee!
Ever the practical voice, my wife asked me, “Why do you need computers in your room?” I find it hard to give a concise answer. What would be your answer to that question?
I have not been having good luck with Edubuntu Linux. The 3 server CD images I downloaded had errors so it installed with errors. I managed to get an installing a live CD download to install, but it did not install with the Thin Client server I wanted to use with Edubuntu. So, I tried adding the package with the server. As I noted in a previous posts, it did not “just work” “right out of the box” as some forums said it should. I even ordered a free server CD from Edubuntu, but it installed with errors. The CD did not have errors, which means: a) the image is broken b) the Edubuntu is broken or c) my hard drive is dying. I hope is none of the three, especially c), but I still can’t get a clean install of the thin client server. Now my LiveCD Edubuntu won’t install either (I/O error #5), which I suspect means the work . . . It’s the hard drive. I really want Edubuntu to work, but I am about to give up on it as a thin client solution. I’m going to try a full reformat of the hard drive and give it one last try at a clean install. After that, I might try OpenSUSE again.
Any advice?
This is Edubuntu the sequel. I reinstalled Edubuntu server edition. The thin client server is supposed to already be set up when it installs. No true so far. I do have a couple weak links. My downloaded install CD has MD5 checksum errors (Could that explain why I keep getting a red error screen during installation, hmm.) I guess my PXE boot floppies for the Thin Clients work, but I’m not sure what it’s supposed to look like when it does work.
- A search of the Ubuntu support forum kind of, sort of, not really helped.
- One guy in the forum found a solution to a similar problem in setting up his thin client network, but I’m not sure whether it will help me.
- This getting started guide might help, but I think I’ve already tried the steps and it didn’t work.
- This installation over a local network might be an alternative.
It should work. I even took one Thin Cleint and plugged it directly into the eth1, but it didn’t boot. My two NIC card set-up should work, but it doesn’t. I’m not sure where to even look for help. It should just work, but it doesn’t. Any advice? </whine>
I have ordered a CD so I won’t have to worry about errors in the download causing the problem.
I figured out put of my first Edubuntu thin client network problem. I copied my DHCP3 blog post to the Ubuntu Community Web support Forums. I received to reply the next day that pointed me in the right direction. I downloaded a good editor called GDHCPD that cut out having to type in code. It made life much easier, because I could just type the settings I needed in the correct windows and boxes. 
It would tell me whether or not I got it right. However, I still had a read and research what settings needed to be put in. 
However, it finally works! <:)
<Geekspeak> I had to correctly set the IP addresses and subnet addresses so the Thin Clients were in their own subnet pool of IP addresses. It’s like telling the telephone company in which area code to assign the Thin Clients their cell phone numbers. </Geekspeak>
Nevertheless, the thin client still won’t work
Getting the DHCP server to work was still way too hard. It needs to just work out of the box without me having to mess with any settings.
Here is my Edubuntu wish list:
- I would like an icon on the System menu that will allow me to set up the Thin Client server with a graphic user interface (GUI) easily.
- I would like a GUI that I just tell it where to find the Thin Clients and it makes my Thin Clients work.
- I would like a GUI that would easily set up the Boot ROM floppy disks for me.
- I would like it to just work! No configuring needed for standard set-ups.
I’ll keep at it. I think it has something to do with TFTP.
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