Schools using *nix

[Oops_my_bad]

Could anyone tell me if there are any schools in the Manchester or North West region who are using entirely Linux environment? Me and my collegue wouldn't mind visiting a few places to see how they find it

[openhgs]

Form memory the Central Manchester City Learning Centre are a SuSE site and have associations with several high and primary schools in the city. You could treat yourselves to a jolly and come down the M6 and visit us in Brum.

[Oops_my_bad]

OK thanks... if this guy from the manc CLC doesn't get back to us I might take you up on that offer (it's a day out of the office at least)

Also I don't know if you realise but your web link points to a site that seems to have been hijacked by those pesky site holders

[openhgs]

OK thanks... if this guy from the manc CLC doesn't get back to us I might take you up on that offer (it's a day out of the office at least)

Also I don't know if you realise but your web link points to a site that seems to have been hijacked by those pesky site holders

Our website is www.openhgs.org.uk - any other url is nothing to do with me.

[webman]

Well the URL in your profile does not end in .org.uk.

[Joedetic]

I've pointed this out before.

[linuxgirlie]

Ok, its not Manchester, but if you fancy a visit to Dover, we are using a mixture of Linux Servers, Fat Linux clients and now Thin Linux clients.

Jo

[Joedetic]

I'm still interested in a centrally managed users solution similar to AD that is SIMPLE to implement. I can't stress the simple bit enough. I mean usermanagement as in log on and log off.

linuxgirlie. how do you do it? Also...how are you locking down the machines so student's get certain "profiles" etc?

These might seem like questions with simple answers but i've never really managed to get a conscensus (sp?) from people on how they do it before.

<edit> Yh, i mean on linux...should have said that</edit>

[CyberNerd]

I'm still interested in a centrally managed users solution similar to AD that is SIMPLE to implement. I can't stress the simple bit enough. I mean usermanagement as in log on and log off.

zimbra with the samba module?
fedora directory server?
http://directory.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Howto:Samba
otherwise I think you'll need Novell's directory server (commercial linux)

[Geoff]

Well, plain old vanilla LDAP works too. Infact there were a series of articles on such a setup in Linux Journal.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8119
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7336
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8374

[Joedetic]

Thanks guys.

Geoff you've linked me to those before. Only problem was that when i installed openldap...it failed over and wouldnt start every time i tried so i went off to play with NIS+. Maybe i should give it a go on linux as opposed to FreeBSD.

[Geoff]

I'd recommend Ubuntu.

[Joedetic]

Yup...i've already got an ubuntu testing server running LTSP with a neoware eon thinclient. As an aside...neoware eon 2000 don't wanna work too well. Had to use vesa for Xserver and turn off the audio in the LTS settings

[openhgs]

I'm still interested in a centrally managed users solution similar to AD that is SIMPLE to implement. I can't stress the simple bit enough. I mean usermanagement as in log on and log off.

linuxgirlie. how do you do it? Also...how are you locking down the machines so student's get certain "profiles" etc?

We use kde and kiosktool does exactly this. We use NIS as our authentication (must easier to setup and maintain than LDAP IMHO) and no matter which machine the user logs on to, they gain access to their files, desktop, etc. We're a Fedora site.

OT I upgraded one of our machines yesterday and it is now running Fedora 8, which hasn't been officially announced yet. Looks like we're first cab off the rank with it.

[interele]

If you read the post about openldap and you wanted something simple ...you are now probably running from Linux as fast as your legs will carry you ;-)

I wrote a program that takes student ( or staff ) details from a SIMS csv file ( or any old csv file ) and crunches it up and stuffs it into a LDAP server - You can set up 1000 users in about 10 minutes

Once you get the hang of it, Linux ( Redhat in my case ) is a lot easier that Windows. My ldap program has a couple of hard coded bugs/features such as the domain component bit can only be 2 parts ( so it has to be something like acme.com ) but if you want a copy to experiment with let me know

M