Joanne Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 So my other school has a bunch of 5 y/o samsung netbooks and they don't use them. Originally we were gonna sell them off, but now the coord is thinking of repurposing them. They have Intel atom processors and 2GB RAM. I've had a think and I'm guessing I have a couple of options. 1) Load Windows 7 only and Google Chrome - essentially making them internet only devices and not connecting them to the domain. 2) Load linux and chrome (possibly make them a bit speedier on bootup) The reason I'm not thinking Windows 10 is because they don't have the licenses for 10. They also have no money. I don't really want to cludge a chrome OS... although that would be ultimate ideal scenario!! Any other ideas? Thanks in advance.
LosOjos Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 So my other school has a bunch of 5 y/o samsung netbooks and they don't use them. Originally we were gonna sell them off, but now the coord is thinking of repurposing them. They have Intel atom processors and 2GB RAM. I've had a think and I'm guessing I have a couple of options. 1) Load Windows 7 only and Google Chrome - essentially making them internet only devices and not connecting them to the domain. 2) Load linux and chrome (possibly make them a bit speedier on bootup) The reason I'm not thinking Windows 10 is because they don't have the licenses for 10. They also have no money. I don't really want to cludge a chrome OS... although that would be ultimate ideal scenario!! Any other ideas? Thanks in advance. I'd avoid putting Windows on them - I have one myself and it was so slow with Windows it was painful. Maybe ChromeOS? Very lightweight, Internet only, all via "the cloud" - not sure about safeguarding though, might need to research that a bit first
bald_pig Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 We still have lots of NC10's in use around the school for the students, I built a light 32bit image for them, we have just office and chrome on them, a lot of staff like the kids using them!
Joanne Posted November 19, 2015 Author Posted November 19, 2015 Can you put Chrome OS on anything though? Aren't there licensing issues? I tried putting chrome OS on something last year and failed miserably!
FN-GM Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 You could use this turn them into Chromebooks - http://www.edugeek.net/forums/downloads/160264-neverware-cloudready-turn-any-computer-into-chromebook.html Or you could put Windows ThinPC on them with a browser only. Its really light weight and will run well on these. 1
Joanne Posted November 19, 2015 Author Posted November 19, 2015 We still have lots of NC10's in use around the school for the students, I built a light 32bit image for them, we have just office and chrome on them, a lot of staff like the kids using them! I did this but they still aren't fast enough. I think the issue is that they are used to iPads... BAM ready! hAH!
Joanne Posted November 19, 2015 Author Posted November 19, 2015 You could use this turn them into Chromebooks - http://www.edugeek.net/forums/downloads/160264-neverware-cloudready-turn-any-computer-into-chromebook.html Or you could put Windows ThinPC on them with a browser only. Its really light weight and will run well on these. Just gonna check out this download now. The Hexxeh one is a couple of years outdated now... Which is what I looked at last year.
Oaktech Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 Got some spare server capacity? Implement an RDP server and put linux auto booting to an rdp client on them? 1
Joanne Posted November 19, 2015 Author Posted November 19, 2015 Got some spare server capacity? Implement an RDP server and put linux auto booting to an rdp client on them? Their server is pretty full unfortunately. Good idea though.
bald_pig Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 I did this but they still aren't fast enough. I think the issue is that they are used to iPads... BAM ready! hAH! What did you do to the base windows install? I've forced it into classic windows toolbars, stripped out any themes and stuff that isn't needed, couple of services tweaks as well iirc.
Joanne Posted November 19, 2015 Author Posted November 19, 2015 What did you do to the base windows install? I've forced it into classic windows toolbars, stripped out any themes and stuff that isn't needed, couple of services tweaks as well iirc. Windows 7 Pro. It's got Office 2010 and it's on the domain. Think I'll get a few of them and do different things to each one and see which works best. I'm there this aft, so gonna do the testing then.
Joanne Posted November 19, 2015 Author Posted November 19, 2015 Righty, so far I've got a chrome OS boot disk to try on one, got a linux disk to try on another and I'll try just plain ol' Win 7 32bit on a third and see what happens. Hoping chrome comes out on top to be honest. Hope it works!
witch Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 I took mine off the domain and sorted it so they can still see shared resources. They are much quicker and quite useful as a research tool. I was going to make them "internet only" devices but apparently they need office on them
IanHamilton Posted November 26, 2015 Posted November 26, 2015 Are these by any chance N145 netbooks? I tried Chromium on one for an experiment. It worked okay but after a lot of various builds I never got one that had both WiFi drivers and fully-working mousepad functions together - plug in mouse was okay but rather defeated the object. I think Chromium 28.0.1484.1 gave a fair approximation but I stopped looking after that - it was a while back so you might fare better now. Other than that it was quite successful.
dhicks Posted November 26, 2015 Posted November 26, 2015 So my other school has a bunch of 5 y/o samsung netbooks and they don't use them. Originally we were gonna sell them off, but now the coord is thinking of repurposing them. They have Intel atom processors and 2GB RAM. I'd have gone with Neverware CloudReady, as suggested above. We tried it on our EeePCs, but they were just a bit too old. Note that it's not just a Chrome-OS like install, it's actually a proper "approved" system that you can install and add a Chrome OS management license to (around £15 per device, I think), making for a proper managed ChromeOS device.
Joanne Posted November 26, 2015 Author Posted November 26, 2015 We are going with plain ol' Windows 7. The Chrome thing didn't work very well on the one I loaded it onto. It kept banging on about flash and then wouldn't download it. I figure the website it was pointing to for flash must have been blocked. Linux took a fair while to boot up in comparison to Windows.... (IKR!!!???)
Blue_Cookeh Posted November 26, 2015 Posted November 26, 2015 (edited) We have 35 Samsung N130s sitting around at the moment that are too slow to do much with... 2GB RAM, 2.5' 250GB HDD and the rest of it. Was tempted to upgrade them all to 4GB RAM and an SSD but I'm not sure it's cost effective on 5yo+ netbooks at this point. I was tempted to bin them (management have already written them off our asset registers) but will be watching this thread closely now... I think we'll end up seeing the back of them anyway, iPads are grabbing more of a hold in class now and we have new netbooks with SSDs (thanks @VeryPC! ) for anything else that needs a keyboard and staff seem very happy with them. Edited November 26, 2015 by Blue_Cookeh 1
Joanne Posted November 26, 2015 Author Posted November 26, 2015 Yeah these are NB220's. They have 2GB RAM (upgraded from 1GB) and the fastest boot was Windows 7 in comparison to the Linux (Ubuntu) and the Chromium. They will be used solely for internet browsing. This school are going heavily down the iPad route, but because of lack of funds they need extra kit for every day word processing.
mowgli82 Posted November 26, 2015 Posted November 26, 2015 £35 to upgrade to a 120gb SSD and £15-20 for a 2GB Ram upgrade - I would try one. We have some Acer 5744's that are 3+ years old - ive done exactly this and it has transformed them.
Joanne Posted November 26, 2015 Author Posted November 26, 2015 £35 to upgrade to a 120gb SSD and £15-20 for a 2GB Ram upgrade - I would try one. We have some Acer 5744's that are 3+ years old - ive done exactly this and it has transformed them. They'd rather have 10 new iPads than 30 upgraded netbooks...
Blue_Cookeh Posted November 26, 2015 Posted November 26, 2015 They'd rather have 10 new iPads than 30 upgraded netbooks... Exactly this. We're so flexible with iPads now I don't blame them. Staff are using them for registers in class and on trips, logging into our phones with them, and kids can even take them out onto the field now we have outdoor WiFi.
Joanne Posted November 26, 2015 Author Posted November 26, 2015 I'm going to stick Windows 7 on them if the ITCoord wants that. Drastic things have happened at school this week, so things might have changed... you NEVER KNOW.
TechSupp Posted November 26, 2015 Posted November 26, 2015 Got some NC10's and some NB30's (got a couple of the Toshiba versions as well) and they have our standard image on them, work fine on the domain, OK slightly slower to log on but not had any complaints about them in a while. Our issues were wireless connectivity speed but once that was sorted they have been fine. Not sure we will get any more netbooks though, although would like to replace the couple that have died just to keep that as a full set of 20.
bald_pig Posted November 26, 2015 Posted November 26, 2015 Disable aero and force the classic theme, makes a massive difference
witch Posted December 1, 2015 Posted December 1, 2015 I've just put windows 10 on a Samsung NB30 - seems OK. It has 2GB of RAM. We had already taken it off the domain but logging on was still very slow. So now there is no password at all. Anyone else done this? I need to do some more testing before I decide if it is worth doing on all 32
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