eee ASUS PC - Integrating into School Networks

[SimpleSi]

This is just me rambling here but how about Edugeek(ers) producing the "How to Integrate the ASUS eee PC into your school network"

 

The device is aimed at our establishments but as it stands its a nice toy but as soon as you try to get it to save files into user home areas and print to the nearest printer - life gets a bit tricky for the average users (e.g pupil)

 

I myself have modest requirements - just need it to print to THE printer and be able to easily navigate to THE shared folder

 

How about it people - you've hidden your *nix talents under a bushel for years - if we (i.e. you ) can get this little gem to be a really really useful engine, then its kudos all round and win win win for everyone.

 

This is just a kick-off post.

 

One suggestion I'd make is if the experts haven't got one of these - then Edugeek uses it contacts and gets a few units out to a team of people to get them started.

 

regards

 

Simon

[meastaugh1]

We haven't got that far yet as we're just trying it with rdesktop for terminal services access with a redirected local folder for transferring between on and offline use. Besides the slightly dodgy wireless management, it seems all good.

 

Have you tried this for connecting to a Windows share? http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:setupsamba

[openhgs]

Our eee's connects to the NFS server with no problems. It also prints via CUPS straight out of the box, so it is fully integrated into the network.

[nickholme]

Here at Hutton Grammar, we bought one of these the other day and think they are fantastic - with a couple of reservations about screen size and battery life. We are seriously considering buying these for all our 6th formers and Teachers if not for classroom use as well. We have only had it 2 days so far, but I'll let you know as and when we get it working on the network. Our Head tech didn't seem to see any insurmountable problems while we were having a look last night. I'll check about local storage and printing and post back. As the initial post mentioned, it would be fantastic if everyone pooled their expertise in the early days. I'm going to investigate the use of external memory cards for installing the operating system and booting from, so that we can quickly slip in a clean one if one of the students messes one up.

 

Check out forum.eeeuser.com and http://www.eeeuser.com.

 

As the operating system is Xandros, which I think is Red Hat based, do we have any experts in the house?

 

When I get time, I may install the eee ubuntu distro as I'm more familiar with that. What does anyone else think?

[webman]

If somebody would like to donate one to me (purely for devlopment purposes only you understand) then I will gladly take a look at this

[CyberNerd]

My main concern is still the security on the eeepc - passwordless sudo.

There are several operating systems people have tweaked onto eeepc and Installing something other than the default xandros has to be the way forward unless you want to see a lot of bricked laptops. eeexubuntu looks ok - but slow to boot (I only tried on a usb stick) eeeos is debian based and looks promising as a base to build upon.

http://eeeos.interactivelaboratories.com/

 

I would approach the problem starting with eeeos and building it into something for school windows networks, combining Terminal services. Probably transplanting the original AsusLauncher onto eeeos would be good for kids (it lives in /opt and runs over icewm). XP will be a quicker route, but I honestly think it'll curl up and die after a few weeks usage.

[tosca925]

i am currently testing one of these. I have the white Asus Eee-PC 4gb model. I have installed XP Pro SP2 and followed the guidlines to cut remove certain un-needed windows files. I have done a windows update to bring it up to date and then removed the files that are kept. I have install SiMS and Office 2003. I am really impressed with it. We are going to trial these with PE staff instead of PDA's.

 

Later today i will be installing Sophos and I'm sure this will give it a full test.

[crc-ict]

Personally, I would say forget trying to do this with the Linux, it's just going to be too complicated for most users, especially in primary.

 

Bung XP on it, join it to the domain if you have one, or even if you don't it's a damn sight easier to do the printing and sharing with Windows.

 

I find it runs XP just fine too!

[webman]

Personally, I would say forget trying to do this with the Linux, it's just going to be too complicated for most users, especially in primary.

 

Do you have a link to any published studies on this?

[CyberNerd]

Personally, I would say forget trying to do this with the Linux, it's just going to be too complicated for most users, especially in primary.

On the contrary, the AsusLauncher could not be more simple, it is ideal for primary.

The launcher will transplant quite easily.

[somabc]

 

As the operating system is Xandros, which I think is Red Hat based, do we have any experts in the house?

 

Xandros is debian based the same as ubuntu.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xandros

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=xandros

[SimpleSi]

IS THERE SOME TROUBLE READING AROUND HERE

 

My post was a "what do you think of this as an idea"

 

I was particulary impressed by the "we're all right" post by openhgs

 

I'd had more luck asking a Reception class

 

The question (re-worded where needed ) is

 

Do you think its a good idea for us Edugeekers to step up to the mark and turn this little toy into a useful device on our (mainly) Windows networks

 

with a supplementary of

 

Are you interested/capable of helping achieve this

 

and

 

Could our Edugeek masters get some of these machines to the likes of webman from their many contacts they now have?

 

This thread is intended (hopefully) to be a shing example of what Edugeek could be - please flame/lambast/argue in another one

 

regards

Simon

Or Post insults to me via PM

[DMcCoy]

It's probably because you are going about it the wrong way, like the government and becta.

 

You are trying to find a problem for technology to solve.

 

You should look at it this way:

 

What is it I want to do? Can the Eee PC help?

[CyberNerd]

My post was a "what do you think of this as an idea"

 

in principal yes. it's a great Idea. I don't think your trying to find a problem for technology to solve, I see that the problem is clear - eeepc is a potentially valuable teaching resource because of its size and cost, but it needs to be modified because of its shortcomings.

 

I propose we have a long argument about what to call our new operating system. I vote eeEdugeekix ! we can then argue some more about whether to base it on debian,redhat etc.

 

Meanwhile, I'll have a go on eeeos when I get some time

[Oops_my_bad]

We are looking at a product from centrify http://www.centrify.com/

 

Basically, about £150 per domain controller and £25 per linux PC you want plugging into AD

[torledo]

in principal yes. it's a great Idea. I don't think your trying to find a problem for technology to solve, I see that the problem is clear - eeepc is a potentially valuable teaching resource because of its size and cost, but it needs to be modified because of its shortcomings.

 

I propose we have a long argument about what to call our new operating system. I vote eeEdugeekix ! we can then argue some more about whether to base it on debian,redhat etc.

 

Meanwhile, I'll have a go on eeeos when I get some time

 

All the talk of putting windows and other operating system changes makes me mad ....becuase the current os works wonderfully well for general purpose use. the eees biggest shortcoing are the obvious hardware issues that need to be addressed first and foremost. The hardware mods are obviously down to asus but they need to hear what the customers are saying about the ergonomic and hardware deficiencies as they are the changes that stick.

 

I've had the opportunity to try out multiple different types of laptops over the years, from large desktop replacements from sony, all the apple notebooks from the ibook G3, thinkpads, latitiudes, the vaio ultraportables - and a whole load of other laptops i'd rather forget.....

 

we all draw on our experiences from using laptops and ultraportables in assesing the pros and cons of the eee ergonomics and i know that ergonomics and hardware useability are THE biggest bugbears laptop users have - after all this is a general purpose machine not exclusive to the edugeek commmunnity.

 

i feel we are being a bit blinkered to it's areas of application and as a result neglecting the ergonomics for general purpose use - after all its not just a teaching aid it has to be able to accomplish portable browsing, document editing and all sorts for non-school use. For instance battery life has to be addressed whether a teacher uses it on a field trip for teaching or a home user wants to take it to the park to browse the internet via hsdpa...both users experience the hardware shortcomings acutely becuase the battery is flat within an hour. Trust me, users will not care whether they use ie or firefox, or oo or ms office...it's all about the hardware. and as long as the os and applications are quick to open and use and the price remains low people won't care what it's running.

 

...operating system and application issues are relatively straightforward to fix becuase you can allow users to tailor aspects of the OS to suit their needs. The hardware solutions are a case of one size fits all users - so the decisions made are much more crucial in some respects.

[SimpleSi]

- please flame/lambast/argue in another one

 

regards

 

Simon

[Jose]

I know its not linux but how about installinging Bartpe to the harddisk,

it can take up as little space as aroung 200-250 MB and we could all contribute plugins for it.

Quite a few programs like openoffice will probably already have plugins already made.

 

If you don't like Bartpe then you could try a nlite install.

I got my eee pc on Saturday, played with it for about 20 minutes before installing XP.

[Joanne]

i'll be getting my eeepc this month and i'll see if i can get it integrated into a CC3 network... BWA HAHAHAHA maybe I have gone mad!

[johnymac]

Iv'e had quite a few EEE pc proposals thrown at me and Iv'e knocked all back other than one. A primary school in Keighley have bought 100 and we have decided to take on the project of making them classroom ready our spec from the school is:

 

Internet

Printing

File access

RM Maths

Psuedo drive letters (ie o: for shared area)

Some early years software (mostly quite simple vis only stuff - flash etc.)

 

Budget is 50 GBP per device, quite a challenge I think you will agree!

 

We are not putting Windows on so it should be fun getting RM Maths to work. Tom Hudson will be leading the project and I am sure our results will get posted and available on our website in March/April time. As always any code/configurations we use will be fully documented and available for all to read! website: http://www.primaryt.co.uk

 

 

PS good luck with CC3

[wezer]

My school has recently bought a 100 ASUS eee pc's with linuxfor us to use (students). The problem is is that you cant get to your file area easily. I have a way to overcome this all you need is:

Rm Easylink server

Some basic knowledge of Javascript so that you can change the servers on which you would connect too.

 

i would upload the files but the form will not allow it so ill post the script and you will just have to put into a html file yourself please leave the credits at the bottom the same as i am trying to see how far i can get this.

 

// JavaScript Document

window.onload = load; // This initalizes the function load on stratup.

function fnNavigate(url)

{

//This asp file makes the address viewable as a folder

window.open("https://folders.ladymead.somerset.sch.uk/easylink/WebFolder.asp?url="+url,"_blank");

}

 

function load() {

var tgroup = prompt("What is the name of your tutour group without the your year at the start in capitals e.g NE1 AN?","");

var year = prompt("What year did you start at Ladymead e.g 2007?","");// when they started school

var username = prompt("What is your username?",""); // Asks user for username.

fnNavigate('https://folders.ladymead.somerset.sch.uk/easylink/wf.lcs-svr-003.s/' + year + '/' + tgroup + '/' + username);

return false;

}

 

//This script was created by Wesley Williams

[Daleus]

Primary school here, looking to eeepc every child from year 3 upwards, where the parents pay £x/week and its theirs, but they can (and are encouraged to) use them in school if they like.

 

We got one to play with from the 'EBICT' team at Bradford and it had their custom image installed.

 

connected to a windows share via smbmount just fine, connected to printers via the GUI, just fine.

 

However, this image was designed for children and they didn't tell me how to bring up the admin interface, so I managed to jimmy open the terminal via a shortcut.