kesomir

As more and more of the educational applications become rich internet apps or at least web delivered, OS platform is going to become less relevant. Lots of current open source desktop apps well worth using on whatever platform - including windows; such as openoffice, audacity, vlc, 7zip etc.

I would recommend phpscheduleit over MRBS. I've used both and imho phpscheduleit has a 'bnetter' interface. It can be AD integrated as well.

Ah good to hear I'm not alone in that then - if reproducable, it should get fixed sooner.

From their features page: The logging did work, but doesn't now. I can connect to watch / control terminal services connections fine. The logging logs, log on /off applications run and websites visited. I don't need the websites as I use School Guardinan, but some way to track what users are doing would be handy (even better if it were keyword flagged)

As you are at a preliminary evaluation stage, I have a working (not yet feature complete) management information system I wrote for my school over the past 18 months. I've been debating whether or not to release the whole thing as open source, or whether to release the core system under a non OS license but provide modularity for plug ins. Part of the problem is that the system is considerably more complex than an application such as a web-forum, with many dependencies on the core systems. Waiting on trademarking at the moment, but features are thus: Written in PHP with MySQL Database Built on the Codeigniter MVC Rapid Development Framework Uses CSS for gui It uses absolutely no javascript - to improve cross browser compatability valid XHTML Current working systems: Multi-lingual support. Authentication. User management. Group management (for classes, clubs and entry years). Calendar system (we use for assigning applicants to weekly visits and assessments). Correspondence template system (used to generate various letters during enrol process - pulls data from calendar + user systems). Config in database so that admin section can be used to alter settings. Electronic Testing system. Digital signage page Export (currently exports year groups to ranger AD tool and moodle, but can be tooled to export to any csv) Accounting invoice generation (operational) Ability to modify external LDAP database passwords Features not yet developed: Attendance (Register) Discipline system Templates (not too hard to do - separate folders) lesson plans "my page" for vle File management code tidying "delete" functionality for various parts of the system garbage collection Application's admin section Active Directory integration (needs modification of existing ldap code + config to select on/off and type). I've started running into a few instances where not using javascript (or ajax) causes a few probs with usability, but I think that flex is a better route to go than Ajax to enable a RIA experience. The beauty is that flex modules for the gui can be swapped in to place with the existing system with minimal rewrites due to the MVC setup. It sounds from your information that my application meets all of your design requirements as a base. I honestly think that for such a project to succeed, the open source or collaborative portions of the system have to be modular. CORE Authentication User management Groups Calendar Correspondence Basic Accounting Gradebook Registration / Attendance system Export Add / Remove Modules MODULAR Testing Discipline system Accounts system Lesson plans VLE etc, etc. If I were to get the system to a point of modularity, would it be something you might be interested in contributing to? Would you be influenced by whether it were released under an OSS or other license if it were available to use for free?

I'm currently running the trial on v5 for terminal services and vista support. Control module crashes occasionally, but I can live with that until it becomes more stable. WHen I first installed, I set up a policy for monitoring, set to permanent etc etc. Worked fine on all clients, terminal server appeared to be logged twice, once through the server itself and again through the client monitoring. Since then I added the terminal server to the settings so it was auto scanned and played with it a bit more, but logging now only works for the fat clients. No logs viewed when checking the log on a ts session or on the terminal server itself. Can view the older logs if changing the display history. Policy is still set. I have removed and reapplied it with no joy. I sent a message to the company but haven't had a response. Any ideas? - main reason for using this is for logging on the ts clients as ranger doesn't support them atm.

I think for what you're using it for, those will do the trick nicely. You only need to spend a huge amount of cash if you want enterprise features such as management, link aggregation etc.

Open Office calc. Alternatively, you could use excel.

I run an in house developed MIS and electronic testing system, helpdesk (one or zero) and resource booking application (phpscheduleit) on the intranet. Used to run forums and links (phpbb3) on intranet but migrated those to the live webserver (vbulletin). I also have a box set up for student web development. All the above runs on debian LAMP.

I have a netgear 16 port gigabit and for the price, it's been no trouble. Can pick them up for ~£100

Since you're looking at primary schools: Open Office Firefox (with flash) -> This gives you 95% of resources used. Tuxtype Tuxmaths Ktouch Gcompris

"in place swap" NFS Server or in-situ swap, not "NFS swap" server. ie the debian box switched for ubuntu gutsy box appeared to be more stable. I was using it to export home directories and a network share. Not currently though as my fat-clients are running XP and my fileservers Win2003

I've used both papercut and pykota. Pykota is excellent value for money (£25 donation or free), but Papercut is better value for us overall because it's a 20 second install and run job, whereas pykota is a little more involved. Papercut is also cross platform and can be used on linux (mac too I think?)

can you not achieve this by restricting the printer to the supervisor / admin account? (Maybe not) or a login script that disconnects the printer and only connects it for specified user? could be done via local group policy if not networked?

I use truecrypt - gets my vote. you can use a container only on the drive - no need to fully encrypt it.

have t5725s some of which came with ball mice and some optical - not had a problem with them yet (rising a year of use).

Client side? I think that both ranger and impero have something like this but I don't think that's what you're looking for. I use papercut on the server which is excellent and comes with a client application - it gives great control and is IMHO cheap. That again may be overkill for your needs though.

I had used both fstab nfs mounting and the autofs method. The home directory was mounted as well as a couple of other shares. Throughout my trialling I was using debian based distros for the majority (debian or ubuntu). A lot of problems with NFS were distro related (bugs in nautilus causing server to get swamped for example). Debian appeared to perform better than ubuntu as an in place swap nfs server. I accept that the nfs implementation on these distros could have contributed to / been the cause of my problems, and while I did try a variety of clients (including fedora and suse), the server was always debian based (i had trouble connected ubuntu clients to a suse NFS server). I also did not try a non-linux *nix server such as bsd (or solaris) which may be better. I should have said " In my opinion - NFS on the linux distros I tried is a dog" I did a lot of tweaking in an attempt to eliminate the problems - specifically increasing the number of nfs deamons running on the server, switching the mount methods (static to autofs) and adjusting the mount options. I also made a large number of posts across the ubuntu forums and subscribed to some of the mailing lists. - Some of the posts I read mentioned nfs being fine for small networks up to 10 clients - had a quick search and couldn't find them to reference though. Additionally, I was using NFSv3 as I couldn't for the life of me get NFSv4 to work. While I appreciate that NFS can be and is used in extremely large implementations, I stand by my view that using nfs (or anything else for that matter) to remote mount the home folder is not as good in theory as caching the data locally and sending it back and forth during sign on/off - less network traffic is a better thing. I also maintain that trialling it in this way will teach you loads and that linux networking does have room for improvement - although perhaps more in the "work as an appliance" or "apt-get install the-network" sense.

I have a solution - it was X11. set the session to run the following commands (gnome session / xsession) xset q - shows you settings //for screensaver settings xset s 0 xset s noexpose xset s noblank I also set xset -dpms

Including us

IIRC isn't virtualbox restricted to 2Gig memory per guest? That aside, I've found virtualbox to be less hassle than vmware server in use. Not used the paid for version of vmware

We've just finished a year trial of Linux workstations which was truncated to two terms. Now I used free distributions, using commercially supported systems with support may have different results, but since that's more expensive than using windows... Here's my opinion if of any use: I started with ubuntu feisty on fat clients and edubuntu (feisty) LTSP on a lab of thin clients with a windows terminal server for those educaitonal apps. Migrated to Gutsy (which was a terrible, unstable and buggy release), then to opensuse 10.3 for both fat and thin client ltsp. Pros: LTSP is superior to windows terminal services - no issues with sound and clients feel much more like fat clients. 99% of all computer use on my school network involves either an office application or a web-browser. SSH, RSYNC, rdiff-backup etc. There is an abundance of flash based tools for education on the web. Kids love web based flash games as much or more so than windows games. Sherston are offering their titles through web delivery. Trend is a migration from desktop to software as a service. Standalone clients work wonderfully. Got to love apt (or even yum at a push) Ease of updating No threat of viruses / malware Cons: The linux method of filesharing is awful. NFS is a dog that uses far too much bandwidth and isn't suitable for a large number of clients. A windows like local caching method is in development. OpenLDAP / NFS central authentication needs a better one click setup - took me a week to get my head round it. (I posted how to guides on setup at ubuntuforums) SECURE OpenLDAP (TLS) needs better documentation / easier setup. It's too much of a pain so I didn't bother doing it. Bugs on ubuntu gutsy's nautilus would cause processes to swamp the nfs server and cause it to kernel panic. (This did not happen with feisty btw). Mounting a remote home folder caused a variety of issues - most notable under buggy gutsy where it would stream hundreds of meg across the network on login - causing client to be unusable for ~5-10 mins. Lost access to all windows applications All in all, I spend a lot less time now that the network is back running windows clients (XP professional + terminal server) than when running linux clients. I still run linux servers (although I have to say papercut is well worth the money over pykota - which I also donated to). I run a smoothwall school guardian box, a debian intranet server and a dedicated rented ubuntu web server and it excells at these tasks. All my thin clients are hp t5725s running debian set up to boot throguh to a windows password box for terminal services. I would pay more for linux in these servers than windows but I think that linux needs a bit longer to sort out some of it's networking issues for full deployment. I would use linux for web access stations anywhere without hesitation, and the best thing you can do is trial client stations yourself - the amount you'll learn on the way is phenominal.

I have finally managed to flash one of my thin clients using the deban 4 image from HP. (Trick is to use a separate HP utility to create bootable usb, pointing it to the files extracted to c drive from the hp imaging utility, then copy the flash.dd to the stick, setting USB as boot, pulling the power cord from the back then re-powering ) I'm using this one device to power a 42" screen for digital signage in reception (connects to web page, with firefox kiosk extention for full screen). My problem is that the device blanks the screen after a period of inactivity and I can't find where to diable that setting. It's a cut down gnome - so gnome-screensaver isn't installed, couldn't see a trace of xscreensaver or gnome-power-manager either. Any ideas how I can disable the screen blanking? Would save me a jolly hunt.

Are you in the remote desktop users usergroup? Is the following GPO set? Computer Configuration - Windows Settings - Security Settings - Local Policies - User rights Assignment "Allow log on through Terminal Services" see here: Terminal Services - logon problems

Altiris was a little bit of a pain to get up and working, but once done makes thin client management a breeze. It's really important to work through the manual. I have altiris running off of the 64 bit TC server and working no probs.