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Setting up Linux in an Inner City Public School?
Richard Finney asks: "I have a friend who is retired. He was the chief scientist on the Landsat program. Instead of just belting down scotch and cashing social security checks, he is volunteering at Samuel Coleridge Taylor Elementary School #122, in Baltimore. He's trying to set up some old donated computers from the Windows 95 era. Rather than fight with Windows, he's decided to install Linux. How would you set up these systems for these little kids to use and learn about computers using Linux?"
Sounds like a thin-client setup to me. Get one high-powered computer as your server, and just use the old '95 boxes as terminals. Just running a kernel and X11 should be no problem at all, and if it is, NetBSD-tiny is the answer. Just make sure the network won't break under the high load.
Palm trees and 8
Then get a few newer boxes and run Discoverstation or look at the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) which basically pulls off the same thing. But I really don't think that's what this guy was asking. I think he was probably more concerned about how the workstations were going to be used with students. How do you interest them? That part is hard. The ones who would be interested won't know it until they try it. The ones who just want to play games, and surf for multimedia will probably lose interest quickly. In my opinion, the best use is to just offer them as Wordprocessing/Spreadsheet/Presentation tools with "light" web browsing (meaning that there isn't as much access to multimedia) and e-mail. So they are more utilitarian tools than boxes to have a lot of fun with.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
These machines (from Windows 95 era) are far too weak to run decent desktop Linux. In fact they will run windowing system and graphical mode fine, but when it comes down to applications it will be *VERY* painly to run Firefox or OpenOffice.org on them.
:)
Instead you can turn the old machines into thin clients. So they will serve only as an display and input to applications that will be run on more powerfull server. You need to set up a fairly capable server (the ammount of RAM matters) - dual P3 with 1GB RAM and decent big disks will do for a handful of clients. The clients can boot of minidistribution installed on them locally, from live CD or via network (netboot). Network option will be probably best but not all systems (meaning PCs) will support it.
This way all the old machines will do is connect to that server and display appliations run on the server. When one such thin client breaks (the old machines *WILL* break often) you just replace it with another one and it is basically it. Also management of such system is much simpler than managing network of Windows 95 - all apps and all user data is on the server, so you have only one place to look after, only one place to manage software, only one place to backup etc.
There are various Linux distributions build for education. F.e. I would take Edubuntu for a spin (for starters):
http://www.edubuntu.org/
http://www.edubuntu.org/Screenshots (these speak for themselves)
Thera are also few ways for managing terminal server/client network, one most well known solution is the Linux Terminal Server Project - have a look at their documentation, it is fairly complete:
http://www.ltsp.org/
http://www.ltsp.org/documentation/index.php
Also if you are looking for help seek your local Linux community. Linux servers are extremely easy to manage remotely so you can probably find some kind admins/gurus that will want to help you pro bono.
Good Luck.
"Is it really of the most value to teach elementary school kids about using Linux?"
Yes.
"What benefit do they have here?"
Two at least:
1) Since it's not a maintstream system it will teach them the abstractions that makes a PC being a PC just by looking what has in common a "proper computer" (that with Windows) and "our school's" (the Linux thingie). It's a known fact that the exceptions have a great potential to teach about the mainstream.
2) Since it's an open source system it gives the chance to think about politics, ethics and economics (quite interesting things to think about in *all* curriculum subjects) they wouldn't otherwise.
"What percentage will ever use that knowledge in a IT type job, and what percentage will go up to Windows workstations later in life"
Just look at the time *you* where at school. Do you really have so many chances to currently apply what you learnt about Windows 3.11 or even Windows 95 on your current Windows XP? You seem to think that because it's called "windows" is just the same. There's no more differences between a Linux+KDE (or Gnome, or even Fluxbox) and a Windows XP than that from Windows 3.1 and Windows XP, not to talk about Ms DOS.
"and declare that they have no idea how to do anything because they've been using CLI to do everything up until junior high!"
You must be kidding! Just think about it for a moment:
Case A) Somebody that for the last six years has been exposed to the ugly CLI you talk about; who knows everything about Bash scripting; about how to configure a network card and why; what an interruption is and why it's interesting to know the hardware within the box suddenly exposed (as a mere user) to Windows XP.
Case B) Somebody that for the last six years has been exposed to Windows XP who find extremly difficult to reach http://www.slashdot.org/ if only the "Big Blue E that means the Internet" is moved from top left to bottom right within the desktop suddenly exposed (as a mere user)... to anything else.
Which one do you really think will have a worse time to adapt to his new environment? Linux should be use in schools if only because it's lightyears more didactic than Windows.
Whatever you use, you're going to have to if you want it to be reasonably fast. It depends on just how old these machines are, but I'm hearing a lot of people imagining Firefox in 8 megs of RAM.
Don't. If you just need Internet, links2 is damn small and supports enough graphics and form controls to get by. It's clumsy, but it's better than nothing, and it'll even do the graphics on a framebuffer -- no X to worry about. You can try to teach them to use mutt for email, or just use webmail.
The list goes on. Selecting a lightweight WM is only the first step, and that's assuming you give them a GUI.
On the other hand, don't over-optimize. If Firefox will run acceptably, and you can get the machines booted to whatever app you need in 5-10 mins, then go for it. You'll probably want AbiWord, but again, if OpenOffice works, use that. In other words, make the switch if you're saving a hugely significant amount of boot time, and RAM usage to avoid thrashing when you switch applications. You don't want it to feel slower than Win95 did (OpenOffice is still a bit fatter than Office), but you don't want to make them feel like they're in the bad old DOS days -- it should "feel" modern.
And finally, considering the way apps tend to bloat today, your first upgrade, if you do upgrade, will probably be RAM.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
A late reply but oh well...
I think Linux in elementary school could be VERY useful for some students, and just as good (or bad) as windows for most other students. Most students would be served well just to learn a word processor, and OpenOffice/kword/abiword is as good as any. You can talk about differences between OpenOffice writer and MS Word, but it will be a high-level discussion for heavy users, and there will be pros and cons. For the elementary student its all the same.
But then there are students that will want to spend some extra time learning about the computer, and will want to program it. Then Linux is far and away the platform of choice, since so many great languages, libraries, and editors are available. And there is lots of "documentation" on how to do interesting stuff in Linux, on the web. A beginner programmer can do amazing things with the languages and libraries available today. Some of these tools have been ported to Windows but the overall environment just isn't as conducive to programming.
I learned programming in Basic in the 4th grade, and have been programming ever since. In school, this has allowed me to learn and explore the abstract concepts in math and science in a more deep and intuitive way. Professionally, the ability to program has been of enormous benefit in a great many situations. And no, I don't have a comp-sci degree and no I've never been a professional programmer or worked in IT.
Being slightly smug, I think of programming as a good skill for everybody. Not at a high level where you're able to design optimizing compilers and the like, but to the point where simple programming tasks are no longer time-consuming. Given that (slightly flawed) perspective, Linux really outshines Windows because it's easy in Linux to write interesting and useful programs.