WorkStations

Maintaining Student and Teacher Workstations in Schools

• Debian, the Linux distribution I find best for school situations; careful management of licences, values the secure and stable over the cool and fancy but leaves room for lots of creativity.
  • Create rescue bootdisks with mkboot kernelname
• Libranet, a Vancouver-based Debian-based snazzy linux distribution http://www.libranet.com , specifically it has adminmenu for configuration
• Replicator, a debian-based free ghost-like replication program http://replicator.sourceforge.net which can also copy windows partitions
• Deep Freeze, a Vancouver-based company that produces a commercial program ideal for windows workstations when you want to minimize maintainance woes http://www.winselect.com/

Replicator Procedure

1. edit /etc/replicator/replicator.conf appropriately
2. create a monolithic kernel (avoid modules, compile NIC drivers right in) then create a bootdisk
3. create mini-root and export it via nfs
4. run rsync -daemon
5. boot up target computer with replicator bootdisk, answer 4 questions and watch do the replication/ghosting in 5-10 minutes

X-terminal Mode

• setup xdm on (several) strong servers
• modify files in /etc/X11/xdm to suit taste (I like icewm with minimalist theme)
• worry about security (by default debian prevents tcp access)
• make sure Xsession is what you want, or tell users about ~/.xsession