Puppy for Kidx
Posted: Fri 12 Apr 2013, 16:32
Hi I work as a sysadmin in a large primary school and Im getting my head round Puppylinux - slowly - as I think it could be a fantastic tool.
Basically we have about 50 grand worth of aging laptops (five flavours but mostly eeepcs).
My idea is to install Puppy Linux on each one with a really basic desktop/install so that the pupils can either go on the internet or RDP to a terminal server which has some of the popular software we use (2simple etc).
You can begin to see the challenge... They are only little - between 5 and 11 years old so I want the whole experience to be as quick and as simple as possible. At the moment the laptops are thick clients and take about 7 mins to turn on and be on the internet - OUCH.
So I would like it to go something like this:
Turn on and fast boot into Puppy with no logon and a simple desktop with perhaps 2 icons, Internet and RDP, few user rights??
The OS must see the wireless and login seamlessly. The wireless simply needs a key (WPA)
One click on the Internet icon and they land on the school website, and from there ...
One click on the RDP icon and they open a TS session with icons for their Apps...
Thats the users... I need to be able to create 5 Puppy images, 1 for each of the types of laptop we have so admin is easy as there are about 200 laptops.
I would very much appreciate some advice/pointers on this project. Is it feasible with Puppy? Which is the best Puppy to use? What is the best way to clone an install? How to set up the install so it can be cloned? And so on... Please comment on any aspect of the project, including how I can best feedback in a way helpful to others who might want to do the same type of thing.
Many thanks in advance
Basically we have about 50 grand worth of aging laptops (five flavours but mostly eeepcs).
My idea is to install Puppy Linux on each one with a really basic desktop/install so that the pupils can either go on the internet or RDP to a terminal server which has some of the popular software we use (2simple etc).
You can begin to see the challenge... They are only little - between 5 and 11 years old so I want the whole experience to be as quick and as simple as possible. At the moment the laptops are thick clients and take about 7 mins to turn on and be on the internet - OUCH.
So I would like it to go something like this:
Turn on and fast boot into Puppy with no logon and a simple desktop with perhaps 2 icons, Internet and RDP, few user rights??
The OS must see the wireless and login seamlessly. The wireless simply needs a key (WPA)
One click on the Internet icon and they land on the school website, and from there ...
One click on the RDP icon and they open a TS session with icons for their Apps...
Thats the users... I need to be able to create 5 Puppy images, 1 for each of the types of laptop we have so admin is easy as there are about 200 laptops.
I would very much appreciate some advice/pointers on this project. Is it feasible with Puppy? Which is the best Puppy to use? What is the best way to clone an install? How to set up the install so it can be cloned? And so on... Please comment on any aspect of the project, including how I can best feedback in a way helpful to others who might want to do the same type of thing.
Many thanks in advance