[Sussex] Getting Linux into schools

[Harry Rickards]

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Dominic Humphries wrote:
> Alex Harrington wrote:
> 
>> SIMS was historically horrible. SIMS .net which was released 5 or so
>> years ago isn't that bad, is written to run on the .net 2 framework and
>> while isn't compatible with Mono yet - I'm sure it will be in the future
>> (it uses Winforms a lot). If it's crashing a lot, then it's generally
>> hardware or configuration that's causing it. It's not particularly badly
>> engineered. In addition, it's deeply coupled to MS Office. Capita claim
>> support for Open Office, but will often only fix problems when they
>> affect MS Office.
> 
> I'll take your word for it, but I have to say that of all the people I 
> trained with, and all the teachers I met through it, I've yet to meet 
> one who has any experience of a reliable SIMS. I suppose it's possible 
> that many of the local schools haven't upgraded to SIMS.net - I couldn't 
> tell you what version of it was that I used. It's also perfectly 
> possible that it wasn't set up properly, I can't say that I was 
> particularly impressed by the IT support in some of the local schools, 
> unfortunately.


My local school (Uckfield College) uses SIMS, and it seems to crash all
the time. Most of the teachers moan about it, and leave it open all day
to use 6 or so times because it takes so long to load. The IT Support
seem to be great (they've got Ubuntu LTSP setup), although I suppose
having a sign saying 'Please ring the doorbell' when there is no
doorbell is a bit BOFHy.

...
>> There are lots of schools that have made the switch to Linux on the
>> desktop, and kept SIMS. It's usually by providing a terminal services
>> server to run SIMS on and a desktop shortcut to connect automatically.
>> Or I've seen it done using Citrix.
> 
> Don't suppose you happen to know of any specific schools that have done 
> this, by any chance..?

They don't just have Sims via Citrix, but at my local school Windows is
loaded off one of 11 Virtual Xen Servers via Citrix. The thinclients
boot Thinstation (Linux distro) over PXE. There's also an option in
Thinstation to use IceWM. On startup, there's a PXE menu allowing you to
select Citrix/IceWM, Trinity Rescue Kit or Ubuntu LTSP.

...

- --
Many thanks
Harry Rickards (GPG Key ID:58449F6F)

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