[Cialug] Volunteer Opportunity for CIALUG: West Des Moines Teen Center

[Adk]

PCCGS (Pearl City Computer Geek Society) in Muscatine had a similar
situation.
We resurected 8 boxes at the Flickenger Learning Center- A local facility
serving
low-income and GED students. They have a cable connection to a SuSe
firewall,
print/file server. We picked SuSe for easy gui tools on server. Workstations
are
all Ubuntu. System has been up for 18 months. I have had two phone calls.
Both
times because of power interruptions with server. Reboot fixed it.

We have discussed switching to thin clients but don't have a server with
enough
resources.

A member of our group created a script to run on dapper that opens
repositories,
and installs flash, java, true type fonts, and multimedia support. I can
send a link
if you would like to use it- a real time saver. 

If you have any questions- let me know.

Allen Kiddoo
PCCGS.org


--------- Original Message --------
From: Central Iowa Linux Users Group <cialug at cialug.org>
To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group <cialug at cialug.org>
Subject: [Cialug] Volunteer Opportunity for CIALUG: West Des Moines Teen
Center
Date: 29/10/06 22:15

> 
> I have a contact at the City of West Des Moines who brought this
> opportunity to my attention.  I asked him to draw up the following
> summary for me.  Do we have enough interested parties within the group
> to pull something like this off?  I know I would be interested in
> participating in such a project.
> 
> 
> The Scenario:
> 
> The West Des Moines Teen Center is located in a former elementary
> school.  The Teen Center's equipment, tv's, games and furnishings have
> all been provided through donations. In fact, the entire operation is
> basically dependent on donations.
> 
> They recently received a donation of computers without operating
> systems installed.  The cost of obtaining Microsoft licensed software
> is prohibitive to the group so an Open Source alternative is being
> suggested.
> 
> General Idea:
> 
> Would the local Linux community be interested in either designing  and
> deploying or assisting with the designing and deploying of Linux and
> Open Source based computer equipment for use in a local Teen Center.
> Admittedly, the total scope and involvement of this project will need
> to be talked out amongst the parties involved. Parties managing this
> facility are in discussion at the moment and none of this information
> should be considered to be the final decision or official direction of
> their project.
> 
> The Hardware:
> 
> 10 IBM 300PL workstations.
> PIII 500 Mhz processor.
> 256MB RAM.
> 6GB hard drive.
> Generic CD-ROM and Floppy drive.
> Network card. Some computers have apparently had the onboard NIC fail
> and have aftermarket cards installed. (Intel Pro 100 in one case)
> Onboard sound card.
> No Operating system.
> 
> The hardware is believed to be working, but will need to be tested
> before use to confirm this.
> 
> The total number of workstations to be deployed has not been
> determined at this time. (for example: some PCs may be held in reserve
> for spare parts or as &quot;hot-swap&quot; workstations in the event of
hardware
> failures)
> 
> The Network:
> 
> There is an existing connection to the Internet.  Connection for PCs
> would be made with the use of a 3COM hub (model not known, possibly a
> 12 port hub) connected to the School District network.
> 
> Network connection is maintained by the School District and would be
> under their direct control.  Network will be subject to infrastructure
> and policies of the school district. (For example: Internet filtering
> for inappropriate websites, firewalls, web proxy, network topology
> etc).
> 
> Miscellaneous:
> 
> The Teen Center would like to provide Internet browsing workstations
> for the students. There may be a possibility that homework use may be
> requested in the future. (ie, Something compatible with Microsoft
> Office, ie Open Office).  Ability to utilize most of the technologies
> in use at typical websites sites such as Java, Flash and streaming
> media content.
> 
> The desktops will need to be sufficiently locked down to prevent teens
> from circumnavigating any computer or network policies/settings,
> installing additional software or services, etc, etc.  The usual
> concerns of a secure network environment.
> 
> Software support for these workstations will be at a minimum so their
> ability to resist tampering is very important. Teen Center staff will
> not be expected to be able to troubleshoot computer
> related issues beyond rebooting a system or replacing a system with a
> &quot;hot-swap&quot; workstation if that is an option.
> 
> There may be some privacy issues that need to be addressed such as viewing
> previous user Internet browsing history.  A kiosk style of
> installation may be appropriate in this setting.
> 
> thanks,
> kristau
> -- 
> Tired programmer
> Coding late into the night
> The core dump follows
> 
> My GNUPG public key is available at http://www.kristau.net/public_key.asc
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> 

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