Today 20 New Linux users at Mid-Pacific Institute

[Warren Togami]

Last night I pulled an all nighter preparing the final software
configuration for the teachers who came in today to learn to use the Linux
desktop.  Thanks goes to Ray Strode that was up until nearly 7am working on
the server setup with me.  Roughly 20 teachers came, and they all had no
problem using the web browsers and StarOffice applications.  The Japanese
teachers were blown away by the Japanese input support, and the fact that
they could easily make Japanese word documents and presentations.

In the last few hours before the group came in, I had to completely throw
out KDE and switch to Gnome because KDE was far too unstable.  KDE is
completely unusable for any real work in the latest Red Hat on both my home
desktop and the terminal server setup.  I'm mainly a KDE user myself, so I'm
a bit disappointed by this.  Thankfully Gnome was completely stable for the
users today, so it would be fine to stick with Gnome until KDE is fixed on
the Red Hat platform.

Next Step: 1,000+ new Linux users when the students begin to use the new
computer lab during the semester.  This will be a challenge for me in
creating a common LDAP authentication point to simplify the setup of this
monster.

The Linux thin client computer lab is ready for outside groups to see it in
action.  I hope to get this into more magazines and the local evening news
within the next few months.  If you would like to see the Linux thin client
lab in action please e-mail me and we'll setup some tour dates.

Warren Togami
warren at togami.com