July 19th, 2007
OpenSUSE 10.3 may not include LTSP support
In a recent post I reported that OpenSUSE would be adding LTSP support to compete with Edubuntu in their upcoming 10.3 release, along with several other educational tools in a “SLEDucator CD”. I must admit that I was pretty excited. My experiences with Edubuntu and *buntu have been extremely positive and competition from any front, especially one as mature and slick as SUSE, is always welcome. Right now, Edubuntu is the best game in town if you want an easy-to-implement thin client setup.
Recent developments at Novell may mean that Edubuntu remains the best and only real choice in this market. According to the folks with the OpenSUSE educational group, Novell is seriously considering not including LTSP support in its next distribution as it cannot justify the development cost given the limited monetary returns.
I have to say that this would certainly be a deal-breaker for me as I look at the available alternatives. I have found a great deal of value, as well as easy administration, in the use of thin clients and Edubuntu serves my needs very well. Given that I am writing this post using OpenSUSE on my laptop, think the interface is great for desktop users, and have received quite a bit of positive feedback from other users exploring SUSE, I’d prefer to roll out a SUSE-based thin-client setup. However, if LTSP is not supported in the upcoming release, then it’s certainly Edubuntu for me.
If you like SUSE, want to see competition in the educational Linux market, and want to give your users access to a really spiffy desktop environment with out of the box thin-client support, head for the OpenSUSE education site, get on their mailing list, and let them know. If you’d rather just see more development of Linux educational software and are happy to roll with Edubuntu, then talk back below. Feel free to flame below if you think thin clients are for the birds or Microsoft Terminal Services are better suited to educational environments.
Follow Chris Dawson on Twitter! Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and a member of the Internet Press Guild. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations, but always keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are his own and not those of his daytime employer, even if he talks incessantly about his day job.
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