Deryk Barker wrote:
What I was wodnering was this: it seemed a good idea to produce our own distribution which we could hand to the students (particularly the first years, some of whom have very little experience) for them to install on their home systems and have the same desktop setup as at school. (Before I go on I should point out that we are a community college, not high school, so our requirements are somewhat different - e.g. java) It also seemed obvious to me (the recent convert) that basing it on RH or similar would be creating an ongoing upgrade problem for ourselvesand the students
Have a look at KNOPPIX GNU/Linux (http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html) which is Debian-based but boots and runs entirely from CDROM. (It can make use of existing Linux swap partitions or use a DOS file as swap space.) It can contain a large ammount of compressed software (2MB from memory) and you can produce your own customised version. When you need to upgrade, just issue students with a new CD!
-- : ___ Chris Lale <ctlale@coolscience.co.uk> : : / \ : : | <_/ My PC runs Debian GNU/Linux 3.0. : : \ Robust, secure and free operating system + applications. : : \ Available at http://www.debian.org :