Help please : Advice for school that needs Linux

[PhilT]

Hi guys,

I've been a Kubuntu user since Breezy Badger - and what a wondeful journey it has been!!
I know there are lots of very knowledgeable folks out there, so I'm looking for good advice about how best to help a local Linux project.
I had a massive cerebral heamhorragic stroke while on holiday in Paris in October 2012 and woke up semi-paralysed in hospital. it was touch and go for a while (had to be brought back home in an air-ambulance). Fortunately after wonderful care and rehabilitation I'm now much better (but still only one-finger typing and walking short distances).

But this post is not about that.... In my town is a small PC repair shop and the owner is a good friend and local benefactor. Over the years I've managed to seduce him into the joys of Linux (but he still makes most of his money dealing with Windows disasters! Because of my stroke I can't do much physically but he asks me for "help" from time to time. Just today while he was replacing my blown power supply he told me that the local primary school wants to repace/update all their laptops with Linux. He says the school wants to use ChromeOS; he has asked me to help him by loading up an old ASus laptop and generating some live USB sticks.

MY open question to you guys is: what's the best way to do this? I would say : load Kubuntu and offer the Chrome browser. How would that be compared to ChromeOS which seems to be an Ubuntu derivative. I've Googled about but generating the ChromeOS.img file on a USB doesn't seem that simple (or perhaps my damaged brain is just tired!!).

I do want to assist but my strength and energy and knowledge are limited - hence asking for help/suggestions. any thoughts very welcome. Thanks in advance from "almost" brain damaged Phil

[arochester]

Look here: http://www.mrkelsey.com/2013/06/09/r...a-chromium-os/

" I've Googled about but generating the ChromeOS.img file on a USB doesn't seem that simple". You need Imagewriter - https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applicat...b-imagewriter/

( I had a haemorrhagic stroke on Sunday 12th March 2000, 14 years ago this month...)

[oshunluvr]

Re. the task(s) ahead. You can generate a liveUSB Linux stick without linux. Just download and install "PenDrive Linux" to a Windows machine and create away. As far as the larger task, I assume your friend is knowledgeable, but maybe about Linux not so much? If the laptops are of the same (or even just similar) model it's very quick and easy to set up one and then clone the install to the others. It goes faster, but you would need to change hostnames on each machine to keep them unique.

There must be some other tips for this project but I can't think of any more at the moment. Let us know how it goes!

Out of curiosity, where is this school district located generally?


EDIT: BTW, is ChromeOS even installable on a non-Chromebook machine? IMO, they'd be a lot better off with a straight Linux install. Much more powerful and flexible without Google's restrictions.

[PhilT]

Thanks guys for suggestions. I agree wholeheartedly about the comments re Google's restrictions. I'm trying to persuade them to use Kubuntu. They could use Chrome Browser if they like it.

[dequire]

Thanks guys for suggestions. I agree wholeheartedly about the comments re Google's restrictions. I'm trying to persuade them to use Kubuntu. They could use Chrome Browser if they like it.

There would be NO advantage to running ChromeOS for a deployment in an educational environment that I could think of...unless the ONLY option hardware-wise would be utilizing Chromebooks. Even in that case, I'm pretty sure Kubuntu could be installed via USB sticks if the SSD storage space allowed.