[ale] Converting 600 old laptops into K12LTSP thin clients for 1:1 ratio at a middle school

[Daniel Howard]

Folk,

I've know of a school that has over 600 older laptops (either Win98 or
Win2k) for a 1:1 grant-funded study in 2000 that now only has 50
functional units, assumedly due to viruses, upgrading OS w/o adding more
memory, lack of support, etc.  We want to consider converting these into
K12LTSP thin clients using our laptop cart idea, but I wanted to make
sure we were considering all options.

We could probably load Linux OS directly onto each laptop and keep them
as stand-alone units so the kids could take them home as the original
model proposed, but the support issue (number of PCs to support) along
with the need to plug them in to power daily in the classrooms and
either plug network in or log on wirelessly makes that less desirable.
I'd rather see the kids stay after school for a few hours to do homework
on them when necessary and reduce the number of PCs to support by a
factor of 50 by turning them all into thin clients that stay at the school.

Are there any other ideas out there for what to do to revive 600 drunken
laptops?

Regards,
Daniel