From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 9 14:58:44 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3A7BF1065695 for ; Thu, 9 Jul 2009 14:58:44 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from eagletree@hughes.net) Received: from smtprelay.b.hostedemail.com (smtprelay0125.b.hostedemail.com [64.98.42.125]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E97638FC08 for ; Thu, 9 Jul 2009 14:58:43 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from eagletree@hughes.net) Received: from filter.hostedemail.com (b-bigip1 [10.5.19.254]) by smtprelay05.b.hostedemail.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 7E677F2FA1C for ; Thu, 9 Jul 2009 14:58:42 +0000 (UTC) X-Spam-Summary: 2, 0, 0, 6ff95090614e0497, d41d8cd98f00b204, eagletree@hughes.net, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, RULES_HIT:355:379:541:617:945:965:966:972:973:982:988:989:1260:1261:1277:1311:1313:1314:1345:1437:1515:1516:1518:1534:1542:1593:1594:1605:1711:1730:1747:1766:1792:2196:2199:2393:2559:2562:2689:2693:2890:3636:3865:3866:3867:3868:3869:3870:3871:3872:3874:4042:4250:4385:4390:4395:5007:6117:6119:7652:7903:7904:8550:8957:10004, 0, RBL:none, CacheIP:none, Bayesian:0.5, 0.5, 0.5, Netcheck:none, DomainCache:0, MSF:not bulk, SPF:fn, MSBL:none, DNSBL:none, Custom_rules:0:0:0 X-Session-Marker: 6561676C6574726565406875676865732E6E6574 X-Filterd-Recvd-Size: 3632 Received: from [192.168.0.3] (dpc6744118153.direcpc.com [67.44.118.153]) (Authenticated sender: eagletree@hughes.net) by omf04.b.hostedemail.com (Postfix) with ESMTP for ; Thu, 9 Jul 2009 14:58:36 +0000 (UTC) Message-Id: <368E57AC-8366-46EA-BE1A-5EBB07B64EDC@hughes.net> From: Chris To: FreeBSD-Questions Questions Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v935.3) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 07:58:21 -0700 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.935.3) Subject: FreeBSD for a high school class? (long) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:58:44 -0000 Sorry for the OT-ness of this. I only work with FreeBSD for servers. Have used it as the sole systems for a business since the late 1900s. Twice I've put up X-Windows machines but we never bothered to use them for one reason or another. Now my son's school is short computers for a High School HTML class I'm going to help teach this fall. The official teacher is excited about FreeBSD since we can use old equipment that is donated. There are two issues. We will not get enough FreeBSD systems up to cover all kids in the class. Some will have to use the 10.4/3 OS-X G3s we already have. For the remainder of systems, I've told them I need a minimum 256GB Ram, 500+Mhz, ~10GB hard drive. I will put Apache on both types of boxes so they have a testing platform, hope to put firefox on each so they have a consistent browser. The confusing thing will be Finder and Textedit, versus whatever I use for a window manager on the FreeBSD systems. The two questions are: 1. Taking the specs into account, what is the window manager that will provide the closest match to the Apple desktop for mouse ops, browsing files/directories, and editing text files. I suppose I should add running Firefox (or a reasonable similar browser that will render HTML and execute Javascript identically). I don't mean cosmetically, just enough that there isn't too much needing to teach a window manager. Finder is relatively invisible from a teaching standpoint as is Textedit, Firefox is going to be reasonably standard (this is going to teach HTML standards, not how to use windowed drag and drop page generation products, they will be using a text editor and working with raw HTML, CSS and JavaScript). But what I don't want to be doing is having some learning vi (even though if this were an advanced class, that is precisely what I'd expect ;-)), while others are using textedit. The course is HTML. Mouse button operations should be close, a window that gives a simple file directory and a text editor that doesn't require learning a character command set would be the target. 2. Am I too lean on the specs for the free AMD/Intel boxes we are requesting parents cough up? The district sadly is being forced to go to windows by the state, and now only has these old antique Macs free and has no Intel/AMD boxes. These will all come from parents of the program and leverage the fact that people like to replace perfectly good boxes because of spyware on windows. I personally still have boxes with less than 100GB RAM and sub-500 mhz processors running 6.x (and I think 7.0) but I use those as firewalls, I've never used a window manager so perhaps my view of FreeBSDs efficiency is optimistic. Are the specs too low for *some* X environment? Constraint: I already broached the subject of putting FreeBSD on the G3s using the PowerPC version. Unfortunately, the 6 Apples are used by another class on OS-X.