VlizedLab Project

An Open Source Solution for Running PC Labs in Schools and Educational Institutions

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News

2011-10-16 - published this drafty web page.

Overview

VlizedLab is an open source solution for running and maintaining PC labs in schools and educational institutions. It's philosophy is simple: Only a very slim base system runs directly on the hardware of the PCs in the lab (we call them Vlizedlab Clients). This base system is capable of starting any kind of (virtual) PCs in a virtualization environment. Beside that, it copes with maintaining and distributing the virtual PCs, but nothing more. The virtual PCs can run just any operating system (WindowsX, any kind of Linux, ...) with about any software. These machines are "read only", such that any changes made by students are reset automatically after the lecture.

Features

• Very simple installation of client PC.
• Can run (virtual) Windows PCs and Linux machines of any kind.
• Minimal requirements for server infrastructure.
• Any student can start work in a guaranteed stable environment.
• Fast and efficient distribution of virtual PCs.
• Every teacher can choose/create his/her own virtual PC, spezialized for the given lecture.
• Simple and intuitive menu based user interface.
• Central administration of student PCs from the teacher PC possible.
• Open source, so it costs nothing and is freely adaptable.

Components

• Debian GNU/Linux,
• the Xorg windowing system,
• the Ion3 Window Manager (subject to change),
• and on Virtualbox (Open Source Edition).

Successfully tested with

• Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 7.
• Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu Linux (various versions)
• Linux Advanced
• Desktop 4 Education
• X2Go (Server and Client)
• Teaching Multimedia (Image Processing, Video editing, ...)
• Teaching Web Development
• Teaching "Advanced Programming"
• Teaching "Programming with Android"
• Teaching "Database Systems"