Installing Ubuntu 8.04 LTSP OR Edubuntu

I was attempting to setup an LTSP server and had decided to go the "easy" way by simply installing edubuntu (which includes a preconfigured LTSP server with some additional preinstalled packages aimed at education users (8 to 16 year old students from what someone mentioned in the IRC channel #edubuntu on the freenode IRC network (irc.freenode.net).

Unfortunately, with the new version of ubuntu (8.04) that is being released at the end of April 2008, they've changed everything around, and there is no longer a separate edubuntu (server) installation disk (per say), and you don't use the standard ubuntu-server disk either..... so how how then, do you install an edubuntu server or any other LTSP server (the advantage of the newly christened way of going about setting up edubuntu/ltsp... )? Read on to find out.. I originally spent 20-30 minutes googling for information and was coming up rather short on answers, until I finally decided to give the IRC channels a try, and happily (and quickly) found out the required details:

First things first, you need to download the pieces:

(Choose i386 or amd64 based on your hardware (64bit or 32bit), and/or based on personal choice. Personally I choose i386 initially for reasons that include better compatibility with certain programs and compiling programs from source without extra hassle, this should eventually fade as 64bit becomes the standard.. but, until then, I'll stick with builds that make my life less stressful! :) )

Required for Ubuntu 8.04 LTSP Server:
1. download the ubuntu-8.04-alternate CD Image

Required for Ubuntu 8.04 Edubuntu (LTSP) Server:
1. download the ubuntu-8.04-alternate CD Image
2. download the edubuntu-8.04-addon CD Image

Burn the Images that you need using your favorite burning software.

Installation of LTSP Server:
1. Put the ubuntu-8.04-alternate CD/DVD in your systems CD/DVD Reader.
2. Turn the machine on and let it get to the Ubuntu CD Install menu.
3. Don't get carried away and hit enter yet... instead, after choosing your preferred language, press the 'F4' key on your keyboard, this should bring up a menu, choose the LTSP option.
4. Press enter to start the installation.
sidenote: depending on how many network cards (suggested defaults included for 2) are in the system, some more interaction may be required during installation. If you want the simplest installation, just make sure you have two network cards in the system.
5. Congratulations, you now have an LTSP Server... this is all this post covers, as this is as far as I've gotten with my own LTSP installation, if you wanted an edubuntu LTSP server, read on to step 6, otherwise, enjoy your standard LTSP server:

6. After the installation, and rebooting, and logging into the desktop, insert the edubuntu addon CD/DVD into the system.
7. A popup should come up asking if you'd like to install the Extensions
8. After agreeing to install the extensions, an 'add-remove applications' dialog will popup, presenting the CD Contents sorted by category.
9. Select the edubuntu desktop category and toggle the checkbox next to the edubuntu-desktop package in the right window.
10. After all the install processes finish, restart your server to make the edubuntu artwork take effect.
11. Congratulations, you now have an Ubuntu 8.04 Edubuntu LTSP Server.

Note: some of these steps are near verbatim from the original article I was pointed to (and the one that this post links to), since I couldn't have said it any better :)

Now all I need to do is setup the client side of things :)