Re: ISO (was Re: [seul-edu] Re: Unified Front...)

[tom poe <tompoe@renonevada.net>]

Hi:  A Plan To End All Plans, I say!
Thanks,
Tom Poe
Reno, NV
http://www.studioforrecording.org/
http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/
http://renotahoe.pm.org/

On Thursday 25 April 2002 12:05, Doug Loss wrote:
> "Stephen C. Daukas" wrote:
> > I think the way to go is to craft an ISO that doesn't actually care which
> > Linux you have.  I believe the LSB is the standard to follow, because it
> > allows binary distributions of software to run on any Linux system of a
> > given architecture, regardless of which distro is being used.  (I think
> > we should include source, where possible, as well.)
>
> This is an important point.  This ISO needs to be non-distro-specific.  We
> need to make RPMs _and_ DEBs.  If that's too complex, we need to use an
> installer that will bridge the gap.  I know there are some apps that will
> install RPMs on Debian systems and some that will put DEBs on other
> distros; we could consider one or another of those.
>
> Since there is a standard to follow (LSB) that's what we should do.  And of
> course we need to include source!  You never know when someone will want to
> actually _use_ the power of free software!
>
> > Then, and of course some will tell me I'm optimistic, you make an effort
> > to get vendors interested in it.  Let them run with an "educational
> > bundle" and worry about all the business issues.
>
> If we can actually do this I know they'll be interested.  Mandrake has
> already shown an interest in this, although they didn't have the resources
> to help us develop it.  SuSE has donated large amounts of boxed sets to US
> high schools.  I'm sure there are others.
>
> > OK, I'm going to ask a simple question.  If we provided a ISO of the top
> > N educational apps, HOW-TOs, documentation, war stories, got permission
> > to distribute Star/Open Office, perhaps more, whatever (what I referred
> > to once as a package), would that be enough to get a district excited and
> > successful, or must we also include a Linux distro?
>
> As someone else said, you make it non-distro-specific, available for
> download from the net, and promote it to all the distros as something they
> can use to roll an education "solution" (I hate the market-speak corruption
> of the word "solution").
>
> > Only having briefly looked over some of the info I've learned about
> > recently, would our ISO be suitable to bundle with the terminal server
> > effort, or others out there?
>
> That's up to them, but I think the answer is "yes."
>
> OK.  How to proceed?  First, let's look through the entries in the
> Educational Applications Index <http://richtech.ca/seul/> and identify
> candidates for inclusion in the ISO.  Not all the apps listed there are
> ready for deployment, and some just aren't appropriate for school use (it
> says "Educational," not "Scholastic").  Also, some of the categories we
> setup have become overly broad and should be separated into more, smaller
> ones.
>
> Once we've identified candidate apps, people have to install and test them.
>  This is where a fair amount of effort is involved.  This is something that
> is best done by teachers or people who can have teachers test it for them. 
> We want to find out what would actually be useful in school, not what looks
> like a good idea to us but that teachers wouldn't use.  After these tests
> we should have a list of available, useful apps.
>
> Then we need to package the apps.  There's a fair amound of effort involved
> here, too, but this can probably be done by fewer, dedicated people than
> the previous task.
>
> After that we need to come up with an installer.  If the packages are
> included with standard distros it should be up to the distro manufacturers
> to add hooks to their various installers to add our stuff; but if someone
> is downloading our ISO we should have some easy to use installer as an
> integral part of it.  Matt Jezorek, what are you using with Blue Linux?
>
> Finally, we need to construct the ISO.  That should be fairly easy, I
> think.  After that, we need to put it up for download, try to get
> CheapBytes to carry it, and advocate it to all the distro people.
>
> How's that for a plan?
>
> --
> Doug Loss                 All I want is a warm bed
> Data Network Coordinator  and a kind word and
> Bloomsburg University     unlimited power.
> dloss@bloomu.edu                Ashleigh Brilliant