Advocating Linux use in local schools

[Doug Loss <dloss@csrlink.net>]

I just finished my first experience with getting Linux noticed by the local schools.  I have been in telephone and email contact with the technology coordinator for my local school district for the past 5-6 months, and had convinced him to let me install Linux on a system for him to take a look at.  Initially we had intended to do this on a PC (I took a RH 5.2 CD-ROM along for that) and on a Mac that would require MkLinux.  When I arrived, I found that the Mac had been pressed into desktop use by another administrator and that the PC was in another building.  However, I was allowed the use of a PowerPC G3 Mac in a student lab.  No problem, I figured, I'd just download LinuxPPC Lite and off we'd go.

When I started to do so, I read the message that said it was better done with an FTP client that could get multiple files at one go, which Netscape Navigator doesn't.  Of course, this Mac didn't have such a client, so I had to go out and get Fetch 3.0.3 (the standard Mac FTP client).

In the meantime, the tech coordinator was preparing another Mac for the installation.  Unfortunately, it appeared to be having ethernet problems.  We never did get it's ethernet card to work.

This wasn't the limiting factor, though.  Fetch was trying to download all the files associated with LinuxPPC Lite, but it kept crapping out midway through the process.  Since Fetch isn't one of those FTP clients that can continue where it left off, I had to restart the whole download each time.  After a few tries at this which all ended similarly, I went back to Navigator and downloaded each file individually.  I put all this on a Zip disk for later installation.

By this time we were all getting antsy to leave (it is New Year's Eve, after all), so we didn't push it any further.  End result: three and a half hours spent in getting to know the school district's technology guy and downloading a copy of LinuxPPC Lite for him to play with.  To top it off, we may have to try this again later (he's still interested in doing it, which is a good sign) on a Mac that doesn't support LinuxPPC but which will run MkLinux.  Anyway, it wasn't an inauspicious introduction of Linux and me to the school district.

Just as I was leaving I found out that the tech coordinator I had been working with is the treasurer of PAECT, the Pennsylvania Association for Educational Communications and Technology.  With some luck I may be able to leverage this contact into a meeting with a greater array of school district technology people in the state.  We'll see what happens.

Doug Loss            Democracy substitutes election by the
dloss@csrlink.net    incompetent many for appointment by
(717) 326-3987       the corrupt few.
                        George Bernard Shaw