Re: Linux article

[rnd@sampo.karelia.ru]

On Tue, 19 Jan 1999, Tim Wilson wrote:
>On Mon, 18 Jan 1999, Bradley Burnside wrote:
>
>> Just curious...what kind of things do you teach on the network?
>> Programming, teaching the OS, word processing?  How easy has it been to get
>> some kids to accept a different operating system?
>
>Our network is really still in the infant stages. It's finally to the
>point that I can begin letting kids work on it with me. In addition to
>providing a place where students can type papers and such, I'll have kids
>doing some programming, 3D graphics (Blender), Scilab, and anything else
>they'd like to try. I hope to get a group of students who would be
>interested in learning a bit about network administration. 
>
>So far I haven't had any problems with the kids using Linux. I use IceWM
>and its Win95 theme so most kids know what to do without any trouble. I
>need to do some more work to lock down the 'student' account so that they
>can't screw something up. I'm using a generic 'student' login because I
>don't want to administer hundreds of passwords.

I think you are wrong here. Children need their  'home'  space!
It gives them sense of authority and they will like the  system
more, by trusting it!

Administering passwords is not very hard.
I for one created a generic  password  and  setup  /etc/passwd,
/etc/shadow accordingly. It takes about  1-2  hours  to  setup.
There are programs to do it in mass scale. So, this process  is
easily automated. Just find proper tools.

HINT: probably such admin software could be added to the
      seul-edu's list of edu-related software?


So, design /etc/skel carefully and give 'em real personal power!

You can punish/award 'em by adding to different groups  and  so
on, but there must be a sense of security, that only  he  (she)
(and the root) can screw up their  disk-space  and  read  their
info!

The security system is one of the reasons why I'd like  to  see
Linux/UNIX at school labs!

I remember when I was in a  6th  form  I  attended  a  computer
science club. We worked on DEC-clone machine and  everyone  had
their OWN account. That was great!

Kids must have a secure corner, where they know  no  other  kid
could mess things up...

>I've learned a lot in this whole process--especially considering that I
>installed Linux for the first time in March 1998. I have high hopes that
>we'll be able to use this lab and our network very productively here.

Sincerely yours, Roman Suzi
--
Russia * Karelia * Petrozavodsk
Tuesday, January 19, 1999 * Powered by Linux RedHat 5.1
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