Re: [seul-edu] SEUL/edu usefullness today - document discussion

[Doug Loss <dloss@suscom.net>]

Fredrik Liljegren wrote:
> 
> On the irc today (cran.seul.org:7776#seul) we discussed VA Linux and
> distributing linux to schools etc, and Roger (arma) asked me if I would like
> to write a document about how it could be used today, what kind of system a
> school could have and what they would use it for.
> 
This is also the kind of thing Pete and I will be talking about at our
seminars in Montreal and Toronto.  If you get this put together quickly,
do you mind if we base part of our presentation on it?

> Well, anyway I thought that such a document would be great to
> have on the SEUL/edu webpage, to give people an understanding of how they
> could actually use it.  Some screenshots are allways a very good thing and a
> couple of example settings of administration, client/server, user accounts,
> stand-alone computers in classrooms etc...
> 
Don't think we'd let you write this and then _not_ put it on the
website!

> To do this I would need help from you all.  You with usefull applications,
> and absolutely the ones who use this at a school or have contacts with those
> who do.. otherwise most of it will be pure speculations.

This is where we need some case studies.  Could those of you already
using Linux write up something about how you're using it and what
benefits (and problems) you've found.  Send your write-ups to Fredrik
and to the mailing list, please.  You can rest assured that they'll be
used in some way.

>   As I understand it, it will still need a linux technician to set up the
> system? There are no step-by-step descriptions or programs taking you
> through the choices yet?  I know there aren't debian-packages for all
> applications yet anyway... and in some time, we will need some form of easy
> setup for clients and standalones.
> 
Bill and Ramin are working on the documentation end of things.  As to
the "setup wizard" stuff, does anyone know if OpenClassroom includes
anything like that?  From what I've heard of Jean Francois Martinez's
work with Odile on TINY, he could probably put something like that
together pretty quickly, although he's got a full plate with both TINY
and Project Independence.

> I know we discussed a list of software a while ago, featuring everything a
> school would need, or something like that.  What became of that list, is it
> in the HOWTO-project or something, or only in the mailinglist archive?
> 
I asked people to send me lists of what software (for any OS) they were
using at their schools so we could see what categories were missing for
Linux and so we could identify equivalent Linux apps for much of them. 
Unfortunately I only ever got three replies, which didn't give me a
broad enough base to go on (I didn't think so, anyway).  I've still got
that stuff here on my system, so if anyone wants to respond to that
long-ago request, please send a list of the software you're using in
your school, with the title, purpose/category, OS it runs on, and
whether it's standalone or networked.  If I get enough of these to
constitute a reasonable sample (I think I'd need at least 10), I'll put
it together and see where we stand.

-- 
Doug Loss                 The difference between the right word and
Data Network Coordinator  the almost right word is the difference
Bloomsburg University     between lightning and a lightning bug.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Mark Twain