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

[Fredrik Liljegren <fredrik.liljegren@configura.com>]

> 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?

I could perhaps get a layout quickly..  If it's supposed to be read by
non-techies or by non-unix-users some points about features not normally
available in Windows has to be made..  I started out with a thought about
networking options... Look at http://cran.seul.org/~eof/GNUSchool.html to
get a first glance of that...


> > Well, anyway I thought that such a document would be great to
> > have on the SEUL/edu webpage, to give people an 

> Don't think we'd let you write this and then _not_ put it on the
> website!

:-)  I just meant to have in directly on the main with a link to a html
version, not that it would only be somewhere on the site.


> 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.

Yes, case studies are the most important.  Software that has been tested
would be great too, since I know that our page on seul/edu isn't updated
with all that has been on this list.


> Bill and Ramin are working on the documentation end of things.  As to
> the "setup wizard" stuff,

I have lot's of ideas about that; if I just had a school to try it on that
would be even better.  I might have one here, but it's been a while since I
talked to them and maybe they found another solution (they talked about
something with thin clients running windows).


If I would set up a system like this (beware, here comes the first outline
of the text), I would:
 Have all pupils get their own user, with public_html and mail.
 Have unix groups for allmost every educational application.
 Have the programs lie on a server, and only run directly on tha computers
suited for it (maybe some sort of groups there too, classifying the hardware
and how "heavy" the program is).
 Set up a simple desktop that supports MIME-types, so that current documents
can lie on the desktop and start the program (like KDE or GNOME..).
 Let the children write in LyX, but provide alternatives (like eg AbiWord).
 Have graphical logon (eg KDM).
 Have some sort of pixel-drawing program, and some sort of vectorbased
program (like killustrator).
 Have a good mail-client for all.
 Set up a local irc-server for the school, and a good x-client
 Have a web-server with all users home-pages.
 Set up so that programs that the children are not allowed to run but should
be able to use with a teacher present, easily can be started by the teacher
(with a separate menu that lets the teacker type their password at startup).
 ..and a lot of applications, since they only have to reside on a server or
some, and they all are free.


ets...  I wrote this on the fly; there is more, but I'd love as many comment
you can produce, on both this and the network-part that I pointed to.

Regards, EOF