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Re: [seul-edu] ISO progress
Doug and all.
With LinuxWorld Expo coming, I think we could possibly get most of this all
wrapped up by the end of May, take up a collection, and produce lotsa burned
copies of the iso to pass out at the Expo in San Francisco, only about 3
years late from an earlier vision.
I will work throug the list and see what I can get to a phase 3 ready state.
Big Words. Bigger Dreams.
Bill
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Loss" <drloss@suscom.net>
To: <seul-edu@seul.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 9:49 AM
Subject: [seul-edu] ISO progress
> I'm going to do a recap of where we are on the various phases of the ISO
> project. I'll include in that requests (pleas!) for people to take a
> hand in helping move forward on this project.
>
> Phase 1
>
> We've had some nice efforts in reviewing the websites of applications
> listed in our Index, but we need more work to be done. As I mentioned
> last week, there are some categories that no one's looked at yet, and
> some categories that have only had some subset of the applications
> examined. I'm working with some teacher friends where I live to have
> them do some of these, but we _really_ need more people to do them!
> These evals aren't difficult; please take the time to look over some
> area of the App Index that you have an interest in and knowledge of, and
> give us the benefit of your opinions?
>
> Phase 2
>
> Some of the people who have done Phase 1 evals for us have taken it upon
> themselves to install and test the apps they're working on, which means
> their results become Phase 2 evals. This is very gratifying. However,
> we have a number of apps listed as having passed Phase 1 and waiting for
> Phase 2 (http://www.seul.org/edu/Phase1.txt). If you have the
> opportunity to install and test some of these that would be a very great
> contribution to the effort! I hope to do so with some subset of the
> listed apps in the next few weeks and have my teacher friends work with
> them, but the more the better.
>
> Phase 3
>
> Darryl Palmer has done us a tremendous favor in beginning to package
> some of the apps that have passed Phase 2
> (http://www.seul.org/edu/Phase2.txt). I'd like to see more people work
> on this aspect of the project, but not to the neglect of the first two
> phases. Darryl, if others step forward to help with the packaging,
> would you be willing to coordinate the efforts?
>
> Phase 4
>
> We haven't actually done anything about Phase 4 yet, but I think it's
> about time we discussed how we want to proceed with it. I've been
> pushing this project in a couple of directions which we should probably
> examine to see if those are the proper ways to go. First, I've been
> saying we need to package everything as DEBs, RPMs, and TGZs, so as to
> be as widely applicable as possible. That was also so distro
> manufacturers could take our work and bundle it with versions of their
> distros to make education-oriented versions. Since there already was a
> DebianEdu, I thought we should join with them to make the DEB package
> for each app the reference package and develop the RPM and TGZ packages
> from that. This brings up a few questions.
>
> First, are the two plans for our ISO (to create an easily installable
> compendium of educational software for end users to download, and to
> have that compendium easily bundlable with standard distros) actually
> compatible? If they are, will the effort to do both add more work to
> the project than we can reasonably expect to accomplish?
>
> Second, if we are working through DebianEdu to develop the DEB versions
> of our apps, does it make sense for us to put the DEBs on our ISO?
> After all, they'll be part of Debian and should be installable over the
> internet using standard Debian tools and methods, right?
>
> Third, what sort of installation wrapper application should we use?
> There are numerous programs that we might use:
>
> http://freshmeat.net/browse/147/?topic_id=147
> http://freshmeat.net/browse/865/?topic_id=865
>
> along with some that don't show up on these lists like Synaptic. I have
> been pushing Synaptic, but if we don't include the DEBs much of the
> benefit of Synaptic over other methods goes away. Also, there are
> programs like Autopackage that try to provide a distro-neutral packaging
> system--should we think about using something like this and foregoing
> the idea of having our work easily bundlable with existing distros?
>
> Fourth, how should we organize our software for installation? By
> category, as in the existing App Index? By age appropriateness? By
> utility and fit to various national curriculums? By some combination of
> all those ideas and/or more?
>
> Phase 5
>
> We don't have to worry about this yet, given all the work that remains
> on the first 4 phases. I'm sure you all find that to be a relief!
>
> I'd like to get some committments from people here to do some of the
> Phase 1 and 2 evals. I'd also like to have some people step up and help
> Darryl with Phase 3 packaging. And right now I'd like to get some good
> discussion on the questions I've posed under the Phase 4 section of this
> (overly long) message.
>
> --
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>
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>
> Doug Loss Courage is resistance to
> Data Network Coordinator fear, mastery of fear --
> Bloomsburg University not absence of fear.
> dloss@bloomu.edu Mark Twain
>
>
>