Re: [seul-edu] ISO & documentation...

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

"Stephen C. Daukas" wrote:

> Is there a list of who is doing what?  Any ideas on what the CVS structure
> should look like?  Anyone make any progress on an installer (I thought I
> saw someone asking Blue Tooth about this)?  Do we think there will be
> development, or do we think there is enough already out there that this
> becomes a packaging issue only?

I haven't formally drawn up a list yet, but I'm keeping all the email that people
send me saying they'll take part.  By next week or so I'll put it all together and
start asking people to take on actual "work" assignments.  Matt mentioned
something about Blue Linux's installer, but (forgive me) I don't remember what.
Matt Drew from RedHat contributed these:

http://www.seul.org/edu/installer-1.0.10-1.src.rpm
http://www.seul.org/edu/autorun

I was waiting for Matt to make the announcement of them, but I think it got lost
in the shuffle.

As for development, I think that's for the individual projects to do on their own
software.  Of course, if you want to help one project or another develop their
apps, feel free.  But for our ISO we need to take the apps as presented, decide to
include them or not, and then package them.  At least that's the way I see it.

>
> My questions may be premature (and you don't have to answer each one), but
> I want to get an idea of where to jump in and when.  Also, my new school
> (where I'm teaching an elective) ends in just a couple of weeks (college
> schedule), so if I am to try to get local resources for development, etc.,
> then I need to move on this quickly.

The very first thing that we need to do is to go over the apps we currently list
and evaluate them for inclusion.  Some will obviously not apply; some obviously
will.  It's the ones in the fuzzy middle area that will take some consideration.
There are ~440 apps listed in our index.  We need to divide them up equitably and
have actual educators look at each of them and think about their utility in the
schools.

> I think we could get along very well with a killer HOW-TO for education
> that addresses system administration issues, etc., with suggested
> configuration options for small, medium, and large scale schools.  We
> should also include instructions for using the bundled educational software
> (whatever that ends up being) in each of those three settings.

The sysadmin doc is certainly doable.  Instructions for using the bundled apps
could be a tall order if they aren't already written.  Writing clear,
understandable documentation isn't a trivial task.  If we have people here
interested in helping but who are neither educators nor coders, they might
consider taking up this aspect of the project.

>
> What made me think of this is the work I've done in teaching a Linux Course
> this term.  I based the course on several sources of information from those
> who have done this before (thanks again!). [snip]
>
> Given the success of the class is completely based on walking through
> existing documentation (books, HOW-TOs, etc.), might it seem plausible to
> explore this route?

TJ Miller wrote something like this (it's on the SEUL/edu website somewhere; poke
at me and I'll find it).  Perhaps you and he can collaborate on it.

--
Doug Loss                 All I want is a warm bed
Data Network Coordinator  and a kind word and
Bloomsburg University     unlimited power.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Ashleigh Brilliant