Re: [Fwd: Re: [seul-edu] RE: [why schools don't adopt OSS]]

[Michael Hall <admin@openlearningcommunity.org>]

Why not start with a script (bash or perl or python) that modifies a
standard distro a bit like bastille, except that it creates a setup
optimised for school students/staff/whatever.

wget could be used to download extra packages.

one setup computer could then be ghosted onto others.

A stopgap measure, perhaps, but one way of doing it in the absence of a
distro. Load a standard RedHat workstation, for example, then run the
customisation script on that, and there you have it ... 

Again, I'd be happy to contribute to this. I have gone some way towards
this anyway with a script for building a web server just how I like it.

Michael


On Tue, 27 Nov 2001, Roger Dingledine wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 27, 2001 at 10:45:13AM +0000, Jim Thomas wrote:
> > I still think the community needs to come out with an Education
> > Distribution to ease installation.  As I see it, there are three types
> > of installations required in an edu environment: student machines, staff
> > machines, and servers.  When you install RedHat, it prompts for the type
> > of installation and suggests Workstation, Server, etc.  This doesn't
> > make sense for an edu distro.  
> 
> There are a number of problems with doing a separate distribution, not
> least of which is that we need to keep up with new versions of everything
> plus security, ensure that QA is good, etc. With a separate distribution,
> we need to duplicate all the work that Red Hat and other companies do,
> *AND* do the work of maintaining good educational packages.
> 
> I think steps 1 through 8 below don't need to be solved by having a
> separate distribution. I think they can be solved wonderfully by having a
> repository of packages which are well-built (eg have correct dependencies)
> and come with all the packages they depend on.
> 
> > Right now it is no easy task to set this up.  The packages are
> > available, but not on a CD.  The installation procedure goes like this:
> > 1) Choose one of a myriad of available installations
> > 2) Install it, choosing packages from a tremendous list of confusing (to
> > the uninitiated) options (what does ypbind do?  do I need it?)
> > 3) Locate educational packages
> > 4) download and attempt installation, only to discover dependencies
> > 5) Figure out what those dependencies are
> > 6) Locate the package that will satisfy the dependency
> > 7) Go back to step 4, and repeat as more dependencies are discovered.
> > 8) Confiure the application
> [snip]
> > I have installed Linux at a private school, and the effort has largely
> > been successful.  Linux has still not achieved acceptance by the staff,
> > but I'm still working on that.  I'd like to introduce linux to other
> > schools too, but managing the one I'm involved with now still requires a
> > huge committment on my part (and I'm just a volunteer).  
> 
> Does that mean that you did the above steps for your school? Do you
> still have the pile of educational packages that you found and used?
> Can I have them, so we can start making them available to other people
> and save them some time?
> 
> You can ftp them to ftp://ftp.seul.org/pub/seul/incoming/edu/ or let me
> know if there's a more convenient way.
> 
> I think a major step in solving the problem is to have them all sitting
> in one convenient place. Then down the road distributions might choose
> to include them, thus saving us the work of needing to do that.
> 
> --Roger
> 
> 

-- 
################################
Michael Hall
admin@openlearningcommunity.org
m.hall@latis.net.au
http://openlearningcommunity.org