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Re: [school-discuss] Open Source CD distribution



Ok, Laura.  Good questions. 

1. You wrote:
"I'd be very interested in hearing how others deal with situations with  no or slow Internet when it comes to package management or sharing  programs.  What's the best way to get the programs you need or update a distribution?"
*** I  hope we will hear from  people who have experience  with successfully using Linux-based Package Management Tools.
*** I like this idea.  I would just like to say that I hope that while we focus on groups that have slow access or none (a number of people on this list deal with the related issue of not having hardware), we _also_ consider ways to compete for mind share with those who do have good access and do not care about price.

2. You wrote:
"It would be great if we could add some pages to the  wiki and recommend different techniques educators can use to get  software into the hands of potential users."
*** https://schoolforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Excellent idea and in line with the effort.

3.   You wrote:
"We could list CD/DVD  collections (like OpenDisc Education), talk about live CDs/DVDs
available or booting distributions from flash drives (our Linux ... group did some talks on this), how to use package managers/management  and create packages for them and how to sneaker-net.
*** Anyone who needs editing rights on the Wiki should contact me.

4. You wrote:
"I'd really like to see us put together some information/brainstorm ideas on best ways to get custom software (software that's built from scratch or has custom settings or fixes) out to educators in a user friendly manner ... "
*** What do you have in mind -- sounds like helping people to build from source on their own systems?

Thanks for the great ideas.  

Should we build on these while moving toward a kit and more interaction with the wider community?

David

 ----- Message from lmemsm@xxxxxxxxx ---------
    Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:22:38 -0500
    From: LM <lmemsm@xxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] Open Source CD distribution
      To: schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


> I hate to say it, especially since it's one of the most highly touted
> benefits of Linux, but I'm really not thrilled with any of the Linux
> package managers.  If I had to choose one, the one I'm most
> comfortable with is the Slackware package management system with spkg
> and it doesn't even handle dependencies.  I don't know if it's because
> I'm approaching this as someone building the software to distribute or
> if it's because I have a really slow Internet connection.  I do know
> that when I look up the documents for packaging software on various
> Linux distributions, it's either poorly documented or takes a lot of
> trial and error to get something packaged by their standards.  It
> might be easy on a Debian system to download a binary package (if you
> have the Internet speed) or download the source package and build with
> their presets, but I haven't seen any easy ways to build the package
> in the first place, aside from possibly building a package with
> another method and using a tool like alien to convert it.  If anyone's
> had experience in creating packages from scratch (debs, rpms, etc.),
> I'd would love to ask some questions on techniques.  Maybe documenting
> how to do some of this at the Schoolforge wiki would be of benefit to
> other educators so they can create their own packages.
>
> A lot of the software I like to run is not available in the package
> archives, so I end up having to build it myself if I want to use those
> programs.  Also, most software distributions tend to only keep
> software that's under current development.  Being a programmer, I
> don't care if development of a program is current or not.  I look for
> useful programs and if I like them, I'm willing to patch them myself
> to keep them running.
>
> I don't know how many people are sneaker-netting their applications
> between machines or have older machines with low resources or want to
> get the most out of their newer machines, but that's the audience I'm
> targeting.  I also personally prefer a cross-platform solution.  If
> you're used to a particular program at home and it runs on Linux, it
> doesn't do much good if you can't use it at work and you're stuck
> using Windows there.  It's nice to be able to share Open Source with
> coworkers who have Windows, Macs, etc. and let them know the benefits
> of using those programs.  If programs are available on multiple
> platforms, you can use your favorites anywhere.
>
> I'd be very interested in hearing how others deal with situations with
> no or slow Internet when it comes to package management or sharing
> programs.  What's the best way to get the programs you need or update
> a distribution?  It would be great if we could add some pages to the
> wiki and recommend different techniques educators can use to get
> software into the hands of potential users.  We could list CD/DVD
> collections (like OpenDisc Education), talk about live CDs/DVDs
> available or booting distributions from flash drives (our Linux Linux
> group did some talks on this), how to use package managers/management
> and create packages for them and how to sneaker-net.  I'd really like
> to see us put together some information/brainstorm ideas on best ways
> to get custom software (software that's built from scratch or has
> custom settings or fixes) out to educators in a user friendly manner.
> If the software's already available in a Linux distribution and the
> user has that distribution, getting the programs that are already in
> that distribution isn't a real problem.  Most distributions document
> how end users can use their own package management system.  How do we
> get programs to educators who can't use an off-the-shelf solution for
> a variety of reasons (no Internet, program isn't in distribution, need
> it to work on another operating system, etc.)?  Any ideas?
>
> Sincerely,
> Laura
>
> On 3/17/12, Daniel Villarreal <yclwebmaster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> As far as GNU/Linux goes, anyone with administrator rights can use the
>> synaptic package management system on debian-based distributions to
>> install/uninstall programs. It's also very easy to check for updates
>> and update programs at the command line. On Fedora-based systems, it's
>> likewise fairly easy to do this.
>>
>> I'll discuss this more when I post my review on skolelinux (http://slx.no/).
>>
>> regards,
>> Daniel Villarreal
>> http://youcanlinux.org/
> ###
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----- End message from lmemsm@xxxxxxxxx -----

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