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Re: [school-discuss] Knoppix vs. Freeduc vs. ???



On Wed, 2003-05-28 at 19:15, David Bucknell wrote:
> This is really helpful advice because of the details, Harry. Thanks from someone
> facing similar issues. One point worth remembering for Schoolforgers is the
> Freeduc is one of our own members; they share our philosophy and build it into
> what they do.
> 
> Best wishes,

Don't forget, OSEF is also part of SchoolForge, and has been (semi)
active for quite a long time.

OSEF and OFSET both started our knoppix based initiatives at about the
same time, but our goals are different.

OSEF's Knoppix for Kids (we will be doing a new beta shortly) is aimed
more at the parents, teachers, school administrators, and school board
members.  We have on it programs such as KDE3, Evolution, and all of the
Tux4Kids software (largest change from standard knoppix is the tux4kids
software, I work closely with the Tux4Kids developers to get good
snapshots of the development work).  It's not a simplified easy to use
interface for kids, but it does convince people that linux is ready for
kids (yes, I know that those two should go together, but they don't).  I
see some kids useing it on a daily basis, but I don't see schools using
it, as they really should have a properly designed, network Dependant
computing facility, based on Linux & LTSP or Linux and NFS (at least
/home should be NFS).

OFSET's Freeduc is truly for kids use, it's customized to have a simpler
interface, and to be easy to understand for kids.  It's great for daily
use by students, though again, a school should have an "installation"
setup, rather than be running off of CDs.  It's also great to send home
with kids to run on their parents computers.

These two Knoppix distributions are going after two different, but
needed markets, and do not conflict in any way.

			Harry

> David
> 
> Quoting Harry McGregor <micros@osef.org>:
> 
> > On Wed, 2003-05-28 at 15:34, Dave Prentice wrote:
> > > Hello all,
> > >     A sudden opportunity has arisen to donate 20 old Pentium computers
> > > to an orphanage in Guatemala. (Free shipping - praise the Lord!) They
> > > are doing great work, having gotten over 500 kids off the streets and
> > > into schooling, some for the first time in their lives.
> > 
> > Sounds wonderful, though I assume maintenance will be a bit of an issue.
> > 
> > >     I need to load an OS on these machines for very basic use in
> > > computer literacy at the orphanage's school. There have been
> > > discussions on the list about both Knoppix and Freeduc,
> > 
> > Knoppix is the _original_ bootable linux based on debian (Suse was the
> > first with a live evail cd, IIRC).
> > 
> > OSEF's Knoppix for kids is more Knoppix for people who work with kids. 
> > It's much too graphics intensive for general daily use in a school, but
> > it helps pull in parents and teachers.
> > 
> > OFSET's Freeduc is truly knoppix for kids, instead of KDE3, it uses
> > XFCE, and is much more kid friendly.
> > 
> > The original knoppix has a hard disk install script, but remember, hard
> > disk drives will fail, cdrom drives will fail, systems as a whole will
> > fail. you need to plan around this.
> > 
> > Also you will have to customize the setup so that you have an NFS server
> > for user data storage.
> > 
> > I would suggest putting the money into one "new" system, with dual 80GB
> > HDs, with software raid1 for the server, everything else boot off of CD.
> > 
> > Another option (better), would be to not use knoppix, but setup a good,
> > dual athlon linux terminal server (about $1200US), and make the 20
> > pentium class system pure Xterms, less hardware to fail.
> > 
> > Anything I can do to help, let me know.
> > 
> > 			Harry
> > 
> > >  but I have no
> > > experience with either. (I've used RH for several years.) It is my
> > > impression that they will both run from CD, but it would be nice if
> > > they could go on the hard drives for faster response. Which is less
> > > demanding of resources? That is, what's the minimum size hard drive
> > > and minimum amount of memory to get reasonable performance? Also, does
> > > either or both offer the option for Spanish?
> > > Thanks,
> > > Dave Prentice
> > > prentice@instruction.com
> > > 
> > -- 
> > Harry McGregor, CEO, Co-Founder
> > Hmcgregor@osef.org, (520) 661-7875 (CELL)
> > Open Source Education Foundation, http://www.osef.org
> > A non-profit tax exempt charitable organization
> > 
> > -- 
> > If this helped you please take the time to rate the value 
> > of this post; just click on the Affero link below.
> > 
> > http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=drloss
> > 
> > Doug Loss              All you need in this life is
> > drloss@suscom.net      ignorance and confidence, 
> >                        and then success is sure.
> >                          Mark Twain
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
-- 
--
Harry McGregor, CEO, Co-Founder
Hmcgregor@osef.org, (520) 661-7875 (CELL)
Open Source Education Foundation, http://www.osef.org
A non-profit tax exempt charitable organization