Re: [seul-edu] Young Linuxers - Too hard? No way!

[Karl <jackal@raptor.slc.edu>]

Rakis--

I am running out the door, to go on vacation for a few days, so I will
re-reply to this point upon my return.

But to be very brief: people are not lazy, lazy-people are lazy.  The kids
themselves, and students are fighting hard, and working hard to get it
into the schools, and they are succeeding across the board.

Search on LinuxToday.com for an article about 'linux in higher education'
that came out today, and if you go to linux.com you will find even more
articles on open source in education. The energy and momentum is there.

What free source has taught me is that people are open to work, share, and
learn with/from each other, and that you should probably never pin
yourself down by using the word 'can't".

You can find out your info about 'kickstart' , also, at linux.com, just go
to the search box and type 'kickstart'. You may also find it on RedHat's
site.


I'll re-reply to any additional points when I step of my return-flight.

Have a great week(end),

  Karl

---------------------------------------------------
raptor.slc.edu    -- Sarah Lawrence College '99
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On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, Rakis wrote:

> Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 17:34:46 -0600
> From: Rakis <rakis@wt.net>
> To: Karl <jackal@raptor.slc.edu>
> Cc: seul-edu@seul.org
> Subject: Re: [seul-edu] Young Linuxers - Too hard? No way!
> 
> On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, you wrote:
> > Rakis,
> > 
> > This past friday, at the YHSLUG meeting in Virginia (yhslug.tux.org), we
> > watched a small presentation, from a sophmore at Yorktown HS, on how to
> > set up and use KICKSTART to set up workstations and networks, quickly, and
> > easily. 
> 	
> 	I haven't heard of "Kickstart" before, nor could I find any info on it
> during a quick search. Would you happen to have a URL handy?
> 
> > You are right, Rakis: conceptually, setting up a linux lab is simple.
> > 
> > But I disagree with you that it is 'too hard to set up' a linux lab in
> > practice.  There are thousands of students and a few special schools doing
> > it.
> 	I'm well aware that many people are setting it up in their schools, I
> started helping my old high school with it several years ago. However, I do
> believe the point is valid. Let's face it, people are lazy. If it's not easy to
> do, it's not going to catch on. There is a reason why Solaris is not used in
> the k-12 environment today. It's just too complex for the average user. While
> many schools will find motivated students and staff that would be willing to
> spend countless hours trying to get things to work, there will be thousands of
> others that will not.
> 	There is also the problem that many of these networks will not be
> very stable. While faculty and students are hashing it out with the HOWTOs and
> man pages, many programs will be unreliable. While the end result would likely
> be a rock solid setup, many administrators would get frustrated by initial
> problems.
> 	The only point I'm trying to make is that Linux will not make much of
> an an entrance into the educational system while its configuration remains as
> difficult as it does today. Well written tutorials, and examples will help but
> they simply will not be enough. 
> 
> 	Rakis
>