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Re: [school-discuss] Edubuntu & a W2000 pblm



Hello LINUX educators,

The ambiguity in the address above is appropriate in my experience: Not only are we educators who use LINUX
but one of our major jobs is to educate our colleagues (and those above) on the usefulness of LINUX.
Ubuntu is a wonderful tool to persuade MS-bound teachers that there is life beyond the Willy Gates.
A LINUX friend just installed it in two of our antique hand-me-downs. I tried to download some SEUL software but
found that I couldn't install it because the usual compiling tools aren't in normal Ubuntu. When I tried to use apt-get to
download gcc, I was asked to insert the Ubuntu CD which I didn't have. I had been downloading Edubuntu anyway so
when that finished, I used mount to put the Ubuntu install iso image into /mnt and looked for make which I needed to install gcc!
Make was there but in the Debian package format which I now must learn. Otherwise, it looks great! I never thought I'd use
a LINUX system which needed no command-line consoles. Of course I've had kde and GNOME for some time but I'd always used them
for the window manager and utilities only.


Now my second, more pressing educational computing problem: [by the way, I'm a retired Chem. Prof. volunteering in my wife's international school in Weimar, Germany]
We are installing the Mandarin automated library system at the school, preparing for adopting the IB [international baccalaureate] program which requires a functioning modern library. We are on a sharp time restraint and must get the system up this month. We just got a barcode reader (scanner) and I was to install it yesterday into the main library computer, a W2000 machine. Well, I made several mistakes unfortunately. I expected some kind of "new hardware" notice once the scanner was installed but none came so I went into System/hardware as the administrator of that particular computer in the school network (LINUX of course). Since all of the instructions and comments/error messages are in German on this machine and since my knowledge of computerese in German is very small, I made lots of guesses. Big mistake. Now with some help, I have the scanner working fine, but only in the safemode. When booting in the normal mode, the system gets as far as the green screen with the MS W2000 logo window and then suddenly turns off and reboots. HELP! Any suggestions for fixing this dire problem will be greatly appreciated! I realize that it is heresy to ask a MS question in SEUL, but I'm really stuck.


   Best,  Ralph  (Ralph M. Deal, emeritus P.Chem. prof., Kalamazoo College)