Re: [seul-edu] Linux in education report #6

[Doug Loss <dloss@suscom.net>]

On Mon, 7 Feb 2000, Thomas Tempé wrote:

> Hmm... the link to k12linux is not working.
> 
I just checked it, and although it seemed to me slow to connect it did come
up.

> I also wish to give my presence here a thought.
> 
> SEUL is for making linux systems useable by non-admin end users, right?
> 
Yes.  However, that doesn't mean that we only concern ourselves with
end-user applications.  Any collaborative environment will have a fair
amount of complexity behind the scenes.  One of our goals is to keep the
end-user from having to understand all that complexity just to use a Linux
system.  There will still have to be someone who does understand it to
manage the system.  Of course, for stand-alone systems we do want to make
as much of that easy and automatic as possible.

> And Pangée is not at all architectured with ease of administration in 
> mind.
> It is built around the common Unix paradigm: the admin knows what he is 
> doing; the user needs to be put in an iron box so he won't hurt himself.
> 
See above.

> Pangée is a 2-level client-server software. Installing a SQL database 
> server only is non-trivial, and the Pangée server should require some 
> hand configuration. (except if you're using Debian, which leads to this 
> funny constatation: Debian is easier (to administer) than RedHat;)
> 
> The client side _is_ trivial; but only installing the client (though it 
> is probably by far the best configuration) is certainly not going to be 
> possible for everybody, as few people have a leased line at home. So 
> maybe I'm only on the "edu" half of "seul-edu"? ;)
> 
I don't think so.  SEUL/edu was originally formed to cover both scholastic
and home education.  Since more of the people on the list were concerned
with scholastic topics we're focussed on those first, but we do talk about
home schooling and "edutainment" sometimes.  We don't interpret Simple End
User Linux so narrowly as to preclude working on anything that will make
Linux significantly easier to install, configure, and use for specific
groups of people rather than just individuals.

> This leads me to the more fundamental question: is there anything going 
> on on SEUL that revolves around that iron box paradigm and the need to 
> dissociate user and admin?
> 
I don't think there's anything that specifically addresses this, because
we're organized differently than that.  There may be aspects of this in
more than one area, but there's no area that has that exact aspect as its
focus.

-- 
Doug Loss            There's no trick to being a humorist
dloss@suscom.net     when you have the whole government
(570) 326-3987       working for you.
                        Will Rogers