[seul-edu] Fw: Re: ~education project introductions Re: [cwlc]

[Douglas Loss <dloss@suscom.net>]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2001, owner-seul-edu@seul.org wrote:

> From: Chuck Moss <mossc@mossc.com>
> To: Eric Harrison <eharrison@mail.mesd.k12.or.us>
> Cc: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>, karl@tux.org,
> cwlc@fairfax.van-pelt.com,
>         mossc@mossc.com, jholland@tomsw.com,
> seul-edu@seul.org,
> Subject: Re: ~education project introductions Re: [cwlc]
> 
> Hi, This is Chuck Moss, I work with John Knight, Julia
> Christianson, Karl
> and others at the CWLC(city wide learning center) in DC.
> 
> Please pardon the extensive quoting and random snips in the
> following mail.
> Hopefully my questions will make sense even after I butcher
> your original mail. ;-)
> 
> 
> On Sat, Jul 14, 2001 at 10:24:24PM -0700, Eric Harrison wrote:
> 
> [ snip ]
> 
> > 
> > There are two separate, independent "k12linux" groups, one
> on the
> > east coast and one on the west. I'm on the west coast, based
> out of
> > Portland, Oregon. The following refers to what we are doing
> on
> > the left coast (http://riverdale.k12.or.us/linux,
> http://k12ltsp.org,
> > http://k12linux.mesd.k12.or.us).
> 
> Do you work with the group on the East Coast at all?  Do you
> have any URLs
> for that group?  It would be handy just to keep everyone
> straight.
> Where is the east coast group located?
> 
> [ snip ]
> 
> > We host a mailing lists which offers peer support for
> schools
> > interested in free software. We also have a hands-on clinic
> once
> > a month in Portland where teachers, students, and the
> general public can come to learn.
> 
> I haven't been able to get to your archives tonight.  How much
> traffic is on the list?
> When do you have your hands-on clinic?  I have been planning
> on making a
> trip out to Portland/Seattle to visit friends and relatives. 
> I would love
> the chance to see your group at work and look over the systems
> while I am out there.
> 
> 
> > 
> > 
> > In the last year, we have started shifting focus to the
> desktop.
> > The #1 complaint I hear from the schools is that it is
> difficult
> > and expensive to run computer labs. The solution we are
> working
> > on is producing a very easy to install distribution built
> around
> > the Linux Terminal Server Project. Things are looking pretty
> good,
> > the LTSP is looking pretty solid. GNOME, our preferred user
> > interface, is improving quickly. Educational software is
> looking
> > good as well, largely due to the efforts of SEUL. Hopefully
> > OpenOffice, Mozilla, Nautilus, and other major end-user
> specific software will be perfected shortly.
> 
> At CWLC we have just gotten to the point where we have a
> recreatable
> network.  We also based our lab on Redhat 7.1 GNU/LINUX. 
> There is a single
> server that gets kickstarted from custom floppy and stock CDs.
>  All the
> clients and the firewall get kickstarted over the network. 
> The single
> server hosts NFS home directories, NIS, DNS, squid, squidguard
> and acts as
> the cups printserver.  In contrast to LTSP we do not run
> applications 
> from the server.  Applications are also installed locally.
> I have been pleasantly surprised how many clients your LTSP
> configs can 
> support.  If we were starting over I might consider dropping
> more money
> and time into the server.  All the machines we have were
> donations.  The
> minimal arbitrary requirements for a desktop machine are as
> follows:
> VGA or SVGA
> 32MB ram
> 1-2 GB hd
> P100
> PCI
> ethernet
> There are higher requirements for running staroffice,
> CDburners etc.
> 
> We are now looking at useful applications to add to the
> systems.
> The age ranges for the kids we have in the lab are wide.  The
> people who
> Manage the building also want to provide assistance to the
> adult local adult/parent community.
> 
> The kids enjoy the simple games on the machine but we do need
> to focus on educational content.
> 
>  
> > 
> > The second most common issue we see is managing accounts. We
> are
> > working on providing centralized authentication and
> authorization
> > utilizing OpenLDAP. The last piece is providing reasonable
> support
> > for Windows 2000/XP. We have someone on staff helping to
> finish
> > the LDAP support in Samba. We are running our agency off a
> development
> > version right now with good results. Hopefully this work
> will be make it into Samba shortly.
> 
> I am interested in how this goes.  It is discussed on the
> k12linux mailing list or elsewhere?
> 
> > 
> > The Children's Internet Protection Act is a pain that
> schools and
> > libraries have to deal with. We have found that the free
> software
> > SquidGuard (http://www.squidguard.org) is quite competitive
> with the
> > proprietary offerings. We have devoted staff resources to
> making
> > SquidGuard a *superior* solution to the expensive
> proprietary
> > offerings.
> 
> I have found squidguard to be very useful as well.
> 
> > 
> > 
> > As for encouraging the use of free software, we do quite a
> bit of
> > lobbying and public speaking. Paul Nelson
> (pnelson@riverdale.k12.or.us)
> > gave a presentation last year to Congress on why the
> government should
> > be using free software. We hit all the conferences we can
> (I'll be at
> > LinuxWorld, look for me in the LTSP booth ;-). We try to
> document
> > everything we do so that it is easily repeatable by others.
> [ snip ]
> 
> We have focused on creating a repeatable system as well.  I
> think I need to
> make more of an effort to keep on top of what else is going on
> so as not to
> duplicate efforts as much as build on what others have done.
> I would love to see a coordinated effort to get free software
> in our
> schools.  I know if we managed it right there are many people
> in local lugs
> around the globe who would be willing to assist school
> personel with installation/support.
> 
> I have joined your mailing list and look forward to contact.
> 
> Keep up the good work,
> 
> Chuck Moss
> p.s. since RMS is on this mail I would like to take the
> opportunity to say
> thanks for all the code/licenses I have been using over the
> years. ;-)
> 
> 
-- 
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