[Fwd: Re: [seul-edu] Distro Dementia]

[Doug Loss <drloss@home.com>]

owner-seul-edu@seul.org wrote:

> From: Jim Thomas <jthomas@bittware.com>
> To: seul-edu@seul.org
> Subject: Re: [seul-edu] Distro Dementia
>
> Doug Loss wrote:
>
> > There seem to be two differing schools of thought on this.  Roger and I seem to
> > be going with your "but rather" concept, while Jim Thomas and some others (I
> > don't remember just who at the moment) seem to be talking more of a full-blown
> > distro.
>
> Although I still think an edu distro would be great, I'm coming around
> to the "but rather" camp.  A full-blown edu distro is something I think
> one of the established vendors should undertake - and I think they'd
> have a lot of success with it.  But that is a tremendous amount of work
> - especially if it's to be kept up-to-date.  The advantages though, are
> clear.  I don't think a Total Solution like this exists in the
> commercial world, but perhaps there's a demand.
>
> It would be more realistic to create an add-on CD.  This discussion has
> prompted me to look into Kickstart, and I think that could be a great
> way to go.
>
> Pardon me while I think out loud for a few minutes...
>
> It would be better yet, if "we" (by "we" I mean someone besides me)
> would create a program program which would ask pertinant questions, and
> based on those answers, create a kickstart config file.  It would also
> spew instructions for using the cfg file.  The questions would be more
> in line with what I've been advocating:
>
> What type of machine? student/teacher/server
> What grade level?
> What subjects?
> Would you like to install a library card catalog system?
>
> Come to think of it, this could be a web-based application.  Once you've
> got the kickstart cfg file, all you need are the CD's from the "regular"
> distribution it's targetted at (maybe that's one of the questions it
> asks) and the edu-apps disk which has everything else we prompt for
> (koha, squidguard, xplns, etc).  Or lacking this CD, one of the options
> is to fetch these apps over the web with wget.
>
> Maybe this is more do-able?  It looks just like a full-blown
> distribution, but without most of the work ...
>
> --
> Jim Thomas      **    Principal Applications Engineer ** Bittware, Inc
> 703.779.7770    **    jthomas@bittware.com **  http://www.bittware.com
> The secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that is even worse.
>  - Calvin's dad




--
Doug Loss                 Always do right.  This
Data Network Coordinator  will gratify some people
Bloomsburg University     and astonish the rest.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Mark Twain