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Education Software Linux

Custom Linux Distributions from Educational Institutions? 42

Posted by Cliff from the linux-goes-to-college dept.
Benoit des Ligneris asks: "The engineering faculty of Sherbrooke University, the Sherbrooke University LUG and Mandrake Canada just released a Linux distribution called EduLinux, which is based on Mandrake 9.1. The event had good press coverage [in French]. Now, it looks like several universities in Canada are interested in the project. EduLinux targets novice users and educational users, alike. As one of the leader of the project, I wonder if other universities or corporations are endorsing Linux like this? What does Slashdot think of the future of this kind of personalized Linux distribution?" Note that the Canadians aren't the only ones doing this, NewsForge reports that the Swiss are, too. How long do you think it will be before colleges in the US start following suit? Update: 06/20 04:34 GMT by C : The EduLinux website is now available in English.
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Custom Linux Distributions from Educational Institutions? More

Custom Linux Distributions from Educational Institutions?

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  • finally (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @04:44AM (#6231184)
    I don't mean to troll, but doesn't someone come out with a linux distro for novices once a month? I wonder what is going to be so special about this one? and what was wrong with the other user firiendly ones that they had to make a new one? mandrake is usually considered one of the friendlier ones by itself, and then they modified it? too bad the site is in french (and i'm to tired to babelfish it[i.e. karma whore]) best of luck to them, though

    • Re:finally (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wcbarksdale ( 621327 )
      There are certainly benefits for a school to maintain its own distribution. It can include unusual or local software, either required for a course or used for things like payroll or checking grades. Also, it can reduce administration through standardization.
      • It seems if they had unusual software, it would only be a problem if it included kernel code not found in the primary kernel line. On the other hand, I can see how much easier it would be if they built the distribution with only the software they need (e.g. grades software and other specific applications) so they could rapidly deploy it across the district.

      • exactly. (Score:4, Informative)

        by (startx) ( 37027 ) <slashdot AT unspunproductions DOT com> on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @08:43AM (#6232106) Journal
        The University of Missouri - Rolla [umr.edu] keeps it's own custom version of Redhat Linux that gets installed on any machine that requires linux on campus. It takes care of the repetative steps of setting up kerberos, nis, and afs, along with the custom software path and login scripts, etc.

        • Re:exactly. (Score:3, Funny)

          by Tumbleweed ( 3706 )
          Ahhh, UMR, the college where men are men, women are scarce, and sheep are nervous! I guess the days are long gone when you would get called into David Dearth's office to explain the need to issue hundreds of RSCS commands to play on BitNet without approval. *ahem* I'm going to assume they learned the lesson I tried to teach them about resetting all drafting class CAD computer account passwords to 'winter' at the same time. Honest, that's the only reason I did it! :)

          Do you still see those 'Rolla - Black H

          • OT: umr (Score:3, Funny)

            by (startx) ( 37027 )
            No, sadly those t-shirts have long since disappeared, but I may have to revive them now that you've mentioned it. Sadly, Dearth retired last semester, and his replacement seems to know less about computers and networks in general than your average helpdesk grunt.

            The university's new slogan is "Rolla - The middle of everywhere". What they forget to mention is that everywhere is shaped like a donut.
    • (from the description at www.ibiblio.org) College Linux CollegeLinux is a new, stand-alone operating system based on Slackware Linux and created by the Robert Kennedy College, Delémont, Switzerland. The aim of this experimental Linux distribution is to provide to RKC students and student population at large with an operating system which is easy to install and use and which provides an alternative to the traditional commercial operating systems. Yawn!
    • Hello, Website has been translated. Please visit http://www.edulinux.org/spip_en/.

  • Us to. (Score:4, Informative)

    by noselasd ( 594905 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @06:20AM (#6231467)
    Here in Norway there is "SkoleLinux". Debian based and used in many primary schools though version 1.0 is not released yet. www.skolelinux.no
    Point is the schools do not have much money, with skolelinux you need one "terminal" server, and other old machines are used as thin clients. Allows much reuse of old hardware , and the cost is minimal.

    "We are developing a Linux distribution for schools. Our aim is to make it simple to install and maintain. Furthermore, to be of real use from primary school on up, it should be available in as many local languages as possible. For Norway, that means both official standards of Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk) as well as Sami. These pages are under construction, and will be developed further when a full version 1.0 of Skolelinux is launched. Until then, our main arena will be http://developer.skolelinux.no"

  • RPI, hardware based (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tevye ( 551399 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @08:15AM (#6231889) Homepage
    Here at RPI [rpi.edu], the ACM (at least when I was a freshman) would release RedHat CDs that they'd made for the IBM model laptops that you could get through the school. Since so many students had the school model laptop, these allowed the students to have a Linux that they already knew would work on the hardware, and was designed to remove any difficulties that might arise with it. Not an educational distro, per se, but of course, Maple and all those other titles can be run remotely over X, so the point of an educational distro would be a little odd.

  • MIT? (Score:1)

    by m00by ( 605070 )
    I think that MIT might have been making a distro at one time, though I only visited for a week, so I'm not sure. =D
  • Here, we've SLAES [slaes.net] and AbulÃdu [abuledu.org]. And I'm sure I heard about more projects (if I remember well, the Spanish Debian-based LinEx is also geared towards education). These are not made by a single educational institution, but they are clearly targeted at them. The main problem is that educational software is always made for Win32, but this is slowly becoming a moot point, as free software is developed, and emulation solutions get better support for these programs.

    BTW, I talked recently with an official from a high school who pushes Linux in his establishment, and he sure saw the benefits of switching to a system with such a better manageability. His main problem was (amazingly !) Microsoft-infeodated executives trying to find every little flaw they could to push their solutions instead (despite national directives recommending Open Source to be used where applicable). PR are still the Achilles heel of Linux, it seems...

  • Debian-Edu sub-project (Score:5, Informative)

    by runswithd6s ( 65165 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @09:36AM (#6232545) Homepage
    Debian has been running a sub-project called DebianEdu [debian.net] for some time now. You can read up on the project at the above link or from the mailing lists [debian.org].

  • we already do (Score:2, Interesting)

    by roberto0 ( 242247 )
    There's something floating around my campus called "BU Linux" which is Boston University's distro of Red HAt Linux.
    The differences are that the distro comes pre-packaged, will install over the campus network, and has specific virus/firewall protections built in that are not part of the standard REd Hat release.

    • Re:we already do (Score:3, Interesting)

      by asteinberg ( 521580 )
      Same here at Stanford, only it's called SU Linux [stanford.edu]. It's a modified version of Red Hat, supposedly "hardened", but I think the main difference is that it comes with built-in support for AFS and Kerberos, 2 things we use a lot here. I'm not sure how many people actually use it - I'm using Debian (which has packages enabling AFS and Kerberos, though it was a bit tricky to get working at first), and I know some other people using other normal distros (I've seen Gentoo, Red Hat, and Mandrake floating around), s

  • A "Profile" of Debian (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gseidman ( 97 )
    It should be possible to produce special-purpose profiles of Debian. On the back burner of the Brown LUG [brown.edu] is a subset of Debian, plus a couple of extra packages and at least one virtual package (or, possibly, a task). It would be provided in an on-campus repository.

    I keep meaning to look into how difficult it would be to write a tool that could take a list of packages and an apt repository to mirror and create from it a mirror containing just the named packages and their dependencies. Even better would be

    • It is also possible ti make special-purpose distribution with RPM based distro ;-) Mandrake has a nice repository system for packages so that you can have your own package update and security updates. It is the functionnal equivalent of apt-get (it is called urpmi)

  • Linux québécois (Score:3, Interesting)

    by henrygb ( 668225 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @10:36AM (#6233214)
    Isn't the point that this is aimed at French Canadian education: the Open Office spell checker is in French, it uses Frenchmozilla, and assumes a Quebec keyboard. So it avoids the anglophone configuration of most other North American distributions, and the Eurocentric assumptions of most other francophone distributions. Then it has kdeedu as an education package. I am sure that reducing configuration choices is the right answer for some potential users, but clearly not for others.
    • Yep ! We share the same ideas : there is a preselection that is correct and secure for new users (KDE, mozilla, open-office, ...) but we included all the RPMs for server install and more advanced users that can choose their package manually. As a consequence, edulinux is 4 CDs big...
  • Custom distros are great; "Custom" ones are probably worthless.

    By that I mean that Linux very definitely has a place in schools, and will need to be customized for use anywhere, but that I (a lab manager at the University of Arizona) won't find value in the same distro as a lab manager in another department, let alone at a completely different institution.

    We use Debian extensively in the College of Engineering, but I use Knoppix in my lab for a variety of reasons (yes, I know, it's a Debian variant) and
    • Well, we are trying to fill the gap between end-user and Open Source software. It is not really what I would call "a niche". Obvisously, a lot of people know that the polish and ease-of use is not yet there for Linux and EduLinux aim is to open new horizon for free software so that a new user or a window user don't feel lost when using EduLinux... We choose Mandrake because it share the same goal (end-user & ease of use) and we were more proficient with Mandrake than with any other distro.
  • Hay Sherbrooke is me home town! Didn't even know they had a LUG there. Eh... Haven't been there since RedHat 2.0 ..... Or there abouuuuuts.....

  • It'll be a while at my school... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by silvwolf ( 103567 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @11:07PM (#6239508)
    How long do you think it will be before colleges in the US start following suit?

    It'll probably be a while at my school.. This past academic year the school signed up for the Microsoft Academic Agreement, or whatever the hell it's called. We get WinXP and Office XP for $5. A couple years ago they switched from Novell Groupwise to Exchange for email. I'm currently helping the department I work for migrate over from a Novell server to a Win2k server.

    We have a few first gen iMacs floating around the Housing labs that are being replaced this summer. Not with newer Macs, but with Gateways running WinXP. We even had one dorm "vote" to get rid of all the Macs in their lab and have them replaced with Windows machines.. they didn't care if the machines were slow, they just wanted Windows! We gave em P2-400MHz machines running Win98, and didn't hear from em again.

    I was in a "Linux Lab" in the CS department yesterday for class.. The machines in there were running RedHat 7.1 and the 2.4.2-something kernel, IIRC.

    It seems as if MS is strengthening its foothold here, can't see Linux making headway anytime soon... I'd bet we're typical of non-geek schools in the country. At least the Teacher's College is recommending that incoming freshman buy iBooks.

  • BlueHat (Score:3, Informative)

    by More Trouble ( 211162 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @11:16PM (#6239549)
    The University of Michigan College of Engineering distributes "blue hat", now referred to as CAEN Linux [umich.edu].

    :w


    • > The University of Michigan College of Engineering distributes "blue hat"

      And the School of Business distributes "ass hat" Linux?

  • Stanford has something called SULinux. It is a modified version of Red Hat with APT, libsafe, different default firewall rules, and some programs preconfigured for Stanford's setup (kerberos, afs, etc.). http://sulinux.stanford.edu/ [stanford.edu]
  • All the radicals at University of California, Berkeley are clamoring for one.

  • So it begins (Score:3, Funny)

    by Zork the Almighty ( 599344 ) on Thursday June 19, 2003 @07:10AM (#6241322) Journal
    "My school's Linux distibution is more prestigious than yours!"
  • Anyone know what SNU's policy is towards students using Linux? My son is starting SNU this fall and I won't permit him to use or be forced to use Winbloz which is broken, defective and viral.

    I see on the Gentoo site that SNU donates server space to the Gentoo project so they can't be totally against Linux.
    However when I go to www.snu.edu I find the site is running IIS, which I find very discouraging.

    I've seen horror stories about several universities FORCING students to use Windows XP and ONLY Windows XP
    • I won't permit him to use or be forced to use Winbloz which is broken, defective

      Now THAT'S draconian opress

      erm... mr Pot, meet mr kettle...

      Nothing like letting kids make their own decisions in life. I can imagine the uproar there'd have been if you posted, "i won't permit him to use of be forced to use Linux"....

      • well, would you let your kid play with a live hand grenade??
        A hand grenade or a winbloz box. Both blow up with handled. You would not want to trust your life to either one of them.
        You would not want to leave your kids alone with either one of them would you???
    • Coool ! I think that parental pressure on schools official can be as efficient as economic or social pressure ;-)) I think that there is a real moral problem when schools are forcing students to use a commercial product...
    • Hell, just make up some disability and tell them the computer is running a treatment program for him that hasn't been ported to windows. LOL

      Really, if they are bent on Jihad I'll be happy to lend any advise on the best ways to camoflogue a Linux box. From KDE themes, to logging the machine into the Windows Domain, to having the right ports open to blend in with the crowd.

      And BTW, Win4Lin is a great product for those 'Doze only apps. It gives you a complete working copy of Windows 98, just encapsulated i

  • I run the network at the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia. We have our own distro that goes by the internal codeword of "Seanix". It's is based on the much maligned source distro that will remain unnamed [gentoo.org].

    We use it for workstations, kiosks, firewalls, and servers. I get around the constant compile hell by distrubuting the build process across our rackmount's using distcc, and caching the binaries. Build once, install many.

    It's really only used internally (and for my network at home ;). I

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