Hey Matthew, Nice to have you with us! :).
First of all, you are 100% correct, edubuntu has fallen wayside, but in the last week or so we have been working hard, making plans to "bring it to life" a little more. We had a meeting on friday. Someone posted the minutes to the mailing list, so check the archive if you're interested. I agree with you about seperating edubuntu for different stages of edubuntu, but it already does this to *some* extent, but yes, it could definately be improved. Again, its nice to have you with us :D, Ben On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 6:50 AM, Matthew Lye <[email protected]> wrote: > I should first apologize to you all, I have been involved in many areas of > the Ubuntu community but have largely ignored Edubuntu even though I work in > higher education. I'd like to improve that and will begin lurking in the > #edubuntu channel as Vantrax. > > Edubuntu seems to have fallen by the wayside somewhat and without being > involved I am going to take a stab and say that people have big ideas, and > great goals, but not enough people get involved when it comes time to sit > down and do the work. The Edubuntu project is a great grand idea, but I > think it needs identifiable and achievable goals to move forward, and at the > moment it seems to me ,as someone on the outside, that it is stagnant. > > I work for a large university managing teaching environments running > Ubuntu. We are running Ubuntu dual booting with Windows instead of using > Edubuntu. From my quick look at Edubuntu it didnt seem to add significant > value as its own distribution. It seemed little more than Ubuntu with some > applications installed and a prepacked thin client setup (LTSP) if you were > that way inclined. If the packages were'nt what you wanted Ubuntu was easier > to build off. Also it seemed like LTSP was a great way to end up frustrated > and confused if you were anything less than a sysadmin. I dont say this to > discourage you all but in the hope that those still looking at the list will > think of what the focus is. Im going to make some more assumptions and say > the focus is to assist in the implementation of the Ubuntu in teaching > spaces from Kindergarten all the way through to secondary and tertiary > studies. > > This means you need versions with different software and themes for > Kindergarten, Preschool, Primary School, Secondary School, and Tertiary > Education. Each has different goals and requirements, and so far I can see > one Edubuntu release. A great example of this done well is Qimo, based off > Ubuntu: http://qimo4kids.com/page/What-is-Qimo.aspx. Qimo isnt networked > based, but how many kindergartens and preschools have enough computers to > need a network? They made decisions based of the needs of a specific target > market, then customised something just for them. > > When I was initially looking at implementing Ubuntu in university teaching > environments I would have loved to have prepackaged distribution that would > have done the work for me, but it there are certain things that I would have > expected from it. I would have expected that Edubuntu would build on LTS > released of Ubuntu with meta packages designed to install and configure > applications that would be useful for each of those areas, and support > documentation to go along with them. I would expect to see documentation on > how to connect Edubuntu to Active Directory and Novell domains and > information on how to create and deploy images that are locked down so that > students cannot change the desktop (even an application that implements > commands in gconftool). I would expect to see some information on best > practice for setting up student home directories located on centralised > servers and how to use /net directories to mount the home directories to > mount /home. These are all problems I had to learn to deal with because > documentation was hard to find. These are things that need to be done to run > linux well in teaching spaces, to be able to compete with Microsoft. > > If I can help the Edubuntu project I am happy to do so, but at this stage > my time would be limited to playing devils advocate and giving advice on > what to focus on. My development skills are limited, and my time even more > but I have done this before. I have built SOE's based on Ubuntu for teaching > environments, then supported them. I have trained others to do so as well. > My suggestion for Edubuntu's future is to focus on developing high quality > support frameworks for educational environments. Develop metapackages that > turn Ubuntu LTS into Edubuntu versions for specific educational groups. Try > not to reinvent the wheel when you can give it a fresh coat of paint and put > it back on the wagon. > > Id like to see this project succeed, but the key I think is to ask 'what > does it bring the warrants its own brand' then focus on that. > > -Matthew Lye > > <No tree's were harmed during this transmission. However, a great number of > electrons were terribly inconvenienced> > > -- > edubuntu-devel mailing list > [email protected] > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-devel > >
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