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The Linux Terminal Server Project would be a cheap base for your plan - one central high-spec server, with a load of low-spec workstations displaying the served (remote X) terminals.

This is exactly what I wanted to suggest. It's the best solution, especially in terms of maintainance work and fault-tolerance. Make sure to see this clip (RealPlayer unfortunately) to see how adding new computers to your lab would look like if you choose the LTSP way. Take a look at this links:

• LTSP -- Linux Terminal Server Project
• K12LTSP -- Linux Terminal Server Project in Schools
• K12OS -- Open Source in Schools
• K12Linux -- Linux in Schools Project
• GNU and Education
• SEUL/edu -- Simple End User Linux/Education
• KDE Education Project
• Debian Jr. Project

Good luck!

Yes, NetBSD is a good choice, especially if you have odd hardware lying around, waiting to be put back to good use.

If you stick to old i386 PC and want to keep Linux on all machines, I suggest Slackware, or something like Tiny Linux, which is based on an old version of Slackware.

They may not have exactly what you are looking for but you may want to check out seul.org. They have both an education area and a science area. They may have something to help you.

As a developer with some stuff in Debian Jr., I'm happy to see some focus on an honest-to-goodness education project!

• Linux Terminal Server Project
  
• SEUL for Education
  
• The Open Source Schools Portal
  
• Schoolforge
  
• The K12Linux in Schools Project
  
• The KDE Edutainment Project

The biggest one I can think of is the "linux Terminal Server Project",

ltsp

Which has been adapted to public schools in the form of:

k12ltsp

The linux in education folks have tons of info on doing stuff like this and are very wise about digital divide issues.

Here are some links:

open source schools

School Forge

k12os

SEUL/Edu

Some case studies:

seul dat

There is also Simple End User Linux (SEUL)

SEUL

RedHats "Open Source Now" initiative has listings of people in the area who can help out. They also have a bunch of "why's" and "hows" on their site.

Open Source Now

I should be listed there in the Army of Friends, but have not gotten around to putting myself up. Feel free to contact me at cschwan4@attbi.com, as I am in the Seattle area.

Doing this kind of thing is a great interest of mine, and I work in education to help make these transistions.

Hope this helps.

The biggest one I can think of is the "linux Terminal Server Project",

ltsp

Which has been adapted to public schools in the form of:

k12ltsp

The linux in education folks have tons of info on doing stuff like this and are very wise about digital divide issues.

Here are some links:

open source schools

School Forge

k12os

SEUL/Edu

Some case studies:

seul dat

There is also Simple End User Linux (SEUL)

SEUL

RedHats "Open Source Now" initiative has listings of people in the area who can help out. They also have a bunch of "why's" and "hows" on their site.

Open Source Now

I should be listed there in the Army of Friends, but have not gotten around to putting myself up. Feel free to contact me at cschwan4@attbi.com, as I am in the Seattle area.

Doing this kind of thing is a great interest of mine, and I work in education to help make these transistions.

Hope this helps.

The biggest one I can think of is the "linux Terminal Server Project",

ltsp

Which has been adapted to public schools in the form of:

k12ltsp

The linux in education folks have tons of info on doing stuff like this and are very wise about digital divide issues.

Here are some links:

open source schools

School Forge

k12os

SEUL/Edu

Some case studies:

seul dat

There is also Simple End User Linux (SEUL)

SEUL

RedHats "Open Source Now" initiative has listings of people in the area who can help out. They also have a bunch of "why's" and "hows" on their site.

Open Source Now

I should be listed there in the Army of Friends, but have not gotten around to putting myself up. Feel free to contact me at cschwan4@attbi.com, as I am in the Seattle area.

Doing this kind of thing is a great interest of mine, and I work in education to help make these transistions.

Hope this helps.

gEDA is also a good project for Linux people interested in open hardware: they develop a GNU liscenced set of hardware design tools.

Just my bookmarks two cents on the topic.

Interesting point, but I really doubt that this is aimed at the general consumer. It's for Joe Linux, who prides himself on doing nifty tech things with Linux.

Okay, Tux Racer may not be the most amazing thing in the world, but it's fun for a couple hours.

Freeciv...why is freeciv bad? You don't like civilization? There are some differences, but aside from the fact that civ had more artists (and, IMHO, a worse interface) and is a bit easier to use, not huge difference in fun factor.

Lets consider some others:

zangband/ToME/angband/nethack/etc: These *are* a lot of fun. Diablo has much more simplistic, boring gameplay, and it took off all over. Most variants have a pretty simple text or 2d graphics based interface without music, but some are a bit more elaborate. Be a bit of a pain to play on the controller, yes...

Chromium BSU: flashy scrolling shooter. Could use the 3d hardware in the X-box.

Dunno if you can just use ordinary ol' x86 binaries (particularly considering RAM usage), but:

Quake 3 (use the 3d hardware). Not free.

Abuse: This was a *blast* when it came out -- I played it over and over. It's looking a little dated now, but it's still a good game. Free now -- thanks crack.com.

Pingus is apparently shaping up pretty well.

There's part of the amazing Exile series available for Linux. (shareware)

Maelstrom may be too "simple" for you, as it's only an astroids clone, but it was a very well known game on the Mac for a long time, and I still like it.

While I'm not a tremendous fan of Illwinter's Conquest of Elysium II, their Dominions: Priests, Prophets, and Pretenders is a non-flashy but very deep, very good strategy game. Shareware.

There's a DOS-style shooter from Mountain King Studios, Raptor. (shareware)

Finally, there are all the emulators and whatnot...take a look at GNUboy, TuxNES, snes9x, DGen/SDL,
FreeSCI, Sarien, Exult, XU4, ScummVM, Basilisk II, YAE and others.

There are a host of Loki ports that you can't get any more except used. Lots of good stuff from LGames, though I'm not as big a fan of their stuff as some other people are.

Finally, text-based but really, really sophisticated, good, and almost all of them free, there are text-based interactive fiction (Try Tower of Babel before giving up on this...first one I ever beat without cheating, and it's *soooooo* good). The Interactive Fiction Archive has games and players.

Finally, many good games can be played through WINE -- Starcraft, Fallout, Max Payne, Half Life...

These are just some of the games that I enjoy under Linux. There are lots more (admittedly, some of lower quality) available at the SDL Games Page and the Linux Games Tome.

Linux games usually take a bit more (okay, often a lot :-) ) more effort to set up properly. But they're often very customizable, you can actually have an impact on the game design ("This game needs feature X"), and you don't have to leave the comfortable environs of Linux. And the environment is getting better, not worse.

"Buying" and open-sourcing some software that can do circuit schematics and PCB layout would actually be nice. Yes, I know about gEDA project, and they actually have a nice schematic editor and a pretty decent Gerber file viewer, but the board layout program hasn't even been started yet, or so it seems. And I don't feel like reinventing the wheel and writing all these auto-routing routines, etc. from scratch.

The SEUL is an organization for using Linux for education. There's even a case study section.

The SEUL is an organization for using Linux for education. There's even a case study section.

My, how things change. In the early 80s we also played games on the high school computer. But there was one major difference.

These games you mention... I've heard of them. And that's what's different. The kids should be writing the games, and none of us should recognize any of the names.

We played

• Kojak (and Kojak 2: Telly's Revenge) (these were mine)
• Jungle George (one guy's rip off of another guy's Vic20 game called Pygmy Patrol)
• Cockroach Races (multiuser) (the only game that ended up being banned, because it encouraged behavior that would damage keyboards)
• Sperm Patrol (group project, each guy wrote a different "stage" of the game)
• Flaming Enchiladas (damn hot salsa)
• and a bunch I can't remember the names of
• assorted ripoffs of arcade games, the old snake/tronlightcycle thing, etc, etc.

Maybe install Python and PyGame on your school boxes, no commercial games, and then let nature take its course. They might as well have fun and learn something at the same time.

There's really quite a bit of educational software out there. Take a look at the Seul/Edu Educational Application Index for a listing of over 440 educational apps. We're in the early planning stages of creating an ISO of selected educational software to make it as easy as possible to get Linux systems up and running in schools. If you'd like to help, go to the SEUL/edu home page and subscribe to the mailing list.

[note: I did not create links to obvious sites like slashdot.org, kde.org, redhat.com, etc]

http://www.seul.org/edu/acpe2002.html

It's been a week since Eric and I went up to the ACPE (Association for Computer Professionals in Education) conference. We spoke with tech coordinators from 25 large Oregon and Washington school districts being audited by Microsoft for software licensing compliance. It's time for an update and some reflection.

All of the districts received a letter from Microsoft demanding a software audit. Steve Duin, a Portland columnist wrote about it in his column.

Before Steve's column schools were calling MS and asking for extensions. They reported that MS was less than friendly and responsive. After the column several things happened.

The Portland Public School switchboard was jammed for two days with calls from Linux users volunteering to come to PDX from all over the west coast to help with software migration.

MS was hit with many angry calls from all over the place. I can only imagine the content of those conversations. Having Duin's column posted on Slashdot.org certainly helped get the word out about what MS was doing.

The Slashdot post came out on Monday. Later that week most of the technology folks from OR and WA were heading to a conference on Thursday and Friday. MS agreed to come and present a special session on the audit and MS licensing on Thursday afternoon. Many of the impacted schools met the night before. There was much solidarity and a realization that if they all stuck together they would have more clout when dealing with MS. There was also a common understanding that this audit would cost districts money and time. Two things in short supply these days. Portland Public schools will devote two FTE to the audit. That's over $100k of money that could go to classrooms and teachers. Needless to say the relationship between these schools and Microsoft had been changed in a fundamental way. No one was talking about using software without paying for it. It's just that when they came face to face with the power an EULA gives MS, they saw things in a different light. MS software in schools was seen as a logistical and financial liability when compared with GPL licensed alternatives.

Now we get to alternatives. There was actually discussion of mass migrations to Linux. The interesting thing is that with current desktops and K12LTSP, it really is an option now. If MS was not willing to flex on demands, several of districts were ready to dump MS software.

On Thursday MS came in with a team to do some damage control. I've never seen anyone more worried or concerned. Quoting, "We never had any idea that there would be a reaction like this. Our two words for today are friendly and flexible." And they were... They said a lot about understanding the hardships schools face and how we were hurting for funding. They let us know that the audits were meant to be helpful and that this was not a BSA audit (yet...). They said that they would meet with schools one on one to extend deadlines and be flexible. I have to admit that they were just as they promised to be, friendly and flexible. They did a great job of disarming the most worried school folks and then hosted an open bar for the rest of the afternoon.

I underestimated the ability of MS to react so well and do such a good job. The most effective motivation for change is pain. MS did everything they could that day to make sure we would not feel any pain. ;-^)

Friday morning Eric and I did a session on using GPL software in schools. Eric did a good job on covering what's going on with the server end of things and I did a demonstration with our Linux Toaster. We like to stress that in many ways, software is now generic. You don't need to license or even worry about what kind of toaster oven you have at home. The same thing should be true of your word processor and email client.

I was still disturbed about the MS show we saw on Thursday until we started hearing more and more questions about migration. It seems like schools were taking the extra time given them by MS and using it to good advantage. We spent ALL of the Q&A time on migration paths to free software. Eric comes from the business world. I'm an educator. He pointed out to me that the WORST thing that could have come from all of this was a forced, overnight migration to Linux. Having time to do it right is much better. We've been talking with folks now for a couple of weeks and there is a lot happening.

I can't share everything that is in the works right now but there are two areas where we need to focus our efforts for schools in terms of migration:

Support and training... They need someone to call for help and they all need training. This is the #1 issue keeping schools from using free software. They just don't know how to do it and keep it running in a production environment. Anything we do to promote training will result in an increased use of Linux in schools. The good news in this area is that we've moved beyond the awareness level in many schools. The bottom line is that schools see others using Linux and saving money while providing superior service to classrooms. They want to go in that direction but they just don't know how.
End user, ease of use issues... The #2 fear facing schools is the thought that teachers will not be able to use the software. No one is worried about the kids. Eric is now working on a classroom kiosk version of K12Linux. We're hoping to produce a simplistic desktop with few options and just a few icons for basic applications. There are a bunch of desktop improvements that are part of RH 7.3. The Linux desktop is really coming along. Teachers however equate choices with complexity and that is something to fear. We think a classroom kiosk using KDE is something that might be useful in these instances.
More good news... I'm starting to hear from more major vendors who have been getting requests for Linux in school solutions. We're getting quotes from Micron, Dell and IBM for the 65 K12LTSP workstations we're about to purchase for a new high school. Before we had to build everything ourselves.

More to do... Our greatest resource is our local user group. We need to help schools and LUGs around the country make connections. Towards this end we're going to start promoting a July 4th. software freedom day. Sponsored by LUGs all over America, this event will bring together Unix/Linux experts and schools to establish local support connections for training and migration to GPL software.

I'll send out more on the software freedom day later. I hope you'll help get your LUGs and schools together.

Paul Nelson
Riverdale School

I also was at this conference and saw/heard the same things and interpreted them the same. My take on the outcome after the Microsoft panel is also the same. Microsoft finally realize that there were lines even they could not step over with retaliation.

A couple of good things should come from this.

First, Microsoft got its hands slapped by its very bread and butter. They were informed that they had stepped too far and society was not going to stand for it. Bear in mind, like Paul said, no one was in favor of pirating or using illegal software. But in an open environment as Schools, who can really regulate everything? In our district we have God control over our machines and dictate all hardware and network decisions, but even then have had to give some leeway on software installs for political issues. If Microsoft works with not against its clientele, there may actually be progress towards decreasing piracy.

Second, awareness is out about the ramifications of illegal software and its impact on schools. This should push Administrators towards policies forcing legal software use. Of course legal software costs money, unless its Open Source :-)

Third, much talk was made about alternatives. This talk will continue and spread as more districts/schools attempt to be more legal and avoid future confrontations with Microsoft. As more adopt Open Source and alternative software, more commercial companies will get involved and provide alternatives to Microsoft platforms.

This may be the final straw that pushed to evaluate their stance, to think that Microsoft may have just slit their throat, and in their own backyard. Of course it was humourus watching the Microsoft reps. kissing up by keeping the hosted bar open for hours after its scheduled shutdown. As if we will forget that quick....

Kevin Stiles
Technology Department
Paso School District

[note: I did not create links to obvious sites like slashdot.org, kde.org, redhat.com, etc]

http://www.seul.org/edu/acpe2002.html

It's been a week since Eric and I went up to the ACPE (Association for Computer Professionals in Education) conference. We spoke with tech coordinators from 25 large Oregon and Washington school districts being audited by Microsoft for software licensing compliance. It's time for an update and some reflection.

All of the districts received a letter from Microsoft demanding a software audit. Steve Duin, a Portland columnist wrote about it in his column.

Before Steve's column schools were calling MS and asking for extensions. They reported that MS was less than friendly and responsive. After the column several things happened.

The Portland Public School switchboard was jammed for two days with calls from Linux users volunteering to come to PDX from all over the west coast to help with software migration.

MS was hit with many angry calls from all over the place. I can only imagine the content of those conversations. Having Duin's column posted on Slashdot.org certainly helped get the word out about what MS was doing.

The Slashdot post came out on Monday. Later that week most of the technology folks from OR and WA were heading to a conference on Thursday and Friday. MS agreed to come and present a special session on the audit and MS licensing on Thursday afternoon. Many of the impacted schools met the night before. There was much solidarity and a realization that if they all stuck together they would have more clout when dealing with MS. There was also a common understanding that this audit would cost districts money and time. Two things in short supply these days. Portland Public schools will devote two FTE to the audit. That's over $100k of money that could go to classrooms and teachers. Needless to say the relationship between these schools and Microsoft had been changed in a fundamental way. No one was talking about using software without paying for it. It's just that when they came face to face with the power an EULA gives MS, they saw things in a different light. MS software in schools was seen as a logistical and financial liability when compared with GPL licensed alternatives.

Now we get to alternatives. There was actually discussion of mass migrations to Linux. The interesting thing is that with current desktops and K12LTSP, it really is an option now. If MS was not willing to flex on demands, several of districts were ready to dump MS software.

On Thursday MS came in with a team to do some damage control. I've never seen anyone more worried or concerned. Quoting, "We never had any idea that there would be a reaction like this. Our two words for today are friendly and flexible." And they were... They said a lot about understanding the hardships schools face and how we were hurting for funding. They let us know that the audits were meant to be helpful and that this was not a BSA audit (yet...). They said that they would meet with schools one on one to extend deadlines and be flexible. I have to admit that they were just as they promised to be, friendly and flexible. They did a great job of disarming the most worried school folks and then hosted an open bar for the rest of the afternoon.

I underestimated the ability of MS to react so well and do such a good job. The most effective motivation for change is pain. MS did everything they could that day to make sure we would not feel any pain. ;-^)

Friday morning Eric and I did a session on using GPL software in schools. Eric did a good job on covering what's going on with the server end of things and I did a demonstration with our Linux Toaster. We like to stress that in many ways, software is now generic. You don't need to license or even worry about what kind of toaster oven you have at home. The same thing should be true of your word processor and email client.

I was still disturbed about the MS show we saw on Thursday until we started hearing more and more questions about migration. It seems like schools were taking the extra time given them by MS and using it to good advantage. We spent ALL of the Q&A time on migration paths to free software. Eric comes from the business world. I'm an educator. He pointed out to me that the WORST thing that could have come from all of this was a forced, overnight migration to Linux. Having time to do it right is much better. We've been talking with folks now for a couple of weeks and there is a lot happening.

I can't share everything that is in the works right now but there are two areas where we need to focus our efforts for schools in terms of migration:

Support and training... They need someone to call for help and they all need training. This is the #1 issue keeping schools from using free software. They just don't know how to do it and keep it running in a production environment. Anything we do to promote training will result in an increased use of Linux in schools. The good news in this area is that we've moved beyond the awareness level in many schools. The bottom line is that schools see others using Linux and saving money while providing superior service to classrooms. They want to go in that direction but they just don't know how.
End user, ease of use issues... The #2 fear facing schools is the thought that teachers will not be able to use the software. No one is worried about the kids. Eric is now working on a classroom kiosk version of K12Linux. We're hoping to produce a simplistic desktop with few options and just a few icons for basic applications. There are a bunch of desktop improvements that are part of RH 7.3. The Linux desktop is really coming along. Teachers however equate choices with complexity and that is something to fear. We think a classroom kiosk using KDE is something that might be useful in these instances.
More good news... I'm starting to hear from more major vendors who have been getting requests for Linux in school solutions. We're getting quotes from Micron, Dell and IBM for the 65 K12LTSP workstations we're about to purchase for a new high school. Before we had to build everything ourselves.

More to do... Our greatest resource is our local user group. We need to help schools and LUGs around the country make connections. Towards this end we're going to start promoting a July 4th. software freedom day. Sponsored by LUGs all over America, this event will bring together Unix/Linux experts and schools to establish local support connections for training and migration to GPL software.

I'll send out more on the software freedom day later. I hope you'll help get your LUGs and schools together.

Paul Nelson
Riverdale School

I also was at this conference and saw/heard the same things and interpreted them the same. My take on the outcome after the Microsoft panel is also the same. Microsoft finally realize that there were lines even they could not step over with retaliation.

A couple of good things should come from this.

First, Microsoft got its hands slapped by its very bread and butter. They were informed that they had stepped too far and society was not going to stand for it. Bear in mind, like Paul said, no one was in favor of pirating or using illegal software. But in an open environment as Schools, who can really regulate everything? In our district we have God control over our machines and dictate all hardware and network decisions, but even then have had to give some leeway on software installs for political issues. If Microsoft works with not against its clientele, there may actually be progress towards decreasing piracy.

Second, awareness is out about the ramifications of illegal software and its impact on schools. This should push Administrators towards policies forcing legal software use. Of course legal software costs money, unless its Open Source :-)

Third, much talk was made about alternatives. This talk will continue and spread as more districts/schools attempt to be more legal and avoid future confrontations with Microsoft. As more adopt Open Source and alternative software, more commercial companies will get involved and provide alternatives to Microsoft platforms.

This may be the final straw that pushed to evaluate their stance, to think that Microsoft may have just slit their throat, and in their own backyard. Of course it was humourus watching the Microsoft reps. kissing up by keeping the hosted bar open for hours after its scheduled shutdown. As if we will forget that quick....

Kevin Stiles
Technology Department
Paso School District

I know I'm late to the posting party here, but that's what SEUL is trying to do now. (Well, not exactly - they are actually creating a CD with the apps to go on top of Red Hat, Debian, etc.)

SEUL/edu and SchoolForge help support Open Source in education. Their mailing list is filled with educators and sys admins for educational institutions who have installed Open Source systems. They can help you shift many systems away from proprietary software.

The Windows box is still a necessity. I have a 4 year old who likes educational games and without Windows, they simply don't run.

• Debian Jr. Project
• GNU and Education
• Schoolforge
• Linux For Kids
• KDE Edutainment Project
• Organization for Free Software in Education and Teaching
• SEUL/edu

When I was a kid I used my father's computers, but he didn't know much about OSes, he was just buying what they told him in the computer store.

As a resuld, when I was still a kid, I used to know the most important functions of MS-DOS interrupts 10h and 21h by heart. When I was about 12, we were writing programs for computers class, some simple calculations. It was boring, so I wrote a TSR, which after taking over the clock interrupt, and after few minutes from ending, was starting some virus-like visual effects on the screen. My teacher phoned my home that night, asking how to turn it of.

My point is that I really mastered the MS-DOS, and everything I had was a DOS box and lots of free time. I often wonder, what if I had Linux when I was 10 years old, instead of DOS? Would I know Bash and Perl, like I knew Command.com and QBasic? Would I know low level Unix system calls, like I new the DOS interrupts? Would I master Emacs and GCC, like I mastered Borland IDE? Unfortunately, I will never know that. But I would have much easier start as a Unix sysadmin, that's for sure.

Check out the mailing lists at SchoolForge and SEUL/Edu to get in touch with a group of educators (and other interested parties) who are very familiar with open source educational technologies. They will be able to discuss any options you have in depth (At least more than a slashdot forum discussion :)

SEUL is already talking to them about doing this.

It's 10BaseT Ether, about the size of a mid-tower (not a rack-mount), and it's grotty (I got it out of a junkyard, after all). As far as I know, it works, but as far as I know it's broken as well. (Think of it as Schrodinger's Hub. Until you plug it in, it both works and does not work.)

Also checkout gEDA and opencores' mailing lists, as such projects have been mentioned there in the past.

Not necessarily. How many educational software packages for Linux can you name?

Have you checked out the SEUL Edu Project? I know at leas two guys from there were working on grade software a long time ago. I would immagine they have something by now. And probably other tracking software as well. Contact them if you haven't yet!

Microsoft is a monopoly. Legally speaking they are not only a monopoly, they are abusing that status. Schools are funded by the government. Punishing Microsoft by extending their monopoly further is a bad idea.

Pushing a government funded institution into helping break that monopoly is a good idea.

As far as whether the schools would install it themselves if they wanted to, that option doesn't even show up on their radar 99.99% of the time. That is the power of a monopoly.

I've also seen a lot of comments about how there isn't any educational software fo linux. To that I call bullshit. Given any subject there is something out there that some geek has whipped together, and it may not be produced by Mattel or Disney, but Linux is a much better tool for actually instilling the ability to learn than Windows.

I think this is a great publicity stunt by RedHat, and it won't go anywhere, but I'd love to see Linux in more schools. Yes I said more. There are quite a few schools that are already using it. do a google search for 'Linux education schools'

some useful(Karma Whoring) links:
http://www.seul.org/edu/
http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux/
http://scnc.holt.k12.mi.us/techplan/index.html

The main resources are the reports (2 per month on the SEUL/edu group) and the mailing lists where new software and case studies are announced and discussed.

The main resources are the reports (2 per month on the SEUL/edu group) and the mailing lists where new software and case studies are announced and discussed.

The main resources are the reports (2 per month on the SEUL/edu group) and the mailing lists where new software and case studies are announced and discussed.

Couple reasons for this. First, development at WorldForge (like most open source projects) is kinda seasonal, and so over the summer development was in fact slow. Second, most of our website developers have been focused on our next generation website (you can preview here and here/A>).

However, there *has* been a great deal of low level achievements - libraries, server code, databases, etc. And activity has really picked up a huge amount of steam over the last month, now that summer's over and everyone's ready for more development. Most people are extremely enthused about our new game Mason, which just entered implementation.

I would like to see something really cool come of this but games are just not an area where open source works well.

Common fallacy. *Some* types of games may not do well if following open source principles. Plots are difficult to keep secret, and of course it is by definition no prob to determine all of the rule algorithms, AI secrets, etc. But in my opinion, relying on "secrets" to make a game fun is foolish and destined to break as soon as someone posts a spoiler list to the Internet. I believe most *good* game designs would have no particular issue with open source development, any more so than a photoshop-clone or an alternative desktop. It's just a matter of getting enough folks to put the work into chipping in to create it.

Another oft-cited reason why open source games "can't be" is that they are by nature multi-disciplinary. You need musicians, writers, and artists, in addition to programmers. But I feel this is just a difficulty of mindset. Other game projects have had difficulty finding and coordinating such people, but WorldForge hasn't; there are lots of these people out there, and while the idea of allowing their work to be shared under the GPL is novel to them, many are willing to work under that condition anyway.

It really boggles me why people who can be so gung-ho about open sourcing everything under the sun would stop shy of games? FreeCiv, TuxRacer, NetHack, and thousands of smaller games prove that such assertions are in fact false. Yeah, making good games is difficult, but not nearly as hard as making a good operating system, web browser, office suite, or desktop system, which I think we can agree that are well within our community's grasp.

WorldForge *will* succeed. It might take us a heck of a long time, but we set out our plans and objectives a couple years ago and have been achieving the milestones slowly but surely. Trust me, we too would like to see results come more swiftly. The only thing we need to accelerate is your help. :-)

Couple reasons for this. First, development at WorldForge (like most open source projects) is kinda seasonal, and so over the summer development was in fact slow. Second, most of our website developers have been focused on our next generation website (you can preview here and here/A>).

However, there *has* been a great deal of low level achievements - libraries, server code, databases, etc. And activity has really picked up a huge amount of steam over the last month, now that summer's over and everyone's ready for more development. Most people are extremely enthused about our new game Mason, which just entered implementation.

I would like to see something really cool come of this but games are just not an area where open source works well.

Common fallacy. *Some* types of games may not do well if following open source principles. Plots are difficult to keep secret, and of course it is by definition no prob to determine all of the rule algorithms, AI secrets, etc. But in my opinion, relying on "secrets" to make a game fun is foolish and destined to break as soon as someone posts a spoiler list to the Internet. I believe most *good* game designs would have no particular issue with open source development, any more so than a photoshop-clone or an alternative desktop. It's just a matter of getting enough folks to put the work into chipping in to create it.

Another oft-cited reason why open source games "can't be" is that they are by nature multi-disciplinary. You need musicians, writers, and artists, in addition to programmers. But I feel this is just a difficulty of mindset. Other game projects have had difficulty finding and coordinating such people, but WorldForge hasn't; there are lots of these people out there, and while the idea of allowing their work to be shared under the GPL is novel to them, many are willing to work under that condition anyway.

It really boggles me why people who can be so gung-ho about open sourcing everything under the sun would stop shy of games? FreeCiv, TuxRacer, NetHack, and thousands of smaller games prove that such assertions are in fact false. Yeah, making good games is difficult, but not nearly as hard as making a good operating system, web browser, office suite, or desktop system, which I think we can agree that are well within our community's grasp.

WorldForge *will* succeed. It might take us a heck of a long time, but we set out our plans and objectives a couple years ago and have been achieving the milestones slowly but surely. Trust me, we too would like to see results come more swiftly. The only thing we need to accelerate is your help. :-)

What are we gonna make for that platform? anyone have any ideas?
I was thinking about a pingus port or make interactive movies out of ordianry ones (however that would be pretty much impossible)
I think it is going to be very hard to make useful games/apps for this thing...

disclaimer: this is not a flamebait ;-)

thisis a very nice linux boardgame. It's not real-time and has a very simple user interface. It's networked and can be played with 2-4 players.
IRL this is one of my favorite games and me and my friends now play it over internet from time to time.
I hope you like it,

2.4. == development release -- every time. They don't say it very often, but if you know the numbering system you'd know that even numbers are just development releases.

Erm, no. 2.1 and 2.3 were development releases and 2.5 will be. 2.0, 2.2 and 2.4 are stable series. See eg. this link.

Take a look at TINY. It was designed for exactly the use you're asking for.

A good reference for schools to use in this area is SEUL.

One of the best ways to pick up game usage tips is to look at source code. One guy who's coded loads of SDL games (in C) can be found here. In particular - check out Circus Linux - it's a lot of fun :).

Thanks for your reply. Your comment is the first seriously pro-Microsoft information I've ever read on Slashdot. I think that's good. I'm not anti-Microsoft. I think I'm more pro-Microsoft than Bill Gates.

Right now Slashdot readers have a general sense that something is wrong with Microsoft; I think that readers would benefit from a more complete understanding.

Notice that you don't refute what I said; in a way you strengthen it. You say that, after 5 years of sheer hell for its customers, Microsoft is fixing DLL hell in Windows 2000.

The people at Microsoft are not dumb. They knew about the problems. As you and other readers point out, there was always a way to solve the problem of DLL hell.

Looking at the SDK, as you suggested, does not solve the DLL hell problem because it is a social problem, not a technical one.

There has always been a way for each Microsoft Windows user to solve the problem of DLL hell, as you point out: It takes a week of work after you have spent many months attaining the knowledge necessary to understand what you read during that week.

My comments are just my opinions. My opinion is that, in the transition from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95, Microsoft achieved something the company wanted. In Windows 3, the files for each program were largely segregated. That made it possible for a user to copy a program by copying its files.

In Windows 95, the registry and the mixing of DLLs created copy protection. It was still possible to copy a program by copying its files, but now it took serious understanding.

My opinion is that the problems with Microsoft Windows 95, 95B, 98, 98SE, and ME have been deliberate, on some level. There is a deliberate 64k or 2 megabyte memory limitation on what Microsoft calls GDI resources and USER resources; this is what causes most of the crashes, even when the user has 256 megabytes of memory.

My opinion is that DLL hell is deliberate in the sense that Microsoft knew about the problems, and waited 5 years to solve them. During that 5 years many users upgraded 5 times, providing a huge amount of money to Microsoft. If Microsoft had delivered a good operating system in the beginning, many users would not have upgraded.

There is a conflict of interest for a commercial company in the business of making operating systems. A company with a monopoly will make more money if there are more bugs. The bugs have to be carefully managed; they must not be too discouraging; they must be discouraging enough to make people enthusiastic about upgrading.

That's why Linux is a brilliant social innovation. The GNU GPL removes the social conflict. Linux is solely an attempt to make a good operating system; the conflict of interest is gone.

We have Richard Stallman and others to thank for that social innovation. Soon we will have an operating system that the whole world can use, and that has none of the problems created by conflict of interest.

Linux is a gift from programmers and writers to all people. We have a way to go in achieving the ultimate goal, but it looks like it won't be many years before Independence Linux, RedHat, Mandrake, and others solve the problems of making Linux easy to use. Then there can be just one mainstream operating system, available to all and usable by all, without the problems caused by hidden adversarial behavior.

http://moria.seul.org/~bergo/mozilla.png

you may want to see what they have over at www.seul.org

Ok, pygame is my project which wraps SDL for use with python. The project reached version 1.0 about a month ago. Just recently I was able to release SolarWolf, which is a full featured action/arcade style game. (it's worth your time in gameplay too) :]

This type of project goes a good way to show python is more than up to the task for quick paced arcade games. Currently pygame is adding support for the pyopengl modules, which is looking surprisingly good in terms of performance.

Honestly, seeing my humble project listed in the "What do you think are the most exciting developments going on in Python right now?" answer has made for a sweet day!

While thinking about the cross-platform abilities of the SDL library, don't also forget the cross-development-language options that are available. Currently there are bindings (at various levels of progress) for Ada, Eiffel, Euphoria, ML, OCaml, Perl, and Python.

As the maintainer of pygame, the python binding, I believe it is one of the furthest along. This week will mark the release of pygame-1.0, and there is already a good community forming, (and projects being released).

Check out pygame at http://pygame.seul.org.

There's quite a bit of work outside the US on using Linux for educational purposes; it must just be below your radar. In particular, there are thriving efforts in France, Germany, Mexico, and Columbia that I know of. Take a look at the links page and the regular Linux in education reports at SEUL/edu and you'll find out more about them. As for distros, I know of French and German ones targetted specifically at schools.

We need more than access to linux. We need access to good quality educational software and resources to help train the teachers on how to incorporate the stuff into real learning experiences.

We're trying to do both those things at SEUL/edu. We have a listing of over 200 educational programs (I won't vouch for the quality of them all), some of which are included in the K12Linux distro. We also have an on-going effort to create documentation for non-techie educators on how to install, maintain, and use Linux in a classroom setting.

We need more than access to linux. We need access to good quality educational software and resources to help train the teachers on how to incorporate the stuff into real learning experiences.

We're trying to do both those things at SEUL/edu. We have a listing of over 200 educational programs (I won't vouch for the quality of them all), some of which are included in the K12Linux distro. We also have an on-going effort to create documentation for non-techie educators on how to install, maintain, and use Linux in a classroom setting.

We need more than access to linux. We need access to good quality educational software and resources to help train the teachers on how to incorporate the stuff into real learning experiences.

We're trying to do both those things at SEUL/edu. We have a listing of over 200 educational programs (I won't vouch for the quality of them all), some of which are included in the K12Linux distro. We also have an on-going effort to create documentation for non-techie educators on how to install, maintain, and use Linux in a classroom setting.

But... but... NetHack already works. Who needs anything else?

Seriously, though, Linux does have a number of games:

• Tux Racer (previously mentioned /.)
• Various FPSes (Doom, Quake, ...)
• Pengus (a Lemmings clone)
• FreeCiv (a Civiliazation clone)
• All the stuff port by Loki games
• Star Control: TimeWarp, an unofficial, open-source game in the Star Control universe (caveat: Getting it to compile under Linux took a bit of effort when I tried, but it was doable)

That being said, I do agree that Direct3D support in Wine is A Good Thing (except for the possibility that it decreases the likelyhood of true Linux ports). But don't sell Linux short.

(Random "It probably won't work, but..." thought: Running a WinCE Dreamcast game under WINE running on Linux on a Dreamcast. That'd be cool. Useless and probably impossible, but cool none-the-less.)

Actually there are quite a few linux gaming project that are quite similar to worms. Bomb squad seem to be a regular clone. Clanmecha and nil aren't turnbased. Pingus is a lemmings clone (featuring penguins.. Isn't that cute?), but they want to make a worms mode as well.

Check out http://www.seul.org for some projects relating to linux in education. Dan