Slashdot Mirror
Custom Linux Distributions from Educational Institutions?
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.
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"
The University of Missouri - Rolla 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.
Debian has been running a sub-project called DebianEdu for some time now. You can read up on the project at the above link or from the mailing lists.
assert(expired(knowledge));
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 other researchers in my own department have chosen to use RedHat or other distros.
I'm afraid this group probably is just trying to make a niche for themselves where one doesn't exists -- thousands do.
The University of Michigan College of Engineering distributes "blue hat", now referred to as CAEN Linux.
:w