Skolelinux Project Releases Version 1.0

jakobgrimstveit writes "After about three years of hard work, Skolelinux (with its own cute Tux-with-bag-mascot) 1.0 is released to the public. The distribution was started as a reaction to how much the Norwegian schools and the government relied on systems using closed source. Skolelinux is meant to be an easy way to set up a large and secure network of LTSP thin clients (normally PXE boot) for regular users. The Skolelinux-organization won the Norwegian Free Software Prize in 2002. The distribution is based in Debian GNU/Linux, and is also being used and evaluated [1] [2] several places in Africa due to its low demands for the client PC. Kudos to the developers and good luck!"

Comments

Great!

[BaronGanut]

This is truly great! I come from Norway and can hardly wait, though I will probably be done with schools like that before it gets common enough..

But what is it with kde2? :) Firstly i don't like KDE, but then at least they could have used kde3.

Might have been to make resource requirements lower for the thin clients.. but..

Re:Great!

[Orgazmus]

From my experience, debian unstable is far more stable than fedora ;)

AlexB:
What would it take to maintain your own packages?

Re:Great!

[noselasd]

What's the problem ? People still run macos 9 and windows 98. It works for them. Why use the latest (and often unstable all the time) ? Making sure
people can their job is far more important than running the latest foo 4.9.177

Re:Welcome to a new distribution !

[ehack]

Sorry for the knee jerk reaction - I looked have now at the site. this distro only asks three questions to install, and set up a server. The architecture seems extremely well thought out for a school-type environment. Kudos to the SkoleLinux people for recognizing the need for a tailor-made solution, and easy to use solution and having the persevrance to create it.

Here's hoping SkoleLinux finds its intended audience. And stays maintained.

Why so many distros?

[the_y_man84]

I personally like linux alot. But why make so many distros? Doesnt that just fragment the linux community itself more? Doesnt it also it harder to keep things up to date?

Re:Why so many distros?

[karniv0re]

I personally like linux alot. But why make so many distros?

Linus' idea behind Linux was that OSs should be like cars: The more the marrier. Would you really enjoy living in a world where Red Hat or Novell is the only Linux distributor? Choice is key.

Re:Why so many distros?

[djeaux]

Diversity fosters adaptation & "evolution." Sure, many distros die off because they aren't promoted or don't fill a niche, or lack distinguishing "value added" features.

But a terrific example is Knoppix. It fits a particular niche. And it in turn is derived from Debian Linux. Sounds like a phylogenetic tree to me.

Skolelinux is really a client program adapted from Linux to meet a specific need. Given it's language localization, too, it has really defined its niche. More power to 'em!

K12Linux.org

[dvanatta]

K12Linux.org is the Fedora distribution with LTSP already configured. I know many schools in the United States are using it successfully.

Re:Schools in US are tight

[sean23007]

I wouldn't try to claim that it is impossible for SkoleLinux to take off. Look at it this way. It does not require you to remove the operating system currently on the computers on your network. Set up a few thin client servers, have all the machines that are currently running Windows boot over the network, and you have the SkoleLinux setup all up and ready for use. And you still have Windows installed just in case you don't like it for some reason. In this case, switching to a new operating system is as easy as rebooting.