Inspired by the
+interview series conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
+interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
+community. This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
+more international audience.
+
+
While Debian Edu and
+Skolelinux originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
+Europe, there are users all around the globe. One of those far away
+from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
+and contributor. It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
+work out of the box in Japan. I got him to answer a few questions,
+and am happy to share the response with you. :)
+
+
+
Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
+
+
My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
+and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
+Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
+teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
+Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
+I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
+primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
+so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
+also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
+to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
+appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.
+
+
How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
+project?
+
+
In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
+server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
+samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
+Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
+did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
+and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
+there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
+problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
+previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
+Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
+downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
+Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
+my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.
+
+
What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
+Edu?
+
+
For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
+workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
+ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
+designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
+doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
+school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
+Japan.
+
+
What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
+Edu?
+
+
The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
+have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
+make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
+who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
+important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
+instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
+default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
+kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
+Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is. A
+second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
+customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
+multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
+took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
+I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
+help.
+
+
Which free software do you use daily?
+
+
Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
+studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
+(customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
+still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
+house, that's very useful for the family photos and music. At school
+the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
+have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
+day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
+installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS. We also
+have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
+and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.
+
+
Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
+get schools to use free software?
+
+
Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
+and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
+popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
+to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
+file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago. The Edu aspect is
+also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
+Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu? But of course the main attraction is
+budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
+compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
+is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
+are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
+doesn't play flash, for example.
+
