blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html

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   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</title>
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  13     <div class="title">
  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
  20
  21
  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</div>
  24       <div class="date"> 4th June 2013</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>It has been a while since my last English
  26 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
  27 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
  28 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
  29 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
  30 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
  31
  32 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
  33
  34 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
  35 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
  36 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
  37 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
  38
  39 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
  40 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
  41 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
  42
  43 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
  44 project?</strong></p>
  45
  46 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
  47 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
  48 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
  49 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
  50 manual.
  51
  52 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
  53 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
  54 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
  55 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
  56
  57 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
  58 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
  59 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
  60 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
  61 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
  62 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
  63 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
  64 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
  65 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
  66 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
  67
  68 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
  69 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
  70 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
  71 beautiful project.</p>
  72
  73 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
  74 Edu?</strong></p>
  75
  76 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
  77 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
  78 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
  79
  80 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
  81 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
  82 of educational free software.</p>
  83
  84 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
  85 Edu?</strong></p>
  86
  87 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
  88 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
  89 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
  90 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
  91 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
  92
  93 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
  94 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
  95 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
  96 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
  97 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
  98 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
  99 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
 100 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
 101
 102 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 103
 104 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
 105 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
 106 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
 107 also using the mathematical software
 108 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
 109 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
 110 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
 111
 112 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
 113 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
 114 statistics?</strong></p>
 115
 116 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
 117 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
 118 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
 119 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
 120
 121 <ul>
 122
 123 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
 124 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
 125 constructions in planar geometry
 126
 127 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
 128 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
 129 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
 130
 131 </ul>
 132
 133 <p>I like also
 134 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
 135 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
 136 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
 137
 138 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 139 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 140
 141 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
 142
 143 <ul>
 144
 145 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
 146
 147 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
 148     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
 149     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
 150
 151 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
 152
 153 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
 154     system.</li>
 155
 156 </ul>
 157 </div>
 158
 159       <div class="tags">Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.</div>
 160
 161
 162     </div>
 163
 164
 165
 166
 167     <div id="sidebar">
 168
 169
 170
 171 <h2>Archive</h2>
 172 <ul>
 173
 174 <li>2015
 175 <ul>
 176
 177 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 178
 179 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
 180
 181 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
 182
 183 </ul></li>
 184
 185 <li>2014
 186 <ul>
 187
 188 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 189
 190 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
 191
 192 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
 193
 194 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 195
 196 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
 197
 198 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 199
 200 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
 201
 202 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
 203
 204 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
 205
 206 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
 207
 208 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 209
 210 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
 211
 212 </ul></li>
 213
 214 <li>2013
 215 <ul>
 216
 217 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
 218
 219 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
 220
 221 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
 222
 223 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
 224
 225 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 226
 227 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
 228
 229 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 230
 231 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 232
 233 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
 234
 235 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
 236
 237 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
 238
 239 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 240
 241 </ul></li>
 242
 243 <li>2012
 244 <ul>
 245
 246 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 247
 248 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
 249
 250 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
 251
 252 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
 253
 254 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
 255
 256 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
 257
 258 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
 259
 260 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 261
 262 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
 263
 264 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
 265
 266 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
 267
 268 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 269
 270 </ul></li>
 271
 272 <li>2011
 273 <ul>
 274
 275 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
 276
 277 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
 278
 279 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
 280
 281 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 282
 283 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
 284
 285 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 286
 287 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 288
 289 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 290
 291 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
 292
 293 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 294
 295 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 296
 297 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
 298
 299 </ul></li>
 300
 301 <li>2010
 302 <ul>
 303
 304 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 305
 306 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 307
 308 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 309
 310 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 311
 312 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 313
 314 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
 315
 316 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
 317
 318 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
 319
 320 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
 321
 322 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
 323
 324 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
 325
 326 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
 327
 328 </ul></li>
 329
 330 <li>2009
 331 <ul>
 332
 333 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 334
 335 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 336
 337 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 338
 339 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 340
 341 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 342
 343 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 344
 345 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 346
 347 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 348
 349 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 350
 351 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 352
 353 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 354
 355 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 356
 357 </ul></li>
 358
 359 <li>2008
 360 <ul>
 361
 362 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 363
 364 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 365
 366 </ul></li>
 367
 368 </ul>
 369
 370
 371
 372 <h2>Tags</h2>
 373 <ul>
 374
 375  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
 376
 377  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 378
 379  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 380
 381  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
 382
 383  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
 384
 385  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
 386
 387  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
 388
 389  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
 390
 391  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (109)</a></li>
 392
 393  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (151)</a></li>
 394
 395  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
 396
 397  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
 398
 399  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (12)</a></li>
 400
 401  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
 402
 403  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (271)</a></li>
 404
 405  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (22)</a></li>
 406
 407  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
 408
 409  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (14)</a></li>
 410
 411  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
 412
 413  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (14)</a></li>
 414
 415  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
 416
 417  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
 418
 419  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
 420
 421  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
 422
 423  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
 424
 425  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
 426
 427  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 428
 429  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
 430
 431  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (32)</a></li>
 432
 433  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (260)</a></li>
 434
 435  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (175)</a></li>
 436
 437  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (15)</a></li>
 438
 439  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
 440
 441  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (51)</a></li>
 442
 443  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (83)</a></li>
 444
 445  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
 446
 447  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
 448
 449  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
 450
 451  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
 452
 453  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
 454
 455  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 456
 457  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
 458
 459  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
 460
 461  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
 462
 463  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
 464
 465  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
 466
 467  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (46)</a></li>
 468
 469  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
 470
 471  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
 472
 473  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (30)</a></li>
 474
 475  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
 476
 477  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
 478
 479  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
 480
 481  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (50)</a></li>
 482
 483  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
 484
 485  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (35)</a></li>
 486
 487 </ul>
 488
 489
 490     </div>
 491     <p style="text-align: right">
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