blog/data/2014-03-30-skolelinux-roger-marsal.txt

   1 Title: Debian Edu interview: Roger Marsal
   2 Tags: english, debian edu, intervju
   3 Date: 2014-03-30 11:40
   4
   5 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
   6 keep gaining new users.  Some weeks ago, a person showed up on IRC,
   7 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>, with a
   8 wish to contribute, and I managed to get a interview with this great
   9 contributor Roger Marsal to learn more about his background.</p>
  10
  11 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
  12
  13 <p>My name is Roger Marsal, I'm 27 years old (1986 generation) and I
  14 live in Barcelona, Spain. I've got a strong business background and I
  15 work as a patrimony manager and as a real estate agent.  Additionally,
  16 I've co-founded a British based tech company that is nowadays on the
  17 last development phase of a new social networking concept.</p>
  18
  19 <p>I'm a Linux enthusiast that started its journey with Ubuntu four years
  20 ago and have recently switched to Debian seeking rock solid stability
  21 and as a necessary step to gain expertise.</p>
  22
  23 <p>In a nutshell, I spend my days working and learning as much as I
  24 can to face both my job, entrepreneur project and feed my Linux
  25 hunger.</p>
  26
  27 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
  28 project?</strong></p>
  29
  30 <p>I discovered the <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP</a> advantages
  31 with "Ubuntu 12.04 alternate install" and after a year of use I
  32 started looking for an alternative.  Even though I highly value and
  33 respect the Ubuntu project, I thought it was necessary for me to
  34 change to a more robust and stable alternative.  As far as I was using
  35 Debian on my personal laptop I thought it would be fine to install
  36 Debian and configure an LTSP server myself.  Surprised, I discovered
  37 that the Debian project also supported a kind of Edubuntu equivalent,
  38 and after having some pain I obtained a Debian Edu network up and
  39 running.  I just loved it.</p>
  40
  41 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
  42 Edu?</strong></p>
  43
  44 <p>I found a main advantage in that, once you know "the tips and
  45 tricks", a new installation just works out of the box. It's the most
  46 complete alternative I've found to create an LTSP network. All the
  47 other distributions seems to be made of plastic, Debian Edu seems to
  48 be made of steel.</p>
  49
  50 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
  51 Edu?</strong></p>
  52
  53 <p>I found two main disadvantages.</p>
  54
  55 <p>I'm not an expert but I've got notions and I had to spent a considerable
  56 amount of time trying to bring up a standard network topology. I'm quite
  57 stubborn and I just worked until I did but I'm sure many people with few
  58 resources (not big schools, but academies for example) would have switched
  59 or dropped.</p>
  60
  61 <p>It's amazing how such a complex system like Debian Edu has achieved
  62 this out-of-the-box state. Even though tweaking without breaking gets
  63 more difficult, as more factors have to be considered. This can
  64 discourage many people too.</p>
  65
  66 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
  67
  68 <p>I use Debian, Firefox, Okular, Inkscape, LibreOffice and
  69 Virtualbox.</p>
  70
  71
  72 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
  73 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
  74
  75 <p>I don't think there is a need for a particular strategy. The free
  76 attribute in both "freedom" and "no price" meanings is what will
  77 really bring free software to schools. In my experience I can think of
  78 the <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">"R" statistical language</a>; a
  79 few years a ago was an extremely nerd tool for university people.
  80 Today it's being increasingly used to teach statistics at many
  81 different level of studies.  I believe free and open software will
  82 increasingly gain popularity, but I'm sure schools will be one of the
  83 first scenarios where this will happen.</p>