- <title>Debian Edu interview: Roger Marsal</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 30 Mar 2014 11:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
-keep gaining new users. Some weeks ago, a person showed up on IRC,
-<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>, with a
-wish to contribute, and I managed to get a interview with this great
-contributor Roger Marsal to learn more about his background.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
-
-<p>My name is Roger Marsal, I'm 27 years old (1986 generation) and I
-live in Barcelona, Spain. I've got a strong business background and I
-work as a patrimony manager and as a real estate agent. Additionally,
-I've co-founded a British based tech company that is nowadays on the
-last development phase of a new social networking concept.</p>
-
-<p>I'm a Linux enthusiast that started its journey with Ubuntu four years
-ago and have recently switched to Debian seeking rock solid stability
-and as a necessary step to gain expertise.</p>
-
-<p>In a nutshell, I spend my days working and learning as much as I
-can to face both my job, entrepreneur project and feed my Linux
-hunger.</p>
-
-<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
-project?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I discovered the <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP</a> advantages
-with "Ubuntu 12.04 alternate install" and after a year of use I
-started looking for an alternative. Even though I highly value and
-respect the Ubuntu project, I thought it was necessary for me to
-change to a more robust and stable alternative. As far as I was using
-Debian on my personal laptop I thought it would be fine to install
-Debian and configure an LTSP server myself. Surprised, I discovered
-that the Debian project also supported a kind of Edubuntu equivalent,
-and after having some pain I obtained a Debian Edu network up and
-running. I just loved it.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I found a main advantage in that, once you know "the tips and
-tricks", a new installation just works out of the box. It's the most
-complete alternative I've found to create an LTSP network. All the
-other distributions seems to be made of plastic, Debian Edu seems to
-be made of steel.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I found two main disadvantages.</p>
-
-<p>I'm not an expert but I've got notions and I had to spent a considerable
-amount of time trying to bring up a standard network topology. I'm quite
-stubborn and I just worked until I did but I'm sure many people with few
-resources (not big schools, but academies for example) would have switched
-or dropped.</p>
-
-<p>It's amazing how such a complex system like Debian Edu has achieved
-this out-of-the-box state. Even though tweaking without breaking gets
-more difficult, as more factors have to be considered. This can
-discourage many people too.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I use Debian, Firefox, Okular, Inkscape, LibreOffice and
-Virtualbox.</p>
-
-
-<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
-get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I don't think there is a need for a particular strategy. The free
-attribute in both "freedom" and "no price" meanings is what will
-really bring free software to schools. In my experience I can think of
-the <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">"R" statistical language</a>; a
-few years a ago was an extremely nerd tool for university people.
-Today it's being increasingly used to teach statistics at many
-different level of studies. I believe free and open software will
-increasingly gain popularity, but I'm sure schools will be one of the
-first scenarios where this will happen.</p>
+ <title>First Jessie based Debian Edu released (alpha0)</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Mon, 27 Oct 2014 20:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>I am happy to report that I on behalf of the Debian Edu team just
+sent out
+<a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2014/10/msg00000.html">this
+announcement</a>:</p>
+
+<pre>
+The Debian Edu Team is pleased to announce the release of Debian Edu
+Jessie 8.0+edu0~alpha0
+
+Debian Edu is a complete operating system for schools. Through its
+various installation profiles you can install servers, workstations
+and laptops which will work together on the school network. With
+Debian Edu, the teachers themselves or their technical support can
+roll out a complete multi-user multi-machine study environment within
+hours or a few days. Debian Edu comes with hundreds of applications
+pre-installed, but you can always add more packages from Debian.
+
+For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
+installation instructions are available, including detailed
+instructions in the manual[1] explaining the first steps, such as
+setting up a network or adding users. Please note that the password
+for the user your prompted for during installation must have a length
+of at least 5 characters!
+
+ [1] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie</a> &gt;
+
+Would you like to give your school's computer a longer life? Are you
+tired of sneaker administration, running from computer to computer
+reinstalling the operating system? Would you like to administrate all
+the computers in your school using only a couple of hours every week?
+Check out Debian Edu Jessie!
+
+Skolelinux is used by at least two hundred schools all over the world,
+mostly in Germany and Norway.
+
+About Debian Edu and Skolelinux
+===============================
+
+Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux[2], is a Linux distribution based
+on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
+configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
+server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
+waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
+Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
+initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
+machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
+provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
+centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
+services. The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
+packages[3] and more are available from the Debian archive, and
+schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
+environment.
+
+ [2] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">http://www.skolelinux.org/</a> &gt;
+ [3] &lt;URL: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html</a> &gt;
+
+Full release notes and manual
+=============================
+
+Below the download URLs there is a list of some of the new features
+and bugfixes of Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie. The full
+list is part of the manual. (See the feature list in the manual[4] for
+the English version.) For some languages manual translations are
+available, see the manual translation overview[5].
+
+ [4] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features</a> &gt;
+ [5] &lt;URL: <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/</a> &gt;
+
+Where to get it
+---------------
+
+To download the multiarch netinstall CD release (624 MiB) you can use
+
+ * <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso</a>
+ * <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso</a>
+ * rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso .
+
+The SHA1SUM of this image is: 361188818e036ce67280a572f757de82ebfeb095
+
+New features for Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie released 2014-10-27
+===============================================================================
+
+
+Installation changes
+--------------------
+
+ * PXE installation now installs firmware automatically for the hardware present.
+
+Software updates
+----------------
+
+Everything which is new in Debian Jessie 8.0, eg:
+
+ * Linux kernel 3.16.x
+ * Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.11.12, GNOME 3.14, Xfce 4.10,
+ LXDE 0.5.6 and MATE 1.8 (KDE "Plasma" is installed by default; to
+ choose one of the others see manual.)
+ * the browsers Iceweasel 31 ESR and Chromium 38
+ * !LibreOffice 4.3.3
+ * GOsa 2.7.4
+ * LTSP 5.5.4
+ * CUPS print system 1.7.5
+ * new boot framework: systemd
+ * Educational toolbox GCompris 14.07
+ * Music creator Rosegarden 14.02
+ * Image editor Gimp 2.8.14
+ * Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.13.0
+ * golearn 0.9
+ * tuxpaint 0.9.22
+ * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
+ * Debian Jessie includes about 42000 packages available for
+ installation.
+ * More information about Debian Jessie 8.0 is provided in the release
+ notes[6] and the installation manual[7].
+
+ [6] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes</a> &gt;
+ [7] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual</a> &gt;
+
+Fixed bugs
+----------
+
+ * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
+ DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
+ information is corrected (Debian bug #710362)
+ * and many others.
+
+Documentation and translation updates
+-------------------------------------
+
+ * The Debian Edu Jessie Manual is fully translated to German, French,
+ Italian, Danish and Dutch. Partly translated versions exist for
+ Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.
+
+Other changes
+-------------
+
+ * Due to new Squid settings, powering off or rebooting the main
+ server takes more time.
+ * To manage printers localhost:631 has to be used, currently www:631
+ doesn't work.
+
+Regressions / known problems
+----------------------------
+
+ * Installing LTSP chroot fails with a bug related to eatmydata about
+ exim4-config failing to run its postinst (see Debian bug #765694
+ and Debian bug #762103).
+ * Munin collection is not properly configured on clients (Debian bug
+ #764594). The fix is available in a newer version of munin-node.
+ * PXE setup for Main Server and Thin Client Server setup does not
+ work when installing on a machine without direct Internet access.
+ Will be fixed when Debian bug #766960 is fixed in Jessie.
+
+See the status page[8] for the complete list.
+
+ [8] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie</a> &gt;
+
+How to report bugs
+------------------
+
+&lt;URL: <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a> &gt;
+
+About Debian
+============
+
+The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
+free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
+the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
+volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
+maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a
+huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
+operating system.
+
+Contact Information
+For further information, please visit the Debian web pages[9] or send
+mail to press@debian.org.
+
+ [9] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a> &gt;
+</pre>