X-Git-Url: https://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/345cf2fb6db6894b8a6711fac26fbe480e150647..db17aeb9c07bf2d9dea4f52be2f63b99b1aaa499:/blog/index.rss?ds=inline diff --git a/blog/index.rss b/blog/index.rss index 0c9a356431..0b33332e39 100644 --- a/blog/index.rss +++ b/blog/index.rss @@ -6,6 +6,63 @@ http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ + + Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html + Sun, 8 Apr 2012 10:50:00 +0200 + <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution +like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, +and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big +contributor to the +<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian +Edu Squeeze release manual</a>. + +<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p> + +<p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has +occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p> + +<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu +project?</strong></p> + +<p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user! The only +reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang +around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things +they'd like a native English speaker to proofread... So I did a sweep +through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of +"localisation".</p> + +<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian +Edu?</strong></p> + +<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian +Edu?</strong></p> + +<p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it! In fact I +had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the +education system.</p> + +<p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up +as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do +everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend +money on the latest hardware.</p> + +<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p> + +<p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the +software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other +words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p> + +<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to +get schools to use free software?</strong></p> + +<p>Well, I don't know. I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning +with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked +you would hardly need a strategy.</p> + + + Why the KDE menu is slow when /usr/ is NFS mounted - and a workaround http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_the_KDE_menu_is_slow_when__usr__is_NFS_mounted___and_a_workaround.html @@ -526,90 +583,5 @@ Trond Mæhlum for innspill om skoler med Linux.</p> - - Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html - Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:15:00 +0100 - <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> -users are spread all across the globe. The second inteview after -<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the -Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and -long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p> - -<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p> - -<p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings -Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical -author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also -contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of -encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six -years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we -weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable -installations.</p> - -<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu -project?</strong></p> - -<p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in -London which I attended. However at that time our school network had -just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came -along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a -mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as -well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems -have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the -LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all -these things we decided to try it.</p> - -<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?</strong></p> - -<p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart -from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing" -goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which -would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and -low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know -that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25 -Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had -proprietary software everywhere.</p> - -<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?</strong></p> - -<p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and -how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with -various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only -English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as -users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p> - -<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p> - -<p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba, -OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the -desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I -use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if -that counts...)</p> - -<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to -get schools to use free software?</strong></p> - -<p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed -and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels -the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office -applications". However, schools today are experiencing budget -constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows -XP. At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use -iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no -longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last -realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're -putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the -first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p> - -<p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use -free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p> - - -