[sf-lug] SF out-reach for FOSS

[Charles N Wyble]

learning new computer technology is not something that the principal has
room in her life for.  Sad but true.
 

Wonderful news. Perhaps some of the other schools could also be switched
over to FOSS 


That is our goal.  But it is a lot of work and requires a lot of time and
effort.  In fact, there are tasks that are going undone at the first KIPP
school, such as getting sound working across the network, installing a proxy
server in the lab, and trouble-shooting all of the boxes that are going from
the school to the March 1 St. Anthony's Foundation (SAF) event.  

 

[Charles N Wyble] 

 

Oh I certainly agree. It does take time and effort. Unfortunately I am down
in Southern California and as such am not really able to help nearly as much
as I would like to.  

 



There is also just the raw fact of time, and getting to these other schools.
To be effective, we really need to have one person "adopt" a school close to
their home, so that adminning that school is not a burden.  I stop by the
first KIPP school every day on the way to work to make sure our children sys
admins have turned on the lab correctly, and every night to make sure that
they have shut the lab down.  They do a great job most of the time, and I
have event taught them a few CLI skills, such as sudo reboot and how to
reach a virtual shell, so they are good, but they *are* children, after all
(age 13).  

 

[Charles N Wyble] 

 

I am not sure why you emphasize the fact that they are children? Why is this
important? Teaching them vital system skills while they are young is an
excellent thing to do. They can be taught skills and given more and more
responsibility as they prove themselves. 


 

and a tech support co op created? Is there any way that the teachers work
load could be lessened with software? Ideally free software.


Not at this school.  Not in this decade.  The principle is dead-set against
FOSS.

 

[Charles N Wyble] 

 

Well by tech co op I was referring to various LUG members providing tech
support, perhaps in partnership with the existing vendor. Just a thought J
May I ask why the principle is so dead set against FOSS? Have you heard this
from the principle directly? Has the principle had a bad experience with
FOSS or implementers of FOSS in the past? 

 

 

  It will take a teacher to decide to get familiar with FOSS, and I have
offered boxes to the teachers, but they are not really gung-ho on learning
it.  There is only one teacher who has expressed an interest in maybe sort
of having Linux installed on one of his notebooks in dual boot mode, but he
keeps forgetting to bring in the notebook, and so I am not pressing it. 

 

[Charles N Wyble] 

 

Actually I would focus my efforts on the students. They will adopt the
software and do amazing things with it, and then the teachers will see this
and adopt FOSS as well. The network effect.

 


 

[Charles N Wyble] 

 

This concerns me a bit. Any discrimination against a particular group could
reflect very badly on SF LUG and the FOSS community in general. I don't know
James, or his views. Certainly he is providing the boxes for free (I
presume) and as such can choose where they go. However I would be very
careful about restricting where the boxes go, and the reasons for denying
access.

Well, James is a busy guy, and don't usually get more than 5 mins of his
time at any given moment of time, and so I wouldn't even begin to discuss
broader topics like this, as I always have too many nitty gritty issues to
discuss with him at any moment.  So I just respect his wishes.  There are
lots of groups to help, and very few people who have James' vision,
commitment, and resources, and so my initial inclination is to just go with
the flow.

 

[Charles N Wyble] 

 

Oh certainly. I am not trying to be little James or his efforts. 

 


  

[Charles N Wyble] 

 

Excellent idea. I plan on brining a couple machines with a full 32 and 64
bit package mirror (well pretty much all the packages one would need anyway
such as GNOME/KDE/Ubuntu Studio). 

Please watch for further announcements from Andrew Fife and / or James
Burgett about the choice of mirrors and distros and file servers.  I know
that James visited our first KIPP school last week, and he mentioned that he
was going to bring a file server.  So please don't get ahead of the game too
far, and please wait for that announcement.  In the past, James has been
warranting the boxes that come out of ACCRC.org (please check with his site
for the details of the warranty) and so he has usually told me that he would
like to stick with just one distro and just one set of configurations.  This
is going to be a really big effort, and will involve a lot of people, and so
we will probably have the best chance of succeeding if we standardize on
Andrew and James' choices.

[Charles N Wyble] 

 

I will certainly watch for further information. I just wanted to volunteer
some hardware and a mirror. Never hurts to have more redundancy. J 

 

As for one distro/set of configurations I completely agree. I would simply
be providing a boot server and package pool. What configuration is chosen
from that pool is totally up to the system builders.  I am happy to
standardize on the choices, and simply am offering supporting foundational
infrastructure. 



With the SAF event, though, we have more latitude.  We only need about 5
people for that event, but if you would like to be one of the five, you will
get more flexibility on whatever distros you want to exhibit on whatever
boxes you would bring there. 

 

[Charles N Wyble] 

 

I am quite happy with Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10). I'll go with whatever
people want though. J 


 

They can also be used as boot/provisioning servers, which will vastly speed
up installation. I can also bring a couple 24 port cisco switches which can
be used for wired network access, as that will most likely be needed.

We will need switches at both the SAF and the KIPP school installfest, and
I'm sure that Andrew and James will appreciate the offer of switches and
hardware.  So please wait for an announcement from Andrew / James about
equipment for the ACCRC.org installfest.  But I am sure that we will need
that equipment at SAF. 

 

[Charles N Wyble] 

 

Certainly. Not sure if I'll be able to make the SAF event but we will see. 

 

 





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