[01:24] hey pleia2 [01:24] Evening all [01:24] hello sbalneav [07:50] hello jsgotangco [12:47] hi [12:47] Ηι [12:47] Hi [12:47] I need advice on Edubuntu [12:49] Edubuntu or Xp pro with educational software for a primary school computer room [12:49] Not sure whether it will worth the learning curve for myself and the teacher [13:34] hi [13:37] hi is any1 here [13:39] hellooo [13:42] hi khabi [13:57] hi khabi === apachelogger_ is now known as apachelogger [14:26] highvoltage [14:26] hi all [14:28] i need to set up a computer room and i looking at edubuntu [14:28] it is for a primary school. [14:36] khabi: awesome [14:39] i need some advice [14:39] ask away [14:40] why should go for edubuntu as apposed to a windows enviroment with educational software [14:41] aside from price? [14:42] you don't have to worry about licensing [14:42] you don't have to worry about anti-virus software [14:43] you don't have to worry about the kids breaking the system (don't give sudo access) [14:43] you get free education games, and there are a _lot_ of them [14:43] you get free upgrades, to the OS and the games, for life [14:43] the upgrades aren't going to require throwing out your current computers and buying new ones [14:44] now, from a more technical side: [14:44] The kids learn a different platform, variety of experience is important to learning [14:45] maybe not as important to primary school kids, but Linux knowledge was the #1 most desired technical skill in a recent study [14:45] Morning all [14:45] from an admin point of view: [14:45] you have full control over the computers [14:46] if you don't like an app, remove it [14:46] you can customize the interface, Sabayon lets you create multiple configuration profiles [14:47] if you use LTSP, you can roll out a lab based on thin clients for much cheaper [14:47] have I missed anything? [14:47] Oh yeah, it's free [14:50] thanks [14:51] i have looked at some of the benefits you mentioned. I am also looking [14:52] at suggesting curriculum based on the software i install [14:55] Being free is a benefit but it comes at a price [14:58] Do you know of any South African Schools using the software [15:02] Many are using Linux. I beleive the Shuttleworth Foundation has Linux desktops in many schoold [15:03] Are they really happy ? Getting support is a problem itself [15:07] mhall119 [15:07] Are you there ? [15:07] Support is many, many times better in Linux than in Windows [15:07] In Windows I never got a bug that I reported fixed [15:08] In Linux, I got a lot of them fixed, by either me or others... [15:10] The same goes for feature requests - never on Windows, many times on Linux. [15:10] And my students are much happier with Linux than when we had Windows [15:14] so you have implemented at a school [15:15] 3 schools so far (by myself), and lots of others that followed an installation manual I wrote, yes [15:15] you have an installation manual ? Where can I find it? [15:16] Sorry, it's in Greek, and it's specific to how we want to setup things here in Greece (that's why I didn't write it in English at the first place...) [15:16] But there are lot of instructions out there [15:16] Should I go for ubuntu and install all the educational packages or edubuntu [15:17] Whatever you like [15:17] No big difference there... [15:18] Are you a teacher or the administrator? [15:19] In Greece most computer teachers are also the administrators [15:19] The schools are small, so they don't have extra staff for administration [15:19] I understand. Its good that I am speaking to the teacher because you [15:20] have first hand experience interaction with kids [15:21] I wanted your point of view. What age students do you teach? [15:22] In the last 2 years with Linux, I was at schools with 12-15 y.o. kids [15:22] This year I'm at 15-18 y.o kids [15:22] Thats great ! Tell me I am I disturbing you by asking so many questions ? [15:23] No no problem it just may take a little time to answer sometimes cause I'm also doing other stuff... [15:24] Thank You ! What software do you use with 12-15 yrs [15:26] I've ported 15 Gb of windows-based Greek educational apps that the ministry had, and I made a repository of them: http://ts.sch.gr/repo/ [15:26] So now all the schools can install them by just doing "sudo apt-get install gymnasio"... [15:26] That repo had 1 Tb of traffic last month, so it goes pretty well. [15:28] Other than that, we mostly use openoffice, firefox, kturtle etc, not a lot of kde-edu or other apps... [15:30] Interesting. Do the kids have internet access ? [15:31] Can I use software you have ported ? [15:32] Yeah, the kids have internet access (we use squid for caching & access control), [15:32] sorry khabi, had to step out for a minute [15:32] and while you could use the software, it's in Greek.. :-/ [15:33] It's software specifically written for Greek textbooks... [15:34] ok thanks. you know the saying, "thats greek to me" [15:37] :-) [15:37] there are others that are multi-lingual [15:37] I had no luck in getting squid to work.The learning curve to get up running [15:37] gCompris has the ability to create lesson plans I think [15:38] khabi: there are simpler proxies you can use for content filterin [15:38] squid is good if you have a centralized server though [15:39] getting squid to work is pretty easy (for basic stuff) [15:39] You can also add 2 lines and make it cache updates, [15:39] and you can force all the clients to go through it through gconf mandatory settings [15:40] do you use webmin for the reporting [15:40] or iptables [15:41] i would like to have a try at setting up squid again [15:42] Where in greece are you from ? [15:49] Ioannina [15:53] How do you centrally manage all the user accounts [15:56] In LTSP, it's all in 1 PC so it's easy [15:56] In standalone Ubuntu installations, I don't. I tell each team of students to sit on the same PC each time [15:56] So I have the same accounts per class (e.g. 12 PCs = 12 accounts "classA") [15:57] and I only tell the students to change the "real name", so I can see them with iTalc, and on the top gnome panel [15:57] This way I can continue to work even when the local network or server is down [15:58] ...and the students do have their own stuff, files, wallpaper etc that noone else can see [16:04] today was magical: I actually saw tiny drops of rain fall from the sky [16:09] alkisq you stay in such an interesting place [16:09] khabi: where do you live? [16:10] South Africa, Durban [16:10] heh, sounds exotic to me :) [16:12] You will surprized how exotic it is ! you will here alot about Durban next year [16:12] World cup is going to in South Africa [16:17] khabi: yes and in south africa we'll be tired of hearing about soccer === ubott2 is now known as ubottu [16:57] highvoltage [16:57] where in sa are u from [16:59] khabi: cape town === jfluhmann_ is now known as jfluhmann [17:20] hey pleia2 [17:20] cprofitt: hey [17:21] still at UDS? [20:12] I'm making an ubuntu remix with live ltsp on it, what's the correct phrase? "Ubuntu Greek Education Remix" or "Ubuntu Greek Educational Remix"? [21:03] Has anyone run into mime type issues in 8.04 where a .desktop file (type=link, to open a website in a browser) gets opened in gedit and not firefox/epiphany/etc? [21:20] nm, found that it didn't work because i had hacked my firefox.desktop ;)