LiteMepis as Advocacy

I guess you could be right there....

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

Or if we targeted a version of Mepis specifically for schools, we could unveil...EduMepis.

I think that would make for a cool project. Outline:

- drum up a bunch of people who want to go for MEPIS in SCHOOLS
- let them come up with minimum hardware specs and functional design. Not only of the OS and the packages, but more a full classroom solution (maintenance, firewalling, content screening, teacher tools, printing, document storage etc)
- make this the MEPIS Edu Package that is supplied to schools, and work with MEPIS volunteers to lend a hand in setting it up....

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

As a university lecturer I was first thinking that the project you describe, carlops, should be spearheaded by someone who understands better than I do what happens at the primary and secondary levels.

Then I realized that, since Jon turned me on to Mepis, I've been b*tching about the Microsoft-dependency of students/faculty/administration at my university (throughout the system, actually). But the point is: by the time students get to my level, it's *too late* to undo a dependency they've already developed through twelve years of indoctrination elsewhere.

So I'm wondering how advocacy of Mepis in, say, a high school (or lower) would coordinate with advocacy at the university level. Would the latter take care of itself if the former was achieved? Maybe not. As someone in the forum once pointed out, you'll never get anywhere in the universities because of Microsoft's lock on bulk-licensing.

I'm not sure where to go with this. But it seems that the coordination simply must be established somehow. Otherwise, what's the point of getting Mepis into the schools if it gets choked off at the colleges??

--Malanrich

Malanrich, I think that it is a country dependent issue. I live in Spain, and a couple of the regions here (let's say State Governments) are actively promoting Linux. They even have their own distros (Linex and Guadalinux).

Then again, universities should not try to promote the use of Linux among their students if they don't facilitate it. In this case, it would be 'practice what you preach'. So set up computer classrooms with Linux, enforce document creation in open standards, create a helpdesk for people with questions about Linux (standardize on a distro). Best would be to do this as a pilot project. Find a faculty that have problems in making ends meet, promise them savings in their IT budget and then make it happen....

I also firmly believe that when college students are exposed to Linux, in the long run that is going to lead to a wider adoption. So starting with colleges or primary schools will lay the foundation for the future...

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

Carlops, thanks for your always interesting observations.

You give a good view of the big picture--which can seem overwhelming in scope. I think some realistic baby steps would include these:

1) Get a new "lite" version of Mepis targeting primary and secondary education (which normally depends on older hardware; university-level work, in contrast, involves more current systems easily capable of running the latest Mepis)

2) Whenever and however we can, preach the importance of document creation in open standards (when you mentioned this I realized how much it paves the way for open-source culture in general).

Any gentle reminder you--as a moderator--could give Warren about the new LiteMepis would help keep things moving.

I don't know if being a moderator adds much weight to my words... regardless of that, I would opt for a slightly different approach.

We need someone / someones that are ready and willing to get this off the ground in a functional / organizational way. In the end, if it's just you who's interested, it's gonna be a hell of a job to get the project going.... So, rather than asking for a hefty development cycle before having a more or less basic idea of what it is that should be achieved, I would propose checking in the community if there is interest in participating. We could ask Warren and Matt if they want to dedicate an item in the podcast to it. They would have to be fed with input: 'we are thinking of a special MEPIS with these characteristics. We need people with certain knowledge (educational software, setting up a manageable environment of MEPIS PCs etc), we are thinking of schools at level X... '. If that attracts attention, we have something to go on.

The MEPIS community page allows for the adding of new projects. I would however first post a call for participation here and at all other MEPIS forums (france, italy, spanish is not so big yet, but there are people stopping by). See if we get response....

What do you think?

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

I think this project has some pretty amazing potential.

First I'd mull over some clarifications:

On the one hand, a hefty development cycle could be avoided (or at least postponed) if we're talking about an updated version of MepisLite to work on older hardware. There seems substantial interest in this already. See this thread:

http://www.mepis.org/node/11606

On the other hand, I've been talking with Jon since forever about an "academic" version of Mepis (or Linux in general). What I should probably do is take a look at Edubuntu and do some asking around to discover whether the development of a unique "school" version of Mepis is warranted. I'd need help on this because, again, I'm based at the university level and know little about how things work at lower levels. (But I'm eager to learn, considering how the two need to be coordinated.)

So the basic question is whether to launch this project as a particular use to be made of a new MepisLite or as a call for an educational version of Mepis.

I'd like to hear which direction you lean toward. I'll think about it. Anyone eavesdropping on this can chime in too. After a little thought, I'll draft some kind of proposal to see what response I get from the community.

Also: It was Warren himself who started the issue going. I wonder what kind of Mepis he had in mind?

And again also: Jon and Enigma One live within hollering distance of me and both seem interested in Linux in schools. Maybe they'd want to give some input.

I'll sleep on it. It's 1.40 AM here, and I really need to get in....

But I agree. Linux in the classroom has lots of potential. And MEPIS has some characteristics that make it a very good candidate....

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

Mark, I think coming up with a version of Mepis focused on education is a fine idea. I have not played around enough with Edubuntu, but I think there are two additional items that are being used by Edubuntu besides just the, um, focus on education.

The first is hardware focus. You have brought up a good difference between the use of computers in primary/secondary schools vs higher education. That is, many elementary schools have OLD HARDWARE and very slim budgets. I think any method that could be used to show a school how they could get more useful life out of their computers would be well received. I say "useful life" because there is still the political resistance to anything non-Microsoft. So this issue is somewhat addressed by your desire to update MepisLite, and also as carlops pointed out, we'd probably need to get a better idea of what this older hardware consists.

The second thing that Edubuntu tries to accomplish is a single distribution that can be installed in two formats: 1) A standalone computer, 2) A "server" for "dumb" computers i.e. a "terminal-server" system. That would also address some of the fuller issues that carlops points out: maintenance, firewalls, security access, etc.

But then, yes, aside from the above "minor" issues, putting together a base distribution that would be useful in an educational setting would be wonderful. Perhaps some of the stuff I brought up above, as well as additional packages, could be put into a special repository for this purpose?

So LiteMepis could be used to perform the "base install", and then additional configuration goodness could be done through a simple use of synpatic or apt-get.

I almost forgot. I agree that iif we can get students to learn that there are "open formats" into which they can store things, and "open standards" that can be followed, it will go a very long way towards breaking the MS hold on education. But it will be a tough fight initially

Jon

In /dev/null, no one can hear you type...

Excellent idea, Jon, about having an "education repository" to layer onto LiteMepis as a base install. This hits three birds with one stone: giving users the new "lite" version they've wanted, lessening the work for Warren, and supplying a nicely configurable resource as the main selling point for introducing this into the schools.

Nice.

--Mark