Re: LUG: [Fwd: Linux in Schools] - Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:28:48 -0400

Subject : Re: LUG: [Fwd: Linux in Schools]

From : Alexander Ray <alexjray.ncsu@gmail.[redacted]>

Date : Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:28:48 -0400

Hi Ben!

I'm glad you're so interested in it. I'm just a member of the LUG here, but I think I can give you my two cents.

Realm started out as EOS Linux, a distro so old they'd sell boxes of floppies of it to students to use on their own. That was waaaaay before my time. Now, we have Realm linux, which is mostly based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) but there are other versions out there (I believe a CentOS one and i know there is a Fedora based Realm kit).

Some of the advantages of Realm:
It allows users to set up logins based on unityIDs. These are what everyone uses around campus: it logs you in to your university mail account, registers for classes, even pays for print quota. Pretty much everything here at State (electronically) authenticates you via your unityID, so this allows you to set up a computer and have users get their university-hosted home directory and settings and even print tokens (all of this even if they're logging on that physical computer for the first time) because it pulls all of them from AFS.

WebKickstart: You dont need any install CD's to install even a whole computer lab full of Realm Stations, you can just give webkickstart configuration options and it'll do the magic for you.

It also has a lot of nifty administration tools for you to use (of note: Project Liquid Dragon, an administrative panel to access Realm RHEL computers through a web interface).

I have no idea how teachers are trained, but my guess is the same way they're trained to use Windows. That is, not explicitly at all. If a teacher needs help theres numerous places from them to go, from our own help@ncsu.[redacted] to other professors to even students. Linux (especially the very Graphical-Friendly distrobutions) are actually starting to get a name for being easy on non-computer-professional users.

I CAN tell you how the students are trained though, at least in the college of engineering. The college of Engineering has a first year class: E 101, that is an introduction to the college of engineering. In that class they go over (among other things) remote file transfer from the University's AFS (*NIX) space to personal (Mac, PC, *NIX) computers. Also, they go over basic command-line file operations, and are provided with resources so that they can find their way around through ssh to access class files and run simple commands. Engineering also will help students get an X-Server on their machine if there isn't one available already (Mac, PC) for use with an ssh client to use graphical programs.

I can only assume that professors in the college of engineering are given at least a cursory introduction like that.

As for the computer labs, I've been pleasantly pleased with the variety. Most labs support at least some diversity (if not good diversity) between PC's, Mac's and Red Hat Linux machines, with even a few Solaris computers in the mix occasionally (I wouldnt touch the solaris ones though, they are pretty out of date).

Also: another thing to consider is a virtual computing lab, like the VCL here at state. It can provide a remote linux machine for students on-demand, that they can use their newly-installed X-Server and ssh client to access. It gives every student the ability to run linux programs 'on their computer' (over the web) with installing another operating system.

If they want to install another operating system..... well, thats what the LUG is for.

Hope Jack Neely can put his ideas on here too, he's kinda the source for the Realm project now.

Cheers
~ajray

Also: feel free to hop on our IRC channel: #ncsulug at freenode
its not *always* active but we're occasionally having fun and being social there

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 6:23 PM, Adam Guthrie < ispiked@gmail.[redacted] > wrote:

Ben,

I'm forwarding this to the LUG mailing list. I don't know a whole lot
about Realm Linux myself, but I know some other people in the LUG have
tooled around with it.

-Adam

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Ben Edwards < edwarben@gmail.[redacted] >
To: adguthri@ncsu.[redacted]
Subject: Linux in Schools
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:51:58 -0400

Hello. I am currently enrolled at Randolph Community College. I need
to do a proposal for my Technical Writing class. For this proposal I
was considering proposing that RCC installed at least one lab with
Linux on the computers. While I was researching how to train the
teachers at my school, I found that your college has a LUG and its own
distro.

My question is how are teachers trained? I also am interested in more
information about Realm Linux. Do you think that a similar distro
could be put into schools?

Thank you in advance.

Benjamin Edwards