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Lenny based Debian Edu 5.0.4+edu0 available (aka Skolelinux)



Hi,

I'm proud to announce Debian Edu 5.0.4+edu0 is finally ready for you to 
download and enjoy! 

Skolelinux 5.0 / Debian-Edu 5.0.4+edu0 released!
================================================

Oslo, Hamburg, Badajoz, Tokyo, Taipeh - February 8, 2010

The Debian Edu Team is proud to take the next step in making free software 
suitable for educational purposes by releasing Skolelinux 5.0! 

Skolelinux is based on Debian 5.0 "Lenny". As usual, it comes with predefined 
installation profiles making it easy to set up the network, ranging from the 
main server to workstations and thin clients. It is supported and used by 
many regional and national projects, the most active ones being in Norway, 
Germany, Spain, Denmark, Taiwan and Japan. It is available in more than 50 
languages. 


What's new in Skolelinux 5.0
============================

Skolelinux is based on Debian 5.0 "Lenny" and is therefore compatible with 
Linux Standard Base (LSB) 3.2. It uses kernel 2.6.26, KDE 3.5.10, and GNOME 
2.22.2. 

This is first Debian Edu release which has been merged with the highly 
successful LinEx GNU/Linux based educational project from the region of 
Extremadura in Spain. The most visible result being the GNOME desktop now 
being supported in addition to KDE. 

The setup of terminal servers has been improved and now supports diskless 
workstations out of the box. A new customisable PXE startup menu allows users 
to choose between a diskless workstation, a thin client workstation, and even 
a PXE-installation of Skolelinux. 

The student desktop has also been improved with shortcuts to educational 
software like GCompris, Kalzium, KGeography, KMplot, KStars, Stopmotion and 
the OpenOffice suite. 

The documentation has been further improved and translated from English to 
German, Italian and Norwegian. Incomplete translations are available for 
Spanish, French and Chinese. Please consider helping by translating to your 
native language or by reviewing the English original! 

Browser plugin-support has been improved with free software products including 
Gnash, Java and other plug-ins. 

In addition to ALSA and OSS sound system, PulseAudio has been added for better 
audio and multimedia performance on workstations and diskless workstations 
machines. 

Improved and simplified user and machine administration tool known as LWAT 
(LDAP Web-based Administration Tool). 

Improved machine and network surveillance now reporting status on all machines 
added to the network. 

Downloads
=========

To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use 

http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-5.0.4+edu0-CD.iso 
rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-5.0.4+edu0-CD.iso 

To download this multiarch dvd release you can use 

http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-5.0.4+edu0-DVD.iso 
rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-5.0.4+edu0-DVD.iso 

To download the source DVD you can use 

ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-5.0.4+edu0-source-DVD.iso 

(ftp, http and rsync are supported for all images.)

The MD5SUM of these images are 
01e4ad9bcb36380076bfb19fa81a0465  debian-edu-5.0.4+edu0-CD.iso
ec3b592931491d50f10b8f7f38ad1da3  debian-edu-5.0.4+edu0-DVD.iso
c8253bc5d29b8a4d66378271d72a9f08  debian-edu-5.0.4+edu0-source-DVD.iso

The SHA1SUM of these images are 
19041c2bb9c6a8c5ca692085379c5736522f921b  debian-edu-5.0.4+edu0-CD.iso
49883e1d714ba9df805d9f1c8bdc6bb224c98e19  debian-edu-5.0.4+edu0-DVD.iso
2da737ba64797eb102596eb577958ef37119cfce  debian-edu-5.0.4+edu0-source-DVD.iso

How to report bugs: 
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla

Going forward
=============

The next milestone is a pointrelease, 5.0.4+edu1, around mid-March 2010, with 
updates to the documentation and its translations as well as some important 
bugfixes. 

The subsequent milestone of Skolelinux development introducting new major 
features is aimed at releasing simultaneously with Debian Squeeze, which is 
currently scheduled for the second half of 2010.

About Skolelinux
================

Skolelinux is a software solution tailored to the needs of schools and other 
educational institutions. It provides a complete system, from the central 
server running all the services the school needs, to the desktop software 
students use in class. Skolelinux works out of the box with no tricky setup 
to perform. Skolelinux provides the following: 

Full support for networked thin clients, diskless workstations, and disk-based 
workstations and laptops. With diskless workstations users get full PC 
functionality combined with the maintenance level of thin clients. Sound, 
video, USB memory sticks, and DVDs are supported. A new start up screen also 
allows local installation over PXE. 

Skolelinux has over 80 applications pre-installed specifically for educational 
use. It is available in over 50 languages. Many new applications have been 
introduced in addition to popular classics such as GCompris, KDE Edu, Firefox 
(branded as Iceweasel due to Trademark restrictions) and OpenOffice.org.

You can install Skolelinux from a network install CD or from a single DVD 
supporting several processor architectures (i386, AMD64 and PowerPC). 

Skolelinux has low hardware requirements: a diskless workstation runs nicely 
with 256 MB of RAM, local swap and a 800 MHz processor. The manual describes 
a slightly more powerful recommendation for multimedia use. 

Skolelinux is free software. The primary goal is to provide schools and 
students with every building block of a computer system. By providing an easy 
to use system, including the source code, students can study software, learn 
how it is written, and create software code. We emphasize learning by doing. 
Students can grow and excel by participating and sharing knowledge. The 
software has no restrictions on use, copying, or learning. 

Skolelinux is the result of the work of the Debian Edu project. Debian Edu is 
an official part of Debian, and Skolelinux is a "Debian Pure Blend". It is 
installed at many or all of the schools in municipalities, regions and cities 
throughout Europe, Asia and South America. Several regions and states run and 
maintain Skolelinux centrally with commercial service providers or public 
employees. Smaller installations at single schools can be maintained 
part-time by a teacher with no particular training. Reports from commercial 
and public installations suggest that diskless workstations require half the 
maintenance costs compared to ordinary desktop alternatives. 

Quotes
======

"Unlike similar projects, Skolelinux takes care of the whole school network, 
not just the student computers. This makes it possible for me to deploy far 
more machines in a secure and stable network, without worrying about how to 
configure and maintain services, and without any tech support." Nigel Barker, 
IT co-ordinator and Chemistry teacher, Hiroshima International School. 

"We will most likely be able to reach the goals of The Knowledge Promotion 
Reform because of Skolelinux.", says principal Heidi Olsen Sværd at Håvik 
school in Narvik municipality. 

"It is easy to maintain. We have had a few startup problems, but surprisingly 
few", Monica Larssen, IT co-ordinator/ advisor in Harstad municipality says. 


Contact information and more
============================

General information about Debian-Edu or Skolelinux: 
	E-mail: debian-edu@lists.debian.org 

Media contacts 
	Alexander Reichle-Schmehl <tolimar@debian.org> 

For more information about Debian-Edu/Skolelinux please see our webpage at 
http://www.skolelinux.org. 

Manual, most current version: 
	http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Lenny/ 

Manual, Translations: 
	http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/ 

Release notes: 
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/ReleaseNotes 
http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/lenny_needs_love.html

A complete feature list 
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Lenny/Features 


cheers,
  Holger

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