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Re: choosing software applications



Hello,
last year , when i searched a base for a school to start with OpenSource Software , i tested a lot of different things. One reason to work with skole was the easy installation and the nice administrating. The second step after installing a server based on skole was building multiboot clients. Here I used skole, but to this time, there are so many different things inside, and i didn`t knew how to use it. But on my own way of learning more about debian it was very nice to have differnt things for the dayly done work.

Later we have installed newer versions of kde and OO and then we build an own start-menue. this is the way we work with the system - and the teachers and students of the school have worked for a few months with this system.

If there are questions about a program, that is not installed, we discuss it an then we have changed the menue or we installed a new software.

What I want to say is, that the users must tell you (the builders) what they want and what is needed in the future for better education.

The argument, that some things must be removed completely because of the place - we have so many place on the Harddisks, lets use it ! Same for getting everything on one cd - the times changed and i think, that a DVD could also be used by everyone. If there is not an DVD, there is the great Internet, to get the Installation complete.

To ask the user by installation a question about ms-compatible is against my think of the "free education thinking"- i dont want to work ms-compatible.
But I know, what is the meaning of doing it on this way !!

An Installation of the workstation with more questions about using software could bee a way, but that is a way with many work for you-

I am working with Linux for one year now, and the school i work for is now complete on OpenSource Software. (over 50 places all over the school) and the way was very nice for me by using skole and on that way i want to say "Thank you" .

I try to work on the projekt, but as you can see, the firt thing for me is a better english. This is my first step to be a Help for your Projekt.

Because of this discussion of today i only wanted to give some "Impressions" of the people who work with the system.
Bernd Grah
ps. it is very nice to work on the same thing with different programs, so we can show the kids that there are more things on the world than ms.

Gavin McCullagh schrieb:
Hi,

this is very likely a touchy subject but I think it's worth pointing out
and seeing what people think.  This is a suggestion and I guess not
everyone will like it.

I have recently installed Ubuntu Linux on several machines and given it to
others.  It's a very nice, clean, free desktop.  Several people have
mentioned and I myself have noticed one very effective aspect of the
design.  That is the lack of choice by default.  There is one desktop
environment, one web browser, email client, word processor, spreadsheet,
etc, etc.  You can of course choose to install others but they are not
there by default.

For this reason, the menus are clear and brief.  In large non-technical
networks it is a very common practice to choose every application for the
user and remove all else.  This makes support much easier.  If support get
a call saying "I'm having trouble writing an article", that means they're
having trouble with MS Word (usually), not staroffice, wordstar,
wordperfect, or wordpad.

One of the points made by this article
http://osdir.com/Article4389.phtml

which I agree with is that ordinary, non-technical users do not want choice
(not initially anyway).  It simply causes confusion.  The technical person
should make the (initial) choice for them.  If there are several hundred
such users in a school, it will simplify everything greatly if everyone
uses one office suite.  On top of that, they need to be guaranteed file
interoperability which KWord and OOo Writer don't make obvious (by
defaulting to different formats).

In a skolelinux school, I think that means skolelinux making the choice.
That means making a choice of application for each task and disappearing
the others. There are at least two means to achieve this:
  - remove the other applications.
  - don't put them in the menus or toolbars.

I favour the former because:

  - it saves cdrom and disk space and speeds up the installer
  - if a school admin chooses to use an alternative, it should get
    installed and linked into the menus automatically

Of course I don't mean not to package (or necessarily support) the other
apps, but just to omit them from the default install.  The main debian
archive is usually the package source anyway.

Now the hard part.  We would need to choose the applications, drop the
others and configure the desktop environment to advertise the choices.  I
see no reason to have KOffice *and* ooWriter.  In fact I have seen this
cause confusion.  I also see no reason to have Konqueror and Mozilla;
gnumeric, kspread and ooCalc.  If we're talking about more specialist apps
like astronomy then this is not so important but I would vote for one
office suite, one browser, one email client.

Making the choices may cause arguments.  The desktop environment config may
not be a trivial amount of work either but I believe both would be truly
beneficial to the users of Skolelinux.

Any comments?

Gavin





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