February 2002 - openSUSE Edu - openSUSE Mailing Lists

OT Re: Redmond Linux
by Paul Munro 05 Feb '02

05 Feb '02

I just (for those perhaps a little interested) installed a copy of Redmond Linux from the latest Linux Format CD. It may be worth a look by those working in schools and using/planning to use Linux in that environment. The install process is very good and clean, and the OS launches post-install with an extremely nice Windows XP look and feel. Little touches good for schools are the "Network Browser" icon on the desktop which opens up browse shares found on the LAN; "My Linux System"--which included all drives in "My Computer" format; and a "Personal Files" folder with a sub folder called "My Pictures". Still Linux, yes, but with the ease of set-up I haven't experienced since Mandrake (and Redmond is probably better at it at that). Software with the single CD version from LXF is good- with RealPlayer, KONCD, KOffice, scanner software, internet software and the Mozilla browser. All works nicely. All hardware was detected and configured to run (and work) after install, and the Redmond Update software utility downloaded and updated all packages needed perfectly!! On the whole, an excellent distro that I will be running on this system for a month or two to test it out, and well worth schools' ICT departments looking into. Hope someone finds the info useful. Paul :-)

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FTP automating
by Matt Johnson 05 Feb '02

05 Feb '02

I'm not sure about the security of this, but this is what I do... I'm sure folk will shout if this is all arse about face... put a file called .netrc in /root (note the dot) It should contain the following: (change the stuff in capitals) machine MACHINE_TO_FTP_TO login YOUR_LOGIN_FOR_THAT_MACHINE password PASSWORD Then write a script like so, name it something like fileupload and put it in /etc/cron.daily: (change the stuff in capitals) #! /bin/sh echo Connecting echo "Trying to upload files now..." ftp <<** open CHANGE_THIS_TO_THE_MACHINE_TO_FTP_ TO put FILE_1 put FILE_2 bye ** echo Done Two important things: chmod 500 /root/.netrc chmod 700 /etc/cron.daily/fileupload HTH -- Matt __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! http://auctions.yahoo.com

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Plans for a Linux distro
by Robb Bloomfield 05 Feb '02

05 Feb '02

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 > If the application you're developing is designed to suck so hard it > blows then it's spot on. Oh my god. You're really that arrogant. As far as the previous Smalltalk comments go, I did it for the first year of my Degree, and was most happy with it. In fact, I picked up a lot of it quickly because I'f used VB.... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 7.0.3 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> iQA/AwUBPF+biq9keFLWw1ijEQJIkQCfWvTIv1dpHbKCItCRs0s1sl8EvmsAnRLJ bcGpW6cQvZ1E2Ii8wMwn+zKQ =OP5P -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Plans for a Linux distro
by Grainge, Derek 05 Feb '02

05 Feb '02

Frank, the point I was making in a very deliberately unsubtle way was the one you rose to: your original and extensive reply dissed the opposition so hard in in such personal terms that it lost its effectiveness. Now, my reply was to one specific point regarding interface design, which was why I quoted you. The interface is extremely relevant. Look at http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm Regarding what should be taught in schools, I would certainly not teach C or C++ as a first language, points I made in another posting. Young kids want fast results otherwise they lose interest, so I think that at the age of 13 or so, starlogo http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/Projects/starlogo/ is much more accessible that any professional language. [It's a Java applet!] This begs the question of what you teach older pupils. C and C++ allow you to make lots of mistakes. C++ has never really lived up to the object promise IMO. Up until recently I taught Pascal, as a procedural language with good error checking. Now I'm not so sure. I really don't want to head down the C route, but I do want something with more 'teeth' than Logo. The point being that this is education not training. I don't expect my students to step straight into jobs with software companies. I do want them to have a basic understanding of program structures, interfaces and algorithms which they can build on wherever they go next. Any employer who offers a job solely on programming expertise picked up at school is asking for trouble! [although I can think of a couple of particular cases straight off which counter that argument] >From that perspective VB is no better or worse than many other languages. Not that I actually use it myself. But I have pupils who do.... > -----Original Message----- > From: 'Frank Shute' [mailto:frank@esperance-linux.co.uk] > Sent: 03 February 2002 23:40 > To: Grainge, Derek > Cc: Schools List > Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Plans for a Linux distro > > > On Sun, Feb 03, 2002 at 02:40:42PM -0000, Grainge, Derek wrote: > > > > > What the program looks like is a total irrelevance, > > > > Let's reply in the same vein as your mail, Frank. Bollocks! > > I gave my reasons for thinking it was bollocks. Now how about you > having the courtesy to explain why my arguments are bollocks > whilst seemingly to agree with most of them? > > > > > You might agree or disagree with what's required at school, > but there's no > > need to piss on the argument. Especially when you're wrong. > > C++ should be taught at school should it? Wrong am I? > > Perhaps you should go and lie down for a while. You're obviously > getting a little bit over-excited. > > > -- > > Frank > > *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* > Boroughbridge. > Tel: 01423 323019 > --------- > PGP keyID: 0xC0B341A3 > *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* > > http://www.esperance-linux.co.uk/ > > > No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. > -- William Blake > -- ******************************************************************************** All mail sent and received may be examined to prevent transmission of unacceptable material. Wellington College does not accept responsibility for email contents. Problems to postmaster(a)wellington-college.berks.sch.uk. Website: http://wellington-college.berks.sch.uk ********************************************************************************

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Teaching Programming - was that Schools Linux Dist stuff
by Edgehill e-mail service 04 Feb '02

04 Feb '02

---------- > From: Gary Stainburn <gary.stainburn(a)ringways.co.uk> > To: suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com > Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Teaching Programming - was that Schools Linux Dist stuff > Date: 04 February 2002 10:57 > > Hi all, > > I've just spent the last hour readling all the postings that happened over > the weekend, and here's my thoughts. Ditto. also plea: Holy war mode off, please. > > 1) A lot of Frank said is right - there you go Frank, bet you never expected > to read that? I am, however, not as emotionally charges as Frank. > > 2) VB should NOT EVER BE TOUGHT TO ANYONE EVER!!!! > (Okay, I get emotional sometimes). Recording Macro's, then editing them is > ABSOLUTELY the wrong way to get into learning. So who in their right mind is EVER going to record a Macro and think that the result is a program?? <grin> I like VB, but it's a pig to teach. I do use it with students (as well as QBasic) - but mainly because they already have BASIC experience. I also use a mixture of other languages. VB used carefully IS excellent for fast results, but it needs to be placed very carefully into context, alongside other languages/development environments. > > I like to think that I am young enough to remember my school/college days and > the process I went through to learn my profession, while being old enough to > be able to look back objectively. > > The methods used to teach me, I believe are just as valid today as they were > then. Structure, order, logic, and top-down analysis and design are > essential if we are to teach proper programming - irrespective of which > language we use. > > We used to write our programs on coding sheets and walk across the campus to > key them into gwbasic on DOS 3.3 8086 PC clones. We made sure the program > was correct *before* we even touched keyboard. Now I know that is a little > extreme, but the basic concept is still there. Sadly (happily) I predate such luxuries - I was at Uni before I even started programming (and that as an ancillary to a science course). I learned (BASIC) on ICL 1900 systems. Most of what I know has been gleaned from working in the industry, and grabbing training courses as I can. > > I believe that the teachers who that think that 7 year old kids will get > bored not writing a GUI program are not doing these kids any justice. > However, at the same time, there is no reason why this same structured > teaching could not be used with something like Delphi, Kylix, etc. which will > give them some eye-candy and help motivate them. Finish IS part of any project, and the more complex the project, the more you need to ensure consistent look & feel. GUI IDEs are excellent for this, especially with the move toward WIMP systems. This should not obscure the need for good programming underneath. > > The User Interface, be it a GUI or a TUI, or even a command line, is a valid > and diffecult topic to cover, and such tools as Delphi/Kylix, or > KDevelop/Glade would be excelent here, but when teaching programming, the > main goal should always be qualitity of code, again, irrespective of language. Hear, hear. > > As for the other topics of this thread, I remain quiet as I do not hold > enough information/experience to hold an opinion, but I do hold the fear that > this country is going to get to the point that we will not have enough real > programmers, and get stuck with grown-up 'script kiddies' > > (For real, read correctly trained program analysts/designers/coders) > > I think that this will be true in many other industries too. > -- > Gary Stainburn > > This email does not contain private or confidential material as it > may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown > and undisclosed purposes - Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000 > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe(a)suse.com > For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help(a)suse.com > > Regards, Paul Ellison ICT Manager Edgehill College -------------------------------------------------------------- Legal Advisory: Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000. --------------------------------------------- You are warned that all electronic communications are subject to interception for regulatory, quality control and crime detection purposes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Edgehill IT Department Email Service. Please check sender's address from body of Message for return address. Find us at: www.edgecoll.clara.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Teaching Programming - was that Schoo ls Linux Dist stuff
by Simon Wood 04 Feb '02

04 Feb '02

-----Original Message----- From: Gary Stainburn [mailto:gary.stainburn@ringways.co.uk] Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 10:57 AM To: suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Teaching Programming - was that Schools Linux Dist stuff 2) VB should NOT EVER BE TOUGHT TO ANYONE EVER!!!! (Okay, I get emotional sometimes). Recording Macro's, then editing them is ABSOLUTELY the wrong way to get into learning. [simon wood] Calm down Gary.... We used to write our programs on coding sheets and walk across the campus to key them into gwbasic on DOS 3.3 8086 PC clones. We made sure the program was correct *before* we even touched keyboard. Now I know that is a little extreme, but the basic concept is still there. [simon wood] Whilst doing a Computer Porgramming module for degree (elec. eng.) we had a limited number of submissions for an assignment. Whilst this was a pain at the time, at least it taught us to think about coding rather than randomly adjust code until it appeared to work. And just for extra fun we were coding in Algol68, which has one hell of a pendantic parser. Now its time for today's bitch - M$ LookOut 98. Why is it that it'll only mark my changes with '[simon wood]' as instructed with 'tools/options' if the original email is in HTML or M$ RichText???? http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q184546 So can you all please conform to save me extra typing... ;-) Simon Wood.

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FW: [school-discuss] Helping Newbies Find Open Source Programming Tools
by Chris Puttick 04 Feb '02

04 Feb '02

Just thought I'd throw this one into the "teaching programming debate" - cost effectiveness... Cheers Chris P.S. Last time I programmed was during MechEng and in Turbo Pascal, and I was much more interested im making my programs work than making them look good. But then our stuff was going to be assessed by programmers. -----Original Message----- From: David Bucknell To: schoolforge-discuss(a)schoolforge.net Sent: 2/2/02 7:29 AM Subject: [school-discuss] Helping Newbies Find Open Source Programming Tools Programmer Dale Gulledge has followed-up his article on where to find tutorials on open source programming languages (C, perl, php, etc) with a new article on "Free Programming Tools Tutorials" -- that is, once you have an idea and you know what open source language you want to use, what open source tools will you use and where can you find them? That's the subject of his article this month at http://opensourceschools.org/article.php?story=20020131234519608 on Open Source Schools. Dale's helping us to build up a set of articles answering questions for open source newcomers. Please have a read, comment and recommend his work to others. Best wishes, David Bucknell Open Source Schools; International Education Daily Editor Seth Ruef has gone from Tech Planning Guru to enthusiastic Computer Video Producer. Recapture your enthusiasm, too, by following his advice: http://members.iteachnet.org/webzine/article.php?story=2002013120153764

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Reliability -- WAS: Schools Linux distro
by Edgehill e-mail service 04 Feb '02

04 Feb '02

---------- > From: Ian <ian.lynch2(a)ntlworld.com> > To: SuSe <suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com> > Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Schools Linux distro > Date: 02 February 2002 11:08 > > > > Hmm. But you wouldn't try XP on a couple of old dodgy > > boxes and XPect much. Linux _will_ run on an old > > machine. It will turn a redundant box into a very > > useful bit of backend kit very happily (router, print > > server, file server ect). Linux on the desktop, at > > least in the sense that me and you want, will run on > > something a little more up to date. I know exactly > > what you are saying, BUT I no longer have a Windows > > installation at home - which for me is very > > significant. KDE is _so_ much better than the Windows > > desktop. > > > We have a Windows 2000 network with a pretty high spec server - dual > processors, 512 meg, SCSI RAID etc. As a bit of an experiment we gashed > together an AMD 450 with 256 meg using LTSP set up and stuck it on the > network using cygwin for a login. The perception was that it was quicker than > the main server! Ok lot's of issues about like with like but it just goes to > show you can prove just about anything about anything if you want to. > Funny thing, that. Last summer, as an alternative to spending £1200 on a couple of new drives for our netserver (twin 350 PII & 512MB, NT4) I cobbled together a couple of K6-500 (512MB) under SuSE. Logons are via NT4 until next summer, but the files are now served from Linux. The network speed has gone up - W95 logons (including the behemoth scripts) is down from 2 minutes+ to 30 seconds at peak times. Not perception, but a measured improvement only partly accounted for by load sharing ;) Incidentally, the general reliability of the network is right up - and we havn't crashed NT4 once this year (unlike previous years!) Rgards, Paul Ellison > <Snip snip snip>

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Re: Plans for Linux distro
by Paul Munro 04 Feb '02

04 Feb '02

Well- nice topic :-) IMO (and it's not worth much anyway), we probably need a customised Linux solution for schools. I think KDE 3 or similar has new "edu" software (or is that a separate project?), but how far that will go is questionable. Copying RM might not be a good idea anyway, brings back too many "bad" memories....Innovate. Use RM's method as a basis to analyse exactly why it is accepted (apart from the financial incentives that is ;-), what it does, how, and then how Linux can accomplish this. Just my opinion again. Use a named distro like Redhat to build from, and then people will know what your distro is based on and "trust" it. However, any distro like SuSE and RedHat (not sure about Debian myself) will suffice for schools; it may be that you would be better concentrating on just building a unified connection system similar to RM but offering more besides based upon stable Linux. Someone has been mentioning A levels etc., and I think a similar topic was discussed a while back. I have passed more course recently in an HND course and when working with Windows STILL haven't a clue!!! MS seem to have made things harder by abstracting all the bits that show it working and how it works, which makes it harder to support. With Linux it's a few scripts and then your'e away :-) The education system even at HND level and beyond is questionable when it comes to IT. I fear for my sanity at times.... Anyway, good discussion--and a good idea in germ form that others may want to help with (I pass..I couldn't program to save my life never mind open source). Paul :-)

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] QMS Magicolor 2s
by Simon Wood 04 Feb '02

04 Feb '02

If you're also looking for Linux support, check out CUPS. This page suggest that the Magicolor 2 is 'mostly' supported: http://www.linuxprinting.org/howto/printers.html Simon.

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