On Friday 19 March 2004 17:48, Tom Chance wrote: | I've got my first round of answers from CT Leung, who runs a computer lab | in a high school running LTSP with KDE. I'm considering some followup | questions, so if anyone on this list can think of any good ones, please | post them so I can include them in my next e-mail. Hi Tom, Nice ... | The original article about his lab can be found here: | http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7418 Nice article . Shows very much the power of Linux ... | Hi Tom, | | Here are my answers: | | 1) First, could you introduce yourself for our readers? | | I am a full time high school teacher and a part time instructor | for Universities. At Sisler High School, I teach many diffrent computer | courses from Programming in Java, Troubleshooting personal | computers, networking, operating systems, and some physics including | AP Physics. At University of Winnipeg, I teach one evening per week | on Telecommunications, Intro to Linux (System Admin and Networking)... | | | 2) How have students and staff adjusted to a new desktop environment? | | Students adjusted very fast and in fact, after one to two classes, even | some slow students find it very comfortable and most of them like | the terminal desktop environment much more the Windows alternitive | in other computer labs. | | However, I don't much success with other staff members as the ltsp | is only available in my lab and in fact, the rest of the school including | all other computer labs, classrooms and offices are still running | windows. | | | 3) What is their most common complaint related to KDE? | | Before I have my new Xeon server up, I have tried KDE on my | old server (An Athlon 1.2G Hz with 1.5G RAM, 40G IDE hard drive). | KDE runs quite slow and in fact, with a bigger class, students | who started late might take several minutes before KDE can be | loaded. | | 4) Do you make use of any of the KDE Edu software, and is there any | educational software in particular that you think KDE would benefit from? | | I use the shell a lot and in fact, I push all my students to learn some | basic Linux commands and some simple shell programming in text mode. | Other than programming languages such as C, C++, Java, the shell, I | also teach students the three main packages Writer, Calc, and Impress | in Open Offices. I have never tried any other education packages in KDE | other than the aboove mentioned. | | | 5) Is there any software you'd like to see in KDE related to the LTSP? | | If there is something similar to MS Access, I think it will be a killer. | mysql is great for undergraduates but might be too difficult for | beginners. | | I remember the Corel Linux has a network neighbourhood browser pretty | much the same as the one in winodws. It would be great if we can have | something similar in KDE. | | 6) You mention in part two of your piece that you had to revert to IceWM | on your old terminal server. What made you switch back to KDE/GNOME once | you had upgraded the hardware? | | The IceWM is quick but the KDE/GNOME has much more features that makes | it a better window environment than windows. In order to attract windows | users to switch to open source, KDE/GNOME are much more convincing. | | | 7) Back when I was at school, we all used to hack BASIC on Acorns, until | they migrated to Windows. Do you find students discovering the shell and | hacking with Bash, Python or other languages more now? | | Absolutely. Once stduents find out there are much more behind the "click | drag, and drop", they start to see the "big picture" and many motivated | students enjoy the shell and other languages available on Linux. | | In fact, many former graduates told me that they are way ahead than | students from other schools as they know much more on Linux/Unix. | | 8) Have you thought about promoting, or do you already promote, | technologies like PyKDE and KDevelop to students? | | Those are the things I am going to learn and promote in the future. | I am 57 and close to retirement, but until I die, I see promoting Open | Source, promoting Linux as my life-long career. | | Thank you for having me in your interview and feel free to ask if | you need me again. | | CT Leung | Teacher at Sisler High School | Instructor at University of Winnipeg | | > 9) In part one of your piece you mention that, to you, an important | > element of Free Software is that you are "free to join the community to | > improve it". Have you considered getting students involved in the | > projects whose software they use, and in particular in KDE? No answer here ? Tom .. I should try to emphasize some more the cost effective side of choosing the combi Linux/KDE. Right at question #3 you already talk about shortcomings of the setup while I haven't read the benefits yet of using the Linux/KDE combo. Also I would dub that KDE/*NIX or so. Or maybe KGX .. So a question like: "Do you feel KDE/LINUX (KGX) is a cost effective platform" or even better "What do you think are the benefits of choosing the KDE/Linux (KGX) combo" *more questions you could use* (1) What do you consider the biggest barrier when schools decide to use Linux on their desktop? (2) What would motivate schools to move to KDE/Linux on the desktop? (3) What are the typical cost savings when using KDE in an educational environment? (4) How much effort is it to maintain a KDE/Linux desktop through LTSP? Fab -- JID: fab@vosberg.be www.kde.nl | fabrice@kde.nl www.l4l.be | fabrice.mous@l4l.be _______________________________________________ This message is from the kde-promo mailing list. Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.