Fedora Education Spin

[sebastian at when.com]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>>> I think you are drastically underestimating the value of this 
>>> fitting into a CD and more granularity in packages. It *is* a big deal.
>> And I think you're limited by the assumption that the only way to run
>> or install a Live image is by running a CD sized media.  It's not.
I agree with Rahul, that there are cases, in which the cds are the 
better solution. And I think, if it's possible to put a spin on a cd, we 
should do so. This prevents us - by the way - from bloating the spin 
with packages with the same function ;).

But have a look at kdeedu - even together with a small Gnome desktop, 
the spin has approx. 1 GB! And that's the point where you need to 
rethink, what you want to do. If you want to have an educational spin 
with all the well known apps (kdeedu, gcompris, stellarium,...) on it, 
then it's clear, that you'll will need a dvd, because this are the 
larger apps.  But that's not a huge problem, because we are in a time, 
where a dvd is nearly the normal case (ok, this might not be true for 
the whole world...). But then, you must still have a look at the 
software you are going to include. For example the openSUSE project has 
an educational part, which creates repos and isos with educational 
content: Their dvd has currently approx. 5.1 GB!

If we want to include everything, which has to do with education on a 
disc, we should consider to refer the user to some kind of 
documentation, what which software does, so that newcomers have a chance 
of getting into the whole thing. Otherwise, they will be lost in the 
number of packages...

I think, in our case, both (a cd and a dvd) is possible: We could create 
a dvd, e.g. in collaboration with k12ltsp, which could then include a 
terminal server, and put educational apps on it. But I would also 
suggest a cd with a selection (!) of educational software, which might 
for example also be given to pupils by their teachers... therefore the 
cd should not be too bloated (e.g. only contain one program per category 
- not three periodic systems for chemistry!).

I will have a look at a new build, which could probably include gcompris...

And Jeff:
> Speaking of which, you know what would be cool... for some spins that
> we know are in the half-baked phase, it would be cool if there was an
> icon on the desktop that basically sent the spin user to a feedback
> questioniare about the spin.  So we can get feedback from people
> who..took it for a spin..but don't plan to keep using it.
>   
I really like this idea! Sounds like a really nice way, to get some 
suggestions from the users 'out there' ;)...

Sebastian