[FSF India] Re: [FSF-India] GNU/Linux in Schools

Fri, 03 Aug 2001 10:20:07 +0530

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R Sai Kiran wrote:

> Hi,
>
> > What you should do is write to the heads of few colleges and schools about
> > Free software  offering a talk and demonstration.
>
>         We've actually got lot more work to do before that. I'd seriously
> suggest that the "GNU/Linux for Schools Project" be added to the FSF-I
> Projects page in the FSF-I website. We *need* volunteers. What I think we
> should do is decide upon a set of software most relevant to schools and

What I wrote is based on my personal experience. We cannot decide what is
needed for the scools and colleges on a mailing list or in a closed group. Two
years back I gave a talk on GNU/Linux at a college in Calicut. Demonstrated
the installation procedure. Got few of the teachers interested after a while.
Dept. of physics needs to do some work in C -- it is in the university syllabus
--
and they were using Borland C++ IDE. I send them a copy of RHIDE IDE
and they were about to change but another problem cropped up. The output
of their programs require graphics.  It is simple but they have to learn X-window

graphics to do that. I have been doing all my work using Motif but something like

gtk, with glade, seems to be a better choice today. Now i am trying to write
some small example programs to get them started.
    The point i am trying to make is, you have to interact with the schools and
colleges first to find out what they need. That must be provided if they are
concerned about them. The approch of "Take this package. this is good for you"
may not work.  You need a very practical approach here. I am developing
programs for physics research  on GNU/Linux systems from 1994 onwards
and have a strong attachment to it. But that is not a selling point. We need to
help others solving their problems using free software along with talking about
the philosophy of free software.

I am attaching the C code I received and need to be converted into X-Windows.
I dont think going back to SVGA LIB is a nice idea.

If anybody think this particular topic is taking too much of this list please
dont
hesitate to point out.

ajith

> pack it up into a CD. What should be included and what should'nt can be
> the subject of an interesting thread. I mean, some of the members of the
> list may have objections in including stuff whivh is not 'GPL'ed. But, I
> think that any Linux distro which does'nt have, say, Pine, is BAD (just a
> personal opinion, I *love* Pine).
>
> > Talk should stress more on the philosophy of 'freedom' and demo should
> > talk about the technical merits. If you can rent an LCD projector and
> > show something like 'gimp', even the diehard Window user will have
> > second thoughts.
>
>         Oh, there are far too many things we can talk about, which I'm
> sure will impress the Windows guys. I was actually asked to give a talk on
> GNU/Linux during my summer job. Unfortunately, that got packed due to the
> political happenings in Tamilnadu that weekend :-(. I had prepared a good
> list of stuff to talk about. GIMP is definitely one of the best
> examples. Others would be the ability of Abiword, Gnumeric etc. to save
> files in PDF format, the X-window system, the KOffice suite (I have'nt
> really used it extensively, but it's cool. You can embed a doc in a chart
>

If you gave a demo today using Kword, you are in for surprices. It dumps core
very often. Great features but more work needed to make it reliable. Abiword
is small but very reliable.

> etc.), the Apache webserver (which Microsoft still uses on the Hotmail
> servers) ... the list just keeps going on and on and .....
>
> > If you don't talk about the philosophy behind 'free sofware', always
> > there will be people trying to compare MS with GNU/Linux by bringing
> > out irrelevent details. It is difficult to convince an average user
> > about the quality and reliability of an OS but he will easily see the
> > 'advantage ' of having two more fonts supported by his word processor.
>
>         Yes...the main purpose is to spread the philosophy. But, we
> should'nt directly attack from the philosophy point. Talk about ths
> different software tools you get and how the "freedom" makes life happier
> to you. Also, a small comparison between the MS End User License Agreement
> and the GPL will drive the point home *very* elegantly :-)
>
>         Please feel free to condemn my opinions.
>
> Regards,
>
> Sai
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Recursion n:
>         See Recursion
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> R Sai Kiran     http://www.che.iitm.ac.in/~ch98086
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://mail.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-india

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