[ale] subverting public school software

[James P. Kinney III]

On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 08:00, Robert L. Harris wrote:
> No flames but have you see the new installer in Sarge?  I used it to
> install a laptop last week, it's about a 200% improvement over the
> older.  No, still not as nice as RedHat's but going into a school, a
> little more security might be a nice thing.

Name recognition is a big thing for the school system decision makers.
They are the ones who will catch the flak for a poor choice and they
_don't_ have job protection like tenure. The old mantra was "No one got
fired for buying IBM" has changed to "No gets fired for buying
Microsoft". I would LOVE to see that changed!

Seeing Novell-Suse installed might not be too difficult since the school
already has a huge deployment of Novell.
> 
> You also might want to see if they're going to have use for a proxy
> server with a "protect the children" feature.  squid+squidguard has
> worked great at a school in colorado I set up almost 4 years ago.  It
> got some attention when people got the "oh no they might learn something
> I don't aprove of" bug.

Yep. Due to the current mindset (student, parent, administration alike),
squidguard is a must. I pity the budding scientist who needs to find
"rubber nipple" from from an electronic supply house to cover an exposed
toggle switch.

> 
> 
> 
> Thus spake James P. Kinney III (jkinney at localnetsolutions.com):
> 
> > Alers,
> > 
> > In Dekalb county a new middle school is about to open, Tucker Middle
> > School. I live near it (it's HUGE!) and know many parents with children
> > who will be attending next fall. As such, I received a letter today from
> > the president of the PTA (addressed to my business) asking if I would be
> > interested in donating cash or other valuable goods to the school for
> > its start up.
> > 
> > Of course loading up a flock of new computers with Linux was the first
> > thing to cross my mind!
> > 
> > Then reality smacked me and I realized that sliding that through the
> > Dekalb county gestapo, I mean, IT services, would be nearly impossible.
> > 
> > So I'll settle (reluctantly) on "The Open CD".
> > 
> > On the slim chance I can sneak Linux in the door, I see 2 realistic
> > distro candidates, RedHat / Fedora and Novell-Suse. Sadly, I don't see
> > Debian (too $*^%$^ complicated to install for too many newbies - no
> > flames please. Even Ian has said the installation is ugly), Gentoo (Hmm.
> > 150 machines in 1 week. Nope), Slackware (tempting but critical mass for
> > desktop is not ready yet), Mandrake (too ~french~ OK, reality is too
> > many install issues on the latest release to handle by myself), Knoppix
> > (it's still Debian under the hood. Should be used as give-aways for the
> > kids) are all out for various reasons.
> > 
> > I can do a custom RedHat/Fedora kickstart CD pretty quickly. Does Suse
> > have a bulk installer like kickstart? 
> > -- 
> > James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
> > CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
> > Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
> > 770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
> > http://www.localnetsolutions.com
> > 
> > GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
> > <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
> > Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
> 
> 
> 
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> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> 
> 
> :wq!
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Robert L. Harris                     | GPG Key ID: E344DA3B
>                                          @ x-hkp://pgp.mit.edu
> DISCLAIMER:
>       These are MY OPINIONS ALONE.  I speak for no-one else.
> 
> With Dreams To Be A King First One Should Be A Man
> 					- Manowar
> 
> 
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-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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