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Skolelinux/Debian-Edu is a
Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
intended for educational use and a
Debian Pure Blend A Debian Pure Blend is a project completely inside of Debian targeting a server or a desktop installation in very broad and general terms. A Debian Pure Blend aims to cover interests of specialised users, who might be children, lawyers, medical st ...
. The
free and open source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
project was founded in
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and th ...
in 2001 and is now being internationally developed. Its name is a direct translation of "school linux" from Norwegian, ''
skole Skole ( uk, Ско́ле) is a town in Stryi Raion, Lviv Oblast (region) of Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Skole urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population: . History The first official date recorded for Skole was in ...
'' being derived from the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
word ''
schola Scholae ( el, Σχολαί) is a Latin word, literally meaning "schools" (from the singular ''schola'', ''school'' or ''group'') that was used in the late Roman Empire to signify a unit of Imperial Guards. The unit survived in the Byzantine Empire ...
''.


Design and principles

Skolelinux offers four different installation profiles on one compact disk that will easily install a pre-configured educational
network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...
, including a main
server Server may refer to: Computing * Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and s ...
,
workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''worksta ...
s and
Thin client In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low- performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as ''network computers'', or in t ...
-servers. In short, its major goals are to: * Create a
Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
tailored for schools based on their needs and resources. ** Simplify maintenance of computer facilities. ** Provide a
thin client In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low- performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as ''network computers'', or in t ...
-solution, which eases maintenance, reduces costs and allows use of old hardware. * Cut costs by using
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
software and re-using old hardware. * Identify and facilitate suitable programs for use in the schools. * Enable teachers to provide high quality IT teaching to their students. * Localize the IT infrastructure by translating the software pages to both official writing forms of Norwegian
Bokmål Bokmål () (, ; ) is an official written standard for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is the preferred written standard of Norwegian for 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. Unlike, for instance, the Italian language, there ...
and
Nynorsk Nynorsk () () is one of the two written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-No ...
, as well as
Northern Sami Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...
. This goal was later extended to reach out to all languages in schools around the world, however.


History

The Skolelinux project was started on July 2, 2001. Twenty-five computer programmers and translators agreed to improve the use of software in education. They disliked that the next generation of computer users were not able to have access to source code, arguing that children who are interested should be able to learn from expert programmers to create their own software. Other developers, especially the translators, were interested in providing computer programs in the students' native languages. These developers thought that students should be able to navigate the internet by having "road signs" they would understand. The Skolelinux project was associated with the member organisation "Linux in schools", which was founded on July 16, 2001. "Linux in schools" later changed its name to "Free Software in Schools" by the annual meeting on October 16, 2004. German teachers, developers and translators joined Skolelinux throughout 2002. In 2003, Skolelinux was included step-by-step as a standard part of
Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of Deb ...
. Since 2003, many developers from around the world have joined the project, with developers in France, Greece and Germany being the most active. The Skolelinux project also cooperates with many other free educational software projects such as LTSP, gnuLinEx,
Edubuntu Edubuntu, previously known as Ubuntu Education Edition, was an official derivative of the Ubuntu operating system designed for use in classrooms inside schools, homes and communities. Edubuntu was developed in collaboration with teachers and tec ...
, K12LTSP,
KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...
,
Gnome A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its character ...
,
Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...
and
OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) an ...
. Similar organisations have also been established in Spain, Germany, Latvia, France, Brasil and Denmark. Skolelinux has been a major contributor to rewriting the
Debian-Installer Debian-Installer is a system installer designed for the Debian Linux distribution. It originally appeared in the Debian release 3.1 (Sarge), released on June 6, 2005, although the first release of a Linux distribution that used it was Skolelin ...
. In addition, Skolelinux has conducted extensive development and testing of
thin client In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low- performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as ''network computers'', or in t ...
s and
diskless workstation A diskless node (or diskless workstation) is a workstation or personal computer without disk drives, which employs network booting to load its operating system from a server. (A computer may also be said to ''act as a diskless node'', if its disks ...
s as a part of the new LTSP version 5. A total of 214 schools using Skolelinux. This case study of implementing Skolelinux at a school in Greece is typical of user experiences.


Releases


Funding

Skolelinux development is sponsored by th
SLX Debian Labs Foundation
on a yearly basis. The Norwegian Ministry of Education and The Ministry of Reform and Administration has sponsored the project. Also private donors and companies have provided sponsorship. This helps organize 7–10 developer gatherings annually in Norway, Spain and Germany.


See also

*
Comparison of Linux distributions Technical variations of Linux distributions include support for different hardware devices and systems or software package configurations. Organizational differences may be motivated by historical reasons. Other criteria include security, includi ...
*
List of Linux distributions This page provides general information about notable Linux distributions in the form of a categorized list. Distributions are organized into sections by the major distribution or package management system they are based on. RPM-based Red Ha ...


References


External links

* *
Debian Edu/Skolelinux Project Wiki

Debian Edu/Skolelinux project press coverage list
{{Linux distributions Linux Terminal Server Project Debian-based distributions Language-specific Linux distributions Educational operating systems Free educational software Linux distributions