Sabayon and Unity Interface

Wed Jun 1 16:55:06 UTC 2011

Hi David,

A distribution like Ubuntu/Edubuntu is made up of very may parts, and
fortunately for us if we've come across a "part" that didn't work correctly
for us (in our environment) we've often found another that did OK, so the
very modular nature of it has proven adaptable enough for the most part.  We
need that flexibility to make it fit in, but we also crave simplicity and
stability!  When a big part like the entire UI changes then that causes
potential problems because of how many things are connected to it.

Google's Chrome OS is attractive in the sense of simplicity and (potential)
stability, but perhaps it is not quite configurable enough!  You certainly
can't install all the additional software you can with Edubuntu (like our
State's testing software, which you can in Ubuntu!).  On the flip side (as
an example) the time and effort it takes to lock down Firefox correctly for
our needs, which we then have to redo whenever moving between major
versions, is a pain!

I'd like to see more ability to make Edubuntu more of a Chrome OS like
appliance front-end as far as users are concerned (just present the user
with what they need, nothing more), but retaining the back-end flexibility
to allow it to run in all the different environments we (other people) have.
 Ubuntu is clearly driven by the "personal computing device" issues, make it
work on a tablet, make it look like OS X etc etc, which I understand for
wanting to break into the main stream computing realm.  This shouldn't be
Edubuntu's drive, this isn't what we need in classrooms!

There's my 2 cent on the future direction of Edubunu!

Steve

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 2:09 PM, David Groos <djgroos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey Steve--glad to hear of your success with the pure thin clients and that
> it's working for your teachers.  A month ago Jonathan posted this blog post:
>
> http://jonathancarter.org/2011/05/10/whats-happening-in-edubuntu-for-oneiric/and towards the bottom of that post is the following quote:
> Big Hairy Audacious Goals
> If our goal is to bring the best of educational free software available
> together in one easy to install system then I think this release will get us
> there, but where to next? We want to grow the Edubuntu community but we
> can’t do that unless we add some new and exciting things to our to do list.
> One thing that has come up over and over again and that I bought up in the
> UDS session but we got no answer for is in which direction we should start
> going next.
>
> I would call this a 'request-for-visions' and thank Jonathan for asking for
> it (thanks Jonathan ;))  As a 'big hairy audacious goals', something
> exciting and motivating, even inspirational for us Edubuntistas would be to
> focus on the System.
>
> The biggest difference between a beautifully working car and one stuck on
> the side of the road isn't mainly the parts--most of the parts are similar
> or even identical between the working and non-working.  The big difference
> is ONE of those parts in the 'dead' car is not working.  I'm proposing that
> we focus on creating a great system--where every (essential) part is
> working.  That means figuring out the key parts, making sure that each one
> of those parts works.  That is the most bottom line--each part has to work.
> In a system it doesn't matter if you have the best and greatest part--say an
> engine--if any one of the other parts--say the brakes--are flaky.  This
> would produce a death machine--not a nice car.
>
> So, Steve, I'm agreeing with you that we need Sabayon working (it is a
> critical part).  And I'm raising you 1: let's figure out the essential parts
> of Edubuntu and make them ALL work--let's focus on the system.  What do you
> (all) think?
>
> David
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 8:04 PM, Rippl, Steve <rippls at woodlandschools.org>wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> There's a thread running at the moment about current versions of
>> Ubuntu/Edubuntu and their respective support for things, but I'm
>> specifically interested in (concerned about) the new Unity UI and the
>> profile lockdown tool Sabayon in future LTS versions.
>>
>> We've been running pure thin clients (no local apps) in our school
>> district for a few years now and things are working really very well.  A key
>> part to it is the fact that Sabayon has worked properly recently.  We're
>> currently on 10.04 and haven't tested anything later than that yet, but a
>> brief Google does show up bugs filed against Sabayon to say it isn't working
>> with Unity.  Now I know that currently you can revert back to the regular
>> Gnome 2, but what's the direction for 12.04 and 14.04, I don't imagine Gnome
>> 2 will continue to be around for ever?!  Is there a commitment in the
>> Edubuntu team to keep Sabayon working as well as it does now (in 10.04)?  We
>> really rely on it!
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Steve
>>
>>
>> --
>> Steve Rippl
>> Technology Director
>> Woodland Public Schools
>> 360 841 2730
>>
>> --
>>
>> edubuntu-users mailing list
>> edubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
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>>
>>
>

-- 
Steve Rippl
Technology Director
Woodland Public Schools
360 841 2730
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