To begin, Freeduc-cd is a live GNU/Linux system based on Knoppix. It is a special version of Knoppix for education. The first idea was to let teachers easily test and try what is available for education and teaching in the free software community. Therefore, the use of a live GNU/Linux system was a key element of the project because it doesn't need any installation on a hard-disk. The idea was pushed so far that the option to install definitively freeduc-cd on a hard-disk was not explored although there is such possibility. However a lot of users start asking for this feature. Because we are aware that a hard-disk installation is the first step toward multiple ways of computer use in a school, we wanted to write down this 'schedule of conditions' to expose what we want to develop and not develop for a hard-disk installed freeduc-cd version.
From the same base media, Freeduc-cd can be used in multiple situations and ways of use. Depending on the exact situation at school, or at home, Freeduc-cd could be hard-disk installed or not. If no it could be used in the live form, if yes, it may need to be integrated within an existing network of computers. Additionally users may want more services from an installed freeduc-cd: mail, printing, Internet, disk-less workstation, management tools, centralised data, etc.
As we can see hard-disk installation is not only a matter of copying freeduc-cd within an empty hard-disk partition but it is also a matter of integrating an existing network and also to provide additional services to the users.
Therefore we see three different ways to use Freeduc-cd:
Excellent tool to be used at school and at home. Personal documents can be saved on a floppy disk, an USB key or even in a server within a local network. Also in a local network, additional mechanism based on LDAP Server can be used for authentication and mounting network shares. Thus integrating network with SambaEdu3 or Pingoo servers. An additional mechanism to record user preferences and set up are to be developed.
An installation as a single workstation requires:
Concerning the installation, two options are possible: whole hard-disk or in a partition, which allows for an another OS.
The installed workstation could eventually be networked and use alternative authentication mechanism based on LDAP, thus integrating network with SambaEdu3 or Pingoo servers. An option at installation time or a at boot time can determine which authentication mechanism to use.
When no network is available in a school, we can expect users willing to use Freeduc-cd to, also, use Freeduc-cd as a server with more services, which can be provided as a single live Freeduc-cd or an installed workstation.
Therefore, we propose an architecture relying greatly on LDAP -- it's no surprise, as we have already proposed such an architecture for alternate authenticating mechanism for the live and hard-disk installed forms:
These three keys elements in the development of Freeduc-cd are quite obvious, but we have found it important to highlight the following:
, etc.);, Skolelinux, Pingo, etc. Therefore, when developing additional tools we will first look at existing architecture and we will contribute to these projects if we fell we need an additional special feature;
| Page Execution took 5.881 seconds |