Skolelinux

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Skolelinux
Website	skolelinux.org
Company/ developer	Debian-Edu/Skolelinux
OS family	Linux
Source model	free software
Kernel type	Monolithic kernel
Default user interface	KDE
License	Various
Working state	Current

Skolelinux is a Linux distribution intended for educational use and based on Debian (hence it is also named Debian-Edu).

Skolelinux is a free software project founded in Norway, now supporting all languages present in Debian. Its name is derived from the Latin word schola through Norwegian word skole (school). Skolelinux offers four different installation profiles on one compact disk that will easily install a pre-configured educational network, including a main server, workstations and a thin client server. In short, its major goals are to:

Enable teachers to provide high quality IT teaching to their students.
Create a Linux distribution tailored for schools -- based on their needs and resources.
Simplify maintenance of computer facilities.
Provide a thin client-solution, which eases maintenance, reduces costs and allows use of old hardware.
Cut costs by using open source software and re-using old hardware.
Localize the IT infrastructure by translating the software pages to all officially-supported languages in Norway -- Nynorsk and Bokmål as well as Sami.
Identify and facilitate suitable programs for use in the schools.

1 History
2 Releases
3 Funding
4 References
5 External links

[edit] 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 16th, 2001. "Linux in schools" later changed its name to "Free Software in Schools" by the annual meeting on October 16th, 2004. German teachers, developers and translators joined Skolelinux throughout 2002. In 2003, Skolelinux was included step-by-step as a standard part of Debian.

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.org, gnuLinEx, Edubuntu, KDE, and OpenOffice.org. Similar organisations have also been established in Spain, Germany, Latvia, France and Brasil.

Skolelinux has been a major contributor to rewriting the Debian installer. In addition, Skolelinux has conducted extensive testing of thin clients (diskless) as a part of the new LTSP.org version 5.

[edit] Releases

Skolelinux 1.0 - codenamed "Venus" (after the almost concurrent Venus transit), is based on Debian Woody and was released on June 20, 2004.
Skolelinux 2.0 - codenamed "DebianEdu" (after Skolelinux was adopted as part of the Debian sub-project with that name), is based on Debian Sarge and was released March 14, 2006.
Skolelinux 3.0 - codenamed "Terra", is based on Debian Etch and was released July 22, 2007.^[1] Due to the tight connection between the Debian project and the custom Debian distribution (CDD) Skolelinux, this distribution is sometimes also referred to as Debian Edu 3.0.