Angels DO exist!
Niko, from Finland, has offered to create those .deb packages I needed. Hooray! This could free me up from spending so much time figuring out how to compile stuff so I can concentrate on USING the software. Nice!
He pointed out that .deb packages italc for are already available in Debian experimental at : http://packages.debian.org/experimental/x11/italc-master and http://packages.debian.org/experimental/x11/italc-client
When trying to install italc-client, though, I get an error: "Error: Dependency is not satisfiable: libqt4-core". I tried installing libqt4-core to satisfy the error, but to no avail; the version in the Ubuntu repositories is too old, I supposed. I looked at the information page for the italc-client package, however, and it lists "libqt4-core ( 4.2.1) \ Package not available" as a dependency.
I'm confused, and the feeling of hope I had when I read that the packages were available has flagged.
Can I use these Debian experimental packages under Ubuntu? How?
Is there some way I could temporarily activate some Debian repository, so that I might be able to satisfy these dependencies?
I'm sorry if the answer is obvious.
Image Definition
In other news, I've prettied up my image definition page and moved it to http://www.north.mccsc.edu/indianaaccess/imagedefinition.html. Maybe this would be useful to someone else trying to use Ubuntu in their school. I'm hoping to add to it as I figure things out.
Free Software Diffusion
I've always told people that if they wanted a copy of any of the Free Software available on our Indiana ACCESS workstations that they should bring me a CD-R and I'd burn them off a copy. Noone has really taken me up on it, so I've decided it's time to do some active advertising to educate our school's community on the Free Software alternatives that exist.
To that end, I'm trying to put together a well-publicized avenue for people to have free software available to them. Specifically I've decided to make Software for Starving Students CDs and Ubuntu CDs available to the school population (well, to make the service of burning these CDs available, we can't really give away CDs).
I've put together a statement at http://www.north.mccsc.edu/freesoftware that I plan to advertise through our school's front page, on our staff and parent mailing lists, and on posters in various key places around the school (e.g. every computer lab).
Any comments on this idea, or the statement I linked above, would be appreciated, especially from people who have experience trying to do this sort of Free Software advocacy in a school environment.
Well, I should have left twenty minutes ago...Goodbye!
powered by performancing firefox
posted by Simón A. Ruiz at 3:23:00 PM
4 Comments:
I'd suggest adding some more color/formatting/graphics to the http://www.north.mccsc.edu/freesoftware/ page. New users might be put off by the plain text and see it as a "low-tech", or too geeky (command lines, etc.). Some screenshots showing them the type of applications they could expect and how, for instance, Open Office is similar in look and feel to MS Office and can handle all MS Offices docs might help.
Hi Simón,
Its really something that most FLOSS folks have not figured out. In a 1st world country and in a 3rd world country, if kids or adults find a copy of winblow from a friend, they just use it with nary a thought to the legality. And the presentation of a free and legal alternative is not in the least interesting. At least I have read and observed this. If you check the headlines about a meeting with the head of the Romainian IT world with Bill Gates, the guy says they 'pirated' all their copies to learn winblows and now they have a thriving IT industry. It seems they never thought of using FLOSS, at least the article doesn't say otherwise.
Also, I tried to compile italc on my current sid system and it didnt present any problems. I d/l the tarball from sourceforge, apt-get the packages from the README (qt stuff) and it completed. I only tried the client and server on the same computer and it worked.
cheers,
Kev
Tomass:
I appreciate your comment, it's something I'll work on before actively advertising the page. Thanks for your time!
Kevin:
Trust me, I understand it. I've been to technology institutes in Venezuela where they're teaching people on pirated copies of XP. I also understand the HASSLE of pirating software, and I have a hope that educating people to the great free software out there that won't hassle you can make a dent.
I understand there's a lot of inertia working against me, but it certainly can't hurt to make the try.
This will also help me have something concrete to point to the next time I get "My teacher's making me do a powerpoint in the Linux classroom. If I work on this at home, will it work here?"
"You won't need to worry about anything if you're use OpenOffice. Bring me a CD-R if you want a copy."
Not to mention, I had a conversation recently with my father about how my sister bought a new computer and so she went downtown to the pirated software hawkers.
It's rampant in Venezuela, and noone bothers to try to hide it.
If Microsoft's "Genuine Windows" program actually works to stop piracy, it'll just keep people from upgrading to Vista. That can only help Linux adoption.
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