大学部署Linux的好方案

　　原文作文早前有一篇"约克大学Linux应用采访", 可以说在国外自由的大环境下Linux的推广得到了各界人士的支持.

原文如下：


1. Operation Systems installed in Dept.

    Staff and Research Students:
           •    Slackware Linux 10.1 ( Kernel 2.6.12.5)
           •    Sun Solaris 2.9
           •    Windows XP Professional with SP2

      Taught Course Students 1 :
           •    Slackware Linux 10.1 ( Kernel 2.6.12.5)
           •    Sun Solaris 2.9
           •    Windows XP Professional with SP2

2. Linux Environment Software Application
      Office Applications:
           •    OpenOffice.org 1.1.4
           •    StarOffice 7
           •    AbiWord 2
           •    Evolution Suites
           •    Gnumeric Spreadsheet
      Desktop Environment:
           •    Gnome 2.10.2 (KDE is not the default desktop environment)
      Internet Browser:
           •    FireFox 1.0.7
           •    Mozilla 1.7.12
           •    Galeon Web
      Programming:
           •    Anjuta IDE
           •    Bluefish Editor 3
           •    BugReport Tool
           •    Eclipse IDE
           •    Hex Editor
           •    GCC 3.3.4
       I’ve had an informal interview with our department’s software supporters; interview
       took approximately 20 minutes, Dr. Snowden and Mr. James gave me lots of
       information about Linux in Computer Science Dept. and also lots of advises on
       improving TIC’s open source development during this interview.
       I’ve made a voice record of this interview; the content of interview had been
       modified for teaching purposes:

       L:    You Li (MSc Software Engineering Full-time Student)
              Email

       J:    James. F. Carter (Computer Science Dept. Senior Administrator)
             (james@cs.york.ac.uk)
             http://www.jfc.org.uk/
             http://www.podquiz.com/

       D:    Dr. David Snowden (Head of Software Support)
             (dss@cs.york.ac.uk)

       Interview:

        L:   Hello, James, first I would like to introduce myself, my name’s You Li, from
              China, I just finished my undergraduate course in TIC 4 , one of my lecturer in
              TIC whose name is Mr. Yong Hao Wang, and he emailed me about one week
              ago for querying about the information in York, especially computer science
              dept. because he knew about that for its high reputation in both teaching and
              research areas, he also interested in CS Dept. Linux application and Open
              Source activities, he currently participated in an open source project named
              “Skyeye”. So could you please introduce some information in York?

        J:     Right, OK, first the current version of Linux is Slackware based on version
              10.1, but we do effectively builder on distribution each year during summer,
              we take whatever the current version and modified made it more suitable for
              users, and that basically just involved adding more extra software, just in
              case of distributing the software to machines and dept….. we trying to keep
              the software basic the same in all the machines…..

 
              
        L:    So, why don’t you adopt more flexible version of Linux like “Debian” 5 as you    
               know that is purely open sourced?

        J:     Well, there are some of the packages which include in Debian, but the
               demand for those packages is quite high, I think, RealPlayer 6 , you know
               there are lots of people here, they want to be able to listen to new from the
               BBC website, and for all of those extra packages of part of open source, we
               do make sure we have the correct license, for instance like StarOffice, we do
               change prefer open sourced for two main reasons, the first be obviously is
               free.

       L:      Yes, for that reason, we do not need pay for that….

       J:       That’s that, you know in the university environmental, obviously, the cheaper
                 is in advancer. But the other reason is maintainability….

       L:       Maintainability?

       J:        Oh, because we know, whoever developing those software then lose
                 interesting in it, and stop developing it, and if necessary, we can take over
                 the development ourselves, you know that is also means that there are
                 problems with the software, you know if we can afford spend time to do it,
                 we can fix them ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we do that all the time, but
                 have that option is always be good.

       L:       I noticed that you’ve installed two kinds of offices suites, one is StarOffice
                 which created by Sun Microsystems, obviously, it is not free, and did you
                 pay for licence for that?

       J:        No, but we do have the license for Sun of an educational sign license which
                 we should apply for that, and we did not pay for that software, it’s free, it’s
                 not open, but it’s free. But I’m not sure anybody using that…….

       L:        Well, next question maybe the last question, you know our university’s
                 lecturer Mr. Wang who want to release his open source project, and the
                 problem is that all the workstation in the university install such Microsoft
                 Windows 2000+SP4 and Internet Explore 6.0 commercial software, could
                 you please give him some advises for him to carry on his open source
                 project?

        J:        Do you mean the transition from windows to open source?

        L:      Yes, because student should get used to the Linux operation system,
                 although this is not their first choice platform…..

        J:       Maybe I should start to explain how to use the Linux here…… because
                 we’ve started to use Linux since 1997, when we move into this building,
                 what we did initially, it was to have the main windows system, and we did
                 not do any specific teaching in Linux, and we found member of stuffs who
                 previously be Unix based, picked up and start to use Linux
                 themselves……… so in terms of introduce open source, I mean this is
                 computer science concerned, well, there are two approaches you can go
                  with, I mean you got the desktop environment which stuffs and students
                  actually using it. I’m sure they can use Linux in windows platform…..

          L:     Like using Linux simulator, such as “Virtual PC”, “VMware machines”….

          J:      Well, and also think of “Firefox” 7 , you know all of these things you can      
                  introduce to people on windows first, if you can motivate them to use those
                  core applications, if you think about web browser, email client…….

          L:     Like Mozilla “thunderbird”?

          J:     Yes, and productivity, that cover the majority of use of Linux, so if you can
                  get people used to use those free open source software products on
                  windows, then when add some points you want them to achieve moment in
                  Linux will be the same, the actual difference in use experiences, and in facts
                  we found our students coming here have never seen Linux before they
                  came here, and they picked up very easily, at the end of that day, it is not
                  that different, as soon as you got KDE or other software that system
                  installed, then go straight to command-line, it’s not necessary. Either you
                  should set up running in different time…….. 88


          L:     Thank you very much for your interview…………

          J:       Hopefully it will help you and your teacher for open source development in

                  your university.

          L:     Thank you James….. Bye…….

3. Suggestions and Comments (For Domestic University in China)

     1. Computer Science in University of York adopts a fairly normal way to organize
          operation system, by using “Dual Bootable System”, one for Windows XP+SP2
          and one for “Slakeware” Linux, because essentially “Slakeware” Linux is very
          close to UNIX, I don’t think it is an easy way for fresher to get used that tool.
          Ideally, “Fedore Core 4” maybe the first choice, maybe Leo thinks “Debian” or
          “LFS” is suitable, after all not all the students is expert in Linux.
     2. For Windows platform, Windows XP is quite an ease-used and reliable system,
          when system administrator takes “Novell Linux Desktop” 9 to manage the system.
     3. Don’t push students to learn more complicated Linux, e.g. “Shell”, “emacs”,
          “GTK”, and “vim”, unless he/she shows interesting in those things (it did
          happened in my Computer Science Dept. students are forced to use Linux,
          because most of the assignments and experiments are based on Linux, students
          have to immerse into Linux! Being Linuxer!).
     4. Anything I can help? Just Email me……….. Whatever Programming or
          Requirements Engineering 10 problem.

   New Module for my master degree, quite interesting, quite useful for any project, quite           worthy…….


　　从中引起的共鸣就是不少读者的献计献策, 包括一位来自国外的朋友, 以下是他在不久之前曾经向现今如日中天的Linux发行商Ubuntu的总裁Mark Shuttleworth发去的一封公开信:


　　"I think the lack of applications for Linux is at least as much of a hindrance, if not more so, than hardware support. Many software companies don't offer for Linux the programs companies and schools depend on, such as popular office, financial, graphical, grading, and other programs. Why buy a Linux computer when Windows is included in the cost of your PC, and none of your important applications run on Linux? I would like to stop using Windows completely, but too much of what I do at work and bring home with me depends on it."

　　这封信的大意就是"出于商业上或者是更好切合那些硬件厂商的需求, 一些软件公司并没有为高校以及一些公司提供相应的Linux版本的应用程序. 当你购买了一台预装Linux的电脑那你为什么还要去安装Windows? 这不就是资源整合的失误吗?"


　　当Windows占据了我们的生活, 甚至它的触手已经开始窥伺到我们的隐私, 我们该怎么办? 继续坐以待毙? 还是应当对那些所谓的必不可少的Win32软件说不?

    Open Office >=  M$ Office
    GnuCash/Grisbi, kMyMoney >= M$ Money
    GIMP, Blender >= Photoshop, CoreDraw
    OpenGrade >= Grade Program in Win

　　这些软件作为Win下的替代品, 不仅能够发挥win下软件所能起到的所有作用, 一旦部署在大学里更加可以激发大学生的研究精神. 对于这个层面的部署我是举双手赞成.

或许学校的一些领导会有这样那样的顾虑:

1. 我能把我原先在Win下工作的内容完美的导入到Linux的工作环境, 举个例子: 某个学院的某位院长说; 我在Win下有很多重要的文件, 有Outlook文件, 有M$ Publisher文件, 该如何将这些文件导入呢? 对于Outlook文件, 我相信导入到Linux下并没有多大的问题(如果你安装了Thunderbird的话), 而对于M$ Publisher在Linux下我们有这样一款很棒的软件, 当然这款软件有它的局限性, 当然世界上没有完美的事物, 至少它已经达到了最低要求了, 我们还能奢求什么呢?

那么, 还有什么更好的办法可以弥补以上做法的缺失? 如果有一款更好的软件来使我们的部署工作更加简单?

2. 这里我要郑重地向那些学校推荐Versora 可以真正满足大多数(特别是学校范围内)的需求, Versora是一款轻量级的桌面系统移植软件, 有了它可以轻而易举地跨平台移植一些程序. 不过, 它似乎对Dapper的支持不太友好(我是Ubuntu Linux的坚定支持者), 所以....

　　虽然如此, 这依然是一款非常适合学校级别的使用即使是最死忠的Win支持者的教授我都敢打赌他们会毫不犹豫地掏腰包买下. 当然软件的系统设置和应用程序设置也相当简单. 不过正如我在一开始所提到的Publisher的导入到现在还是一个问题. 以下是Versora的兼容列表 Publisher赫然在列! 而在这个页面我们没有看到非兼容列表. 尽管如此, 把outlook 文件导入到Linux下依然不是什么大问题.

　　我不太清楚那些人想把自己的工作环境全部移植到Linux下, 如果只是管中窥豹, 浅尝辄止, 仅仅是想体验一下Linux的工作效率. 那么我推荐Versora, 尽管这是一款闭源的应用程序, 但是在开源的大环境下谁敢保证它不能发挥出它应有的作用呢?

来自：solidot