I’ve been browsing: Sakai 2.2 released and new distros to try

I’ve been browsing: Sakai 2.2 released and new distros to try


Released Thursday was Sakai 2.2. With a growing community of Educational establishments using this product as their online presence or a significant part thereof; it is only a matter of time before Sakai breaks into the mainstream conscious. If you have a spare five minutes and a reasonably fast connection then I would say it is a fun product to try. The quick demo gives you an idea of the products potential. And it’s just a simple matter of unpacking and running a startup script.

I must admit I’m not exactly neutral on the subject! I had the pleasure of reading the distribution groups and interacting with a number of the positive thinkers, we call developers, as part of my full time function at the University of Amsterdam. It is a pleasure to see the product out the door after a 15 cycle QA bash and it goes without saying that I wish everyone luck with the next vigorously QA enforced software cycle. Nice to see product quality and functionality roughly marching in parallel with each other.

Suffering from a heat wave Amsterdam is moving sluggishly through a thunderstorm-ridden weekend. This enforcement of entropy slows me down enough to bother to browse the internet. Normally these days, with the kids growing up and the demands of having two jobs—one real and one growing in potential but still imaginary—I would be busy doing things. Though to be honest, I never quite know what I have spent those hours on and what the things I have done are. When browsing, one of the places I enjoy visiting is the list of Linux distributions at Linux.org.

If I turn my back on Linux.org for a couple of months, there always seems to something new to try out when I return. For example, the site mentions 90 live distributions of Linux that you may wish to try out. Mentioning one of the 90 versions would obviously be unfair on the other 89, so I won’t mention VideoLinux or FreeDuc. I have no idea of the quality of the distributions or their roadmaps. However, it sure will be fine to download the ISOs, burn and reboot the system. You never quite know what you’re going to get. Perhaps some new way to edit videos or a new educational game...

Sorry, I have to go my CD brander is calling.

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Alan Berg's picture

Biography

Alan Berg Bsc. MSc. PGCE, has been a lead developer at the Central Computer Services at the University of Amsterdam for the last eight years. In his spare time, he writes computer articles. He has a degree, two masters and a teaching qualification. In previous incarnations, he was a technical writer, an Internet/Linux course writer, and a science teacher. He likes to get his hands dirty with the building and gluing of systems. He remains agile by playing computer games with his kids who (sadly) consistently beat him physically, mentally and morally.

You may contact him at reply.to.berg At chello.nl

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