A colleague emailed me, “We’re sending home 100 computers loaded with UbuntuLinux 8.04 for students. What other applications would you think would be good for HS students, MS and ES students?“

My first instinct was to suggest EDUbuntu Intrepid 8.10, but the machines ARE a little old (it’s the Dell GX240…view this link to see specs). So, maybe Edubuntu 8.04 is the way to go because of the software pre-installed and that it’s an older machine.

I’m not sure if that has a bearing on the matter…UbuntuLinux isn’t like upgrading from Windows 98 to Vista. I need to check what runs best on a Dell GX240, which is about 6 years old. Ideas?

My colleague shared that they would be loading this software, if it wasn’t already:

• AVG Free Anti-Virus
• Open Office
• Java
• VLC (which plays quicktime, flash, shockwave, etc)
• Adobe Reader
• Firefox

I recommended loading CMAP Tools, graphic organizer software. The Strategic Open Source SIG (TCEA) suggested these titles:

• Pidgin
• Xirc
• Kino
• SPE
• Avidemux
• Imagemagick
• FFmpeg

• Tuxtype Tuxpaint

• Gcompris,
  

• Tuxracer.
  

• Pingus (Lemmings clone)
  

• Berusky (great thinking game)

• Battle for Wesnoth (great network play)
  

• Frozen Bubble

• Childsplay

• SMC Secret Maryo Chronicles

I would also suggest they get the following free pocket book to send home with the students.

Many of my favorite applications are installed via Medibuntu. However, you can easily install other neat software programs. I’ve included the title of the software and, if a command to install it is necessary, the command to use from the command line/Terminal. Commands usually look like this:

sudo apt-get install nameofprogram

After installing Ubuntu 8.10, my first step after running all the updates is to setup Medibuntu (following this awesome tutorial).

Step 1- Enable Medibuntu Repository

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/intrepid.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

then

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

You’re now ready to install a ton of software…here’s the quick way to do it. Copy-n-paste this to the command line (Applications: Accessories: Terminal).

sudo apt-get install grip amarok flashplugin-nonfree audacity dvdrip filezilla msttcorefonts gtkpod-aac sun-java6-bin sun-java6-javadb sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin k3b kino mplayer mozilla-mplayer sound-juicer helix-player mozilla-helix-player mozilla-acroread non-free-codecs ubuntu-restricted-extras libdvdcss2 opera xine-ui xine-plugin xmms2 xmms2tray xmms2-plugin-airplay xmms2-plugin-alsa xmms2-plugin-ao xmms2-plugin-asf xmms2-plugin-asx xmms2-plugin-avcodec xmms2-plugin-cdda xmms2-plugin-cue xmms2-plugin-curl xmms2-plugin-daap xmms2-plugin-faad xmms2-plugin-flac xmms2-plugin-gme xmms2-plugin-gvfs xmms2-plugin-ices xmms2-plugin-icymetaint xmms2-plugin-id3v2 xmms2-plugin-jack xmms2-plugin-karaoke xmms2-plugin-lastfm xmms2-plugin-m3u xmms2-plugin-mad xmms2-plugin-mms xmms2-plugin-modplug xmms2-plugin-mp4 xmms2-plugin-musepack xmms2-plugin-normalize xmms2-plugin-ofa xmms2-plugin-oss xmms2-plugin-pls xmms2-plugin-pulse xmms2-plugin-rss xmms2-plugin-sid xmms2-plugin-smb xmms2-plugin-speex xmms2-plugin-vocoder xmms2-plugin-vorbis xmms2-plugin-wma xmms2-plugin-xml xmms2-plugin-xspf vlc vlc-data vlc-dbg vlc-nox vlc-plugin-arts vlc-plugin-esd vlc-plugin-ggi vlc-plugin-jack vlc-plugin-pulse vlc-plugin-sdl vlc-plugin-svgalib thunderbird skype ksnapshot soundconverter p7zip

The beauty of all this is that it will easily fit within the 20 gig hard drive of the machine!

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure