Open operating system as a transition to FLOSS: GNU / Linux

• Our needs

  Learning Objectives

  • Know different experiences of telecenters, digital-training centers and similar spaces that have decided to work 100% with GNU / Linux
  • Provide guidelines and criteria while choosing software
  • Discover what FLOSS solutions are best suited to our needs
  • Show that migrating and managing a telecentre with FLOSS is within our reach

  Introduction

  Description of the objectives of the session. In order to successfully migrate to GNU / Linux it is important not to do it alone. It is important to know which networks we have in our environment, and to know who we can count on to take these steps.

  • Locate agents from the territory that can be part of this support network
  • Map our needs in order to find the best FLOSS solutions for our center.

  Let's take a successful migration to GNU / Linux as an example.

  Contact taking

  We carry out a presentation wheel where each of the participants must indicate which center they come from, contextualize their action range to the social level and indicate the degree of knowledge about GNU / Linux they have. The objective of this first dynamic is that the trainer can know the different levels of the participants. Face-to-face format: presentation wheel. Online format: presentation forum.

  Mapping of actors

  The objective of this dynamic is to identify the actors with which each center can count to migrate to GNU / Linux. We will provide a grid for this map, and the different actors will be placed.

  • Public administrations: what is your telecentre relationship with the administration? Does it depend directly? If the management is private, does it collaborate with the administration? There are PLL promotion programs in your administrative sphere?
  • Private initiatives: in your area, is there any company providing technological support • to the small companies? Your center, does use this kind of companies in order to maintain it working properly? Is there a specialization in open licenses? What collaborations do you currently have, and the most important, what could you have?
  • Citizenship: Is there any local agent -non profit, small company- directed to promote the free program in your area? Surely, locate it, study what alliances can you reach!

  Face-to-face format: the participants are grouped by local proximity or administrative type (the activity is run in small groups) Online format: Depending on the virtual environment that can be used, you can enhance the collaboration between the different participants. Creating a wiki to map collectively is optional, but you can also provide templates to be delivered individually. Supporting material: matrix of actors (template).

  Mapping tools

  With this activity you want to start working on the selection of FLOSS tools that will be useful for you. The objective of the session is to determine the degree of specialization that each center has and select the appropriate OS for each case. It works from a grid with two columns:

  • What tools do you use mainly today?
  • What FLOSS solutions can you find?

  In this dynamic the trainer must guide in the search of information and selection of tools for each need. At the end of the session, the most common OS solutions with pros and cons (support: presentation or web) will be presented.

  1. Generalists:
     • Ubuntu for its ease management and stability (recommended for this course).
     • Linux Mint / ElementaryOS for windows / mac transitions.
     • Lubuntu for lightweight equipment.
  2. Specific:
     • Ubuntu Studio for audiovisuals.
     • Tails for security and privacy.

  Homework

  If the training is done online, the participants will have to perform the tasks individually:

  • Mapping of actors.
  • Tool mapping.

  References

  The GNU Operating System

  Linux forums

  The Linux Foundation: Participating in Open Source Communities

  Guides on Open Source

• The steps to be taken

  Learning Objectives

  • Provide necessary tools to successfully migrate to GNU / Linux
  • Facilitate technological tools that can help us to preserve and retrieve information
  • Facilitate pedagogical tools to plan migration
  • Encourage migration, lose fear. It's just a machine!

  Migration strategies

  Analyze the pros and cons of the different migration strategies in GNU / Linux.

  1. Step by step migration. Go migrating each tool first, end up migrating the OS when people are already used to work with the tools.
  2. Mixed migration: partial migration the center; you only do it at some machines to get people used to it.
  3. Dual migration: install the two systems in parallel, so that each user can choose which one want to use at any time.
  4. Hard migration: the entire system is migrated once and for all. The people affected by the change are informed (or not).

  Objective: To see how in fact we are already giving the step-by-step migration, many of the tools we currently use are FLOSS (Mozilla Firefox, Gimp, LibreOffice ...). Hard migrations are a good solution when the people we work with don’t have a good knowledge of proprietary environments, and therefore have not a prior bias when working with an environment.

  This could be an online activity, with a discussion forum on each strategy. At the end of the activity, the participants must be able to choose a migration approach.

  Backup amb clonezilla

  This activity is optional. Clonezilla is a powerful and intuitive tool, that helps us make backups of entire installations. It will be usefull for:

  • Make copies of a computer (operating system and contents) and store them on a hard disk.
  • Make copies and replicate an installation quickly, instead of making the same installation and configuration repeatedly.

  The activity consists of installing a bootable USB with clonezilla, following the instructions of the software itself. People who carry out this activity will end up having a bootable usb with clonezilla, and they must be able to boot a PC with this USB. They can try to make a backup of the existing installation. A support forum is opened to resolve the technical doubts that may arise.

  My SO

  Download and install the previously chosen Operative System on a USB bootable. It will be done according to the instructions provided by each system. Each participant must have its bootable operating system from an external medium.

  Let's do it

  How to boot using the BIOS (support: presentation or web) is explained in this part of the lesson.

  • What is the BIOS, how to access the BIOS and how to choose the boot order.
  • UEFI And its compatibility with ubuntu.

  Once the USB is prepared, the installation of the SO is carried out.

  • It is recommended to perform a single (non-dual) installation, since it simplifies the process.
  • If you choose to perform a dual installation, it is advisable to follow the partitioning suggested by the installer. If in doubt, ask the trainer!

  If there is no problem, at the end of the process the computer is restarted and the new SO is working.

  Homework

  Reflect on the advantages of having a free OS on a computer: how many programs and for what functions can you install without investing money? Search the internet for a list and write down the ones that seem most interesting to you. There are thousands of indexes in all languages!

  References

  Clonezilla

• And now what?

  Learning Objectives

  • Learn about the main software installation mechanisms
  • Establish guidelines for installation of updates as a basis for good maintenance
  • Compile repositories of reference documentation
  • Know the policy of administrative permissions and users of your OS

  How do I install new programs?

  How do I install new programs? The goal is to know the mechanisms and to have guidelines to keep the equipment up to date; and to be able to incorporate the software that better fits our needs. The trainer will explain:

  • What is a repository?

  • How do we connect? The software Center (App Store) Each system or distribution has a software center that connects to the repositories and gives us the possibility to download and install the selected applications, as well as the chance to read and evaluate the recommendations of the community. There are also some specific application stores that incorporate possible additional security enhancements, or encapsulation, that can facilitate system compatibility. In fact, there are different ways to get a program installed, and depending on the system, some version and some user profile may be more advisable to be chosen. We can also install programs by downloading them directly from their webpage, or from their own repository. We will usually do this using specific commands such as "apt-get”. Get more info at: Use Apt-Get to Install Programs at howtogeek.com

  Upgrade Policies

  Maintaining an up-to-date system is key for security reasons, as well as for the functionality provided by application developers, which often make improvements based on the requests or suggestions of the user community. There are several ways to set up and keep your system up to date. On the one hand by activating automatic updates to the system configuration, and on the other by using its own manager if necessary such as https://ubuntu.com/livepatch Types of updates:

  • Security Updates: Fix bugs and security holes detected. Very important to make them!

  • Recommended updates: Significant but not vital improvements to the operation of our PCs

  • Unsupported updates: improvements to programs that are still being tested by the community, helps us to detect bugs. Not recommended in working or training environments.

  How often? (recommendations)

  • Security Updates: Download and install automatically.

  • Notice of new versions of the entire Operating System: Only for long-term support versions!

  Reference documentation

  Is highly recommended to collaboratively create a documentation repository but, first, think about it: what reference sites that already exist can you find to gather information? After that, you can start to create your own repository: use a wiki system in order to compile the information you need; that's the best way to collect and share with your team all the information.

  Users and administrators

  To make updates or installations we must always have the appropriate permissions to do so; a possible strategy is to have a “user” with whom we connect only to perform maintenance and update tasks. In this way, none of other users will have permissions or access to perform system modification tasks.. This may be too restrictive a proposal, but it will prevent us from having a problem if it is a machine that is accessed by many different users (we do not want to lose control of the state of the machine) We'll review which users we have on the machine, and how to create a new user, with administrator permissions, in order to make updates.

  Recommended users:

  • User 0: User created during the installation process. You have administrative permissions to install software, perform system configurations, etc. Do not use this user when teaching.

  • Desktop user: this user does not have permissions to perform system alterations (software or settings). It’s recommended during the training and also for beginners. We can create as many users as courses we are doing!

  Homework

  Create a list of repositories, application stores and package managers, indicating which features they offer us and when it’s recommend their use.

  References

  https://ubuntu.com/livepatch

  https://www.howtogeek.com/63997/how-to-install-programs-in-ubuntu-in-the-command-line/

  https://snapcraft.io, which is a software center that uses the snap format (https://blogubuntu.com/que-es-ubuntu-snap ).

• Promotion and dissemination

  Learning Objectives

  • Be aware of how this migration can affect the people participating in each center
  • Set up didactic strategies to work on the new SO
  • Propose strategies for the dissemination of FLOSS
  • Design strategies to adapt the didactic material

  The first impressions

  Discussion forum, in order to ask the participants to share their experience and to present the first reactions of the participants in each center. Building (all together) some answers to balance the difficulties that have shown up. On-line activity or on-site discussion groups

  Set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that the migration is a good idea and answers to the problems

  Role-playing with 2 different scenarios in order to anticipate possible favorable or contrary responses from users. The group divides in two to role-play these two scenarios:

  • scenario 1: You (the teacher) meet with regular participants, they’re used to the old system and suddenly, they find that another OS has been settled. Have you notified in advance that a change will be made? How did you do it? What did you explain? Will you explain the advantages of the FLOSS culture and free software? Will you explain the utilities of this type of program to them? Will you tell them about the values of FLOSS?

  • scenario 1: You (the teacher) meet with new participants in the center. Do you need to explain anything at all? Note that if the OS is not explained when working with Windows or Mac, it may have no sense to explain it, if you are working with GNU / Linux. Just use it!
    Consider if you will explain the advantages of the FLOSS culture and free software, the utilities of this type of program, or if you will tell them about the values of FLOSS?

  A representative from each group takes note of the objections and arguments in favor of the FLOSS culture that have been observed during the role-playing and shares their notes with the rest of the group.

  Face-to-face format: role-playing.

  Online format: discussion forums.

  The didactic material

  Finally, the need to adapt the existing teaching material to continue conducting the sessions at each center is addressed. It is proposed to refocus the existing material in the work on digital skills and not so much on tools (if not already done). For example, you can talk about “office suites” and not about MSOffice. Each participant is asked to submit a sample of the teaching material to support an activity they are currently carrying out, accompanying it with updated proposals according to the new environment and the new perspective. The trainer provides advice and guidance. The delivery of this material is done in an open way so that it serves as learning for the other participants.

  Homework

  The group can organized itself in order to create or update small basic training manuals in order to help users in the use of the free software. They are distributed into small groups and continue the work until it is finished; then, everybody shares their outcomes or deliverables with a FLOSS licence in order to allow others to reuse it.

  References

  How to Make the Switch From Windows to Linux