2 ½ months of f2f training it@ab IT-Specialists 2004-2005 in Freiburg are already finished. When the participants arrived in Saarbrücken last year, we installed SuSE 9.1, Debian Sarge and Knoppix on their notebooks. During their stay in Saarbrücken they used SuSE for their daily work (This year they didn't had any Microsoft OS on their notebooks). SuSE was easy to learn, especially on the desktop. Most of the f2f training however was done using Debian Sarge.

We noticed the following advantages and disadvantages:

Disadvantages:
· There is no yast. That makes administration more difficult compared to SUSE. Especially networking and VGA configuration is harder for newbies.
· Multimedia support is/was better on SuSE. Participants had a hard time getting audio/video configured.
· Wireless support is difficult on Debian Sarge. In many cases kernel modification was necessary.
· Runlevel concept on Debian Sarge is poor. If you're not an expert you do not have a system that is hardened. Everything is running in runlevel 2.

Advantages:
· Package management apt (Software installation) is outstanding. No time consuming installation of dependencies is necessary.
· System upgrade is very easy. Just run apt-get dist-upgrade and you will update your complete system.
· Determine your own security level. Decide yourself whether to use stable, testing or unstable distribution.
· There is no need to order upgrades and pay for them. Debian upgrades its repository daily. You just receive everything from the web.
· You may download your own mirror from the web and use it for your own installations. You may achieve fast installations with this method. (This will be main part of train the trainer coaching. Our mirrors are available for Intel and AMD 64 platforms)
· Very easy classroom training with your own mirror.
· Many other distributions like Knoppix, Ubuntu, Helix or Skolelinux are derived from Debian.
· You may create your own Debian or Knoppix CD/DVD and use them by using jigdo and/or Remastering (This will be part of train the trainer coaching).
· Debian is considered to be one of the most stable server platforms.

Comparing the disadvantages and the advantages, a definite decision towards Debian was done. Participants are free in their decision on which distribution to use. Considering Server and Security issues, all of them migrated to Debian. Problems with hardware drivers and multimedia are beginning to vanish since Debian is bringing in new drivers weekly. Support for drivers like SATA and/or WLAN is improving and mostly solved. Even Multimedia is functioning as expected on most machines now. Runlevel Concept can be modified with update-rc.d if you have left the beginners level.

InWEnt trainers receive many hotline requests from previous participants. This is a time consuming process. It cannot be done by trainers alone. To get the most benefit out of the training in Germany, regular support toward it@ab countries need to be established. We alreday notice a big gap between current and previous participants. Support on SuSE specific questions cannot be answered any longer, because the trainers migrated to Debian. Setting up systems on SUSE for answering those questions would be beyond the scope of volunteer hotline support.

Therefore we were looking for solutions. All those actions are completely free on your own decision. Consider however that current participants do not have the knowledge on SuSE distributions and trainers finished the migration. For that reason we started the train the trainer coaching. To circumvent the known bandwith problems in Africa InWEnt supported each it@ab country with an hardrive holding Debian mirrors. Within a short time a Linux Server with ftp or http support can be set up. Just mount this new harddrive into your system to have your own mirror available. 50 DVDs have been distributed to futher increase the possibility to migrate to Debian.

The coaching part will be done by part of our current participants. As a support tool we have been offered the Moodle classroom from www.FreiOSS.net /moodle . This enables our trainers to do the coaching without any additional cost. We didn't put up a time schedule, because we want to leave the classroom open as long as possible. It@ab participants may use this coaching whenever they find some time. This may be a good chance for it@ab Seniors too, to get involved into our long term Open Source strategies.

Parallel to this coaching, FreiOSS.net is preparing a classroom coaching about the detection of botnets, viruses, worms and trojans. We're using Open Source tools to show the imminent threats that Microsoft machines are exposed if they are connected to the Internet. It@ab upgrade II has already participated in this seminar and is able to answer questions about this topic. This classroom will be closed soon for non registered participants. If you want to apply, let us know. There is no charge for non European members. This is a good chance to practice your skills from train the trainer coaching. It nicely shows how a Linux environment may be used to secure your network, mainly containing Microsoft clients.

Interested people may contact:

Herr Hans Peter Merkel h.merkel@a-2-a.net
(FreiOSS / Freiburg) to receive trainer access privileges

InWEnt Participant of the IT Specialist Training 2004-2005 / Freiburg Herr Ricardo r.taca@a-2-a.net

Please include Project Coordinator from InWEnt, Christiane Weber in your mail ict@inwent.org

On www.a-2-a.net we announced next steps on "Train the trainer" for our Debian mirror project.

An open Moodle e-le@rning module (guest login at the time) is available at www.freioss.net/moodle. for coaching purposes.