[ucc] 2008 Fresher CD instead of Fresher guide

[Samuel Spencer]

Well, having both is good, but I had a look through and we have a stack of
hyperlinks printed through the fresher guide now.
Support for the fresher CD is good, but I think DVD is better, I downloaded
a stack of free (cost-less?) software today and with cross platform software
it weighs in at 1.1G without a live distro or any of our guides, etc.

For those curious at what I've got, go to
http://theodore.ucc.asn.au/fresher-guide/

It's all free software, however it isn't all GPL, solely because some
proprietary, but free software is better than the alternatives and I don't
think we should politicize this idea.
Most of it is GPL, but I wanted to stress the reasoning behind the inclusion
of any software is because of its inherent usefulness to students and the
main provision that it is free (as in beer) to download.

The inclusion of torrent software is it is use by most large software
packages to distribute files.
Media playing software is included due to the rise in iLecture uptake.
Linux versions of oftware are left out as most will either be included on
the live cd or should be downloaded through the appropriate package manager.
Where a Mac version or appropriate program is omitted (ie PDF Viewer / JDK)
it is because it is distributed with the OSX software.
I have gone for Intel / Universal over PPC, as people using PPC Mac should
know how they work or will have preferred software of their own.
Mac software is included purely due to their growing market share in both
the laptop and youth markets.

I think for distribution we should make a few concessions:
1. We don't know the Mac/PC distribution among students so having Mac/PC
distributions and only handing out one type to a student could mean we will
run out of one before the other. It also means if a student switches
platforms to get the software they must download or acquire another copy.
2. The latest Ubuntu Live CD's run equally we'll on Mac or PC, so we only
need one version.
3. The shear volume of software I have got (which I doubt is complete yet)
is not going to fit on one CD.

Which means we do one of 2 things:
1. Release 1 altered Live DVD or
2. Release a 3 CD pack, with a windows CD, a Mac CD and a Live CD, with what
ever we author for it crammed on somewhere.

Sam.
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I for one think this is a really good idea though I don't want to
'replace' the fresher guide as much as supplement it. The combined
cost of doing both is still reasonably small and a lot of people who
won't look at the CD will read the guide and vice versa.

Plus as trs80 suggested to me this evening, we can put instructions
for the CD in the guide for those people who aren't quite as clueful
as others.


-- 
James French
0x21st UCC President
frenchie at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au


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