Education

Our focus this month is on Education, a subject dear to the hearts of many Americans. Since coming into office, President Clinton has been promising to get all U.S. schools on the Internet, and Congress has appropriated money to help the public schools “get wired”.

The most reliable and cost- effective way for a school to get on the Internet is to use the Linux operating system with the Apache web server. Currently, Apache is used more than any other available server—it just doesn't get the same publicity commercial servers do because it is freely available. That is, no one benefits financially from advertising it.

Our feature article, “Holt Public Schools and Linux”, is about a school system that has done this very thing—networked their computers using Linux and provided students with access to the Internet. Linux has proved the right solution for their school system, and it is the right solution for others, too.

Universities have been proving the reliability and effectiveness of Linux for some time now. For this issue we received five articles from universities, but had room for only three. The other two will be published in future issues.

As all of these articles show, Linux works for students in the classroom and the lab, as well as at home and in space. Students at the University of Colorado used Linux for the hydroponics experiment aboard the space shuttle [“Linux Out of the Real World”, Sebastian Kuzminsky, Linux Journal, July 1997]. This month, we have students at that same university using Linux for robotic car races.

As I write, Spring Comdex is being held in Atlanta, Georgia, and Fall Comdex is being planned. Comdex Fall '97 will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, from November 17 through 21. Details can be found on their web site at http://www.comdex.com/. Comdex Fall is the largest industry trade show in North America, with over 2,000 exhibitors and over 200,000 attendees. This year the Linux Pavilion will be larger than ever with many prominent Linux vendors participating. Linux Journal will definitely be there to meet you.

The exhibit halls at Comdex are free to pre-registered attendees. A form for pre-registration can be found at their web site. If you wish to get involved with organization or to set up an exhibition booth for yourself in the Linux Pavilion, send e-mail to li-show@ssc.com.

We are now taking votes for our annual Reader's Choice awards at the Linux Journal web site, http://www.ssc.com/lj/. There are more categories this year, so don't miss your chance to vote for your favorite products. Voting ends August 22, 1997.

Our first annual Linux Journal Buyer's Guide, which came out in February of this year, has been declared a success, so we are doing it again. This second issue will again be published as a free thirteenth issue for our subscribers. So, subscribe now by e-mailing subs@ssc.com.

Product and service listings come from forms that we distribute, as well from the Linux Software Map. If you have not received a form, it can be found on our web site at http://www.ssc.com/lj/bg/. There is no charge to have your product, service or business listed in this issue.

We have added a new page to our Linux Resources web site, http://www.ssc.com/linux/lsb/. On this page you can find a list of people willing to present talks about Linux. The page gives you some information about these speakers, including talks they've given and talks they'd like to give. When you need a speaker for your club or trade show, all the information is right here. If you like to talk about Linux, there is form for you to fill out that will add your name to the growing list of speakers.

Caldera has announced that it will give a free copy of OpenLinux Lite on CD-ROM for each newly registered group of GLUE. Caldera, Inc. (http://www.caldera.com/) is located in Provo, Utah. For full details on GLUE and to register your group as a member, visit the GLUE web site at http://www.ssc.com/glue/.