This sounds interesting. :wink:

Are you interested in something more like Fedora Kinoite with a custom set of applications included? If so, what kind of stuff do you want on here?

Also, what kind of features are you looking for with this?

This sounds interesting. :wink:

Are you interested in something more like Fedora Kinoite with a custom set of applications included? If so, what kind of stuff do you want on here?

Also, what kind of features are you looking for with this?

That would be exactly what I'm looking for in education. Even if the base OS doesn't have LTS, just having some sort of immutable OS would be ideal. Included applications would be...
- LibreOffice
- Google Chrome (for now, because of current EDU requirements)
- Firefox
- Photopea
- LibreCAD
- Eclipse IDE (for CS and Stats)
- Audacity (and/or other music tech)
- Dia
- Inkscape

One goal of this project would be making this easy for onsite IT staff to manage. Most of them are not familiar with desktop Linux. I usually steer IT Directors to openSUSE because YaST gives them a single location where they can access their administrative tools. The IT admin should be able to easily deploy changes such as "pin FireFox to the launcher" or "deploy the school's new logo as the desktop to all workstations". Maybe an initial setup GUI with questions such as "Do you want to join a domain?" or "Do you need to map a file share" would be helpful.

We would have to assume that whomever is using this build would have little to no experience in the management of Linux systems. Tools such as Ansible, Salt, and/or Puppet would be foreign to them. Many of the target users I have spoken with have no familiarity or understanding of those concepts and would be more likely to stick with Windows.

My long-term goal would be to create a line-by-line replacement of software and services that schools and towns use now via Google and Microsoft. But easy for local IT administrators to administer.

• Google Chrome (for now, because of current EDU requirements)
• Photopea

We can't ship proprietary software as part of Fedora or direct Fedora spins, but we can make a base version with all Free Software (including Chromium and Krita), and make it easy for you to produce your own Fedora Remix that includes those things instead.

As for the rest of it, I think this is something we can work toward.

The IT admin should be able to easily deploy changes such as "pin FireFox to the launcher" or "deploy the school's new logo as the desktop to all workstations". Maybe an initial setup GUI with questions such as "Do you want to join a domain?" or "Do you need to map a file share" would be helpful.

Some of this looks like stuff @appadeia is working on in #5. The customization stuff would be something you'd be able to pre-bake with the OSTree that you'd build to preload for a school.

What kind of customizations do you typically expect for this kind of thing?

Front end Customizations would include:
- Desktop wallpaper
- Setup of Kickoff
- Apps pinned to launcher
- Application to setup and manipulate smart board or other digital whiteboard if possible
- Ability to add class rosters into KDE PIM if able
- Pre-configure bookmarked websites for students
- An easy interface for teachers to manage those bookmarks and deploy them to students.
- At deployment time, choose whether this is a teacher or student workstation.
- Enrollment into a console for device monitoring or usage.

Back-end goals
- Replace Chrome with FF
- Find replacement for Go-Guardian that is easy to manage regardless of device location.
- Create an easy way to link student information across dissimilar platforms (non-Google or PowerSchool). This would allow freedom of choice. I can explain how we did this a while back.

I’ll get some more feedback from my EDU support team this week and let you know. They are my boots on the ground and can give me more details

You might want to take a look at https://fleet-commander.org also I don't know how well this is integrated with KDE.

It is also not a bad idea to include, and support right up front. Software that KDE already has on the education front, by age category and need. Examples including Kalzium, Ktouch, Cantor, Kbrunch, etc.

@apol, @ngraham: Has there been any effort around integrating support for Fleet Commander in KDE Plasma?

RE: KDE Fleet Commander Support.

https://github.com/fleet-commander/fc-admin/issues/155 (Dated 2017)

https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/fg1q8z/fleet_commander_for_kde_yet/ (Dated 2020)

These are the first few things I was able to find with a quick glance. Both are quite dated, so hopefully there have been some changes in implimation.

The newer one seems reference the older one as being the last thing said on the subject. That one seems to indicate that it is based around dconf.

I have no recollection of it. It looks like a very Red Hat-centric tool.

The github issue pointed above seems quite dismissive of the idea. It seems to me like some Kiosk and XDG paths magic could do but I am not all that sure about it. Someone would need to properly assess what's required if you think it's something you need. Maybe it's something to look into for GSoC?