after the third time in cameroon, we have to prepare the 4. stage .
generally said, we should consolidate what we have done so far and prepare the next steps
who are we? we are a group in cameroon who participate more or less active on linux projects implementations and we would like to build such a group here in europe, namely in switzerland.
Don't hesitate to get in contact with us if you are interested in our projects, have questions about them or want to gather further informations. We are reachable under the follwing email addresses :
kamerun@immerda.ch lugbamenda@immerda.ch lub.limbe@gmail.com
Untill now we are present in 3 towns : limbe, yaounde and bamenda where we initiated and are now building up linux users groups.
So why open source in africa?
especially africa has a history full of dependency and humiliation and we dont't want this will continue or happen again, people of africa fall again in a simmilar dependency of the computer technology. that maens everything they can produce and develop by themselves. Everything we have to do is to encourage them to try the following things :
hardware:
build wireless antenna, assemble computers, ...
software:
windows OS and many applications offered for it are not open, so one can't use it as a basis for further development. in free open source software everybody has the possibility to enhance and modify existing applications and operating systems.
that's why we develop open source in africa.
our experience shows, the people are curious, are willing to learn and they are very open to open source.
For these three LUGs and our projects we have created homepage:
http://www.njahbisoli.org and http://sokolo.cronopios.org
we have at the moment difficulties with the update, but we will to solve it soon
after 6 months of hard work we have achieved some of the planned goals:
an open source informatics school is born
teaching. 25 students each day devided in two sessions. one in the morning from 10 am to 1 pm, the second one in the evening form 4 pm to 7 pm
a weekly meeting takes place where we discuss all current school related topics.
We try to keep the hierarchy as flat as possible and to build a democratic structure within the circle of teachers and students so they can meet and discuss toghether on the same level. as in open source movement we also want to share our knowledge and discuss with each other on a friendly and social level.
This also brings certain duties to the students such as taking the responsability to pay the bill of electricity and water. they pay each month 2300.- cfa (4 euros. to compare: a inforamtics school in the town limbe cost 15'000 cfa / month).
as you can see in our lesson schedules we try to impart general knowledge of computer technology instead of the typical office tools knowledge. Beside the basic courses like typing and a typing and formatting a letter, we learn the basics of internet pages, HTML, database to be able to construct dynamic homepage, php a programing language on the webserver. this language is thought as a first programming language to impart programming basics to the students and opening them the way to other program language like C.
In the meantime the group has gained a certain amount of knowledge and reached the advanced level. They have to share their knowledge with other students on the basic level. Making the knowledge accessible and sharing the knowledge with other is a principle a the open source movement. It is also our intention to teach people that kind of mind set, to deepen the own knowledge, share it with others and keeping the mind open for new knowledge.
what kind of material and installation
There are two ways to go
edubuntu
we use edubuntu machines because they have a LTSP software packet in the distribution and so it is easy for the students to install a LTSP server from the beginning to the end. this is exactly what we want, to enable the students to install a LTSP server independently.
xen server
we have installed a xen server because we want to impart the students new trends, new and not just the „simple“ technology. By using virtual machines they learn how to use the hardware and software resources in a better and optimised way. we want to enable them to install and test more complicated things parallel, on one single system, like a webserver, mail server, dhcp server.
After the they have learned to build such machine, they install services on a dedicated virtual instance and run tests until it crashes. but the other applications will still work. this can easily be achieved with a xen server.
on this xen-server we have installed following virtual machines: LTSP machine, MySQL server and WEB APPLICATIONS like moodle, mediawiki and egroupware.
at the moment there are:
6 machines standalone with edubuntu 7.10
2 xen-server
one with 4 clients
the other with 2 client (we need more network and power cables)
2 notebooks
one has ubuntu and the other can only be used as an LTSP client because the hard disk crashed.
maintenance
we have done some maintenance work but the computer we use are of a good quality and maintenance efforts are low.
we have to start from a basic level, like typing, because often people are beginners and their computer skills are quite low.
A. structure of the typing lesson
1. 15 minutes typing with ktouch. everybody begins with the level 1 and can go to the nex level after reaching the speed of 60. the advanced students change by reaching a speed of 80. at the end of the 15 minutes each student informs about the speed he reached. currently many of the advanced student reach the highest level (15).
2. 15 minutes to type a text without formatation with open office write. at the end of the 15 minutes each student informs about the number of words and characters he typed. the advanced students reach up to 500 characters.
3. the previously typed text must be formatted. i can not say how far the students progressed because it was introduced just in the moment i left cameroon
E-LEARNING SOFTWARE
after typing we have made a time table with different courses. we work with the e-learning software moodle. we have already developed lessons but there is still much work to do. you can find some of the courses on the following url :
http://www.systemworker.ch/moodle
everybody can test it with the user student and password student
we have good experiences with this software and we want to continue with it. the problem is, there are not much lesson available for free download from the internet what forces us to create them ourselves. Whoever is willing to create of lesson in the field of linux, networking, PHP, wlan and open office, just contact us under the following email addres : here the mails again
kamerun@immerda.ch lugbamenda@immerda.ch lub.limbe@gmail.com
currently we are working on the following courses: HTML, open office word, calc, impress, database MySQL, PHP. They are in a stable version so far but are certainly not complete and perfect and are still under development. with the student we start to create and improve lessons but after evaluating the first results it seems it takes some more time.
wireless
we have gained some experience with linksys wireless network router, which were updated with freifunk software to make meshed networking possible. we had 3 meraki wireless network routers which were already configured but we had not antenna with the according connectors to test them. from europe i took a omni antenna 12 dbi from wistech which was working well. we reached a connection distance up to 800 m. but we encountered difficulties with point to point antenna. it was not working well. we tried to build antennas (cantennas) ourselves but it was not working properly.
we have build a homepage together with the students of the
school and the population of the village.
feedback and criticism are appreciated.
we have 2 centers, one in mimboman and the other in biteng
Mimboman is a quarter located outside yaounde. the group meets every day. they learn mostly open office
1 xen server
with 4 clients (we test with 7 clients without problems)
this server has the same application as in limbe LTSP, MySQL, webapplications with moodle and egroupware)
1 edubuntu 6.04 LTSP with 2 clients
1 edubuntu 7.10 LTSP but standalone
it is to say the machines are in rather bad condition because in yaounde especially in this part of town where the roads are not "goudron", ther is many dust and humidity what is very bad for the electronic components of the computers. that's why we are looking for low power computer and without fan so we can buld it very closed. with the same machine in limbe we had no such difficulties.
biteng is a outside yaounde too. the chief of the village proposes to install a computer network. as we know the criminality is very high and he will try to give an alternative to the youth of this quarter.
we install
1 xen server with
4 clients
1 edubuntu stand alone
Bamenda
this is the oldest group. During my stay I only go a few days to bamenda. that's why we have not much informations from this group. they are working for themselves and are responsible for the teaching for informatics in bust university. unfortunately this university has no computers. it was a problem with the material. but we hope it will be solved soon so we could install a few computers in this universtity.
we build a small center with the UPA. CAF is a women oganisation and they want to have informatics courses. we install 2 computers with edubuntu and we held a one week course. unfortunately chanceline, who is the responsible person for kribi, became sick. we will try to go forward.
as mentioned before, we have built a base and we must consolidate it. the experience shows us that the group in limbe has many difficulties to make the update of the sokolo homepage. they have difficulties to copy and upload files and to make a connections to the internet in the isokole internet cafe. we have to continue the HTML courses and with database and PHP.
We also plan to make a step forward. we plan to use a CMS (content management system) to maintain and update the homepage. For this purpose i propose to use drupal or / and joomla.
we must begin to build server with the different services like
webserver
mailserver
dhcpserver
irc
...
the xen server give us a very good possibility to build and test such software
for firewall, i propose to install
ipcop. i think it is more secure to have a own machine for this than
to put in another machine with many other programs.
lesson about crypted data with graphic
interface and console
we will soon have internet conection, so we should know howto install dyndns
hardware:
we will build a test network with mini itx board. we will test that network and its components and, in the future, intend to assemble this kind of computers.
we will bring notebooks like asus eee, which are low price (400.- $)
they can host all the services we can do on a computer.
at last but not at least:
alain, a friend, who had and still has social projects in cameroon, is building up a economical project, it means it is a company which should econmically technically survive and grow. i work with him and it is good, because we can so solve the problem, that some people want to buy machines and we don't do it as social organisation, so we can work with this company to solve this question. the company is called biaboya and means „how does it work“ in their african language. see the homepage
fazit:
the new situation: the school is allready to small. the traditional chief of the village of wovia and mokinki are willingt to give us land for free if we build a informatic school on it. we must soon take a decision. the project cannot be done, if the solidarity is not growing here in europe, usa. we want to build an open source isle in africa and we can imagine that many friends from europe, usa can be come to build a real solidarity with the african people. such project is a dream, and it will not happen unless we do it all together