Debian Edu / Skolelinux Jessie — a complete Linux solution for your school

July 2nd, 2016

Do you have to administrate a computer lab or a whole school network? Would you like to install servers, workstations and laptops which will then work together? Do you want the stability of Debian with network services already preconfigured? Do you wish to have a web-based tool to manage systems and several hundred or even more user accounts? Have you asked yourself if and how older computers could be used?

Then Debian Edu is for you. The teachers themselves or their technical support can roll out a complete multi-user multi-machine study environment within a few days. Debian Edu comes with hundreds of applications pre-installed, but you can always add more packages from Debian.

The Debian Edu developer team is happy to announce Debian Edu 8+edu0 Jessie, the latest Debian Edu / Skolelinux release, entirely based on Debian 8 Jessie, update 8.5. Upgrades from previous beta releases of Debian Edu Jessie to this release are possible and encouraged!

About Debian Edu and Skolelinux

Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school network. Immediately after installation a school server running all services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users and machines to be added via GOsa², a comfortable web interface. A netbooting environment is prepared, so after initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be installed via the network. Older computers (even up to ten or so years old) can be used as LTSP thin clients or diskless workstations, booting from the network without any installation at all. The Debian Edu school server provides an LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home directories, a DHCP server, a web proxy and many other services. The desktop contains more than 60 educational software packages and more are available from the Debian archive. Schools can choose between the desktop environments KDE Plasma, GNOME, LXDE, MATE and Xfce.

Some recent feedback:

Giorgio Pioda, system administrator, who is using Debian Edu at SPSE (Scuola per Sportivi d’Élite) in Tenero, Switzerland (Cantone Ticino, Italian speaking part), says: We are using Debian Edu Jessie already since July 2015 and very much enjoy its stability since day one.

Matthias Hierweck, Studienrat (senior teacher), at Mildred-Scheel-Berufskolleg in Solingen, Germany reports: Since September 2015 a Debian Edu Jessie combi server is running in a computerroom newly set up by me. 34, to some extent older computers and laptops are used as diskless workstations; these are working just fine with LXDE.

Uwe Blahowsky, principal at Schule im Pfeifferhof in Graz, Austria, wrote: Since 2011 the school's computer system is managed using Skolelinux. In February 2016 we (Mario Fetka and me) switched to Debian Edu Jessie. The system consisting of a main server, 10 Linux workstations for both teachers and pupils, and 2 Windows7 computers for the school administration, is running very stable. The pupils and teachers are getting on very well with it; they are mainly using the Chromium browser to do web research and Libre Office for word processing. The Libre Office update is clearly noticeable in the daily work. Another great relief for me as administrator is the GOsa² web interface to manage users and systems.

New features for Debian Edu 8+edu0 Jessie

These are some items from the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 8+edu0, based on Debian 8.5 with codename Jessie. The full list is part of the manual.

Download options, installation steps and manual

A multi-architecture CD / USB stick image (649 MiB) for network booting can be downloaded at the following locations:

The SHA1SUM of this image is: b82eea8a47f471a2ead0434279e2d3e2e66eed53

Alternatively an extended DVD / USB stick image (5 GiB) is also available, with more software included (saving additional download time during installs):

The SHA1SUM of this image is: cffac38cca13a7e6be5888c21088fd6b57398f88

Sources are available from the Debian archive, see cdimage.debian.org for some download options.

Please note the Debian Edu Jessie status page.

For installation notes please read the related Debian Edu manual chapter.

After installation you need to take these first steps.

When upgrading from wheezy please read the related Debian Edu manual chapter.

Please see the Debian Edu wiki pages for the latest English version of the Debian Edu Jessie manual. The manual has been fully translated to German, French, Italian, Danish, Dutch and Norwegian Bokmål. A partly translated version exists for Spanish. See the manual translations installed on maintainer.skolelinux.org).

You can also visit jenkins.debian.net for the latest translated versions of the manual.

More information about Debian 8 Jessie itself is provided in the release notes and the installation manual; see https://www.debian.org/.

About Debian

The Debian Project is an association of Free Software developers who volunteer their time and effort in order to produce the completely free operating system Debian.

Contact Information

For further information, please visit the Debian web pages at https://www.debian.org/ or send mail to <press@debian.org>.