Today we are pleased to announce we have tested and certified Black Lab Linux for Education with Google Apps for Education. Googles solutions have been tested with the three browsers, Firefox, Google Chrome and Chromium. With this testing we have certified the following solutions:
Contacts
Google Voice
Google Talk
Google Hangouts
Google Calendar
Google Apps
Google Classroom
These solutions work out of box with the following distribution releases of Black Lab Linux:
Black Lab Linux 5.x and the upcoming Black Lab Linux 6.x
Black Lab Linux for Education 5.x and Black Lab Linux for Education 6.x
Black Lab Professional Desktop 5.x and the upcoming Black Lab Professional Desktop 6.x
With Google Apps for Education and Black Lab Linux for Education customers can be rest assured that we make the grade.
We sat down with Roberto J. Dohnert of the Black Lab Linux software team and asked a few questions.
Q) What does this mean for Black Lab Linux for Education and school systems that use Black Lab Linux?
A) We have established Black Lab Linux as the best of breed in the three markets of desktop Linux computing; consumer, business and education. We are fully committed to the Education market as that is one area where Linux has not seen much adoption but that adoption is growing thanks to our efforts and other efforts by other companies and courageous school districts. What it means is that customers are not stuck with Google proprietary platforms like ChromeOS and Android and that they have the benefit of an open desktop system where they can utilize much more function than they can with ChromeOS or Android.
Q) Will we support Google Apps for Educations and Classroom through support contracts or is that something we rely on Google for?
A) Both actually, for users who subscribe to our support services and custom builds. We will help users set up their accounts if need be and build in the links into their distribution. Of course if there is a problem with Google's cloud services thats something Google will have to handle.
Q) Google has been touting of late the convenience of Google Chromebooks and one of those conveniences is that one sign in access to their services. How do we compliment that ourselves?
A) Well, the Google Chromebook is a great device. With Black Lab Linux we have built in support for Google Apps for Education and users have the same access with Black Lab Linux as they do with the Chromebook. With Google Chrome and Firefox built in, all users have to do is login with their credentials and all their apps, documents and files are available immediately and they have the convenience of their favorite offline applications being available as well with Black Lab Linux for Education. Another added benefit is the fact that with the Thunderbird Suite ,available only from Black Lab Linux, we have built in support for Google Apps for Business and Google Apps for Education.
Q) Why did we test with Firefox?
A) We tested with Firefox because with version 35 of Google Chrome, Google does not support Java on Linux or Mac OS X anymore. There are a lot of districts that still use older model web apps that utilize the Java platform. Since we build in both browsers (Chrome and Firefox) with Education we wanted to make sure that users can utilize Google's services on their favorite browser despite what it may be.
