OLinux: How is the lab organized? Give us an idea of how does the lab works?

Hanne Munkholm: The lab has ten PC's and will also get three laptops. Furthermore it has two servers. The hardware is sponsored by commercial companies.

We also have Linux and UNIX books on the shelves, and we subscribe to some of the important Linux magazines.

There is one person employed full time in the lab. Also, some teachers, research people and people from the IT department does some work with LinuxLab. The lab officially belongs to the IT department.

The lab is a place where the students can come and work. They have the opportunity to do some things they can't do in the normal computer rooms, like run a server that requires that a root password.

Furthermore, we do "LearningLinux" sessions to introduce new students to Linux.

In the future we plan research projects connected to the lab. Also we plan to collaborate with commercial companies and to provide knowledge to the public.

OLinux: What are its main activities?

Hanne Munkholm: At the moment our main activities are teaching our students Linux, and documenting the Linux knowledge already available at the IT University. Later other activities, like teaching Linux to the IT University's employees and the public, and hosting research projects related to Linux, will also be main activites.

OLinux: What is the lab's main objective? When did it start? What group came up with the idea? Who are the project leaders?

Hanne Munkholm: The lab has 4 main objectives:

• To gain insight into and knowledge about open systems and to supply this knowledge to the IT University, external collaborators and in the public debate.
• To encourage the use of open standards for digital information exchange.
• To create an open, informative and technical environment where students and researchers can work, play and experiment.
• To host creative projects of international quality in the field of open systems.

The lab opened at December 1. 2000. The initiative was taken by some Phd students and teachers together with Mads Tofte, the president of the IT University.

The head of LinuxLab is Hanne Munkholm, who works full time with the LinuxLab. In the future we expect some of the researchers at the IT-U to be leaders of different projects is LinuxLab context.