June 2000 - openSUSE Edu - openSUSE Mailing Lists

Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Cyber bullying
by adrian.wells 16 Jun '00

16 Jun '00

Isn't this enough on bullying? but... >Surely, these kids can only do it once! After that >their access is revoked. I don't see that recurrence >is a problem. Just don't allow 'offenders' computer >time. Please tell me if this is gross >over-simplification. Of course not! > know that when a child at our place tried to look up >ome 'offensive' material (just once) he was caught, >nd then banned from accessing - full stop. Problem >olved. Make sure everyone know's the rules. Make sure >hey know that their emails will be scanned. I'm all >or privacy, but if a child was verbally bullying, you >ould listen in, then take appropriate action. Make no >ppologies - they WILL be scanned. >et me know if any of this is nonsense.Again no (but can we swap schools please?) The problem is that e-mail and the web are an easy option for teachers, so little Freddie needs his e-mail (even if he misuses it) to do the 101 things that the teacher has asked the class to do. I remove offenders from the system (you think that RM filtering is effective? think again!) for a pastime but staff tell me to re-install them.

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May be of interest ...
by Roger Whittaker 16 Jun '00

16 Jun '00

http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue45/ward/ward.html -- Roger Whittaker SuSE Linux Ltd The Kinetic Centre Theobald Street Borehamwood Herts WD6 4PJ ---------------------- 020 8387 1482 ---------------------- roger(a)suse-linux.co.uk ----------------------

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Cyber bullying
by Matt Johnson 16 Jun '00

16 Jun '00

Surely, these kids can only do it once! After that their access is revoked. I don't see that recurrence is a problem. Just don't allow 'offenders' computer time. Please tell me if this is gross over-simplification. I know that when a child at our place tried to look up some 'offensive' material (just once) he was caught, and then banned from accessing - full stop. Problem solved. Make sure everyone know's the rules. Make sure they know that their emails will be scanned. I'm all for privacy, but if a child was verbally bullying, you would listen in, then take appropriate action. Make no appologies - they WILL be scanned. Let me know if any of this is nonsense. Cheers -- Matt Johnson ICT Coordinator __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Cyber bullying
by Matt Johnson 16 Jun '00

16 Jun '00

>1. Would you censor private mail written by hand >and snail- >mailed? How do you justify the distinction? >Surely, private means just that. And is it within >your legal >right to censor it? Nothing like a debate to get the mail flying! Cheers. A good point, but: If a child was writing racist hate mail from school? On school headed paper? Yep, I would. If they were writing to pen friends as part of the curriculum, then yes, I'd read the letter there too. There's no doubt in my mind that if it's on school property, then it's our responsibility to check that there's no abuse of OTHER peoples liberty (from hate mail, theft etc). __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Cyber bullying
by kevin.taylor＠powerconv.alstom.com 16 Jun '00

16 Jun '00

>> Make sure everyone know's the rules. Make sure >> they know that their emails will be scanned. > Would you censor private mail written by hand > and snail-mailed? How do you justify the distinction? Well, if someone is sending out snail-mail using the schools headed note-paper, to pester some one, etc then could you be justified here also ... ? It is not quite a privacy thing, but more a reputation thing. All email from the school is labelled from the school. There is nothing to stop the said bully going home, and using his personal account to do the same - but that is a problem for his ISP. This is the key issue. Make it very public that the use of the schools facilities is encouraged, but that they use them on the condition that all traffic is monitored (internal and internet), whether you actually do it or not :-). You may need to spell it out in terms of email, web, news, IRC, etc - maybe even in some sort of policy document, with the agreement of the school management ... (I don't know how these things work) - It is not an easy issue to sort out, but the key thing is that *everyone* should know where they stand (staff and pupils) IMO. It may also be worth considering things like disclaimers on outgoing email/news posts, etc, but only if you *really* feel that it could be a problem, and that someone could come back to the school and shout at you for something the kids have done :-) (and this is before you get into the acceptable use of things like FTP and installing screen savers and games and virus checking, etc). I think the key thing is leave them in no doubt about an acceptable use policy (the same as with any commercial organisation too). There is a similar problem with a sysadmin having access to a packet sniffer to debug network problems, or the 'root' account on a server where you could go poking around in peoples 'private' files ... There is a basic trust thing too. Just my thoughts Kevin. (usual disclaimers apply - ie assume I don't know what I am talking about :-)

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Cyber bullying
by adrian.wells 16 Jun '00

16 Jun '00

I wrote a program to scan the internal e-mail on our Novell server - one could load different word lists allowing scanning for different items e.g. stolen goods, obscenities, bullying etc., It worked very well. "catching" a lot of offenders, but without real effect. The kids objected, making noises about privacy, but they accepted use of the system knowing full well that mail could/would be scanned. They (usually bullies) would try to spoof, but my program would display the true originator, even though the recipient could not see this in a normal e-mail browser. It was interesting that even though we could prove to them that spoofing was a waste of time, they continued to do so, disbelieving the printed evidence in front of them. One wonders what sort of people we are raising in our schools! Kind Regards Adrian Wells _______________________________________ Systems Manager Sidcot School Oakridge Lane, Winscombe, Somerset BS25 1PD. Please reply to adrian.wells(a)sidcot.org.uk admin(a)sidcot.org.uk for general enquiries

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Cyber bullying
by Derek Harding 16 Jun '00

16 Jun '00

Just wonder if anyone does anything active to prevent cyber bullying and stalking of students by students? We have a policy of no sexist, racist or offensive e-mails (students only have internal e-mail) and we test e-mail content for obvious abuse of English but no true filtering. E-mail is a powerful weapon for bullies and I wonder if we should take a more firm action to prevent it. Any thoughts? -- Best wishes, Derek Harding derek(a)lagham.zetnet.co.uk

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Cyber bullying
by Edgehill E-Mail Service 16 Jun '00

16 Jun '00

Many of our students have e-mail facilities from home - so very few use our e-mail service, and that is batched out once per day (they know that their e-mail is "postcard security", and is likely to be read for precisely that reason. {it isn't, but that is not the point}). Most of the e-bullying happens outside. We do not support internal e-mails. Our biggest problem has been the e-mail services which allow users to masquerade as someone else - e.g. my e-mail address is SysAdm(a)edgecoll.clara.net - they could use SysAdm(a)edgecol.clara.net :( Regards, Paul ---------- > From: Derek Harding <derek(a)lagham.zetnet.co.uk> > To: suse schools <suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com> > Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Cyber bullying > Date: 15 June 2000 21:08 > > Just wonder if anyone does anything active to prevent cyber bullying and > stalking of students by students? > We have a policy of no sexist, racist or offensive e-mails (students only > have internal e-mail) and we test e-mail content for obvious abuse of > English but no true filtering. > E-mail is a powerful weapon for bullies and I wonder if we should take a > more firm action to prevent it. Any thoughts? > -- > Best wishes, Derek Harding > derek(a)lagham.zetnet.co.uk >

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Squid etc.
by Derek Harding 15 Jun '00

15 Jun '00

Hi, I read of the problems running up squid. Actually, I found squid2 runs virtually out of the box for me. I made a couple of minor mods to /etc/squid.conf and started it up. "ps ax | grep squid" will tell you if it's running. For me, it starts in /sbin/init.d/squid and with /etc/rc.config having an added variable "START_SQUID = "yes"" Since we have a very poor ISP filter, we also do some front-line filters to stop the worst of the sites get in, including some in foreign languages. Then our ISP does some filtering and that goes via a commercial programme "websense" which is pretty good. The ISP end is only as good as their config. though, which is pretty damn poor. There is no substitute for RAM for Squid, we use 256k ISDN bandwidth and traffic flows most of the school day. The cache is a child to our ISP cache. We are using Roxen at the moment as the www server because it supports a nifty browser e-mail client, but since our workstations run windoze, we use the Pegasus client (excellent - worth getting to know as an administrator and user) so I'll be removing Roxen and going back to Apache. The Intranet won't know the difference. So, Linux runs our DHCP, e-mail services, internet gateway and proxy, intranet server and a couple of other little odd jobs like monitoring our Netware user space for exe files etc. and filtering the student e-mail for abuse. The students use Pegasus and it is NOT configured to run internet e-mail. They have to forward curricular e-mails via the staff tutor for that subject. All staff have full internet e-mail access. -- Best wishes, Derek Harding derek(a)lagham.zetnet.co.uk

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MS Publisher Replacement
by Mark Evans 15 Jun '00

15 Jun '00

Is anyone aware of a possible replacement for Publisher? Being able to understand existing publisher files is a must. Unfortunatly Publisher and WINE do not agree with each other. -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763

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Pen pals (not really Linux)
by graham.spratt＠tinyonline.co.uk 15 Jun '00

15 Jun '00

I have some children at School who are lookimg for internet pen pals if any of you have any one who would like to be a pen pal can you let me know. Graham

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Today's welcome message (fwd)
by Roger Whittaker 15 Jun '00

15 Jun '00

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 14:58:56 +0100 From: Mr J W Philpott <jwp(a)charlesburrellhigh.norfolk.sch.uk> To: Roger Whittaker <roger(a)suse-linux.co.uk> Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Today's welcome message On Wed, 7 Jun 2000 10:06:52 +0100 (BST) Roger Whittaker <roger(a)suse-linux.co.uk> wrote: > *This message was transferred with a trial version of > CommuniGate(tm) Pro* > There are new people on the list out there ... > > Why not post a message and say hello and what you're > doing ... > eh Hi I'm a hard working head of ICT at a 2y school in Thetford Norfolk, (an education action zone no less!). I do ask stupid questions, but I want, or need (?), to learn. I'm presently trying to move from Acorns to PCs, please don't swear at me, and drag our network into the 21st century. So why PCs? You know the answer. At the moment we use 2 NT servers, one running communigate for IMAP mail, I don't understand it but it works, and a PC running Apache as a web server and simple proxy, we did have an acorn running the internet suit, but that died under PC attack, hence the PC/Apache hash up. I want to get Apache/Squid running on Linux, I've got Apache sort of running (it installed itself causing me hours of fun until I discovered this). Squid (using the instructions for quick start) seems to start up the claims not to be running when checked with the -k check (I think) option. That's me and where I am at, can someone please point me to the thread for Squid? Jamie > -- > Roger Whittaker > SuSE Linux Ltd > The Kinetic Centre > Theobald Street > Borehamwood > Herts > WD6 4PJ > ---------------------- > 020 8387 1482 > ---------------------- > roger(a)suse-linux.co.uk > ---------------------- > J W Philpott Head of ICT Charles Burrell High School, Thetford, Norfolk Wed, 7 Jun 2000 10:06:52 +0100 (BST)

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Using Linux on the server - compare to RM Connect
by Matt Johnson 14 Jun '00

14 Jun '00

I could do with some pointers here too. I'm about to embark on taking over a school with Connect, and I'm very interested in running Linux there. But I'd need some good plus points to take to the Governors, considering they've already spent money on the RM solution. -- Matt Johnson __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos -- now, 100 FREE prints! http://photos.yahoo.com

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SIMS + SQLserver
by Ian P. Mills (Technical Support Manager) 13 Jun '00

13 Jun '00

SIMS state that they currently use SQL-Anywhere (not familiar to us) which gives five concurrent users at no cost for software licence. Work is well in progress for future versions of many SIMS modules and subsequently ALL modules working with Microsoft SQL server. Apparently there is a cut down version which they include as part of the SIMS licence as it is 'cheap' or free to schools. SIMS have also stated (to us) that they intend NOT to support Linux and that their software will NOT work with ANY other version of SQL as it is written to use many 'features' which are unique to MS-SQL........ ...our problem was that the minimum spec of PC and server that they suggest for future versions was outrageous, particularly for Primary schools... Ian UP. Mills Technical Support Manager Flintshire Education ICT Support Unit

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Dial on demand?? and Sendmail/Webmail?
by Gary Parr 13 Jun '00

13 Jun '00

Hi Im running Squid2 and Apache on my Suse server, and things are running okay. Just a couple of things I now need todo, first is to get the modem attached to it to dial on demand. And also set up email (will only be upto 10 users) All connecting clients will be Win95/98 How easy is sendmail to setup? (Demon Account) or is there a Webmail server that will do the sending a fetching of emails via Pop3 and/or SMTP, and allow users to "login" to access there email? I had this at home when I used Navaho on a Acorn RiscPC, but hav'nt found anything for Linux that is easy to setup. Can anyone suggest anything? Gary ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

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Linux Training
by Clive Jones 13 Jun '00

13 Jun '00

Hi all, The Tresham Institute of Further & Higher Education in Wellingborough, Northants, is looking for someone to help plan and deliver two short courses on Linux :-) I offered to help, but will be honeymooning on the dates in question. If anyone is interested, or requires further information on the course, then please contact Steve Gibbs, the IT manager: sgibbs(a)tresham.ac.uk Could SuSE UK help with this? Best regards, Clive.

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] SQL Server
by Edgehill E-Mail Service 13 Jun '00

13 Jun '00

From: Paul Ellison <SysAdm(a)edgecoll.clara.net> To: suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com ---------- > From: kevin.taylor(a)powerconv.alstom.com > To: suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com > Subject: RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] SQL Server > Date: 13 June 2000 08:55 > > > > > I beleive that SIMS uses the Borland database engine > > Is this the same Borland as 'Inprise' - in which case, I would guess so ... I don't believe that there are really two Borlands, even if they are in two minds about the whole thing ... <groan> > is this the InterBase database ? If so, then there > are already Linux versions of the database server > and clients ! > BDE and InterBase are different animals - BDE is the program component which allows the proprietary Borland (Inprise) Databases to be read. InterBase is a specific database solution. Borland Database Engine accesses a range of database designs (dBase, Paradox, InterBase, and I believe, FoxPro, Clipper etc.) If SIMS includes the BDE, then it *looks* as if we *can* use Linux server & clients. <whoopeee!> > See : > http://www.interbase.com > > The main borland web site looks very pro-linux : > http://www.borland.com > > (Some nice papers there about incorporating > Linux alongside Windows ...) > > Of course, if it is not the same borland, then > none of the above applies :-) Borland (Inprise) _do_ appear to be very pro-Linux. Maybe they see which way the wind blows. :) > > Kevin. > Regards, Paul ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Edgehill IT Department Email Service. Please check sender's address from body of Message for return address. Find us at: www.edgecoll.clara.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] SQL Server
by kevin.taylor＠powerconv.alstom.com 13 Jun '00

13 Jun '00

> I beleive that SIMS uses the Borland database engine Is this the same Borland as 'Inprise' - in which case, is this the InterBase database ? If so, then there are already Linux versions of the database server and clients ! See : http://www.interbase.com The main borland web site looks very pro-linux : http://www.borland.com (Some nice papers there about incorporating Linux alongside Windows ...) Of course, if it is not the same borland, then none of the above applies :-) Kevin.

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Fw: Linux in schools information repository
by kevin.taylor＠powerconv.alstom.com 13 Jun '00

13 Jun '00

Hi, I just got this in the post this morning. I will have a look and if we still feel that we could do with some pointers for 'UK' specific information (eg information about using SIMS, etc) then we can keep the idea. I still think it would be useful to have some pointers just for the things we are interested in locally. Ta, Kevin. To: ukschools(a)northants.lug.org.uk From: dloss(a)suscom.net Subject: Linux in schools information repository On your webpage for the UK Schools Howto you say, "I have been a member of the SuSE UK Schools mailing list and one of the things that keeps popping up, is some sort of repository for 'working' information, specific to schools." We had the same thought at SEUL/edu, and set up the SEUL/edu Document Project <http://www.seul.org/edu/docs/>. If you look at our Writer Guides <http://www.seul.org/edu/docs/writer/index.html> you'll see how to create documents for the project. We'd like to have documents submitted from all over the world and from all perspectives, so we could have a reasonable repository exactly as you've outlined above. Could you mention this on the SuSE UK Schools mailing list for us? We don't want to co-opt any other efforts, but if no one else is already doing this for you, please consider taking part in our Document Project. -- Doug Loss There's no trick to being a humorist dloss(a)suscom.net when you have the whole government (570) 326-3987 working for you. Will Rogers

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Collecting ideas for a 'UK Schools Howto'
by kevin.taylor＠powerconv.alstom.com 12 Jun '00

12 Jun '00

Hi, I have had several positive replies about a UK schools howto, so I have put up an 'initial thoughts' page on our user groups web site. I am collecting ideas at the moment - we shall see where this leads :-) See: http://www.northants.lug.org.uk/projects/schools/ Kevin. Northants LUG

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SIMS training
by Bill Antonia 11 Jun '00

11 Jun '00

Bill Antonia Beacon Community College Home e-mail bill(a)beaconhillcott.freeserve.co.uk Work e-mail at(a)beacon.e-sussex.sch.uk I've been playing about with SIMS using SuSE 6.4 as a server through Samba. The experiment was to create multiple instances of SIMS but without having to copy the lot for every machine, and I did not want to put a copy on each workstation. This is for training purposes by the way, Assessment Manager on Wednesday. Copy a full version of SIMS onto the Linux server. Create however many instances of SIMS directories you require. I needed 16, one for each workstation. At this point there is nothing in them. In each directory being used for each instance Create links to all the files in the main sims directory. Copy the SYSTEM directory. Copy any other directory which may be required, eg Assessment Manager: MARKS and STAR. Star: STAR. Equipment Register: EQUIP, STAR and possibly ACCOUNTS. etc Configure Samba to share each instance and connect each workstation to a different share. To the person on the workstation, it appears that they have full control and do not get a message saying someone else is using the file...., try again later. In Samba, each share being used in this way needs the option: wide links = yes This allows Samba to follow the links outside of the directory being shared. For 16 machines to use Assessment Manager and the original copy of SIMS, takes up 2.1GB of hard drive space. We have 1800 pupils and as far as I can tell, never archived the pupil data. We still have Star data going back to 93. So it could be less depending upon your school. If each workstation has the same LANID, then to update the system, alter the main copy for that LANID then copy the SYSTEM directory to all your instances, overwriting the old data. I did try to get away with using links to some of the directories as well, but found it difficult in separating the different instances. I'm finding links wonderful things, try to do that on NT4! By the way, the flags for smbmount have changed again! I now have 3 different versions on different machines. In SuSE 6.1 smbmount "\\\\servername\\share" -c 'mount /mountpoint' -U user%password SuSE 6.3 smbmount \\servername\share /mountpoint -U user%password SuSE 6.4 smbmount \\servername\share /mountpoint username=user%password When are they going to stop fiddling with it. Yes add functions and ease of use but keep it reasonably backward compatible. I suppose I'd better get on with my tutor reports, a bit of procrastination going on here. 29 still to go. Regards Bill

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Using Linux on the server - compare to RM Connect
by Phillip Deackes 10 Jun '00

10 Jun '00

We currently use RM Connect 2.3 where a student logs on with username and password and is then presented with their own desktop and a topic manager where they can choose the topic they wish to use (could be DTP, Science, Word Processing etc.). Icons for the appropriate apps then appear on the desktop. Any documents saved automatically go into that pupil's 'MyWork' folder on the server. Only that pupil (and those with necessary permissions) can acces this folder. To install an application across the network you use a workstation, run an app which does a scan of all relevant areas of the local and network drive and the registry, then launches new app's install routine, then does a similar scan and makes a package of the differences. The package can then be allocated to all or some machines on the network. OK. If I were using Linux and Samba, how would all this work for me? Many thanks indeed. -- Phillip Deackes Using Storm Linux 2000

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Hi from South Lee School
by James H. Carter & Cybèle de Jong 10 Jun '00

10 Jun '00

Hi I coordinate IT at South Lee School in Bury St. Edmunds (Suffolk) Although I consider myself to be reasonably expert with Acorns and stand-alone PCs plus some programming languages I have never been involved in networking, although that hasn't stopped me! We are about to have some major building work done and a new IT room. I am thinking abut a Linux route because I have spent the last few months examining it on a couple of old PCs that had given up the ghost when 'running' windows. The idea of a Linux server with Win desktops appeals because of general staff IT ability levels. Can anyone point me in the right direction (web sites books) for info on setting up this sort of thing (Miles Berry mentioned this sort of network) ? In appreciation James Carter JHC(a)southlee.demon.co.uk JHC(a)stonycobbles.freeserve.co.uk www.southlee.demon.co.uk

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Today's welcome message
by Roger Whittaker 10 Jun '00

10 Jun '00

There are new people on the list out there ... Why not post a message and say hello and what you're doing ... -- Roger Whittaker SuSE Linux Ltd The Kinetic Centre Theobald Street Borehamwood Herts WD6 4PJ ---------------------- 020 8387 1482 ---------------------- roger(a)suse-linux.co.uk ----------------------

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486 :) or :(
by Paul Taylor 10 Jun '00

10 Jun '00

Hello all: I am knee deep in trying to slavage some 486 machines after laying my head on the line that I can get them a new lease of life with Linux. I have been running Linux on my home machine for nearly 2 years now without a hitch but sods law, when I work on another machine it turns into a lead balloon. I have managed to "install" a version of Linux (I am using a Red Hat one for now as it claims to be fine on 386 +s) on a dx2/66 with 16MB ram and a 540 HD. It works fine until I begin the ext2 formating (after making a 40MB swap file). It begins to format the hda1 partition and then an error appears in the blue screen saying that it has recieved either error 5, 9, or 11 (on suucessive tries) and then says that it is safe to reboot. I've not got beyond this message. Any suggestions? My SuSE is at home (I'm at school) but I believe it needs 32MB minimum? Paul Taylor Westwood St. Thomas School, Salisbury ------------------------------------------------------------ Free email: http://BeMail.org/ Free BeOS: http://free.be.com/

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