July 2000 - openSUSE Edu - openSUSE Mailing Lists

PostgreSQL and Linux / Windows
by Alan Harris 13 Jul '00

13 Jul '00

Hi guys, Anyone out there with experience of using PostgreSQL? I could really do with some help in linking Windows '95 systems to the PostgreSQL server running on a Linux box. PostgreSQL is running just fine and I can use the KPSQL client to access the database tables on both of my Linux based machines. Can't get Interactive PSQL for Windows to talk to either though. Even after altering the pg_hba.conf file as suggested in the PostgreSQL users manual. The whole point of this is to create a school 'data warehouse' for pupil grades, targets, sats and exam results etc, with an aim to progress monitoring. I already have it running under Lotus Approach via an NT network. I'm also the network manager for a state school - we buy from whom we like and run what we like - at the moment we have an IBM / Elonex hardware base running NT Server 4, Win '95 & '98. We also have a Linux Intranet & Samba Server running (hosting file services for some 600 users). With regard to the ongoing debate, you have to be prepared to try things out. I've managed RM based systems before and hated every minute of it. I'm not a teacher but a full time techie (we have some forward thinking state schools in Wales you know). No formal training in ANY operating system whatsoever! The only way that anybody is going to bring Linux into schools is to sit down and incorporate it into the school network - start with an intranet server, then introduce file and print services, email and proxy servers. set up and play with a Samba server and then bite the bullet and try one (on the lower school pupils in the first instance). My aim is to have an e-commerce type system set up within the school relying on Linux / Perl / Apachce / ProgresSQL. When it's done (and if it works!) it's yours if you want it! But.... in the mean time, anyone know anything about linking SQL clients to backend databases via TCP/IP? (before I start some really intensive reading and research that is...) Alan Harris Network Manager Bryngwyn School alanh(a)bryngwyn.carmarthen.sch.uk

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Getting together
by Derek Harding 12 Jul '00

12 Jul '00

Hi folks, I had an encouraging response to my e-mail about a summer get together and I have permission to use the school premises here in Warlingham. What I need now are some responses (probably by e-mail directly to me at the school rather than to SuSE since those messages go to my home e-mail address). I would appreciate the following information:- What dates you CAN'T make. If you plan to travel by rail (we can keep you inside London, it's cheaper!) What you would like to get out of the day. I would expect to start about 10 am and finish about 4 pm. Are there any business/organisations (e.g. SuSE, BECTA) on this list who would like the opportunity to have some input (not a sales push, though!)? Would people like to see VMWARE on demo? Corel Office? etc. I'm away until next Tuesday night so if you can inundate me with replies between now and then, I'll sort things out for the end of next week or the beginning of the week after. The school is in Tithe Pit Shaw Lane, Warlingham, Surrey CR6 9YB ( {HYPERLINK "http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?P2M?P=cr69yb&Z=1"}http: //www.streetmap.co.uk /streetmap.dll?P2M?P=cr69yb&Z=1 ) Purley is the "best" British Rail station (Connex) and attracts London fares. Buses aren't a lot of good unless you know the services. By road, though, things are much better, with easy access to the M25 (J6). O.K. - let the replies flow! -- Best wishes, Derek Harding (hardingd(a)warlingham.surrey.sch.uk)

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It may already be too late (was OSE conference)
by kevin.taylor＠powerconv.alstom.com 12 Jul '00

12 Jul '00

Hi, Here follows a long summary of my experiences trying to push open source software. I really don't know where to go from here - but I certainly intend to keep trying. Any thoughts from anywhere are welcome. I was very pleased to see details of my LEAs plans for ITC over the next few years. They are planning the 'Northants Network for Learning' (NNL) with a view to getting all schools connected to a local WAN or somesuch by 2003 (I think) ... There was a name on the white paper I found describing all this, and I emailed him, asking about their views on open source software. I explained my interest (my local user group and my growing young family) and asked if open source software had been considered for the NNL. Unfortunately, he said that although he knows of several individual schools that do use Linux, open source software would probably not be appearing in the NNL infrastructure (this is my interepretation so I may have got this slightly wrong, but this is how I read it) - but thanks for the interest, and he would pass my comments on to his engineers. I am thus in the very frustrating situation of slowing seeing ITC in education take a leap in my area but having the centrally supported system tied around proprietory software ! I know that Linux would have so much to offer them (remote admin, etc) but unless they put up some resources to work out the benefits themselves, I cannot see it happening. It looks like they have already performed the studies and open source has missed the boat ! I have seen this problem so many times locally. I personally would like to support my daughters school getting connected - I could *give* them machines that run Linux and would manage their connection - but with their central LEA/ITC strategy based around something else, they would not be able to afford to support doing things 'on their own'. If we are to get open source software recognised for its worth, then the advocacy has to be directed at the LEAs/ICT support centres (in my opinion). Unfortunatly, this is the point at which people like me have no influence what-so-ever. When I found the Becta site - I was really pleased - at last there appeared to be a central body that would recomment and provide real data for things like the NNL - but I don't know if they were consulted - and I don't know what recommendations where provided (obviously) - but either way, NNL will go ahead without open source software, as far as I can see. Does Becta send out reports on their findings to LEA - how much promoting of open source is actually done to schools ? I think the ose.org.uk site is very valuable - but it must be maintained. I point everyone I know who is interested in this area to this site, but it has not been updated for quite a while, the forums are not very active and the mailing list has seen approx 6 or 8 posts in the last few months ... This is all my personally experiences obviously, and I hope some other people have better luck than me, but I am really disappointed that I cannot get the NNL designers to consider open source software and that Becta are not persuing a more active role in promoting open source software (well done by the way, Malcolm et al for your continued support). Oh well, we will keep going I guess ... ! Ta, Kevin. Northants LUG

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Fw: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Re: Adrian Wells, Misspelling Microsoft
by adrian.wells 12 Jul '00

12 Jul '00

> "Nullum est iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius............" Surly not the point. Or are you showing off your ability to program in OCCAM ? :-) - whatever happened to the transputer? Now, transputers running LINUX, there's a thing! I've suddenly become power hungry, tonight we take over the world pinky! Adrian

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Message formats
by kevin.taylor＠powerconv.alstom.com 12 Jul '00

12 Jul '00

Just catching up on email ... > If others have the same approach, perhaps we > need to agree not to use html in this group? The basic problem, is that the default settings for things like Outlook are to send in HTML, and read in HTML when appropriate, so often people don't even know it is happening - ie they don't see the HTML as an attachment and thus don't know it is there. If you are not sure if you are sending HTML or not ... see http://www.northants.lug.org.uk/maillist.htm for instructions on how to check and turn it off (see the note for Outlook/Netscape users). Kevin. Northants LUG

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Posting advice - was (Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools]OSE Conference)
by adrian.wells 12 Jul '00

12 Jul '00

> From: Mark Evans <mpe(a)st-peters-high.devon.sch.uk> > To: Nick Drage <nick-drage(a)gmx.ch> > Cc: Schools List <suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com> > Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Posting advice - was (Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools]OSE Conference) > Date: 12 July 2000 09:44 > > > Hi, > > > > I think this has mentioned before but not specifically highlighted ( > > apologies if I'm mistaken ), due the number of schools on the list and > > their censorship software it is unadvisable for posts to contained > > Actually the problem appears to be one specific piece of broken software > run by RM. Which given this history of such software (and the cowboys > who typically produce it) may well be objecting to any mention of RM > which is not "worship". > > More specifically it is a very bad idea to censor by content anything > directed to someone in a system admin role. How then can users complain > about being sent abusive email? > > [snip the rest which explains how to deliberately attempt to circumvent > such software] True (the bit about admin staff). Since I'm the one to blame I suppose I should apologize - but I wont, your all big enough and ugly enough to make your own judgments (is this offensive?) about the meaning of the offending administrative rear. My software ALWAYS used human intervention to check the context. e.g. telling some one to FO (for the benefit of those who have electronic grannies) is one thing, to talk about reported speech in an English assignment is yet another.

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] OSE Conference
by adrian.wells 12 Jul '00

12 Jul '00

I've been watching this tread with interest and wondering if we (those speaking) are preaching to the converted or are we just shouting in the wind. Which government/interested bodies other than Becta are reading this list? Roger, can you tell us please? Adrian Wells

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Promote LINUX
by adrian.wells 11 Jul '00

11 Jul '00

On Mon 10 Jul, Bob Harding wrote: > I'd like to use Linux (Navaho?) for our email/web proxy in September but I > don't believe that anyone can actually deliver and support so will probably > plump for back office/exchange server on our existing NT server. I find it interesting that the best advice that Bob has been offered during this debate to promote LINUX has been RTFM! 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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Re: Adrian Wells, Misspelling Microsoft
by Graham Spratt 11 Jul '00

11 Jul '00

"Nullum est iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius............" Graham.

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] OSE Conference
by S Keene 11 Jul '00

11 Jul '00

Hear, hear! Stephen Keene ICT Co-ordinator Bury Grammar School (Girls) Bridge Road Bury Lancs BL9 1YH 0161 797 2808 I'm sorry I can't let that slip past me.... 1st: Any pupil leaving school today should have had some 'Windows' experience. However, I don't believe that ALL their experience should be MS Windows. To get on my band box 'We are educational institutions, not training institutions' Why don't Colleges and Universtities teach MCSE skills rather than GNVQ and degrees? (Cost of course would be considerably more....due to the cost of MCSE trainers...) Those who know me, will realise that I am not a blind supporter of Acorn, and I have been pretty fierce with my criticism of them going back many years... However, I could teach 'Computing' and quite a lot of 'IT skills' today using ZX81, or BBC B computers. No, there would be some tasks that would be better done with more modern machines - and some that would be impossible - but not many! The basics of programming - modular code, variables, loops, conditions etc are no more easily taught and learnt on an Acorn, PC or Linux. The appearance of Windows311 with different icons in different positions is completely different from W95 interface. Are you saying that schools that used W311 from 1990 to 1995 were up the wrong tree (because the tree hadn't yet been invented)? IT is very poor in many schools (read the inspection reports) and the MS/RM marketing machine made this an Acorn/MS issue. In fact the issue has always been one of the lack of expertise and staff. There are still some schools today (not ours - for what we believe are good reasons) that use entirely Acorn machines - and the IT is simply exemplary in every way - and their results prove it. With the potential break up of MS I suspect we will see a number of different 'desktops' appearing common as LINUX run MS applications using WINE, Acorn using Citrix, Litestep and BeOS etc. MS Office is a great product - but whether or not Star Office couldn't do everything that's required and save a great deal of money is one which BECTA should be actively investigating and promoting. I am particularly concerned about the MS licencing scheme which demands ALL computers in the school to be licenced for every qualifying MS application regardless or not of whether Linux or BEOS or any future OS will run on them - as this 'locks' schools into MS products in a rather different way that schools were 'locked' into Acorn products. -- Alan Davies Head of Computing Birkenhead School

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Promote LINUX
by adrian.wells 11 Jul '00

11 Jul '00

> From: paul <smartart(a)cableinet.co.uk> > Cheers, Adrian. If you're going to the seminar, I'll look forward to > discussing "tactics" with you - I think there's a lot an older and wiser > Tux can teach this downy fledgling. You smoothie! Less of the old! Aren't penguins mainly grey... err white? Like you, I have only been playing (at home, much to my sons annoyance, as he is my Guinea pig!) for the same time as you. Why, because I don't have the time here at work. Despite what I have said, I am all in favour of LINUX in schools, and sure, with time and effort (= cost!) it can be done. We are a private, fee paying school and so tend to attract a (hopefully) more informed parent who wants to know what they are getting for their money, they like to tell us what we should be using because of their (limited) experience. Odd schools running with the banner, each doing his/her own thing does not give confidence in the age of globalisum. What is needed is a system (as mentioned before) (like) the RM system (but one that works and does what it say's on the tin!), I would suggest a consortium made up of this group rather than (say) RM (despite my withering views of "software for teachers by teachers" - e.g. sims et al) SuSE does appear to be the best flavour that I have seen, and so may be a good starting point. We should not be trying to find a set-up that works or even the de facto set-up, we should be defining it. Maybe look at three or four types of software as a group, WP/SS/drawing/e-Mail etc. Pick the bones and go back to the writer of the best and tell/ask them how we want it improved for our use within the school environment, maybe incorporating the best bits of the rest. There is nothing worse than having to use three apps. when one ought to do the job. I don't know what happens in state schools, how budgets are controlled with regard to suppliers, i.e. the role of the LEA. for instance do PE departments have to purchase trampolines form specific outlets? Is I.T. a special case, other than being new and so able to be controlled? Is it that difficult to break away? Do we actually need BECTA? Sounds like another quango to me! We at the sharp end should be dictating requirements and policy. 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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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] OSE Conference
by adrian.wells 11 Jul '00

11 Jul '00

> We may be making a bit of progress, I've been slapped down by educational users > of M$ Office 2K for saying I didn't like it. Suppose M$ must be like toothache, > so long as you don't realize its there, it doesn't hurt. :-) Nothing personal, but I'm not sure that M$ and all the other misspellings help our camp much, it just makes us look petty. > I've managed to get 2 other teachers to try. 1 is just about over the worst > hump now, he's got his modem and display sorted out. He's using Mandrake 7.0. > I'm working on converting him to SuSE ;-) And the other's gone strangely > silent - guess he hasn't managed to get his modem working yet. Still, we'll > get there. eventually. above is the problem in a nutshell! I was forced by my clients to use a PC as they wanted me to support theirs. Windows 2 had just come out, I build a PC, shoved in the (5 1/4") disks and it worked. Win3 and all the variants arrived, I put in the disks and they worked. I held back on WIN95 but eventually put in the CD and it worked, the same with WIN98 - The only time that I contact Microsoft is when digging down into the Help system, API etc. (when they tend to be of little help to be truthful!). One can always learn more about an OS as time goes on, no-one can know all there is to know, but it ought to work (as announced) from the box. Once, when in desperation with MS, I asked IBM for a copy of OS2/warp. It arrived on floppies, I spent a day trying to get it to install (!) once it did, it was so slow and resource hungry that I threw it in the bin. The hassle didn't out-weigh the gains. At the time I moved to PCs I was running my business on Atari's, so-called games machines, that ran circles around PCs for quite some time. > We just have to keep plugging away. This makes it seem like a contest, do what I do, sneak bits in through the back door, and when ready and all is peaceful and running smoothly, announce your coup d'état! 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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Summer Hols
by Derek Harding 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

With the summer break approaching, anyone think a day together somewhere would be useful? I think I can get us accomodation for the day at my school 'cos there'll only be me, the admin officer and, perhaps, one site-staff member in the place most of the holiday. I could set up an empty server and loads'a ports if anyone was after a practical "workshop" kind of thing. We have a reasonable hostelry (expensive food, though) an easy stroll away and I can use the minibus to meet trains at the local station, which is easily accessible from East Croydon (southern edge of London). We're in Warlingham, Surrey which is the north-east corner of the county. -- Best wishes, Derek Harding hardingd(a)warlingham.surrey.sch.uk derek(a)lagham.zetnet.co.uk

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Linux in use in Education
by Brent Murray 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

I am not involved in any way with education. But this information might be of interest to you. In the March 2000 issue of the Linux Journal there was an article about the use of linux in British Columbia, Canada for account administration for the K-12 school system. The web site for information is http://k12admin.cmsd.bc.ca also you might find the following site of use Linux for Kids http://www.linuxforkids.com -- -- ________________________________________________________ | Fight Spam! Join EuroCAUCE: http://www.euro.cauce.org/ | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Brent Murray=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | Webmaster of | | The Unofficial British Armed Forces ICQlist | | | | Website: http://come.to/brents | | ICQ: 2942935 | | Our county is called Lancashire, not Cumbria, | | Greater Manchester, or part of Cheshire. | =-=-=-=-=-=-brent.murray(a)newhey.org.uk=-=-=-=-=-=

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general thanks for card info
by James H. Carter & Cybèle de Jong 07 Jul '00

07 Jul '00

Thanks all round to those who passed on advice regarding Netgear ethernet cards Cheers james carter south lee school

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compatible ethernetcards
by James H. Carter & Cybèle de Jong 07 Jul '00

07 Jul '00

I'm just about to order some ethernet cards The Netgear ones looked a good buy Anybody know if they're a good much to Linux....etc james carter

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Squid problem
by Purbeck School Network Support 06 Jul '00

06 Jul '00

Hi I am a real Linux newbie so please be gentle with me. We have just installed SuSe Linux on a spare file server that we have. I am hoping to use it as a Proxy server. I have Squid running and it is working up to a point. We use RM IFL for our Internet access. I have a public IP address on the Linux server and it can get on the Internet without a problem. The problem is that we have to connect through a proxy server at RM (isdncache.rmplc.co.uk:8080). I can't figure out where this setting is in the Squid configuration file. What is happening at the moment is that I am getting pages that are hosted with RM and nobody else. So Squid is doing something it just can't get to the outside world. Any ideas welcome. TIA Dave Turnbull ICT Technician The Purbeck School www.purbeck.dorset.sch.uk

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Message formats
by adrian.wells 06 Jul '00

06 Jul '00

> Just a general plea, I don't know about others, but I rarely use a browser > to read my email, so html formats take a lot of deciphering! If others have > the same approach, perhaps we need to agree not to use html in this group? Good point, I always suggest that users send in plain format unless they ( need to use and ) know that the other party can read HTML - what's that saying about educating pork or flogging dead horses? - Animal themes today! Adrian

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Not you, Them!
by adrian.wells 06 Jul '00

06 Jul '00

Don't wish to offend, MY (animalistic) email comments were not aimed at the list - I can (and do) read HTML but nearly always sent in plain text. 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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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Summer Hols
by adrian.wells 06 Jul '00

06 Jul '00

I may be interested, but it will depend upon the dates mooted so pencil me in please - You don't own the pub next door do you? :-) off topic.... More animal stuff from >Dr Malcolm Herbert >Head of Technology R&D >Becta, Science Park, Coventry CV4 7JJ >Tel: 02476 847126 Fax: 02476 847120 >-------------------------------------- >"To err is human, but to really foul > things up you need a computer" > Farmers Weekly, 1977 __________________________________________________________________ > With the summer break approaching, anyone think a day together somewhere > would be useful? I think I can get us accomodation for the day at my school > 'cos there'll only be me, the admin officer and, perhaps, one site-staff > member in the place most of the holiday. I could set up an empty server and > loads'a ports if anyone was after a practical "workshop" kind of thing. We > have a reasonable hostelry (expensive food, though) an easy stroll away and > I can use the minibus to meet trains at the local station, which is easily > accessible from East Croydon (southern edge of London). We're in Warlingham, > Surrey which is the north-east corner of the county. > -- > Best wishes, Derek Harding > hardingd(a)warlingham.surrey.sch.uk > derek(a)lagham.zetnet.co.uk

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Message formats
by Derek Harding 06 Jul '00

06 Jul '00

Hi folks, Just a general plea, I don't know about others, but I rarely use a browser to read my email, so html formats take a lot of deciphering! If others have the same approach, perhaps we need to agree not to use html in this group? -- Best wishes, Derek Harding derek(a)lagham.zetnet.co.uk

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] compatible ethernetcards
by Edgehill E-Mail Service 05 Jul '00

05 Jul '00

Hi, I tried a Netgear (PCI) card with Linux some time ago - a little finnicky to set up, but O.K. We have settled on D-Link DFE-530TX (PCI, Twisted-Pair only, 10/100Mbps auto negotiation) - they slide in sweet and true, and are recognised by both Windows (3.1 & 9x) and Linux (Via-Rhine). - Cost about £14.00 from Action (less in quantity). At the end of two years in service, they've not (so far) fallen over, broken down or otherwise turned pear-shaped. Hope this helps, Regards, Paul Ellison <SysAdm(a)edgecoll.clara.net> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Edgehill IT Department Email Service. Please check sender's address from body of Message for return address. Find us at: www.edgecoll.clara.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------- From: James H. Carter & Cybèle de Jong <CJC(a)stonycobbles.freeserve.co.uk> To: Schools List <suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com> Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] compatible ethernetcards Date: 05 July 2000 00:14 I'm just about to order some ethernet cards The Netgear ones looked a good buy Anybody know if they're a good much to Linux....etc james carter

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Installing Apache
by kevin.taylor＠powerconv.alstom.com 03 Jul '00

03 Jul '00

> [crit] (98)Address already in use: make_sock: could not bind to port 80 This means that something else is already listening to the TCP port that a web server would normally use - so, are you already running apache (or even another web server) on the box ? If you do # netstat -na | more This will list all currently running (and listening) network servers. Look for something like the following : tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN If you see this you are certainly running a program already listening to port 80. If you try # ps -aux | more you can look for something that could be a web server (apache is always listed as httpd). If it is not this, then the only other thing I can think of, is - is it possible you are trying to start apache twice - ie the first one starts, but the second one gives the error ? As a test, you could try specifing another port (is this in httpd.conf or it may be a command line option) eg 8080 and see if it starts up ok on this port (you would have to connect to the URL http://you.machine:8080/ in order to view its home page though). Hope this helps, Kevin.

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Installing Apache
by Dave Williams 02 Jul '00

02 Jul '00

I have attempted to install apache_1/3/12 but without much success. I'm not sure if any options need changing either at the configure stage or in httpd.conf. The error log shows [crit] (98)Address already in use: make_sock: could not bind to port 80 Any help much appreciated Dave Williams

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