July 2001 - openSUSE Edu - openSUSE Mailing Lists

Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Meeting yesterday and welcome to new members of the list
by Philip Hands 07 Jul '03

07 Jul '03

Roger Whittaker <roger(a)suse-linux.co.uk> writes: > I've just subscribed various people to the list - please post a > message to say hello and introduce yourselves. Hi, If you were at the meeting, I was wearing a Debian t-shirt (with a red swirl logo on it) --- there's a photo at the top of this article, where I'm wearing similar stuff (except for the penguin ;-) http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/articles/issue6/lu6-Editorial-A_patently_bad_ide… I'm a Debian GNU/Linux developer, and run the UK Debian mirror, and am responsible for producing the Debian official CD images: http://www.uk.debian.org/ http://cdimage.debian.org/ I have only a peripheral interest in educational matters, in that I've been frustrated in the past in my efforts to provide free computers (which were otherwise destined for a skip), but I can certainly contribute on a technical side, and having been involved in Debian (which is completely voluntary, like OSIE is expected to be) since 1996 I may be able to make some suggestions about how to ``organise'' such a thing. For those of you who've not come across Debian before, we're a world-wide voluntary organisation (read, chaotic jumble of mailing lists) that puts together a Linux distribution (and soon a HURD distribution) and gives it away. Debian doesn't pay people to do this, and doesn't sell what it produces, and in most legal senses doesn't really exist (i.e. the machines in the mirror network mostly belong to people like me, rather than to Debian, and the bandwidth is donated rather than paid for). This probably gives a pretty good feel for what Debian is all about: http://www.uk.debian.org/social_contract which you will notice leads into the The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG), which is where the Open Source Definition came from. My internet machine, that hosts the Debian UK mirror, may be of use to OSIE, since it has about 30GB of spare disk, and a 20Mbit/s connection at a well connected ISP. This machine could act as either a primary host or mirror site for the web site, and could do DNS secondarying etc. as well. Something I'd be interested in working on (although perhaps a SuSE list is not the right place to spend too much time discussing this ;-) would be producing Debian CD images, tuned to the needs of educational users. Debian has accumulated some funds in the UK, and have been looking for a worthwhile cause to spend them on (we never really need to pay for anything that actually makes Debian work, so don't have much use for money), so we could probably afford to have a few thousand CDs pressed, and send them out to schools that are interested. Cheers, Phil. -- Say no to software patents! http://petition.eurolinux.org/ Philip Hands. +44 (0)20 7744 6244 philip.hands(a)uk.alcove.com Alcove UK --- Liberating Software --- http://www.alcove.com/ http://www.hands.com/ phil(a)hands.com http://www.uk.debian.org/

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Netscape LAn settings
by D.Selby 25 Aug '01

25 Aug '01

hi i am new to linex and am seting up one pc for us to experment on i can get it to access the web i think i need to setup the Lan setting i know wher it is in M$ IE but not in Netscape can any one help

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Problems with FTP
by Simon Wood 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

> -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Williams [SMTP:david@williams333.freeserve.co.uk] > Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2001 12:27 AM > To: Suse > Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Problems with FTP > > Another easy to answer question - I hope. > > My annual fiddle with the server - sort out user accounts etc. I upgraded > to SuSE 7.2 (new installation) but was suprised to find that I couldn't > telnet or ftp into the newly setup box. I then found that inetd was not on > be default. Changed that in yast and I can now telnet. I still can't ftp > into the box. I've looked through the documentation without any success. [Simon Wood] Firstly check to ensure that you have installed a ftp server. Secondly, you can check the file '/etc/inetd.conf' to ensure that the port for ftp is calling the correct command. i.e my old SuSE system has: # ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd wu.ftpd -a # ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd proftpd # ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.ftpd The '#' means that all are disabled. Select the server you wish to use and remove the appropriate '#'. Hope this gets you going.... Simon Wood.

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Problems with FTP
by Edgehill e-mail service 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

We get round this by using a SSH terminal client for admin tasks (from my Windows box, I use PuTTY (courtesy of Simon Tatham)) or by using VNC from any box. Not, I hasten to add, a perfect solution, but PuTTY is extremely configurable and flexible. If anyone wants the Win9x version, I would be happy to e-mail (offlist) the binary (220k) as Simon has made this available as freeware. Regards, Paul <SysAdm(a)edgecoll.clara.net> ---------- > From: Dave Williams <david(a)williams333.freeserve.co.uk> > To: Suse <suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com> > Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Problems with FTP > Date: 29 July 2001 00:26 > > Another easy to answer question - I hope. > > My annual fiddle with the server - sort out user accounts etc. I upgraded > to SuSE 7.2 (new installation) but was suprised to find that I couldn't > telnet or ftp into the newly setup box. I then found that inetd was not on > be default. Changed that in yast and I can now telnet. I still can't ftp > into the box. I've looked through the documentation without any success. > > Any ideas. > > Dave > > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe(a)suse.com > For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help(a)suse.com > >

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Problems with FTP
by Dave Williams 28 Jul '01

28 Jul '01

Another easy to answer question - I hope. My annual fiddle with the server - sort out user accounts etc. I upgraded to SuSE 7.2 (new installation) but was suprised to find that I couldn't telnet or ftp into the newly setup box. I then found that inetd was not on be default. Changed that in yast and I can now telnet. I still can't ftp into the box. I've looked through the documentation without any success. Any ideas. Dave

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Licensing Costs.....
by Coulton,G 27 Jul '01

27 Jul '01

All Prices with a MS Select Agreement Windows NT = GBP 110 Win2K Pro = GBP 90 MSO 2K = GBP 90 As for other prices. Not too sure :) > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark Evans [mailto:mpe@st-peters-high.devon.sch.uk] > Sent: 27 July 2001 11:25 > To: mherbert(a)redhat.com > Cc: suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com > Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Licensing Costs..... > > > > hi all > > > > i've been asked by a journolists to come up with some > atypical licensing > > costs for schools, to look at just the upfront savings of > going open source. > > Windows and Office (education licence) is approximatly £150. > > So long as you can still buy Win9X and Office 2000. > > > i've already got figures based around 3-year managed > services (cheapest NGfL > > 950 per seat/per annum), Red Hat / LTSP new kit £500 per > seat / per annum), > > but like to break them down. > > That £500 looks more like an outright price for everything. > Rather than an annual price. > > -- > Mark Evans > St. Peter's CofE High School > Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 > Fax: +44 1392 204763 > > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe(a)suse.com > For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help(a)suse.com >

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Licensing fees
by Paul Munro 27 Jul '01

27 Jul '01

Microsoft do offer some very good deals when you consider educational subsidisation etc., and not just for schools per se. For students and teachers (as well as parents of students), MS offer the student license deal which has helped us purchase otherwise extremely costly software! For schools, when I worked at our local Tec College, the price per seat was around £50, and £1500 for the server(s) I'm pretty sure (but this came with some support). Someone (Vernon Levy) raised the spectre of lesson content, and said that it shouldn't matter too much whether we teach OS concepts or not, implying possibly that ICT only has a support element when connected with education (to enrich existing subjects through the use of ICT). This is why (I feel) ICT in this country is going down the pan! This is also not helped by the MS dominance in the educational market, since Windows isn't good for teaching OS concepts anyway. Applications such as word processing can be taught no matter the application used, and the underlying concepts are so important that knowing how to change fonts in, say, Word, isn't enough to do it in Application X or Y in another OS (though an extreme and useless example, I know ;-) OS concepts in particular are important for introducing budding hackers (not crackers) to computing power and application, and can lead to interest in other areas such as scientific applications of IT, programming, networking skills, development, and so on. Merely teaching Windows and Office will NOT IMO help bring up through the ranks enough skilled young people to make a difference in the UKs fast sinking skills base. The primary functions of operating systems is not necessarily to enrich the learning experience, though they certainly can do that, but instead to offer an interface between the user and the system resources to enable a more productive environment. This is what students need to learn- why an operating system works the way it does, when it does, what you can do with it, and how you can customise it to make it do things FOR you not only WITH you. Enough of that, I'll go back to learning real ICT ;-) Paul

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PHP4
by Colin McQueen 27 Jul '01

27 Jul '01

Hi Can someone explain the best way to get PHP4 running as a module in Apache from SUSE 6.4 if I have already installed so have Apache and PHP3 running? PHP4 is installed as far as I can see using locate. I must admit to finding Yast a little difficult to use for this as I'm not familiar with what the menus cover. I used locate to find out if PHP4 for on the HD. Would people recommend a move to 7.2? This is to run on a single box on our network and act as an Intranet server with MySQL PHP4 for database handling. -- Colin McQueen : Using an Acorn StrongARM Risc PC Web Domain : http://www.mcqueen.uk.net/ BSc Zoology + Oceanography : PGCE : MSc in CBL/T

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deployment on multiple machines
by Phil Driscoll 27 Jul '01

27 Jul '01

Progress on getting a good system running on the 32Mb machines we've been given is going well. At some point over the summer holidays, we are going to need to install a working system on 123 machines. The machines all have 'blank' hard drives, a floppy drive and onboard realtek ethernet NIC. I cannot guarantee that all the hard drives are identical, although they are all about 3Gb. The final setup on the machines will be basically Suse 7.2 with some tweaks - I guess a lightweight kernel and, it currently looks like a hacked version of icewm with all 'toys' removed. All machines will be identical apart from IP address (fixed) and hostname. It would be great to have a boot floppy which would bootstrap an installation over the network. Does anyone have any experience in this area? Any advice on suitable technologies gratefully received. Cheers -- Phil Driscoll

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MS
by ptaylor 27 Jul '01

27 Jul '01

Hi Malcolm: We have recently purchased some licenses for Win machines and paid £35 for Win 9X, NT and 2000 per machine which I believe is the educational price? Paul

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Licensing Costs.....
by Malcolm Herbert 27 Jul '01

27 Jul '01

hi all i've been asked by a journolists to come up with some atypical licensing costs for schools, to look at just the upfront savings of going open source. i've already got figures based around 3-year managed services (cheapest NGfL 950 per seat/per annum), Red Hat / LTSP new kit £500 per seat / per annum), but like to break them down. I' of course aware that the licensing model had changed, but any indicative figures on a per workstation/per server/school basis would be really useful. Malcolm -- ------------------------------------ Malcolm Herbert Red Hat Europe t:+44 1483 734955 m:+44 7720 079845 ------------------------------------

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Drive designation
by adrian.wells 27 Jul '01

27 Jul '01

I have noticed that on a scsi system (one HDD + IDE DVD) with a USB ZIP drive connected, the HDD is set to sdb rather than sda! The ZIP was set to sba4 - no other sba's seen. I was surprised that the device was seen as a scsi device (sd?) and that it had priority over the fixed disks. I haven't used USB on LINUX before. Apart from obviously disconnecting the ZIP, is it possible to override the drive designations during installation? Adrian

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Journalist
by Roger Whittaker 26 Jul '01

26 Jul '01

First - sorry I've been rather 'inactive' on the list : I've been very busy with non-educational stuff - consulting work (actually very educational, so there you go). I have another query from a journalist who's interested in talking to people about how they are using Linux in schools - if you're interested in being interviewed / quoted, please get in touch off the list and I'll put you in touch with him. -- ------------------- Roger Whittaker SuSE Linux Ltd The Kinetic Centre Theobald Street Borehamwood Herts WD6 4PJ ------------------ 020 8387 1482 ------------------ roger(a)suse.co.uk ------------------

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] PHP4
by Coulton,G 26 Jul '01

26 Jul '01

Errrr, Why not let the kids play out and enjoy life at that age? LOL > -----Original Message----- > From: Gary Stainburn [mailto:gary.stainburn@ringways.co.uk] > Sent: 26 July 2001 12:02 > To: Colin McQueen; suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com > Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] PHP4 > > > Hi all, here's my 2 euros (cough, cough, !!1 sorry - wash my > mouth out) > > As this thread's started off talking about PHP, how's that > for a starter. > It'll create some interest with them straight away as the can > create web > sites which is cool with kids these days. Then move them to > perl, which is > (and I know Phil will disagree with me here) a proper > programming language. > > In a lot of ways it's very similar to PHP so moving from one > to the other > should not vex them too much, but perl is a programming > language in the true > sense. > > Gary > > On Thursday 26 July 2001 11:47 am, Colin McQueen wrote: > > <d0ffb29f4a.cmcqueen(a)cmcqueen.ntlworld.com> > <01072518141706.01302@linux> > > In-Reply-To: <01072518141706.01302@linux> X-Organization: > The McQueen > > Family User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.10 (MsgServe/1.10) (RISC-OS/4.02) > > MIME-Version: 1.0 > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > User-Agent: POPstar/2.02 > > > > In message <01072518141706.01302@linux> > > > > Phil Driscoll <phil(a)dialsolutions.co.uk> wrote: > > > On Wednesday 25 July 2001 17:54, Colin McQueen wrote: > > > > Yes well ... I'd love to have the time but my kids are > expecting to see > > > > Dad this summer ;-) > > > > > > Are they old enough to code :) > > > > 'fraid not though the two oldest have done quite a bit with the lego > > mindstorms stuff. They are 8 and 10. The closest they com > to Linux is > > running a few of the games and they've used Star office if > Dad has left > > the dual boot PC in SUSE. They have very little problem tranferring > > their skills between Windows/RISC OS/Linux > > > > Maybe I should start them with something. What would you recommend? > > I'd go for BBC BASIC V simply because I use it a lot but I realise > > that's limiting them. I have trouble converting to C and > Java probably > > because of my BASIC upbringing. > > -- > Gary Stainburn > > This email does not contain private or confidential material as it > may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown > and undisclosed purposes - Regulation of Investigatory Powers > Act, 2000 > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe(a)suse.com > For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help(a)suse.com >

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Samba break dancing
by ptaylor 25 Jul '01

25 Jul '01

Hi all: I know that Chris Dawkins (et al?) will say, "if it aint broke, don't fix it", or words to that effect, but... I had a nice relationship, if such a thing can be, between SuSE 7.1 and Win 2000. I have the Linux box upstairs as a server with an HP 670 DeskJet attached and used to happily send files to it to print from the Win 2000 machine downstairs. I am still lumbered with a windoze set up at school for now so need this set up. This was working well until I dutifully up-graded to 7.2. I loaded up Samba 2.2 and other "improvements" and since then I have not been able to get my printer to work. W2K sees it but refuses to load drivers for it. It is fine sending files to the SuSE box etc. I saw one how to that said I need a PRINT$ directory in smb.conf with a "sub-directory pointing to x86 files" but after following it dutifully, I was still no closer. I have used combinations of 2.0.9, 7.1 SuSE ad nauseum but still no joy. Can anyone point me in the right direction to solving this one?? Paul Extra details gladly submitted on demand.

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Very Dumb Question
by Marcus Birkin 25 Jul '01

25 Jul '01

Ok, this is going to sound _very_ silly, but: I wish to run Kaspersky Anti-virus on my Linux box, but they only seem todo a i386 binary version, now the stupid question, how can I run this on my PPC box?? Thanks for any suggestions Marcus Birkin (Assistant Technician and Mail Administrator) - Arts In Education Centre College St

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] authentication
by Simon Wood 25 Jul '01

25 Jul '01

> -----Original Message----- > From: Phil Driscoll [SMTP:phil@dialsolutions.co.uk] > Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 11:37 AM > To: Simon Wood; suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com > Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] authentication > > Whilst M$ is currently in charge, it will be out on it's ear (at least on the > server front) as soon as I've worked out this authentication thing! [Simon Wood] big smiles all around..... The how-to you want is: http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/NIS-HOWTO/ As I said, I did get it working but only on a small scale, but this was on SuSE so it is possible. I don't have it installed now (we only have two user accounts at home, an I don't let Krisztina onto some of the machines ;-) ).

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] authentication
by Simon Wood 25 Jul '01

25 Jul '01

> -----Original Message----- > From: Phil Driscoll [SMTP:phil@dialsolutions.co.uk] > Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 11:03 AM > To: suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com > Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] authentication > > You'll have noticed that I don't like to let a day pass without giving you > people something to work out :) Here's today's issue. [Simon Wood] Beats working... ;-) > I've already set up one of my own machines as a PDC using SAMBA and my NT > machine is very happy to mount the shares etc, so I am happy on that score. > However, I haven't got the first idea how to set up a linux client machine to > login via a server. I certainly don't want to have to setup all the user > accounts on all the client machines, however the machines will need to retain > local logon functionality for when they are used away from the school > network, and also in the event of a failure in the network or server. [Simon Wood] I was mucking around at home and approached this from the opposite direction.... I set up 'yellow pages' so that other Linux boxes could use a central user/password server and then configured Samba to refer to that. Depending on you level of commitment to using M$ as the system authenticator, you might be able to do it this way round. Haven't tried it with M$ in charge....

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authentication
by Phil Driscoll 25 Jul '01

25 Jul '01

You'll have noticed that I don't like to let a day pass without giving you people something to work out :) Here's today's issue. We will be setting up a linux box with samba to effectively act as primary domain controller for all the school's NT workstation machines and dole out profiles policies and home directories. Ideally, the same machine would handle logins and home directories for the 123 linux boxes we will be deploying over the summer holidays. I've already set up one of my own machines as a PDC using SAMBA and my NT machine is very happy to mount the shares etc, so I am happy on that score. However, I haven't got the first idea how to set up a linux client machine to login via a server. I certainly don't want to have to setup all the user accounts on all the client machines, however the machines will need to retain local logon functionality for when they are used away from the school network, and also in the event of a failure in the network or server. I'm sure if someone points me in the right direction, it will save me hours of searching and reading :) Cheers -- Phil Driscoll

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] A little too pedantic. (was: Acrobat 5 does not read ps2pdf'd files)
by Azrael Angel Of Death 24 Jul '01

24 Jul '01

>Exactly. What I'm saying is that it would be very difficult for Acrobat >5.0 to >be "improved" such that it choked on non-Adobe-generated files *without* >breaking some genuine Adobe-generated files. As long as your >non-proprietary >PDFs had kept rigorously to the PDF spec' even the most perverse Adobe >programmer would have his work cut out to make Acrobat 5.0 choke on these >and >not on the proprietary ones made at great expense by Adobe customers. Frankly I don't see why anyone uses Adobe's stuff anyway as there are truly free alternatives... > > As other pdf-viewing programs can actually bypass the > > password protection. How would said company respond to their passworded >pdf > > being easily read and edited by third party software? > >Ask this guy: > > http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/18/1136244&mode=thread *nods* Yeah.. I read that article and it is interesting... the DMCA definatly makes things more.. hmm.. interesting... _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] APC Smart UPS
by Marcus Birkin 23 Jul '01

23 Jul '01

Hi I missed the first message dude to my e-mail bouncing. But I recently installed a APC 600 UPS on our Linux Server.. What are you trying to do? Can I Help? Marcus Birkin (Assistant Technician and Mail Administrator) - Arts In Education Centre College St > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "adrian.wells" <adrian.wells(a)sidcot.org.uk> > To: "SuSE list" <suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com> > Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 10:26 AM > Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] APC Smart UPS > > > > >From APC... > > ___________________________ > > > > > > I can not give you a specific answer on when power chute plus will be able > > to support Susse 7.0. At present there is no beta testing being carried > out > > for this version. > > > > APC, customer support > > > > > > -- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe(a)suse.com > > For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help(a)suse.com > > > > >

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] software in schools/piracy
by Edgehill e-mail service 23 Jul '01

23 Jul '01

For the record ... ---------- > From: Giles Nunn <giles(a)satproj.org.uk> > To: Coulton,G <coultogi01(a)leedslearning.net> > Cc: 'Mark Evans' <mpe(a)st-peters-high.devon.sch.uk>; 'Simon Wood' <Simon.Wood(a)pace.co.uk>; Schools List <suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com> > Subject: RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] software in schools/piracy > Date: 12 July 2001 06:34 > > On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, Coulton,G wrote: > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Mark Evans [mailto:mpe@st-peters-high.devon.sch.uk] > > > Sent: 11 July 2001 14:36 > > > To: Coulton,G > > > Cc: 'Simon Wood'; Schools List > > > Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] software in schools/piracy > > > > > > > > > > Hi Simon, > > > > > > > > I think something came across my desk in relation to Linux > > > a while back. The <SNIP> > > > snip > > I had to add my mite here as I don't agree at all. Your argument assumes > you are moving from NT and learning Linux. I could set up a Linux server > much quicker. It is only eXTREMELY time consuming if you start from > knowing nothing about it. I would have the same problem in reverse if I > ever succumbed to the suggestions I get to install NT - I refuse to do it ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I'm a lifer with MS boxen (before that PDP's & CP-M/MP-M) - it took me three weeks to install NT-4 server, configure the basic shape of the services and build the user accounts database, and it took nearly 3 months to learn how to do it (on top of a full support schedule). The only reason it hasn't needed rebuilding is because it is a *simple* network system that we run (and I have built a little automation into maintenance.) I am migrating user-storage onto one of our Linux servers this holiday - it took me 3 hours to install the OS, a few hours to design the storage layout and if I need to perform another upgrade like the one which has required this, then I don't even have to take the server offline during working hours to do it. >From my point of view, no contest. I can even run apps on the box while the users are accessing the drives! > as I don't have the time to spare to learn how to do it. If I could see > *any* technological advantage in doing so I would have to consider it > seriously. I won't go into the rest of the arguments pro/con which we keep > rehashing here. I do know that if I ever do get forced into getting > involved in NT/W2k I will miss the openness and freedom of information I > get using Open Source. > > > ____________________________________ > Giles Nunn - Network Manager > Carms Schools ICT Development Centre > Tel: +44 01239 710662 Fax: 710985 > ____________________________________ > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe(a)suse.com > For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help(a)suse.com > >

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] software in schools/piracy
by Edgehill e-mail service 23 Jul '01

23 Jul '01

> From: Derek Harding <hardingd(a)warlingham.surrey.sch.uk> > To: Alan Harris <alanh(a)bryngwyn.carmarthen.sch.uk>; Ian Lynch <ianlynch(a)zmsl.com> > Cc: Frank Shute <shute(a)esperance.demon.co.uk>; Schools List <suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com> > Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] software in schools/piracy > Date: 11 July 2001 09:57 > > Here, here about school/educational software on opensource. I've just been > told that my proposed terminal server setup won't get the go ahead unless I > can prove the educational, not financial, viability! > Strangely, it has been suggested that we are not going to go over to Linux "Because it's not industry standard." <expletives may be implied here> - plus the problems arising from incompatibilities with pupils' home systems (accepted, but only just). Privately, I believe that at least part of the problem is academic staff inability to accept change beyond that which is known. <chorus - Four legs good, Two legs bad.> I have been able to resolve many of the problems pertaining to user applications for teaching/study use. The remaining flaws are easily solved with a small number of library systems (running the awful software the other departments demand of us ;) <Puts on asbestos long-johns> Regards, Paul Paul Ellison ICT Manager Edgehill College Opinions expressed are those of the correspondent, and may not reflect the official policy of Edgehill College.

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waht am doing wrong
by D.Selby 23 Jul '01

23 Jul '01

thanks sorted now dave

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still having problems setting my proxy server details in netscape
by D.Selby 23 Jul '01

23 Jul '01

i am stil tryig to setthe proxy seeings in netscape when i got to edit preferences advanced i get the following options automatically load images enable Java Enable javerScript Enable style sheet send email address as anonymous FTP pasword then Cookies which gives me 4 options about cookies and thats it nothing about Proxies the software is suse7.0 with netscape Communicator 4.74 what am i doing wrong dave

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Lotus under WINE
by Alan Harris 23 Jul '01

23 Jul '01

Many thanks to all of you who commented on my problems. I though I'd rely the outcome to you all - LTSP was rejected :-( However, The servers OS was not specified, I get to run Linux in Dual Boot mode on 15 PC's >:-). We get 15 Apple iBooks and a further 15 Apple iMacs plus G4 based server >:-). (however, the iMacs have to run M$ Office) - Mac OS-X here I come! I also get to upgrade my network bandwidth. There is a possibility that the bid will fall through (61K only exisits on paper apparently). If any one would like to know the conditions of the Learning Schools bids then please let me know and I will be happy to forward you the original document as recieved from the Welsh Assembly Again, many thanks to you all for your help and comments - the battle is not over yet! Alan ----------------------------------------------------- Alan Harris Network Manager Bryngwyn School Tel : 01554 750661 Fax : 01554 758255 E-mail: alanh(a)bryngwyn.carmarthen.sch ----------------------------------------------------- Notes: 1. The contents of this email may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown purposes! Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000. 2. The opinions expressed in this email are personal and may not be shared by Bryngwyn School. -----------------------------------------------------

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Small memory machine
by Simon Wood 23 Jul '01

23 Jul '01

Hi Phil, Here's a couple of URL's for you (if you haven't found them already) http://www.linuxhq.com/ldp/howto/mini/Small-Memory/ http://www.superant.com/smalllinux/ Also remember that if you're using top (or something else) it doesn't show shared memory separately from individual memory, so you haven't really saved 5 * 600K - but getty does use a lot, should use mingetty. I assume that you've done it but you didn't mention it. Strip that kernel right down (and I mean to the bones.......). Simon Wood

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] APC Smart UPS
by adrian.wells 23 Jul '01

23 Jul '01

>From APC... ___________________________ I can not give you a specific answer on when power chute plus will be able to support Susse 7.0. At present there is no beta testing being carried out for this version. APC, customer support

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] selective tar backups
by Simon Wood 23 Jul '01

23 Jul '01

> -----Original Message----- > From: Mike Rees [SMTP:suse@glanymor.carms.sch.uk] > Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 9:34 AM > To: suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com > Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] selective tar backups > > Hi > > I'm trying to automate some of my backup processes using tar within a cron job. > > For example, I want to backup only certain file types from a user's home > directory such as documents, presentations etc. [Simon Wood] Note that Linux doesn't really on the '.suffix' method for identifying file types, and it is possible that your users may use simple names for their documents, resulting in them not being backed up. > At present I've got this command running every night > tar cvfz /backup/$(date +%d%m%y)home.tar /home > which saves everything (backup is a smb mounted share on another server) [Simon Wood] I've been looking (in a much simpler environment - at home) into doing a weekly full backup and then a daily delta. > Any ideas how I can be more selective? [Simon Wood] how about.... 1) Create an empty archive. tar cf backup_date.tar [hmmm refuses to create an empty archive, though this seems to work.... touch backup_date.tar ] 2) Use 'find' to track down the appropriate files, either repeat for different file types (or work out how to specify this in 'find' ;-) ) find /home -name '*.doc' -exec tar rf backup_date.tar {} \; 3) Compress when done. gzip backup_date.tar

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selective tar backups
by Mike Rees 23 Jul '01

23 Jul '01

Hi I'm trying to automate some of my backup processes using tar within a cron job. For example, I want to backup only certain file types from a user's home directory such as documents, presentations etc. At present I've got this command running every night tar cvfz /backup/$(date +%d%m%y)home.tar /home which saves everything (backup is a smb mounted share on another server) Any ideas how I can be more selective? Thanks in advance Mike Rees Ysgol Glanymor School Heol Elfed Burry Port Llanelli SA16 OAL --------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Endymion MailMan. http://www.endymion.com/products/mailman/

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Small memory machine
by Phil Driscoll 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

I've been 'tweaking' the SuSE 7.2 installation on the 32Mb RAM machine and now have 8Mb free RAM once the machine is up and running and a user has logged in to the blackbox window manager. I will be losing a small amount of this memory once I've installed a SAMBA client (looks like 1.3M for smbmount). The main tweaks were to do with making sure that the machine was running as few unnecessary services as possible. The biggest single 'win' was getting rid of tty 2 to 6 (5 sets of 600K). I also got rid of the X console since the user's won't be interested in what it says! I'm using xdm for login since that seems most memory efficient. I had thought that a command line login followed by xinit would use less memory, but it seems to use slightly more. Also, I thought that going from 16Bit colour to 8 bit colour might improve things, but the change caused X to use about 1Mb more RAM! One day I might understand all this stuff, and know why this is :) I am currently musing over the remaining 'memory hogs' to see if I can work my way around to not having them running all the time, or indeed, at all. The potential sources of more free memory are: cron (660K) atd (612K) Since the machines will be switched off every evening and on again in the morning, I suspect that any important jobs these are doing can be done at boot time. klogd (964K) - Kernel logging - if that's all it does then we'll never be looking at the output. Is it important - does it do other stuff, or is there a way of sending stuff to /dev/null syslogd (636K) - as per klogd possibly tty1? (604K) The users will definitely never go there, but is it required for startup? If any gurus have thoughts on the above, I'd love to hear them. Another 3Mb RAM represents nearly a 50% increase in available memory, and it would mean we could run KWord or KSpread without using swap. Thanks to all those who recommended the blackbox window manager. If anyone is interested, I have done a few tweaks to the source to remove or hide a couple of features I thought might be confusing, and I'd be happy to pass them on. Firstly I thought that the toolbar was really just a waste of screen real-estate since it doesn't serve as an application launcher, so I changed the code so it is always invisible. The other thing I didn't like was the way it handles 'iconise' - by hiding the window and making an entry on the 'icons' sub menu. It struck me that this was not very intuitive behaviour - especially for Windows and Risc OS users who expect an iconised window to be visible in some form on screen. Particularly in the context of our small machines, I thought that this behaviour would be likely to cause users to rerun the software - which would have us running out of RAM in no time. So, I have removed the iconise button from the window title bars and also completely got rid of the right button menu from the window title bar. Another outstanding issue I'd like to resolve is to get some visual indication that an application is starting up. Large KDE applications (e.g. Konqueror, KWord) can take 20 - 30 seconds before a window appears on screen. In my office I can tell that something is happening because I can hear the disc thrashing, but in a noisy classroom, the kids will wait a while, assume that they hadn't clicked properly and rerun the application. If anyone knows of any utility which can wrap application start in some kind of hourglass display or similar, please let me know. Cheers -- Phil Driscoll

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Lotus 1123 & Wordpro Under WINE on LTSP?
by Alan Harris 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

Hi all, Two questions :- 1. Has anybody experience of running Lotus applications under WINE? 2. Has anybody any ideas if Lotus & WINE operate / run under LTSP? We have been allocated approx £61K for ICT developments leading to a community school . I have proposed an LTSP based solution BUT, can only go ahead if present software will operate under WINE. I hope somebody can help here as the future otherwise becomes to horrible to contemplate (If it does not then the horrible solution that will be imposed on me involves M$ office) and I'll have to resign and go find a job in IT on the Indian Sub-Continent! Sometimes I think (well in fact I'm convinced) that ICT education and the future of this country are on a fast and very slippery downhill road to oblivion! Alan ----------------------------------------------------- Alan Harris Network Manager Bryngwyn School Tel : 01554 750661 Fax : 01554 758255 E-mail: alanh(a)bryngwyn.carmarthen.sch ----------------------------------------------------- Notes: 1. The contents of this email may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown purposes! Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000. 2. The opinions expressed in this email are personal and may not be shared by Bryngwyn School. -----------------------------------------------------

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Backups with CD-R's
by Simon Wood 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

Greetings fellow Linux Users, I'm having difficulty getting my head around the concept of using CD-R's for backup, and backup in general. I would like to back up areas of my machine totalling around 300MByte I can see that there are two ways..... 1) I can take an area of the file-system and write it direct to a CD. This has the advantage that it can easily be mounted by a novice user to view/recover a deleted file. 2) I can TAR up areas of file-system into single files (i.e. backup-home-20Jul2001.tar.gz) and store these somewhere. I can even get a little bit more adventurous and do incremental backups where I only store the files that have changed. My trouble comes with the concept/desire to use multi-session CD so I don't waste large areas of the disks. Can somebody please explain (in simple terms) how the sessions of multi-session CD blend together and how the file names (or new, deleted or changed files) appear in the directories. For the 1) situation will this remove my ability to recover a file to a state before it was changed? There is also the question on security of data, once written to CD it is in theory readable by anyone who can get their hands on the CD. Has anyone tried encrypting the resultant file/image, with GPG for example? If the best way is to use tar (or something similar), is there an easy to follow method for restoring a particular file from a given day? Of course there may be an application that will do all this for me, any recommendations. Thanks in advance, Simon Wood

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automounting now working
by James & Cybèle 19 Jul '01

19 Jul '01

Thanks to all, especially Gary and THomas My cd images are now automounting using /root/mdk.iso /mnt/mdk iso9660 ro,loop=/dev/loop0 1 1 in fstab thanks again James but..........I have 5 CDs all working this way but Encarta2000 doesn't ( no smart comments please). When I try to run it from Win98 is says it is invalid win32 files. The only thing I can see is that all the files have lower case names........

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Re: [Wylug-discuss] Acrobat 5 does not read ps2pdf'd files
by Malcolm Herbert 19 Jul '01

19 Jul '01

hmmm, all you Latex --> pdf'ers instead of pdflatex, use latex --> dvips --> ps2pdf means that you dont have to convert those eps diagrams. Better output. Acroread in later version has also stopped loading some pdf's, so you try xpdf instead. Sometimes its the other way round Malcolm On Thursday 19 July 2001 11:36, Damian Counsell wrote: > Sent the gist of this to Gary, but forgot to circulate it to the list: > > I'm worried about changes in Acrobat 5.0 too because I have happily > settled into making all my formatted documents with LaTeX and then > distributing them as PDFs to everyone else (using 'pdflatex'). > > Adobe will definitely not want to annoy long-term customers by losing > backward compatibility with millions of archived documents, so things > *should* be OK for well-formed code generated by Open programs. > > That isn't to say that Acrobat 5.0 isn't infested. Get your crucifixes > and garlic out, people; the full horror and how to cope with the pain > can be found here: > > http://www.micropress-inc.com/acr5bugs.htm > > > > -- > Damian COUNSELL > http://www.icr.ac.uk/cmb/bioinformatics/ CMB Bioinformatics > phone: +44 020 7352 8133 x5226 Institute of Cancer Research > direct: +44 020 7878 3850 > London SW3 6JB fax: +44 020 7351 3325 -- ------------------------------------ Malcolm Herbert Red Hat Europe t:+44 1483 734955 m:+44 7720 079845 ------------------------------------

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] A little too pedantic. (was: Acrobat 5 does not read ps2pdf'd files)
by Azrael Angel Of Death 19 Jul '01

19 Jul '01

>Perfectly good question. Flame-thrower holstered I'd say that Adobe make >most >of their money from selling PDF-generating software to big corporations who >then go on to sell the output from these systems to *their* customers. > >Imagine you'd spent thousands on such a system for converting your >proprietary >format document archives to PDFs for your clients to view---since Adobe's >salesperson had told you that anyone could get hold of and run the viewer >(which is, as you point out, free) easily. Then imagine your support line >clogged up with paying customers complaining that, ever since they'd >"upgraded" >their PDF viewer to version 5, they'd been unable to read your stock >reports or >annual accounts or brochures. > >At this point in the sorry story which way would you, as a person in an >Armani >suit, be pointing your trained attack lawyers?.... > If you had created the pdf in Adobe's program.. then any customer can view it using the freely available Acrobat Reader. That at least would be a valid couter from Adobe... in fact.. they could go so far as to say that by limiting the access of other non-Adobe programs to viewing your work they are protecting you. As other pdf-viewing programs can actually bypass the password protection. How would said company respond to their passworded pdf being easily read and edited by third party software? _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Lotus 1123 & Wordpro Under WINE on LT SP?
by Simon Wood 19 Jul '01

19 Jul '01

> -----Original Message----- > From: Alan Harris [SMTP:alanh@bryngwyn.carmarthen.sch.uk] > Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 12:22 PM > To: Schools List; southwales(a)lists.lug.org.uk > Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Lotus 1123 & Wordpro Under WINE on LTSP? > > Hi all, > > Two questions :- > > 1. Has anybody experience of running Lotus applications under WINE? > > 2. Has anybody any ideas if Lotus & WINE operate / run under LTSP? [Simon Wood] You can check the wine application database at: http://appdb.codeweavers.com/ [Simon Wood] Unfortunely there is only mention of 'Notes'.

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A little too pedantic. (was: Acrobat 5 does not read ps2pdf'd files)
by Azrael Angel Of Death 19 Jul '01

19 Jul '01

Just had to dive in with an observation... flame me if I'm wrong :) >From: Damian Counsell <counsell(a)icr.ac.uk> >Adobe will definitely not want to annoy long-term customers by losing >backward compatibility with millions of archived documents, so things >*should* be OK for well-formed code generated by Open programs. Isn't the Acrobat Reader free? Does that mean people using it aren't technically customers? And any customers would have bought something different.. eg Acrobat Writer... yet still the reading element of the program is free... so even if it doesn't work properly it's only the freebie at fault.. what you actually _paid_ for would work. *puts on his asbestos suit with the pedant label* _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Re: [Wylug-discuss] Acrobat 5 does not read ps2pdf'd files
by Gary Stainburn 19 Jul '01

19 Jul '01

On Wednesday 18 July 2001 8:25 pm, Martin Rowe wrote: > On Tuesday 17 July 2001 16:31, Gary Stainburn wrote: > > I've just been talking to someone who's trying to sell us a document > > storeage system, and he mentioned in passing that he had a meeting with > > Adobe last week. > > > > In this meeting he mentined that Acrobat 5 fails to read PDF files > > generated by Ghostscript (ps2pdf) amongst other. The Adobe rep stated > > that in the past, Adobe has encouraged pdf writed being created by 3rd > > parties. > > Odd. I tried Acrobat 5 on some AS/400 reports I converted with ps2pdf > (from enscript output) from this time last year to a few months ago, and > they all display fine. > I've also done some checking out and I have no problems reading the invoices I produce by writing postscript and doing ps2pdf, or the docs I produce using db2pdf from the Docbook tools. I'm now starting to suspect that it is this sales gadgi trying to pull a fast one on me - using very valid bad publicity about AR5 as a basis - and trying to get me to buy distiller. However, Adobe have said that they will not support/fix bugs found in AR5 that only show up when reading non-Adober generated documents. [snip] -- Gary Stainburn This email does not contain private or confidential material as it may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown and undisclosed purposes - Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000

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still no automounting
by James & Cybèle 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

Hi A couple of months back I got some good advice from Simon Wood and others about mounting CD-Rom images >[Simon Wood] >You can create a binary copy of the contents of a CD >to a file on the disk with: >dd if=/dev/hdc of=cd_image_1.iso bs=1024K >assuming /dev/hdc (secondary master) is you cdrom >drive, 'bs' just sets the block size and speeds up the >copy. >Then you can mount this image as if it were a normal >CD with: >mount -t iso9660 -o loop >cd_image_1.iso /fake_cdrom1 This works brilliantly but I'm having problems adding these to fstab. Every way I try it doesn't like. If the image is mounted as /cdshare/img1/img.iso can someone suggest the correct instructions to stick in fstab? Thanks James Carter

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thanks Gary re automounting
by James & Cybèle 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

>/root/mdk.iso /mnt/mdk iso9660 ro,loop=/dev/loop0 1 1 Thanks Gary, I'll give it a try. Yes I can mount the image manually. I understand 'iso9660 and 'ro' but what is loop=/dev/loop0 1 ???? Thanks James Carter

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IBM ThinkPad
by ICT & Network Manager 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

Hi Folks, I've just loaded SuSE 7.2 on a Thinkpad - fine (except sound and modem). question, how do I get to the BIOS to change the settings? F2, esc etc. don't seem to do the trick. Needless to say I have no manual so I can't RTFM! -- Best wishes, Derek Harding, (BA MIAP) ICT & Network Manager hardingd(a)warlingham.surrey.sch.uk

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Acrobat 5 does not read ps2pdf'd files
by Gary Stainburn 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

I've just been talking to someone who's trying to sell us a document storeage system, and he mentioned in passing that he had a meeting with Adobe last week. In this meeting he mentined that Acrobat 5 fails to read PDF files generated by Ghostscript (ps2pdf) amongst other. The Adobe rep stated that in the past, Adobe has encouraged pdf writed being created by 3rd parties. However, as of Acrobat 5, this stance has changed, as they want to actively push Adobe Distiller - which is where they make their money - and so have stopped it from reading *other* PDF files. Based on the current price of Distiller, you may want to think about this before upgrading your Windows boxes to Acrobat 5. -- Gary Stainburn This email does not contain private or confidential material as it may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown and undisclosed purposes - Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] software in schools/piracy
by adrian.wells 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

> > Anyone heard back from their MP yet? > > Why? Haven't you? You obviously have, what was the outcome? > >How long do you think we should wait > > for a reply before harassing them further? > > In your case forever. Your not keeping up, we managed to get rid of the conservative MP! that's not to say the new incumbent won't be a liar and incompetent to boot. > > It's a joy to see so many barrack-room lawyers in action :-) It passes the > > time as I lurk between changing CDs! > > Then you must be under-employed. Try getting a proper job. :-) > > > Child-maiming? > > Isn't it about time that parents started to teach their children that the > > road is for cars and the pavement for pedestrians? Getting hair out of my > > Volvo badge is a real pain! (So was it obvious that I was an > un-circumcised > > Volvo - or is it Ford - driver?) Ha well, at least you'd never catch me > > pulling a caravan! > > But we will find you trolling quite a lot, I suspect. Not sure that the following applies to me, although it does look like fun :-) "The object of recreational trolling is to sit back and laugh at all those gullible idiots that will believe *anything*. " http://www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html I don't wish to get personal (or wishing to be a troll) but since you raised the question, where does that put you Ian :-) ? It does seem rather nonsensical preaching to the converted. I have written to my MP, I do badger people, but slagging things off doesn't get the job done or raise the level of debate. We all have different opinions but consider my comments and then look back through the thread. Who else has offered physical help to move things along? Off topic You really do live and learn (then die and forget it all)! I'd never heard of trolling before (in this context) and thought it really amusing to find a site devoted to it :-)

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Squid and ACLs
by norman 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

Hi, I am trying to use files for different control lists. The example in the user guide is : snip ------ Large decision lists can be stored in files, so that your squid.conf doesn't get cluttered. Some of the caches I have worked on have had in the region of 2000 lines of acl rules, which could lead to a very cluttered squid.conf file. You can include a file into the decision section of an acl list by placing the filename (with path) in double quotes. The file simply contains the data set; one datum per line. In the next example the file /usr/local/squid/conf/data/myNets can contain any number of IP ranges, one range per line. Example 7-6. acl myNets src "/usr/local/squid/conf/data/myNets" acl all src 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 http_access allow myNets http_access deny all snip ----- and that is working. but try as I might I cannot seem to get any other list to work. Are other types possible or am I just being dense, as usual? If there are can someone show me the syntax please? tia norman

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] software in schools/piracy
by adrian.wells 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

Hi, Anyone heard back from their MP yet? How long do you think we should wait for a reply before harassing them further? It's a joy to see so many barrack-room lawyers in action :-) It passes the time as I lurk between changing CDs! Off topic! > against any other manufacturer of gas-guzzling, child-maiming, > environment-despoiling motor vehicles; I write hypothetically.) Child-maiming? Isn't it about time that parents started to teach their children that the road is for cars and the pavement for pedestrians? Getting hair out of my Volvo badge is a real pain! (So was it obvious that I was an un-circumcised Volvo - or is it Ford - driver?) Ha well, at least you'd never catch me pulling a caravan! Adrian

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APC Smart UPS
by adrian.wells 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

Has anyone managed to install parachute on LINUX 7.2? The install stops, telling me that it can't find ./machine_id And throws up the following error. "There does not appear to be binary compatibility between installed product and this machine" Any ideas anyone? Adrian

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Re: Software in Schools
by Paul Munro 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

The problem with software "licenses" is explained in some ways by Eric Raymond in his excellent "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". What this amounts to is one company setting an inflated price for software that should really get its cash from providing services (support etc) and not manufacturing. Software providers carrying out their work under the guise of manufacturing a product get away with it because of advertising and marketing, as well as special deals behind the scenes. They make their profit from the actual sale of the product, which is not a good business model to follow. To quote Eric Raymond: "It is also worth noting that the manufacturing delusion encourages price structures that are pathalogically out of line with the actual breakdown of development costs. If (as is generally accepted) over 75% of a typical software project's life cycle costs will be in maintenance and debugging and extensions, then the common price and relatively low or zero support fees is bound to lead to results that serve all parties poorly." P.120 The price of Office is a great example of this, and yet the service and support for Office as a product is actually quite dim. On top of that, John Honeyball of the popular PC Pro magazine has stated on many releases of this office suite that there remain major mathematical bugs in Excel that have been brought to Microsoft's attention but even still crop up in XP. This is bad for the consumer, since their end product is not what it should be through correct testing and debugging, and good for Microsoft who answer to no-one and set the price on the product themselves according to what *they* think its worth is--and this is usually calculated by man hours, development costs, packaging, advertising etc etc. Where does this then lead us? To a license that states the software is still not *yours* when you purchase it- instead it remains *ours*. Open source doesn't allow this type of marketing, and building an industry on service and support would benefit far more people than relying on marketing and manufacturing of any one particular software product. This is another reason why M$ wants subscription based licensing. Think about it. If the software isn't ever *yours*, even after purchase of hefty license fees, then under subscription based services we see total control of not only your software but also your use of the said software, and a financial hook that makes sure you continually renew your license when the subscription is due. Now its not one perpetual license, but perpetual renewing of a license! Schools suffer at the hands of this type of monopoly and business *success* because they end up paying multiple licens fees for every piece of software they own. There are CALs, end user licenses, network licenses, per seat, subscription based ad infinitum. Is it any wonder that schools and some individuals lose the plot and just give up on the whole licensing thing? It's wrong, but it happens, often out of confusion. Open source licenses offer the best value for money and reflect the service that you will get from the product once you understand the methods employed by those same providers to offer that support. SuSE may cost £60, but that money (barring commercial software) gets you the chance to install it on ALL your systems- from server to workstations, and keep it there perpetually with no subscription renewal and no technological disadvantage over using M$ products. I think that licensing scheme is easier to understand, nicer to work under, and offers a more transparent business model than the cathedral option. I've enjoyed the discussion on this subject though :-) Paul

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] software in schools/piracy
by Mark Evans 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

> Alan Davies wrote: > > > I think, as with most laws, the owness is on YOU to know and/or find out > > what the laws are. Its > > part of your job - even if its not in the Job description. > > The word is "onus" and I'm pretty sure it's on the *supplier* (acting on behalf > of the manufacturer) to tell you when they subject you to an agreement which > differs from a conventional retail purchase in any way. The law about buying > and selling goods is clear and well-established. Any additional conditions > sellers might want to impose on buyers---*not* "licensees", are open to legal > question. > > No number of shrink-wrap clauses can change the Sale of Goods Act---a product > should be "fit for its advertised purpose" for example. (No matter what M$ > says, if they sell you a word-processor that doesn't word-process you are > entitled to your money back---and I believe this one in particular has a > concrete precedent with M$'s own software in an English court.) > > I am pretty sure that many of the conditions attached to software "licences" The whole idea behind a software licence is that you can't use software without copying. Which was apparently good enough technobabble to convince some US courts. But probably not quite good enough, hence UCITA... > simply wouldn't stand up under English law and it's noticeable that M$ and > others are in no hurry to test them out in front of a judge. The idea, for There are two issues here. a) a fair number of the terms and conditions in these licences are void under UK and EU law anyway. b) they don't appear to fulfil the conditions for a contract under UK law at all. > example, that they continue to own *your* copy of the software after selling it > to you is absurd. How can you state on the outside of a packet that the > purchaser actually receives nothing for his or her money and then complain when > people choose not to pay for that same precisely delineated nothing? Even if > some court was mad enough to uphold that clause of their "EULA" do you think > Bill et al. would want that aspect of their "contract" with their "licensees" > to be made public? Not likely. People who pirate M$ software on a large scale > and then, when they've been rumbled, settle out of court play straight into the > big software companies' hands (see below). Problem is that it litigation dosn't work well where one party has much deeper pockets than the other. Effectivily the latter can drag things out until the former is bankrupt. The only way of even getting a fair chance would be through legal aid. > > > YOU could therefore be found wanting if materials in use in your school are > > not licenced correctly. > > > > I have little sympathy with those who flaunt licencing laws. > > I think the word you're looking for is "flout" and I *do* have a great deal of > sympathy with people who "break" the questionable *letter* of many proprietary > "licenses", but not the legal *spirit* of copyright law. Ironically, I go to > extraordinary lengths to avoid doing either myself. (Just in passing, what are Problem is that even "extraordinary" lengths might not be sufficent to comply with the letter of some of these licence agreements. It wouldn't surprise me if the actually *letter* is mutually exclusive with use in schools. But it's politically incorrect to refuse to use the software. > these "licencing laws" of which you write? Are multinational software > companies framing this country's legislation now?) Even people here at the Considering they have been framing at least one country's legislation it wouldn't surprise me. Especially since Bill and Tony appear a little too friendly :) > Institute of Cancer Research---where we are already extremely anal about > software "licensing"---gasp at my excruciating > nose-cutting-off-to-spite-my-face. I pride myself on not doing anything which > might "break" a "license", except where this involves breaking the *real* law > or the laws of physics, because it allows me to take the high moral ground over > proprietary software issues (which I do with tedious frequency). > -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] software in schools/piracy
by Ian Lynch 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

In essence, much of the licensing is so blatantly geared to exploiting the customer its surprising that there isn't more of a fuss. Its down to ignorance in the end. Look at the recent publicity about "rip off" Britain where cars are a bit more expensive here than in other countries. Now look at the variation in price of software depending on whether its OEM, a boxed copy or Multiple license pack or Education or Agreement or Select, upgrade, competitive upgrade, client access licenses etc etc. Same bit of software in many cases, vastly different prices to different groups. This causes a great deal of confusion so people get the details wrong - not just end-users, some representatives of the software vendors don't even understand it! Also some cases eg running Windows on say a thin client under VMWare are difficult to know whether they conform to any of the manufacturer's rules. Since you can only buy Windows as OEM or boxed copy for a single piece of hardware how can you run it on a thin client where the number of users varies and it isn't actually on their machine? Under normal circumstances it would be reasonable to just say don't buy the product, but this isn't normal circumstances because there is a monopoly that is holding everyone to ransom. Easiest way round it is to keep accelerating the use of Linux simply because then you don't have to worry. With Compaq laying off 8500 worldwide seems that the PC building is likely to be slowing which means fewer operating systems so I expect more rather than less pressure on software protection. If this raises the inconvenience level to end users beyond the level of tolerance, so much the better in the long run. -- IanL > Damian COUNSELL http://www.icr.ac.uk/cmb/bioinformatics/ > CMB Bioinformatics phone: +44 020 7352 8133 x5226 > Institute of Cancer Research direct: +44 020 7878 3850 > London SW3 6JB fax: +44 020 7351 3325

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