January 2002 - 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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RE NHS Meeting - Bill and Tony
by Alan Harris 18 Sep '02

18 Sep '02

Hi all thought this might be of interest to some of you :- <my email> > Subject: Microsoft and the British Government - Possible Anti-Competitive Behaviour > Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 15:04:20 +0100 > From: alanh(a)bryngwyn.carmarthen.sch.uk > To: Erkki.Liikanen(a)cec.eu.int > > Hi, > > I write regarding the current negotiations between the British > Government and Microsoft in which, to date, Microsoft have been awarded > a contract to supply the National Health Service with some 60 Million > (£)'s worth of software licenses. > > I would be grateful if you could inform me of the current state of the > anti-competition investigation being undertaken by the EU against > Microsoft, as it appears that more such deals (like that for the NHS) > are in the pipeline. As the commisioner with responsibility for the > Information Society I am sure that you are well aware of the potential > for damage being created by such actions. > > Many Thanks > > Alan </my email> <commisioners response> > Subject: RE: Microsoft and the British Government - Possible Anti-Competit ive Behaviour > Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2001 14:08:31 +0100 > From: Erkki.Liikanen(a)cec.eu.int > To: alanh(a)bryngwyn.carmarthen.sch.uk > CC: Mario.Monti(a)cec.eu.int, Marc.Van-Hoof(a)cec.eu.int, Olli.Rehn(a)cec.eu.int, Per.Haugaard(a)cec.eu.int > > Dear. Mr. Harris, > > I pass your letter to my colleague Mario Monti and his cabinet. He is > responsible for this issue. > But still, during investigation I don't believe much more can be said what > has been in public. > > with best regards > > Erkki Liikanen > > ******************************** > Mr. Erkki Liikanen > Member of the Commission > tel. +32-2-295.79.57 > fax +32-2-295.85.61 > erkki.liikanen(a)cec.eu.int > secretary; kirsi.larjava(a)cec.eu.int > tel. +32-2-295.14.40 > http://europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/liikanen/index_en.htm > </commissiones response> There may be hope for all of us then? Alan ----------------------------------------------------- Alan Harris Network Manager Bryngwyn School Tel : 01554 750661 Fax : 01554 758255 E-mail: alanh(a)bryngwyn.carmarthen.sch.uk ----------------------------------------------------- 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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Schools Linux distro
by Bruce Miller 16 Feb '02

16 Feb '02

I have been experimenting with a copy of Mandrake that I downloaded from their site a couple of weeks ago. When you install, it gives you a dozen options - network server, network client, games machine, office machine etc etc. I can't say that the server client set-up that I am running on a pair of old K6's is doing that well. I like the potential idea and haven't given up yet. The Sun website is keen to tell us that are releasing Gnome ver 2 and Star Office ver 6 in the Spring. I think Chris's idea is excellent and been toying with the idea of approaching Mandrake about similar myself, anyway. I don't have any experience of Red Hat but they seem to have a good record for corporate support. What are Suse thinking Roger? Not being too negative though, I think, we will probably look to be installing XP because of the number of existing Windows based licences that we have and the resident level of staff training that we possess throughout. I include in this, all the staff nervously working through their NOF courses on their new machines that their spent hard earnt cash upon as well as our gap filling KS3 part timers. Additionally, There are quite a few killer apps that I don't think we could live without and quite a few departments have invested large amounts of budget into resource CD's and windows based curriculum support software. We have been using XP on standalones for a while now. It represents a big move forward and so far is a very solid platform. I have reservations too, about Sun Microsystems making a monoploly of my network and taking over where Microsoft left off either. I wouldn't want to invest curriculum development and good time into possibly buggy and soley office based moves forwards either. Now, start to resist the urge to flame me at this point, please. I am on your side, really. I would love for Linux to succeed at a school level but I don't mind paying Bill Gates if it makes my life easier. If I sweat and work against the flow, upset staff and departments, all I will get for showing the LEA and the Head that we can survive on less money is a budget reduction. Not much incentive really, is it. Pay a fair day's wage for a fair day's work and we might find some people prepared to get Linux moving. Chris, you have already said that you are not going to work full time on this. Is anyone? Will a slick system arrive in time for me not to install XP. I have my doubts. If I can help in a small way, though, I am happy to help you.

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Plans for a Linux distro
by Chris Howells 01 Feb '02

01 Feb '02

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello, It's a long story, but basically I have been increasing annoyed with RM recently. Therefore, I would like to create a Linux distribution which works in a similair manner to RM connect. What do people think of these proposals? I can't guaranteee that it's going to happen or quickly (I'm busy with school and developing KDE), but if some people want to help as well, then it just might :) Linux distribution plan - ------------------------ Target audience: Schools, colleges, universities Aim: To provide a simple to install and administer networking system, which works in a mildly similair manner to RM Connect. Except it actually works (and has decent security), and is based on free software (GNU/Linux). By simply booting a machine with a boot floppy, it should be easy to install Linux on to the macine, after just asking a few questions such as the hostname to use, and the kind of mouse that the box has. Implementation: A Linux distribution based on Red Hat 7.2 would be created. The main reason that Red Hat is suggested is because it can be installed based around the Kickstart installation system, which enables an administrator to stored the installer settings in a configuration file, rather than needing to sit in front of the computer and tend to the the installation every time a question is asked. The distribution will: * Be mainly based on KDE, but provide Blackbox for older hardware (486s and slow Pentiums). There is a possibility that GNOME could be provided as well, but I prefer KDE, and know very little about how GNOME works. Stuff like Kylix and Open Office will also be provided. On the server side, CUPS would be used for the printing system and all machines will have ext3 formatted hard discs. * Have a central administration databases where: - User names and groups are managed - Print and disc quotas are managed - Software can be allocated to a machine/group of machines - The central configuration files are located * On booting up a machine, a system service will check with the server hosting the administrative database whether any software has been allocated/deallocated. If so, it will be downloaded via apache and installed locally, or removed, as appropriate. However, some larger software such as Open Office might want to live permanently on the server. If any configuration files (e.g. /etc/host or similair) have been modified, the updated versions would be downloaded. Perhaps CVS could be used here. * A database such as NIS would probably be used for the administrative database * Upon loggin in (via kdm) the system would map the user's home directory on the server to the /home/user directory on the user name. NFS or SMB are possibilities here. * There will be some user based administrative tools. This will allow the user to change his/her password via a web browser. There will also be an information page showing stuff like information about disc/print quotas. It will also be possible to define the desktop menus (e.g. KMenu) that will appear on the user's desktop. This will be based around .desktop files, and a utility will convert these files to Blackbox menus so that the menu is kept consistent between different desktops. A web based e-mail system could be used to integrate with the IMAP mail server. * The server side would consist of the following pieces of software: - Samba - Apache - Squid - IMAP e-mail server * It will be possible to customise the desktop to default levels. For instance, by most KDE configuration files will be held in a globally readable directory (perhaps in /usr or /etc). Therefore ~/.kde will be mostly read only KDE's architecture makes it very easy to provide configuration files based on this process - -- Cheers, Chris Howells -- chris(a)chrishowells.co.uk, howells(a)kde.org Web: http://chrishowells.co.uk, PGP key: http://chrishowells.co.uk/pgp.txt KDE: http://www.koffice.org, http://edu.kde.org, http://usability.kde.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8WXfHF8Iu1zN5WiwRAr/MAJ49n+Kg3R8zVZV24NPjlH17VflilQCfRLQO +192PCzfyq91Dl0yJpbPn2k= =sOPz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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New Scientist Open Source article
by Nigel Pauli 31 Jan '02

31 Jan '02

The latest issue of New Scientist [2nd Feb 2002] has a very interesting article on Open Source. The lovely thing is that it is the very first magazine article they have ever released under a copyleft [i.e. an Open Source licence] For this reason you don't need to buy a copy of New Scientist. Go to http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/copyleft to download the article. Nigel -- Nigel Pauli - I.T. Manager St. John's School, Northwood, U.K. http://www.st-johns.org.uk/

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] LTSP
by Matt Johnson 31 Jan '02

31 Jan '02

--- SILCOATSIT(a)aol.com wrote: > Floppy I wish I could get that option to work, It > goes don't want to play 8-( > > John Hmm. I know what you mean (I think). I had trouble - the clients kept saying 'Non-system boot disk' or would get stuck very early on. Two things: 1) I reverted to new disks - much better. 2) I think the floppy drive in my server wasn't A1, so I used another machine. It kept making useless disks. I used another machine - sorted. The command is: cat /image_to_use > /dev/fd0 Some sites left out the ">", but I put it in, as recommended by other sites. HTH -- Matt __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! http://auctions.yahoo.com

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] LTSP
by Jonathan Bacon 31 Jan '02

31 Jan '02

> -----Original Message----- > is it worth organising another workshop in Sandwell ? try to make it > free, bring you own servers and clients and see what we can > get working? What workshop is this in Sandwell? Is this the sandwell in the Midlands? I could be interested in attending this... Cheers, Jono

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] LTSP
by Matt Johnson 30 Jan '02

30 Jan '02

--- SILCOATSIT(a)aol.com wrote: > Interested in how you are booting the clients, is it > a bootrom of the nic or a floppy? > > John > (who can't get a client to boot yet) Floppy. (I know, I know). But heh, it works. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! http://auctions.yahoo.com

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Email server III
by Chris Puttick 30 Jan '02

30 Jan '02

Hi Anyone know a way of bulk adding users to Email Server III? Cheers Chris

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LTSP
by s-clarob＠st-aidans.cumbria.sch.uk 30 Jan '02

30 Jan '02

Does anyone know the minimum specification for an LTSP client? Is it faster than using VNC? Ta Rob.

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