April 2002 - openSUSE Edu - openSUSE Mailing Lists

Charter
by Lance Lane 13 Apr '02

13 Apr '02

I will come up with a charter tonight and try to include all of those things that we have discussed. I will submit the draft tomorrow morning sometime and we can take a vote on it and if people have questions please ask. I don't mind criticism. My motto: "To avoid criticism: Say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." This is not a "Manifesto." However, we have to have some sort rules for moderation. Lets roll!!!! Lance

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The reason I joined.
by Lance Lane 13 Apr '02

13 Apr '02

I think that before we decide on a charter that we should discuss: 1. Our reason for joining. 2. What do we do in education? 3. What do we want out of this list? 4. More importantly, how can we help our students get a good education using linux? School is about kids and educating them better is our main goal. 1. My reason for joining. I am a social studies teacher on the Navajo Reservation. Each classroom has a least one computer. Our labs have about a total of 30 computers for about 700 kids. (We currently are on a Novell server and Windows) I joined because I am looking for a better way to help educate my kids and to help my life a bit easier. If you are a teacher, you know that it is a 7-day a week job. I am interested in: 1. Programming (Hobbiest) 2. Discussing matters that address such topics as the "digital divide." 3. Getting ideas, and giving ideas that will help developers better serve the educational community. (We need all the help we can get). 4. How can I improve to better suit the needs of my students? 5. Applications that are cost efficient and helpful in the classroom? I am a Linux "newbie" and I am running SuSe 7.3 (I have 8.0 on order). One day I would like to develop a Linux package directed at just educators and students. Lance Lane

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Re: [suse-schools-usa] We need a list charter [ was: Re: Whoa ]
by Christopher Mahmood 13 Apr '02

13 Apr '02

* Lance Lane (ldlane(a)citlink.net) [020412 16:35]: > I guess then I need to ask the question: > > What was the "original intent" of SuSe when the group was established? Cheap publicity...no, I really can't recall the answer to that. I was asked to create the list by someone further up the in organization and, since I'm the default list owner and no one else stepped forward to take it, I'm the owner. I would probably be subscribed anyway just because it's something I'm interested in but know nothing about. I imagine it was at the request of someone through feedback(a)suse.com. I think that's how the -uk list came about. > Is it for regular classroom teachers, school system administrators, or > Computer teachers? Or, all of the above. It's for whatever you guys want to make it. I've given my personal opinion earlier today but that's just as someone who's interested in topic, not as a SuSEman. I generally try to encourage list owners to take an interest in their lists, answer questions, and that sort of thing but I really don't want to dictate what this list should be; that's best left to the people who are actually working to get Linux into schools. > Do we discuss using Linux in the classroom for help with curriculum > development, hooking up servers, or the political aspect of bridging the > digital divide with a less costly, better operating system (IMHO!)? Or all? They all sound fine and interesting to me. As I said earlier, the "hooking up servers" part is probably better done on the lists we already have for that sort of thing. Things like curriculum development can't reasonably be discussed on suse-linux-e because 1) the list is just too big. Nobody really wants to receive 200 emails per day about patching kernels and controlling their coffee pots with Linux when they're really interested in topic like curriculum development. 2) It will take more than a bunch of geeks with tables of benchmark statistics and uptime figures to get Linux into schools. If we start doing support here pretty soon we won't have any non-technical people left. I think it would be great if there were high school principles and teachers and other non-technical people from academia subscribed and contributing...you know, exactly what you don't find on suse-linux-e. I don't think the support needs of a typical school can't be handled by the general lists. -- -ckm

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Re: [suse-schools-usa] We need a list charter [ was: Re: Whoa ]
by michael stone 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

On Fri, 12 Apr 2002, Lance Lane wrote: > 1. Educators around the World. > 2. Educational Developers (Interested of Course in developing applications) > 3. Implementation of Linux in the classroom. > 4. Practical Application of Linux in the Classroom (Activities) > 5. No Tech support for Linux or SuSe. > 6. Educational Desktop Developers (KDE, Ximian, Gnome) > > Need Feedback on more specifics and covering the Bases! I think some technical support (or at least ideas about technical implementations) should be allowed, as long as it is specific or common to an academic environment. I was recently thrust (okay, somewhat willingly) into putting together a 25 machine high performance computing lab and workstation cluster. I have used linux for a few years, but have very little experience in the administration of groups of systems. I think most of the questions I will have will be pretty specific to problems running in a university type environment, as opposed to managing systems in a business. For example, here are some things I am working on now, that others at universities or public schools may have dealt with or are dealing with also: 1) How do I easily create 25 identical systems (i.e. write a bootable cd that automatically partitions disks, loads the exact software I want off of NFS, and prompts me for machine name, IP, etc...) and, how do I keep all of these machines exactly the same? 2) Has anyone set up OpenLDAP to use instead of NIS so it can interface with the X.500 databases that many universities run? 3) Setting up systems (yes, windows and mac, too) so that students get their same home directory no matter what machine in the building they log onto, and how to keep this secure. 4) Clustering / Batching 5) How to keep the Linux systems attractive (read: **sexy**) to the students, so they will use it over the windows lab. I have some ideas on most of this stuff, but I don't really have anyone here to bounce them off of. I would like to be able to use this list for that. Thanks! And I'm glad to see this list isn't dead! I think it is a great idea. The more students we get using linux now, the less people we have to ween from microsoft in the future. Michael Stone Mechanical Engineering High Performance Computing / Linux Administration University of Texas at Austin ETC 3.130 ph: 471.5951 agentsmith(a)mail.utexas.edu Michael Stone Linux Administration University of Texas at Austin - Mechanical Engineering ETC 3.130 ph: 471.5951 agentsmith(a)mail.utexas.edu

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Re: [suse-schools-usa] We need a list charter [ was: Re: Whoa ]
by Lance Lane 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

However, I think we should take a vote on a very important issue as an educator: Educators like to exchange ideas. So shouldn't we make this a LANGUAGE specific list instead of Country specific. EX: suse-schools-english(a)suse.com Other intrested people that speak different languages can follow suit. EX: suse-schools-spanish(a)suse.com Because: 1. We can certainly exchange information and ideas with teachers from GB, Australia and other English speaking countries. 2. We need to format the group to fit the exchange of ideas as educators. Linux Educators of the World Unite! n Friday 12 April 2002 11:48 am, you wrote: > * Lance Lane (ldlane(a)citlink.net) [020412 10:46]: > > I have a day off, I would like to help compose the charter. > > Great! Maybe you want to post a tentative one to the list when you > are ready?

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We need a list charter [ was: Re: Whoa ]
by Christopher Mahmood 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

* tom poe (tompoe(a)renonevada.net) [020411 22:52]: > Hi: Don't discontinue it. Let's get the show on the road. Good to know > we're all here. I won't, but there's some work to do. For one, "we" (meaning you) should try to come up with a charter for the list. I.e Currently, it's A list devoted to the use and support of Linux in schools. Please note that we have a separate list for this topic that is specific to the UK -- suse-linux-uk-schools That's sufficiently vague to allow almost any topic. Maybe that's what you want, maybe not. Here are my opinions. I'd rather not see it become a list where people try to get support for Linux--we have general lists in three languages (and two specially setup up for blind users who are reading on a Braille display) that are better suited for this because of their size and activity. If people start debating the merits of various filesystems and vm implementations the non-technical people will get bored and unsubscribe. If suppport-type questions get posted they definitely won't be answered with the speed they would be on suse-linux-e. Also, I don't think it should nec. be specific to SuSE. If your school will only accept Redhat because that's "Linux" in their minds that's understandable given their marketing (of course we'd appreciate you trying to convince them otherwise :)) but it seems that the 'schools' part of the name should take precedence over the 'suse' part; we didn't create the list as a cheap marketing ploy. Anyway, feel free to send suggestions or comments to ml-admin(a)suse.com. -- -ckm

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Re: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] samba
by Andrew Ray 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

>Never had any problems with bind - it works "out of the box" as a caching >nameserver and takes maybe 10 minutes to set up a private DNS zone. > Me too, neither. If you're not confident, Webmin (available from www.webmin.com) offers a slightly easier way of getting all the component files in place, and it'll do some basic syntax checks for you. You still need to understand what DNS is trying to achieve, though. Bind does not like to be swapped out of RAM at all (see the documentation which accompanies the package in /usr/share/doc/packages/bindX, where X is the version of bind you choose to use). If you are installing it on a busy mutli-funstion server, you may need to write a little script to ensure that bind is kept near the top of the busy list!!! Andrew -- ******************************************************************************** E-Mail: aray(a)computerpark.co.uk ********************************************************************************

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] new and exciting samba errors in log
by Andrew Ray 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

> >This other samba box was suddenly being _really_ slow >(7 - 10 mins for a logon), so I went to investigate >(15 miles away). The log had apparently 'filled up', >so it was spewing errors to the console. I suspect a resource is not correctly defined. What happens if you run testparm? Do all your services / shares pass? If they do, then it is probably worth looking at the Linux permissions on the shared folders. My suspicion is that one of the standard resources (netlogon, print$, if you use it) is playing up. The opportunistic lock break failure message you're receiving indicates that Samba is not relinquishing a resource it *should* have finished with. Netlogon is the most likely of these, but there may be others. Try changing the debug level assigned to samba - for instance, by doctoring the /etc/init.d/smb script and then restart smaba and try a few logins, while running tail -f /var/log/log.smb on an available terminal screen. This will give you a realtime view of what is happening and when. Maybe that way you can provide a few more clues. > >Any ideas much appreciated. Anyone had this before? >Are some of these messages normal? Not in my experience. Andrew -- ******************************************************************************** E-Mail: aray(a)computerpark.co.uk ********************************************************************************

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samba
by Matt Johnson 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

I setup a samba box this week. Works really well as a PDC but all clients pause when browsing the network neighbourhood - they seem to wait for something for about 20 seconds, then resume as normal. Log ons are fine, but log offs seem to pause for the same length (no, there's no sound file playing). Very odd. The network and hardware is all good, as we replaced SuSE 6.4 with Samba configured as PDC but with SHARE level security, with RedHat 7.2 with samba configured with USER level. Now, for some reason, a mysterious pause. Any ideas please? Thanks -- Matt __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

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test
by Daniel Geldres Castro 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

=============================== Saludos, Daniel Geldres Castro mail: dgeldres(a)pcprices.com.pe Telf Trab.: 511-447-7600 Telf Casa.: 511-251-3584 ICQ 72211218 MSN daniel_geldres(a)hotmail.com Yahoo ID danielgeldres =============================== SuSE Linux fácil, independiente, estable, seguro!

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