May 2005 - openSUSE Edu - openSUSE Mailing Lists

Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Microsoft - Thought Thieves
by Thomas Adam 24 May '05

24 May '05

--- Thomas Dyer <dyert(a)xdevelopment.co.uk> wrote: > Microsoft are running a "video" promotion on "thought thieves", re > intellectual property. > > http://www.msn.co.uk/img/en/en-gb/portal/specials/thoughtthieves/poster.PDF I find the irony of this far more interesting... :) -- Thomas Adam ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Network migration starting with squid.. help
by Thomas Adam 24 May '05

24 May '05

--- Alan Loughlin <loughlina(a)swalcliffepark.co.uk> wrote: > When I talk about locking files down, to me that means, restricting > user > access and controlling what they see. I really just going by what I > can do > at the moment in group policy, as this is what I know. There's a few ways you can do this -- you could change a $USER's primary group to something you have created that then is only associated with various items you want them to see (crude). You'd be better of with LDAP, if that's possible though. > Menu locking and altering from a central location (folder redirection > in > group policy) Menu locking would best be done via changing perms on ~/.kde or ~/.gnome > Home folder located on a server Many ways you can do that. Samba, for instance. > Authentication from a Linux server basically replace active > directory, as I > won't need it if my workstations are a Linux distro. Samba again. > Taking drive visibly away from the file manager so they just see > their home > folder and any shares You can lock them in, using a variety of methods, although restricting users in this way has always been a bit of a black art. You could use a chroot-jail, but this would involve having to recreate a lot of the top-level directories within one's $HOME -- something that's probably not desireable. You might get away with setting their shell to 'rbash', if you want to really lock them down. > Replace roaming profiles with Linux version (are all user settings > located > in /home?) Yes. > Scripts or a method to ensure printers for each room are setup for > every pc > in that room with the ability to have some printers roam with certain > users. CUPS + Samba can do this. > Kiosk seems the way to go, but does this have to be run on every > Linux > client? All my pcs are decent, except they have windows on them at > the > moment ;-) The kiosk would have to run on every client, unless you centralised it so that the Xserver was running on another machine, and the clients connected to it (think XDCMP). But this would probably create a bottleneck and a very hughload on the server running the Xserver. I'd probably just keep the kiosk running on the local workstation, along with KDE (if you went for that particular desktop environment, of course.) > Is the webmin environment good for network management? Especially for > the > likes of what Im trying to achieve? Not really. I really have a hatred for webmin, but it really isn't appropriate, in my opinion, for your needs here. > I really like xfce, it's a pity it doesn't seem it has anything like > kiosk. But you can lock it down. You can do the same thing with FVWM as well. The only problem is that it requires some time to put everything in place, alas. > I have used a few distros at home, suse, ubuntu, kubuntu (same I > know), > fedora and more recently simply mepis. I've stayed with mepis purely > because > the setup for my wireless adaptor was completely flawless and hasn't > stopped > working since. And its a really good distro, in my opinion... I've heard some nice things about it. One thing they do which I thought is a nice touch is they prelink openoffice so that it loads much faster. > From tinkering with Linux and collection of info, I think (based on > limited > knowledge) that the set should be as follows: > > Central authentication/management server - 2 for redundancy/load > balancing > would be nice. That would be an intresting project to work on. > File server - backed up every night to dds4 drive - could be on same > server > as above There's many programs you can use for this -- I use 'Amanda', although theres rsync and friends. > Intranet/antivirus management server - non critical files also stored > here > Windows server with terminal services - I still need to run 4 windows > apps, > successmaker, Pass for windows, phoenix and epar > Internet filtering server - cachepilot, censornet, squid/dansguardian > (all > to be properly assessed) Yup - things have moved on a lot since I last setup squid properly in a working environment. You'll get plenty of help here on that. > Linux fat client workstations - school wide based image, easily > deployed > -- Thomas Adam ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - want a free and easy way to contact your friends online? http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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Free Software Collaboration
by Alan Loughlin 19 May '05

19 May '05

http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/index.php/Free_Software_Collaboration I had an idea about software for education, can you all look at the above link and post your thoughts. Many Thanks Alan Loughlin -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 266.11.12 - Release Date: 17/05/2005

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Open Source School MIS
by Robert Jones 14 May '05

14 May '05

Hi. I'm the project admin for FreeMIS - the blurb says: > FreeMIS - the free web-based MIS for schools - has made it's second public > release, which greatly improves the functionality of the reporting module, > and provides a full set of dummy data to play with. If you are looking for > an open source alternative then download FreeMIS here > > http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/freemis/freemis_0.85.tar.gz?download > > and get involved. FreeMIS development seems to be taking off, with lots of offers of help. As there is clearly a gap in the market for a quality, comprehensive FLOSS alternative to the commercial MIS's, I want to make sure that FreeMIS gets it right. So I'm looking for advice. I'm a humble maths/computing teacher who saw a need at school for a decent web-based electronic reporting system, and made it happen. Now I'm beginning to realise that there's a whole world of issues that will need to be seen to be covered if FreeMIS is going to stand up in the big bad, lucrative world of school MIS's, and I'm not quite sure where to start. Is there anyone out there who's got experience in the UK MIS field and would be willing to help me with this? I'm thinking about compliance with Government standards, security of data, exporting/importing to/from Edexcel/ ScotXed etc. If we can get it right, we will be plugging one the the big remaining gaps in the package for schools to move entirely to FLOSS. Thanks, -- Robert Jones

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Long awaited BECTA report
by Thomas Adam 13 May '05

13 May '05

--- Christopher Dawkins <cchd(a)felsted.essex.sch.uk> wrote: > As well as this, has anyone worked out why the LAN/WAN costs should > be so > different? In particular why the WAN costs for OSS should be over > double > that for proprietary, while the WAN link costs should be 13%? I have > logged into the site and looked at the figures, but remain baffled. It wouldn't surprise me (as cynical as I am) that these are "assumed" values based on pain-staking "research" done by some chinless wonder sat on top og Table Mountain (no, not me this time :P). It could also equally be their conclusion that as WAN (because of what it is) is just costly anyway. /me shrugs. I would be interested to know as well -- I must admit, I tend to gloss over figures as meaningles drivel in reports -- they can be manipulated to show all hosts of things in any number of interesting and varied ways. :) -- Thomas Adam ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

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Long awaited BECTA report
by Ian Lynch 13 May '05

13 May '05

http://www.becta.org.uk/corporate/press_out.cfm?id=4681 -- Ian Lynch <ian.lynch(a)zmsl.com> ZMSL

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Network migration starting with squid.. help
by Thomas Adam 13 May '05

13 May '05

--- Alan Loughlin <loughlina(a)swalcliffepark.co.uk> wrote: > Is dansguardian any good? "Good" in what terms? Good for the dog? The cat? You'll have to specify what you mean by "good". It's good in that DG does work. Coupled with squid, and squidguard, you can do some very powerful things with it, if you have the expertese to do so. CensorNet has attempted to make life easier, by providing a set of useful tools to do just this, and if you are thinking of using DG in an educational environment, longterm, this is where you should be looking to start off with. Everything you've asked for so far, would suggest to me that you're after CensorNet [1]. -- Thomas Adam [1] No, I am not affiliated with them, nor have I ever worked for them. :) "The Linux Weekend Mechanic" -- http://linuxgazette.net "TAG Editor" -- http://linuxgazette.net "<shrug> We'll just save up your sins, Thomas, and punish you for all of them at once when you get better. The experience will probably kill you. :)" -- Benjamin A. Okopnik (Linux Gazette Technical Editor) ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Network migration starting with squid.. help
by Thomas Adam 12 May '05

12 May '05

--- Alan Loughlin <loughlina(a)swalcliffepark.co.uk> wrote: > respond in a informative way. How does these comments like this help > me? > They dont. I disagree. As I said to you, for whichever distro you pick (see below), you will most likely be given KDE or GNOME -- my advice to you about locking files down is crude at best, but it is certainly an option open to you. I know KDE offers a kiosk option - so that you can specify certain applications that can be run, etc. When you said "customisation" I took that to mean aesthetics. If this is not the case, you'll have to clarify. If you go with KDE for kiosk (and it perhaps would seem a stronger candidate than GNOME, as GNOME is lacking in such a feature) then everything is more or less ready to go. I have used it, and it is easy to configure. Can you come up with more information as to the sorts of things you'd want to restrict? Are you wanting users to only run certain applications (again, a kiosk)? Or would you rather have some auditing means as to the programs a user has been running? To an extent, you can restrict users running binary programs from $HOME, by mounting /home with "noexec" set as an option in /etc/fstab -- the presupposition here is that /home is on its own partition -- a scheme I'd recommend you employ. You can probably also do some clever things with PAM (Pluggable Authentication Module) to restrict users. I know that on Debian and RedHat (Fedora) that you can set limits for things in /etc/security/limits.conf - but this is usually for superficial attributes of a running process. > This was my main question, im asking for distro opinions based on > everyone's > personal experience, I don't know what distro to choose, thats one > reason > why im posting. Ok, below is my own personal summary of distros, with their appropriate merits. One thing I will say before I launch into that is that there is no real difference between distros anymore. Not like there used to be. The difference lies with the concept of package management. Also, with work done by the FSH (File System Hierarchy) and LSB (Linux System Base) - all distros that support them will follow agreed locations of files, so this has made things easier. As you can probably guess, this never used to be the case, and RedHat used to define a lot of this for itself. :) Distros tend to work from two primary package management file models. One is the use of RPMs, and the other are .DEBs (although this is used only on a specific distribution). RPMs (RedHat Package Manager) are the oldest format, but the most widely used for distros such as "SuSE", "Fedora" and "Mandriva" (I still call them Mandrake). Debian is a special case in that it defined for itself its own format of file to distribute packages under [1]. Why you'd use one distro over another depends on your situation. I've already mentioned CensorNet, which you've tried. They all offer much of a muchness, to be honest - SuSE for instance offers a nice frontend called YaST (Yet Another Setup Tool) from which you can install new packages, and configure parts of the system. SuSE is really good for a novice as it gets things setup quickly from which one can learn from, without fear of breaking much as YaST can usually out it right again. I really can't remember which desktop environment it comes with as the de facto, I have a feeling it is KDE, although doubtless someone can correct me on this. SuSE also boasts a large collection of packaged RPMs, and this is indeed true. Even SuSE 6.4 had a large set of packaged applications. Fedora -- hmm, very much like SuSE. It uses the same package manager but doesn't offer such a nice centralised system akin to SuSE's YaST from what I know of it. So this might be a limitation in some situations in using a text-editor. If it's something that's not appealing, I'd probably avoid it. Fedora probably comes with GNOME (GNOME is GNU's flagship desktop environment, after all), but as with any distro, changing between desktop environments is generally a trivial thing to do. The package manager, although using RPM, as a front-end uses YUM which combines apt-get's dependency resolution (taken from the Debian distro) with RPMs (some say this is the best of both worlds, I disagree. :)) Mandrake/Mandriva -- only recently changed its name, it's very very similar to RedHat 7, before RH turned into Fedora for its community-lead distro. It offers DrakeX, which is sort of similar to the idea of YaSt -- a centralised system to do other tasks, besides package management. I did hear rumours of them looking to charge for updates (a "nominal" fee, if you will) -- but I am assuming this fell through. As with Fedoram and SuSE, it is RPM-based. Slackware -- this has no package manager, the standard form of distributed "packages" being as gzipped tarballs (.tgz files). This distro is perhaps the oldest distro still going, and still maintained by the same person. I'd avoid it, mind -- unless you know Linux inside out, of course. Debian -- my preferred distro, although I've tried many. It's a middle ground between being newbie friendly, whilst allowing those more experienced to get on with things. It has a different "user model" than the other distros mentioned. For instance, debian doesn't install with a "standard" desktop environment -- the choice is left upto the user as to what he/she wants. That said, there are pre-arranged "selections" of commmon packages suited to a specific environment (much like YaST offers via 'profiles' at installation time). I would probably not suggest this distro as one's first choice, even though I'm tempted to (but biased). There are others out there - a whole host of live-CD distros (these tend to be 'based' on Debian) as well as other more established distros that I just haven't covered here. > I appreciate that your response didn't just include snidey comments, > but I > will not accept people speaking to me in this way. I'm sorry you read my reply as an attack upon yourself. Not my intention, I assure you. I answer a lot of questions on different lists -- I've found that the more specific you can be when asking a question, the more precise answer you'll get. HTH, -- Thomas Adam [1] They're actually just ar(1) files with metadata encapsulating them. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - want a free and easy way to contact your friends online? http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Network migration starting with squid.. help
by Thomas Adam 11 May '05

11 May '05

--- Tony Whitmore <tony(a)tonywhitmore.co.uk> wrote: > Not really true these days. A large number of distributions are based > on > the .deb format, with varying ties of closeness with the Debian I wasn't clear -- yes, you're right. I was talking more in the context of the widely-used commercial distros. -- Thomas Adam ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

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RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Network migration starting with squid.. help
by Matt Johnson 11 May '05

11 May '05

--- Alan Loughlin <loughlina(a)swalcliffepark.co.uk> wrote: > >>My main question is what Linux distro shall I go > for and what caching and > filtering > >>solution will do what isa and surfcontrol do? > > This was my main question, im asking for distro > opinions based on everyone's > personal experience, I don't know what distro to > choose, thats one reason > why im posting. I've used SuSE and Debian reasonably extensively in schools (Primary), mainly in a server role, but also some desktop use - which is going very well. SuSE got me into linux. I'm very fond of it. YaST is excellent for the likes of me - just the ticket. These days however, Debian is my distro of choice. I wanted to delve a little deeper under the hood, and I like the way Debian rewards a little effort. People rave about apt-get and it's well deserved. On a broadband connection, installing software is a breeze. Both SuSE and Debain are well suited for the tasks you mention. I've tried RedHat (7,8,9)/Fedora (C1,2) and I'm not so keen. They seemed less intuitive, more buggy. Just my opinion. > > I appreciate that your response didn't just include > snidey comments, but I > will not accept people speaking to me in this way. Easy tiger. I know exactly what you're getting at, but: 1. This is one of the most supportive, least ranting lists I've ever subscribed to, 2. Thomas is a (sometimes overzealous) top bloke who has helped *many* of us out on *many* occassions and goes well out of his way to assist - although he likes questions to be well defined. I speak from experience. He gives more than he takes around here. > > Thank you for everyone else's replies. Welcome. Hope it helps. -- Matt Johnson ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - want a free and easy way to contact your friends online? http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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