UbuntuIRC / 2009 /08 /01 /#edubuntu.txt
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[00:04] <dgroos> Well, 2 main tasks: noting who is on/off task, and when I need everyone's attention, locking up the desktop.
[00:04] <dgroos> before I had a dataprojector in the room I would commonly share my desktop with other users.
[00:05] <Lns> dgroos: so the remote/vnc is a big deal
[00:05] <dgroos> Also, I used apple remote desktop for several years before entering Linux world.
[00:05] <Lns> cool
[00:05] <dgroos> yes
[00:06] * Lns hopes to get all of that functionality in tcm by the end of the next 2 weeks
[00:06] <dgroos> I don't often use the chat because I'm usually wandering around the room, helping students.
[00:06] <dgroos> Wow!
[00:06] <Lns> that makes sense
[00:06] <Lns> do you have clients in classrooms too?
[00:07] <dgroos> What do you mean?
[00:07] <Lns> err...sorry, do you use ltsp?
[00:07] <Lns> oh heh
[00:07] <Lns> nm
[00:07] <Lns> =p
[00:07] <dgroos> Yes, exclusively.
[00:07] <dgroos> :)
[00:07] <Lns> do you have ltsp clients in the classrooms too or just in a lab?
[00:08] <dgroos> Let me find a picture...
[00:08] <Lns> ooo, screenshots ;)
[00:12] <dgroos> check out this folder: http://gcos.mpls.k12.mn.us/gcos/Members/mrg/folder-for-images/
[00:13] <dgroos> the last 4 images show that I've got a lab in my classroom :)
[00:13] <dgroos> though the computers aren't being used during this particular time.
[00:14] <dgroos> fancy zoom is awesome, ay?
[00:15] <Lns> dgroos: wow, nice looking tables!
[00:16] <Lns> are those tablet PCs?
[00:17] <dgroos> they are the thin clients... recycled p3's and p4's--check here for details (bottom of page) http://gcos.mpls.k12.mn.us/gcos
[00:22] <Lns> That is awesome
[00:22] <dgroos> Keeps me off the streets...
[00:24] <Lns> you're doing a good thing there
[00:24] <Lns> keep it up!
[00:27] <dgroos> with your-all's help :) Thanks
[00:27] <Lns> haha..that's what makes a community
[00:28] <LaserJock> dgroos: do students seem to like the monitors?
[00:28] <LaserJock> I was wondering about glare
[00:28] <dgroos> ahh... growing communities of scientists... grows edubuntu community, too :)
[00:28] <LaserJock> I love seeing kids workin' with chemicals :-)
[00:29] <dgroos> Glare isn't the issue has mainly to do with angle of view but that isn't to bad.
[00:29] <LaserJock> how's the typing?
[00:29] <dgroos> Ah... Dr LJ ;)
[00:29] <LaserJock> I might be a tad biased
[00:29] <LaserJock> I was just thinking about when I'm teaching labs
[00:29] <dgroos> They pull the keyboard from under the glass and put it on their lap.
[00:30] <LaserJock> and how it's difficult to have lab manuals and the experimental setup going
[00:30] <LaserJock> in a setup like yours you can have the lab "manual" on screen
[00:30] <dgroos> 1 person is the keyboarder, the other the mouser--using the mouse on the under-table.
[00:31] <LaserJock> or what would be simply awesome would be to have sort of a guided multimedia tour through the experiment
[00:32] <dgroos> Yes--the idea is to allow the new tools to recreate a new environment, one where there is a community of (novice) scientists building/creating (some might say discovering :) knowledge).
[00:32] <LaserJock> instead of plain text recipes
[00:32] <LaserJock> also would allow for more in-lab data analysis. right now we have the students just write down data and process it later because we don't have in-lab computers
[00:33] <dgroos> I'm not to big on recipies--though they do need to learn basics. Yes, I see the computer as a big help-resource, for example: https://public-wikimedia.mpls.k12.mn.us/groups/onlinelearningcontent/weblog/07958/Introduction_to_LabQuest.html
[00:34] <dgroos> check out these labquests--they are incredible--allow students to setup their own data collection and see live graph--very powerful.
[00:35] <dgroos> ok I've been informed that it's dinner time--I don't ignore that :) Thanks for checking out my stuff and I'd love to talk about it more.
[00:53] * Lns waves to Edubuntuers
[02:11] <dgroos> LaserJock: were you able to see that vodcast, BTW?
[02:11] <dgroos> I have never been able to make it work on an ubuntu machine...
[02:13] <ace_suares> hey dgroos!
[02:13] <ace_suares> I just looked up on irclogs what I couldnt see since i was in a netsplit, obviously
[02:13] <ace_suares> all your pictures and description
[02:13] <ace_suares> REALLY great!
[02:14] <dgroos> Howdy ace_suares!
[02:14] <dgroos> and... you've been helping me succeed at it! Thanks...
[02:15] <ace_suares> wouldnt' mind if you added your story to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP/Stories with links to your photo and descrition pages!
[02:15] <ace_suares> Amazing setup, especially the 'tablet' look on those ooooold pc's!
[02:16] <dgroos> That is an excellent page. When I started looking at Ubuntu/thin clients I found next to no useful stories--there are already 2 on that page (maybe more haven't looked for a couple days)
[02:17] <dgroos> Check out my project blog--you too can build these table--look especially at the posts from last summer--just breeze through the picts. http://groosd.blogspot.com
[02:18] <ace_suares> Hey LaserJock rss feed on there.. now you gotta update more often, LJ! :-)
[02:19] <dgroos> that's what I was thinking ;)
[02:19] <ace_suares> amazing! buid day :-)
[02:19] <ace_suares> re stories page
[02:19] <ace_suares> i posted the first one last week from a mail to the list
[02:19] <ace_suares> with permission
[02:19] <ace_suares> to my great surprise it was edited within a day or two and a second story showed up!
[02:19] <ace_suares> I gotta subscribe to that page...
[02:20] <dgroos> a community is given meaning by its stories... we need 'em.
[02:21] <dgroos> I looked into gobby.
[02:22] <dgroos> Looks like it would be a great tool to create programs. I really like the way that it automatically highlighted each person's work with their own color.
[02:23] <dgroos> It's pretty much only linear.
[02:24] <dgroos> You can't make tables and doesn't wrap.
[02:28] <dgroos> I want to know more about our edubuntu community. I'm fine taking the page from google docs and putting it on the wiki.
[02:28] <ace_suares> dgroos: that's a good thing!
[02:28] <ace_suares> (you'll avoid a lot of flak too :-)
[02:29] <ace_suares> Waht you ar edoing is really awesome I am sitting here with goosebumps.
[02:29] <dgroos> OK, where should I put it?
[02:29] <ace_suares> I was too surprised that there are so few stories with pictures..
[02:30] <ace_suares> dgroos: the doc? Try /Edubuntu/WikiSite/Incoming/SomeName and then send that link to the list!
[02:30] <dgroos> ace_suares: you're not sitting in a boat right now opening up bottles to read the notes within them, are you... ;)
[02:30] <ace_suares> I am *planning* on using 'Incoming' to vet new contributions by the community
[02:30] <ace_suares> he he
[02:31] <dgroos> I'll put it there :)
[02:31] <ace_suares> the bottle is open though :-) did you see the video on the site or somewhere on TV in east america?
[02:31] <dgroos> Hmmm... I don't see much TV--it was on your site :)
[02:31] <ace_suares> dgroos: read your mail :-)
[02:32] <ace_suares> dgroos: that's okay. It was a very intersting experience. As you can see I am not an actor. But I vote for next f2f meeting on one of those beaches :-)
[02:33] <dgroos> Thanks man. You are very encouraging.
[02:33] <dgroos> seconded...
[02:33] <ace_suares> thx you can not estimate how good it does me to see those pictures of yours. My project failed. See www.suares.an/rkcs
[02:34] <ace_suares> It's very nice to see successfull projects!
[02:34] <ace_suares> dgroos: but please warn me if i am over-encouraging...!
[02:34] <dgroos> :)
[02:48] <dgroos> ace_suares: this is a very comprehensive page. It's quite interesting to see the way you presented these 3 projects.
[02:48] <dgroos> It seems like all were quite successful and the only problem comes if the project is dropped before kinks get ironed out.
[02:49] <dgroos> I would need pages to write about the 'kinks' in my projects...
[02:50] <dgroos> But, there are solutions to them all, thanks to edubuntu committee.
[03:02] <ace_suares> well in fact the only kink was the director, who favourd MS and got all the sysadmins a week of all-inclusive hotel/sales in orlando FL... and they wen on local tv to say they where the first curacoa organisation to help (!) a multio-billion corporation to secure their computers... ehe hehehehe
[03:05] <dgroos> you actually were very adroit on your page describing the issues--but reading between the line it was evident that money/politics was working to discount the success of the projects.
[03:06] <dgroos> don't give up though... keep pushing. the winds of politics will change and you'll be in the place, along with the majority of people, to get things going in a better, more sustainable way.
[03:06] <ace_suares> hehe that's what I am still rooting for. I give Linux/LPI courses now and Open Office, if there's enough students.
[03:07] <ace_suares> I've got appointmets pending with politicians, and I give lectures regularay
[03:08] <ace_suares> I am still confident that Free Software is the thing. However, If I've had 426 thin clients placed and 58 servers, in 2005, I would be a big shot now, instead of becoming one 'later'. And the whole ltsp edubuntu thing would also have advanced, there was quite of big grant from the Dutch government (all together about 1 000 000 USD.
[03:09] <ace_suares> I needed maybe 6-800.000 to setup the hardware, and the rest could go into software development (minus my own fee).
[03:10] <ace_suares> We could then fan out over trinidad, and other caribbean islands, with a complete solution, and by now (2009) we would have won several awards... I guess they missed out on that in turn for a week all -in hotel in orlando.. cheap people...!
[03:11] <ace_suares> now i need to do some ruby on rails, won't look often in this channel. David, YOU ROCK!
[09:00] <mss> hello
[09:00] <mss> I have a edubuntu 8.04 setup with HP5125 clients ...
[09:01] <mss> After 4 clients, the server does not respond to DHCP requests ...
[09:03] <mss> Hello ... anyone around ?
[09:03] <alkisg> Is that "4 clients" specific?
[09:03] <alkisg> Or can it be e.g. 2 or 6 clients?
[09:03] <mss> it can be 2 - 6
[09:04] <alkisg> So, the clients don't PXE boot when that happens?
[09:04] <alkisg> Or they do, but it hangs afterwards when ipconfig runs?
[09:04] <mss> no ... just looking for IP addr via DHCP ...
[09:04] <alkisg> Hmmm... upload your /etc/ltsp/dhcpd.conf to pastebin.com
[09:05] <mss> well... the setup is in a remote location without internet access...
[09:05] <alkisg> Ah. So your not onsite now, eh/
[09:05] <mss> but I can get the data needed later in the day ..
[09:05] <alkisg> ?
[09:06] <mss> no reliable internet on site ...
[09:06] <alkisg> How different is it from a standard edubuntu installation? Did you change anything in dhcpd, tftpd etc?
[09:06] <mss> nothing changed ... standard config ....
[09:07] <alkisg> Do you perhaps have another dhcp server running? E.g. in a router?
[09:07] <mss> I saw some messages about crawling edubuntu / ltsp setups in mailing lists ...but no resolution ...
[09:07] <mss> no ... simple setup with two NICS, one not used ( no internet), the secondary for thin clients ...
[09:08] <alkisg> Did you assign an ip to the non-used NIC?
[09:08] <mss> 10 clients connected thru netgear 10/00 switch -- could never boot up more than 5 at once
[09:08] <mss> yes ....
[09:09] <mss> Is that a problem ?
[09:09] <alkisg> Is the IP on the same subnet as the first NIC?
[09:09] <alkisg> E.g. 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2 ?
[09:10] <mss> It is 192.168.168.202
[09:10] <mss> so diff subnet
[09:10] <alkisg> OK so the dhcp server won't get mixed up as to which NIC it should use...
[09:10] <mss> no...
[09:11] <alkisg> I can't imagine what would go wrong while pxe booting that would cause this, except maybe a switch problem or a broken pxe bios
[09:11] <mss> I saw in logs .... the DHCP server repeatedly offering IP address to clients , log after they have timed out .....looks like server is stuck in loop offering client addresses....
[09:12] <alkisg> E.g. if you had modified dhcpd.conf and it didn't offer a boot filename, then the clients would continue requesting, and the server would continue offering, but you said that you didn't modify dhcpd.conf...
[09:12] <mss> does not look like switch problem ... if I turn on only that client after booting system, one client will boot up at a time ..
[09:13] <alkisg> Maybe the switch drops some broadcasted packets when there's a lot of traffic? I don't know, but I'd try another switch if it's available
[09:15] <alkisg> OK when you get there, copy /etc/ltsp/dhcpc.conf and /etc/network/interfaces and /etc/default/dhcp3-server and `ifconfig -a`
[09:15] <mss> sure .. will do that ...
[09:16] <alkisg> ...and maybe try disabling the same nic, just in case (e.g. if you had netmask=255.255.0.0 it would get mixed up)
[09:16] <alkisg> *the _second_ nic
[09:16] <alkisg> Ah, and also get the client's NIC pci id
[09:17] <alkisg> Finally, if the clients have another boot method (cd, hd, usb, floppy) you could try gpxe
[09:17] <alkisg> http://www.etherboot.org => it may work or it may better tell you what's wrong
[09:19] <mss> http://www.mail-archive.com/edubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com/msg04557.html
[09:19] <mss> I saw several "system slow" messages like the above, but no clear reolution with hardy
[09:20] <alkisg> He has an authentication problem, you have a dhcp problem... I don't see any similarities...?
[09:26] <mss> http://www.mail-archive.com/edubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com/msg04986.html
[09:26] <mss> this one ...
[09:27] <mss> and this one
[09:27] <mss> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=A1777BE3AA0AB44ABADA6FF66BA594ED6C358F0F61%40vkex.vindeln.se&forum_name=ltsp-discuss
[09:29] <alkisg> If it's a dhcp3-server problem, then it would require network dumps to make an appropriate bug report so that upstream could fix it
[09:30] <alkisg> ...and in this case, changing e.g. dhcp3-server with dnsmasq would make it work
[09:31] * alkisg gotta go, bbl...
[09:32] <mss> thanks .....bye alkisg
[16:56] <Ahmuck> well, it was fun while it lasted ...
[17:01] <dgroos> Ahmuck: ?
[17:02] <Ahmuck> power outage, blew up the server
[17:02] <Ahmuck> not sure if it is the psu or the mobo, but something blew
[17:03] <dgroos> sorry :(
[17:03] <Ahmuck> not sure i'm going to put out the expense in fixing it. the lab cost money to run, it was a community thing that i was doing as a good will thing
[17:04] <mhall119> Ahmuck: where?
[17:09] <dgroos> Ahmuck: do you have something online describing this service/project? I always like to see what others are working on.
[17:10] <Ahmuck> nope, not online. i can take a photo of the lab if you want, a panoramic
[17:10] <Ahmuck> and do a description. i've been torn about keeping it open, or closing it down. we had just made the decision to move it to a building that had a window to get more traffic
[17:12] <Ahmuck> mhall119 where as in location?
[17:12] <mhall119> Ahmuck: yeah
[17:12] <Ahmuck> osborne, ks
[17:12] <mhall119> are you a part of the -ks LoCo?
[17:12] <Ahmuck> mhall119 i'm glad your here. my clients are 800mhz with 256mb ram. any chance qimo will run on those?
[17:13] <Ahmuck> mhall119 yes
[17:13] <mhall119> Ahmuck: Qimo will run fine
[17:13] <Ahmuck> mhall119 sorta, i don't subscribe to the lists, don't participate in the web stuff, just the irc channel
[17:13] <mhall119> Ahmuck: you might ask around in your LoCo to see if anyone has hardware you can use to fix the server
[17:13] <Ahmuck> i sponser a regional LUG, and i promote ubuntu in the lug
[17:14] <mhall119> another good place to ask
[17:14] <Ahmuck> our LoCo is small, very small
[17:14] <mhall119> I've gotten a lot of donations from the -fl LoCo
[17:14] <Ahmuck> oddly, though there are a number of techs in the area, some in the ISP, business, etc. i'
[17:14] <Ahmuck> ve never been able to attract anybody of that caliber for the lug
[17:14] <dgroos> Ahmuck, cool. I suppose you've pondered using ace_suares' project page? Looking for it but can't find it--where again is this prototype edubuntu wiki?
[17:14] <Ahmuck> the lug is mostly gui startups people
[17:15] <mhall119> too bad
[17:15] <Ahmuck> some converted to linux because they had no license keys, however those that have converted are so happy with xubutu that they refuse to change back to windows
[17:16] <Ahmuck> LaserJock: needs to put the wiki in the title
[17:17] <Ahmuck> sadly we operated our community magazine out of that lab.
[17:26] <dgroos> So... Ahmuck, I would like to read about it, the project page is a good place, ay?
[17:27] <Ahmuck> well, i've had mixed success. 8.10 was great, 9.04 has been a pain
[17:28] <Ahmuck> it's also listed as private enterprise rather than 501c, though it might be considered not for profit. originally the idea was to provide inet access, office space, etc. to people who needed to get away from the house or couldn't afford to purchase a computer and inet
[17:29] <Ahmuck> in that aspect it's worked, unfortunately, not to the extent to pay the rent, utilities, so that's been coming out of pocket, plus the computer expenses, though most of that was from recycled hardware or donated hardware
[17:30] <Ahmuck> i have a what some would consider a fault, a bleeding heart
[17:30] <dgroos> Nice vision... tough to get something like this self-funded...
[17:30] <dgroos> I'm guessing that's a genetic disposition associated with lots of open-source, present author included :)
[17:31] <Ahmuck> *shrugs*, it comes out of my business income. this means i was unable to buy a new camera this year, but *shrugs* i don't mind
[17:32] <Ahmuck> it's provided jobs to kids in high school
[17:33] <dgroos> Complex project... please consider writing this up. Always the edubuntu-based projects are so much bigger than the technology though...
[17:34] <dgroos> that isn't to underestimate the critical role of said tech.
[17:35] <dgroos> hmmm... I'm repeating myself...
[17:36] <Ahmuck> complex? i just did it because it was a challenge ... :)
[17:36] <Ahmuck> well, and i enjoyed it
[17:39] <Ahmuck> while i'm thinking of it, i just realized that 'm going to need that computer for some info we've kept on the lab. looks like i'm going to have swap a new mobo in it. the drive is "raided" to prevent data loss, however switching boards will mean i have to re-install?
[17:39] <Ahmuck> anybody know if 8.04.3 had good ltsp support, i may fall back
[18:52] <ace_suares> if your drives are okay, they'll just work. Unless maybe i's hardware raid.
[19:07] <mhall119> yeah, changing mobo alone won't require a re-install, Linux > Windows
[20:21] <Ahmuck> mhall119 :)
[20:21] <Ahmuck> so i was reading about linux software raid and md. i understand if it finds a bad sector, it won't rebuild the raid. /me wonders if this had been fixed
[20:23] <Ahmuck> downloading qimo
[20:23] <Ahmuck> mhall119 do you have a way to build an image for qimo? server side?
[20:35] <mhall119> what do you mean?
[20:36] <mhall119> for an LTSP?
[21:10] * mhall119 is a packaging machine!
[22:33] <mhall119> okay, I need some guidance on customizing XFCE
[22:34] <mhall119> customizing the default settings, to be used by new users