[02:40] Hi All! I'm working on setting up an LTSP LAN in my science classroom and have a couple questions. [02:40] The server is running on two CPU Xeon, [02:41] and the thin clients our old Pentium IIIs. [02:41] First, I need a good way to manage the computers and I'm looking at iTALC and it seems to be set up pretty well but there seems to be an issue. [02:42] dgroos: I have some questions for you after your done asking yours :-) [02:43] Every time I reboot the server it says something about an air there is already an ISD server running on port 5800-- for sure Laserjock! [02:43] I've googled and not understood the solutions any ideas? [02:43] Oh yeah -- your turn! [02:44] dgroos: ISD or ISA? [02:44] LaserJock: It said ISD. [02:44] yeah, I just got some other google stuff, nevermind me :-) [02:46] dgroos: did you find http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4908575 [02:47] Laserjock: let me check it out and get back to you! [02:47] it looks like maybe it's not killing off the ica processes [02:48] dgroos: you might also look at http://www.kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3093025 especially the last post [02:52] LaserJock: I actually did see the first one, but that was a month ago and now they understand Linux a bit better it makes more sense to me now I will give it a try tomorrow when I get school and post what I find out Thanks :-) [02:52] dgroos: so do you have a sec for a couple questions? [02:52] LaserJock: absolutely! [02:53] dgroos: I'm just curious about your science classroom. Like what ages, what country, etc. [02:53] LaserJock: I teach in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. [02:54] My students are currently ninth graders, but most of my teaching, the previous 17 years was middle school science. [02:54] awesome [02:54] My schools have been, and are, pretty typical inner-city classrooms. [02:54] what kind of science? [02:55] Right now I'm teaching environmental science, but before that when I taught in middle school it was life science and physical science. [02:55] interesting [02:55] I have a BA in Environmental Science [02:55] I should warn too, I'm using voice recognition software and sometimes might miss very weird typos! [02:55] currently finishing up a PhD in Physical Chemistry [02:55] Cool! [02:56] dgroos: what kinds of applications are you using in your classroom? [02:56] I'm currently working on my Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction at the University of Minnesota: and I'm trying to integrate different thoughts about science education, computer access, and collaboration. [02:58] Want to check out my blog for a moment? http://groosd.blogspot.com -- quickly scroll down the page to see some images, and on older posts, some more images. This could show you a bit of the journey had been taking. [03:00] oh heh, I see edubuntu-menus in there [03:00] Since I have not yet got this new LAN up and running my students haven't done a thing with it yet! However the six years previous to this my students were using the old iMacs built under the table and they mainly used Firefox, CmapTools. [03:01] a core service was the http://plone.org content management system that I've customized for my classroom. [03:02] Yes! I've got some questions about edubuntu-menus, too! [03:02] dgroos: well, I wrote it so ask away [03:02] and sorry for the interruption I just remembered I have to go pick up my daughter now but if you're still around in 10 minutes of a back! Thanks so much for your help. [03:02] np [03:02] see you in 10 :-) [03:18] LaserJock: not too much more than 10? [03:18] So, moving on to edubuntu-menus... [03:19] I've been getting a lot of technical help from volunteers and it's been great and I really appreciate it. [03:19] dgroos: I realized while you were gone that you're the David that left the comment on my blog post [03:19] dgroos: thanks for the input on that [03:19] Indeed :-) [03:20] alright, so I read the little comment on your blog about edubuntu-menus [03:20] one point is that Ubuntu and Edubuntu do use the same menus by default [03:21] we've just got edubuntu-menus as hopefully a better way of organizing it [03:21] however, we need a GUI for it [03:21] so, the guy who's been helping me working to create a safe and structured system for the students, as well as a system that allows students to earn more privileges as they showed more responsibility in the use of the network, [03:22] that's interesting, what kind of privileges can they get? [03:22] anyway, he thought that sabayon looked like it was a very active and he couldn't get it to work. ( I'll answer questions in just a second, okay?) [03:23] So he decided to write a program, then came upon your edubuntu-menus and love the solution. [03:24] So he installed it on my machine, but he hasn't been able to get back to the machine for almost a month. So again today after school... [03:25] I've been working on it, and achieved success, and created my own .menu file reference to a group I called level1. it was very exciting upon seeing it work perfectly. the science teacher next door heard my shout :-) [03:26] so, the idea is to use edubuntu-menus as a way to control student access to applications through group membership. But, I found it may not be ideally suited for that. [03:28] I tried it with a student and phone that the user could right click on a file and say, "open with..." and choose an application that be perhaps hadn't shown the responsibility that they could use it yet. [03:28] oooh, right. that's a tough one [03:30] Okay -- that's my monologue... and to answer question... I want students to be able to use open office and Cmap Tools at the level one stage. Upon showing responsible computer use for a week... [03:31] they move on to level 2 where they can now access Firefox, however using squid proxy they would only be able to access our classes site though of course there is much opportunity to do web 2.0 kind of things on that site. After another week's responsible use of the computer... [03:33] Firefox is opened up to the Web allowing for all the simulations, Google docs, etc.. [03:34] If they do something very clearly told not to do then they drop back down to level 1 and week by week have to earn the privileges back. [03:36] I feel it is necessary to add this is not about being a control freak, simply accountability. Teachers out there I think know what I mean! [03:37] I forgot to mention, students gain access to the games and simulations on edubuntu as they go along, as well. [03:38] so, what is the status of Sabayon? [03:38] and how about, Pesslus (I think it's called) [03:39] Sabayon is unfortunately pretty dead right now [03:39] :-( [03:39] I was able to track down 1 bug that was making it crash [03:39] but ran into some more [03:40] it was originally developed by Red Hat, but they've pulled out leaving essentially nobody working on it [03:40] Pessulus is doing quite a bit better though [03:40] Pessulus lets you do somewhat limited lockdown via gconf [03:41] sabayon was trying to do complete "profile" management [03:42] dgroos: what about this. what if you don't actually lock students out but rather tracked what apps they opened [03:42] at the end of the day you could say "heah, you opened up firefox and you know you're not supposed to, back to 1" [03:43] well, tracking is key, but could you say, 'back to 1' if you don't have a way to enforce it? Also, [03:45] Students, respond generally better in an environment where there are limited choices in that they don't have temptations, so locking out possibilities helps students focus on the creative possiblitities I provide for them... [03:45] I have an idea, but I need to talk with some people about it [03:45] Are you familiar with Apple Remote Desktop http://apple.com/remotedesktop ? [03:46] I've heard of it but not used it [03:51] Wait! I got confused -- Apple Remote Desktop is iTALC with a few polishes [03:51] yeah, something like that [03:51] All of the student/group management I did with Apple's server software, "Workgroup Manager" [03:52] user preferences and permissions were all controlled either by group or user settings. [03:53] right [03:53] so when I got to Linux I just assumed they would have some similar system :-) and it's been slowing me down a lot. [03:53] and could you set those permissions on applications? [03:54] I'm not sure what you mean? Also, do you mean in the Macintosh system or Edubuntu system? [03:57] I mean on the Mac, with the "Workgrouop Manager" let you do what you're talking about, limiting what applications students could run [03:58] Yes, you can either wait list or blacklist applications by either user or group. [03:59] oops, that's, "white list", not wait list! [04:01] ok [04:02] is edubuntu-menus kind of similar to pessulus? are they complementary? [04:03] they're very different in what they do [04:03] Also, is there some config file where I can disable that right-click open with a particular application? [04:03] edubuntu-menus is designed for presenting a particular menu based on groups [04:04] pessulus lets you lock down things like the panels and I think if a terminal is accesible [04:05] sorry--what's a panel? [04:05] I think for the right-click open thing we'd have to lock the actual applications [04:05] dgroos: like the start menu bar [04:05] that shows you the list of open applications, a clock, etc. [04:06] okay, I think I understand. So you could for example get rid of the, System menu, or only allow a few of the preferences to be visible? [04:07] hmm, I think that might actually be more of an edubuntu-menus thing [04:08] but you could, for instance prevent students from messing around with the panel, moving it around and such [04:08] I'm going to mess with it :-) [04:08] yeah, I would just play with it a bit [04:09] any thoughts about locking applications by group profiles -- I'm not sure if that's asked properly! [04:10] that would really be sabayon [04:10] ... if it was working :( [04:13] and is perhaps you've seen from some of my soap box-ing (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MinnesotaTeam/Education)I'm quite passionate about helping bring open source into the mainstream education, especially in inner-city classrooms because that's where I've taught but I believe it's important for all places. [04:14] I'd like to help you folks who have been working on this directly for a long time. [04:16] LaserJock: do you have any suggestions where I ought to be heading right now with this need to manage user privileges? [04:16] right: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MinnesotaTeam/Education [04:17] I would email the edubuntu-users mailing list [04:18] even though I'm a developer I'm not really an educator (yet) so my experience on what people are using is limited [04:18] this issue of user management in the classroom is *very* important to me [04:19] right now though I'm not sure what the best way to attack the problem of locking down individual applications [04:20] in general, Linux tries to be helpful but making it easier to *let* users access applications, we're facing the opposite problem [04:20] Right :-) [04:21] it seems paradoxical that to help someone gain freedom one must provide them with limits :-) [04:21] but such is part of teaching, I'd say. [04:22] I will e-mal the user group tomorrow. [04:23] I'm very interested in your Growing Communities Of Scientists being both a scientist and a technologist [04:23] Thank you VERY much for your generously-given time this evening, it has provided me with a broader understanding of a few things. I'll most likely be on tomorrow eve... [04:23] you've done a great job with your blog, lots of details and pictures [04:23] Thanks. [04:23] Also, the meeting, is that on this channel? [04:24] it will actually be in the #ubuntu-meeting channel [04:24] that's Ubuntu general meeting place [04:24] I should be able to catch the first 10 minutes it as classes start a bit later on Wed. [04:24] I'll try to do a bit of lurking :-) [04:25] ok, sorry about the time issue, I think we're going to try to adjust it as a couple people have mentioned it being inconvenient [04:25] it's hard scheduling times when it involves people from all over the world :-) [04:25] Thanks and best of luck with your dissertation--I was reading your blog... [04:25] dgroos: my email is laserjock@ubuntu.com if you've got any questions, need some info on edubuntu-menus, etc. [04:26] I'm glad you dropped by [04:26] Thanks--mine is djgroos at gmail dot com [04:26] take it easy! [04:26] k [04:26] you as well [05:49] morning LaserJock [05:49] oh, hi highvoltage [05:50] I was just about to post a radical blog post ;-) [05:51] cool [05:51] did you get that email last night? [05:52] (or probably "this morning" for you) [05:52] yeah [05:52] all worked out [06:12] night all [08:49] Help! I have a problem with our temrinals and I can't seem to get it solved! [08:49] Have classes to attend to at the same time..I'll check in here later if someone answered [08:49] terminals boot up fine, user logs in, seems to work but before the desktop is shown [08:49] the user is thrown back to the login screen [08:50] On all terminals starting from today.. SSH to the server (from workstations) works normally [08:50] I rebuild the client image and did the ltsp ssh pass update as well [08:51] I think had this before once, and then it was the permissions on the /home dir (my mistake) [08:52] But not this time.. My only clue is some errors on the terminals console that complains about client authorization not being good. I googled it and it seems Pulseaudio-related [08:52] Everyone wake up over there, on the other side of the world :) [09:02] Looking att auth.log everything seems normal.. [09:03] pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user test2 by (uid=0) [09:03] subsystem request for sftp [09:03] pam_unix(sshd:session): session closed for user test2 [09:04] Creating a new user and logging in from a terminal also fails [09:32] Yes, that was it.. Cleared some files from /home and everything works again [14:47] Morning all [15:35] i thinking about giving hugin lessons on ltsp computers to our local students in march [15:48] stgraber: congrats!!! [16:16] any way to include hugin in part of the base edubuntu packages? [16:20] Ahmuck: I don't think presently [16:20] I'd need to check the Jaunty version specifically, but in Intrepid it depends on wxwidgets2.6 [16:20] presently it's not or presntly there is no way [16:20] ? [16:20] presently there is no way [16:20] u mean 8.10? [16:21] well, i meant in upcoming releases [16:21] we'd need to port it (which may or may not be trivial) to wxwidgets2.8 I think [16:21] yes, I'm just basing my data on 8.10 since that's what I'm running at the moment [16:21] why port it? [16:22] greets LaserJock [16:22] because wxwidgets2.6 can't go in Main [16:22] or is very unlikely to [16:23] to get hugin looks to involve pulling in another 4 or 5 packages [16:23] I think it'd be better off to put that in a Universe bundle for now [16:23] but it's a good idea for sure [16:25] we need to start getting or Universe list of apps together [16:25] I can get the bundle packages worked up fairly soon [16:25] the packaging for the Main ones is done and uploaded [16:26] ubuntu-edu-* now exists, though I think the lists are all that great right now, I just sort of guessed [16:26] I sent out an email with a bunch of suggestions [16:26] and received no repsonse [16:26] nubae: did you get my reply? [16:26] no [16:26] wha? [16:27] for goodness sakes!!! stupid Gmail [16:27] I spent quite a few hours writing up 4 emails for -devel and they got sent with the wrong address [16:27] no wonder I didn't get any response [16:27] yeah I was wondering why u were ignoring the list :-) [16:28] I was kickstarting fires all over, but no response [16:28] nah, I was emailing up a storm, it just wasn't going anywhere [16:29] :-) [16:30] LaserJock: I'll be at FOSSDEM 5th Feb. (Brussels) [16:30] maybe some other edubuntarians will be there [16:31] oh, email edubuntu-users maybe and ask [16:34] nubae: to get mahara into main would require php-file and smarty [16:34] not sure how much the security team would complain about PHP [16:34] meaning? [16:35] well its practically needed for every web app [16:35] meaning, we'd need to do those 3 MIRs to get it in [16:35] ok [16:35] well, I'd like to do ejabberd [16:35] it was just info, not saying impossible [16:35] in general Ubuntu/Canonical doesn't like PHP all that much [16:36] they're somewhat practical about it, but it's still something we might have to deal with [16:36] very well, so for ejabberd, what should I do [16:36] I've been reading the MIR document [16:37] what are the steps I should take? [16:37] one thing that might help you is a script that I use to find out what other packages things need [16:37] it's called 404main [16:37] it's in the ubuntu-dev-tools package [16:38] k instaled [16:38] you can install that, but if it wants to have you install a whole bunch of stuff we can extract out just 404main [16:38] ah, ok [16:38] so run 404main ejabberd [16:39] the condition that a package has to have to be in Main is that all it's dependencies and all it's *build* dependencies must also be in Main [16:39] grep-dctrl [16:39] erlang-abi-11.b.3 [16:39] erlang-dev [16:39] libsctp1 [16:39] ejabberd [16:39] libsctp-dev [16:39] erlang-nox [16:39] erlang-base [16:39] right [16:39] damnthat requires main inclusiosn for all those too [16:39] well, not exactly [16:39] you see those are the binary packages [16:39] we now need to get the source package mappings [16:39] ok [16:40] as you can imagine all the erlang stuff is probably going to be 1 package [16:40] yeah [16:40] so you can use apt-cache madison [16:41] so I ran apt-cache madison libsctp1 [16:41] and that tells me the source package is lksctp-tools and in Intrepid at least it's in Universe [16:42] they're all in universe [16:43] so we need, lksctp-tools, erlang, and grep-dctrl [16:43] have u spoken to ogra about the edubuntu-members launchpad team? [16:43] I'm a little suspicious of grep-dctrl [16:44] about ~edubuntu? [16:44] and no, I haven't [16:45] why suspicious? [16:47] I don't think of it normally as a build-dep, but I verified it is [16:47] we use it a far amount as a development tool [16:49] hmm, lkscrtp-tools may not be trivial [16:49] "user-space access to Linux Kernel SCTP" [16:50] seems like the kernel/security team might want to know about that [16:51] > kgeography - already in main [16:51] > klettres - already in main [16:51] These have been dropped/replaced in KDE 4 [16:51] they haven't [16:51] http://edu.kde.org/ [16:52] I don't think that's consistent with KDE 4.2 [16:52] hmm, wait a sec [16:53] I have to run... talk later.. [16:54] bah, my bad [16:54] I was thinking kpercentage [16:55] both of those kgeography and klettres are in Main already, we just need to put them in the seeds if they aren't already [17:10] what does it take to package for universe? [17:11] currenlty hugin does so much more than simple panographs [17:11] for example, it now does panni and archietcial projects, and someone is stictching panographic movies togather [17:11] Ahmuck: what do you mean "what does it take to package for universe"? do you mean how do you get a package into universe? [17:12] yes. [17:12] the current hugin does not have the latest features [17:12] something like hugin-ng [17:13] well, it can be a fairly big task, but there's quite a bit of documentation and lots of helpful people in #ubuntu-motu [17:13] i build my own from svn [17:13] which might explain why packages don't get in or updated? [17:13] if you can base it off of the current hugin package then it'd be a lot easier [17:13] somewhat yeah, there's a lot of things to consider [17:14] we need to not only consider newer features, but also stability, supportability, etc. [17:14] it also depends on how active maintainers are in that area [17:31] alkisg: yep, i'm having problems with user directories L( [17:31] Ahmuck: what? [17:31] Oh, with the chown thing? [17:32] user id's [17:32] not matching [17:32] Did you run the one-liner I wrote you yesterday? [17:32] heh, nope [17:32] sorry [17:33] i was just comment is all [17:33] Give it a try, it may solve your problems [17:42] did you guys happen to catch my blog post from yesterday/today? [17:45] no [17:53] Ahmuck: http://laserjock.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/why-we-need-edubuntu-to-succeed/ [17:53] it was on Planet Ubuntu if you read that [17:53] I wanted to get some feedback from some edubunteros [17:58] LaserJock: You are right on track! [17:59] A word of caution, as it has been in my own mind, we are treading dangerous waters, however.... there are powers that do not want Linux in Education, and they have billions at hand to try to prevent it from happening on a large scale. [17:59] With that in mind, however, that might just be enough motivation for us to come together to fight those powers with our best weapon - superior technology. [18:00] heh, maybe they can use some of their billions to get me a job :-) [18:00] Lns: u saw Obama's stance? [18:00] nubae: ? [18:00] on truthout [18:01] no? not sure what you're talking about [18:01] http://www.truthout.org/011209R [18:01] check item 6 [18:02] mmm, chili bowl *drool* [18:02] heh [18:02] wow [18:02] thats pretty cool [18:03] I guess the US is headed in the right direction (finally) [18:03] nubae: that's interesting but I'm not sure it's gonna end up doing much [18:03] But, I still wouldnt underestimate the power of above said powers [18:03] we'll see how much truth there is to that (no pun intended) :p [18:03] heh [18:04] I imagine he's also going to bail out MS by pushing for upgrading schools [18:04] "ohh, the government is gonna pay for new licenses, sweet" [18:04] MS already dumps their software into education at 0 cost..did any of you read the link i posted yesterday around this time? [18:04] hmm, perhaps [18:04] so LaserJock, to get back to ejabberd... should I try and follow the process of MIRing it along with its deps? [18:05] nubae: you might first want to email ubuntu-motu [18:05] there might be other people who would like it in Main and might be willing to help [18:05] ok, what should I say? [18:05] say that you are interested in getting ejabberd in Main so it can go on the Ubuntu Education CD [18:06] ok [18:06] http://boycottnovell.com/2009/01/10/edgi-continued-dumping-vs-gnu/ [18:06] and list the other packages that need to get a MIR too [18:06] and then ask for thoughts on moving it? there may be some objections, I don't know for sure [18:07] nubae: you can always run the email by me first if you're unsure [18:07] or heck, I can email it for you if you like [18:07] ok I'll do that then [18:10] Lns: that's an interesting read [18:11] LaserJock: massive understatement. ;) [18:12] it really is amazing to me how well Linux/FLOSS competes [18:13] here we are a bunch of volunteers, often times amateur coders [18:13] and yet, MS gets a bit scared that we might get to Education [18:14] LaserJock: that's because they know our tech. is better than theirs, and they are so slow moving they have to figure out how to keep us at bay. Educators LOVE what LTSP/*buntu does, and the students love it too. [18:15] They can't make their tech better, because it would mean a windows fork. [18:15] or not even a fork..just a "start over" [18:15] I would imagine in the near future them coming out with a linux distro [18:15] kind of a stage-2 novell strategy [18:15] one place where I know they're struggling is netbooks and smallish devices [18:16] I really hope we can make some sort of difference here [18:17] sometimes I get pretty down when I read about things like sabayon [18:17] I think "man, are we *ever* going to be truly good for educators" [18:17] LaserJock: Is MS "truly good for educators" ? [18:18] I don't feel it is [18:18] It's not the finish line, but the race that matters most [18:18] * Lns is feeling overly philosophical this morning [18:18] heh [18:19] I was really excited by drgoos little computer enabled science classroom thing [18:20] LaserJock: thanks [18:20] partly because I'm a scientist and I see a lot of misuse or under-use of technology in the science classroom [18:20] stgraber: big step :-) [18:20] yep, will make a lot of things easier :) [18:21] LaserJock: technology in any classroom/school is underused or misused. [18:21] they need people like us that are passionate about improving that. [18:21] That's why Im focusing my business model on doing exactly that. [18:22] yeah, we really need people [18:22] edu people in upstreams like Gnome and KDE [18:22] Mozilla and OO.o [18:23] sometimes you gotta think like an educator [18:24] I still don't know what to think about sabayon [18:24] I'm just now learning the ins and outs of educational structure [18:24] earlier in the week I wanted to ditch it completely [18:24] and then that email showed up [18:24] LaserJock: from the list posts, in FC9 it worked great, its a *buntu thing i think [18:25] well, that sort of makes sense [18:25] it was written by Red Hat [18:25] you'd think if it was gonna work anywhere it would be there :-) [18:25] haha, true! [18:26] So the golden question is this: how do you motivate the OSS community to fix bugs in a piece of software when they dont really want to/have the time to ? [18:26] Money is a debatable solution, and highly controversial for us [18:27] well, money directly [18:27] but money can motivate companies to hire people [18:28] Would a NPO make more sense than a company/for profit outfit? [18:28] Volunteers are kinda what we are already [18:28] kinda [18:28] but I think it might be hard to get a NPO to last [18:29] why's that? [18:29] it'd need some sort of revenue [18:29] NPOs get donations [18:29] I think we should accept donations [18:29] on the website [18:29] right, but in bad economic times, etc. it might be hard to make it sustainable [18:30] a company has an advantage of venture capital [18:30] LaserJock: not if the benefits of saving money on software licenses outweighs it... [18:30] and say other areas of the company that pay for a losing part [18:30] right [18:30] but what would the NPO return to the "investor"? [18:31] "you give us money and we'll put it toward a good cause" [18:31] I'm not saying it's impossible or it shouldn't be done [18:31] but I think it'd be kinda hard to get very far with it [18:31] hmm [18:32] well cant you donate to a specific project? [18:32] you'd probably want at least ~$250k/year in donations/grants to actually make a dent in anything [18:32] and the NPO would take care of that? [18:32] you might [18:32] look at the "sponsor a child in africa" stuff... [18:32]