/srv/irclogs.ubuntu.com/2009/12/12/#edubuntu.txt

Ahmuck-Jrltsp uses server hardware, however i just stumbled upon drbl00:10
Ahmuck-Jrwhich is a distributed system.  a cloud?00:10
sbalneavhttp://drbl.sourceforge.net/faq/00:21
sbalneavSecond link from the top00:22
sbalneavdrbl = ltsp fat clients00:22
sbalneaveverything runs on the client hardware.00:22
Ahmuck-Jrso why not use drbl?00:22
Ahmuck-Jrrather than ltsp?00:22
sbalneavWho should use drbl?00:22
Ahmuck-Jrnubae script does fat clients, but doesn this as well?00:22
Ahmuck-Jrwell, anybody00:23
sbalneavMaybe you don't have clients powerful enough to run everything on them00:23
sbalneava 128 meg pentium 3 will make a nice ltsp thin client00:24
Ahmuck-Jrthe clients run better standalone00:24
Ahmuck-Jr1ghz, 512mb ram00:24
sbalneavYeah, so?00:24
Ahmuck-Jrsbalneav: ok, well, i'm here this evening.  so, i need to figure out what's causing my slooooowdown on my nice thin clients00:24
sbalneavRun drble if you want00:24
Ahmuck-Jrlet's start with firefox crashing00:24
sbalneavNo one forces you to run LTSP :)00:25
Ahmuck-Jrlet me do some reading again on firefox and localapps, i'll check there00:25
Ahmuck-Jrsbalneav: what i keep wondering is why ltsp keeps getting pushed as a "classroom" solution rather than say LDAP/NFS/NBD or DRBL00:26
sbalneavBecause hundreds of thousands of people use it worldwide.00:26
sbalneavAnd it's been under continuous development and support for 10+ years.00:27
sbalneavand lots and lots of classrooms don't HAVE good up-to-date hardware, they have older stuff they want to use.00:28
Ahmuck-Jrhundreds of people used to drive model A - Fords, but and for 10 years or more, but they no longer do so00:28
sbalneavSo, don't use LTSP :)00:28
Ahmuck-Jrcan you name a classroom with antiquated hardware?00:28
sbalneavSure00:28
sbalneavtons00:28
sbalneavMy son's00:29
Ahmuck-Jri can't in my area00:29
sbalneavevery single solitary classroom in Brazil00:29
Ahmuck-Jrthe government and ms has made a deal and they are all on better hardware than my best machine00:29
sbalneavYou're using your first world thinking again.00:29
Ahmuck-Jrrecently one of the schools sold all thier 2ghz, 256mb ram machines for 3.00/machine00:29
sbalneavOK, so use tsomething else then.00:29
sbalneav*I* don't care WHAT you use.00:30
Ahmuck-Jrthat's not my point.  my point is edubuntu, etc. only looking at the ltsp portion?00:30
Ahmuck-Jrand only promoting it?  why not alternatives00:30
Ahmuck-Jrfor those that can use it00:30
sbalneavBecause edubuntu only has two people working on it who know about, and care about, thin clients and classrooms00:31
sbalneavand both of them happen to be LTSP developers.00:31
Ahmuck-Jrhrm, where is the edubuntu pages?  i'm going to assign someone in my office to make a simpler tutorail for using ubuntu and rdbl or LDAP/NFS/NDB00:31
Ahmuck-Jr*sigh*00:31
sbalneavIf you'd like to promote drbl, then go ahead, by *all* means.00:32
sbalneavJust make sure you're here00:32
sbalneavday in00:32
sbalneavday out00:32
sbalneavunpaid00:32
sbalneavlike me, to support it :)00:32
sbalneavLTSP's been around the longest00:33
sbalneavThere's a LOT of ltsp out there00:33
sbalneavk12ltsp, l12linux, skolelinux00:33
sbalneavthey're ALL using LTSP.00:33
Ahmuck-Jraren't you paid by your company?00:33
sbalneavI'm paid by Legal Aid Manitoba to administer Legal Aid's computers00:34
sbalneavLTSP development happens on my own dime, on my own time.00:34
Ahmuck-Jra little sour tonight sbalneav ?00:35
sbalneavNo00:35
sbalneavJust stating a fact.00:35
sbalneavYou asked, I told you.00:35
sbalneavYou also asked why we didn't promote drbl, and that's simply because no one here KNOWS drbl00:36
Ahmuck-Jrok, that's what i needed to know00:37
Ahmuck-Jrthanks00:37
sbalneavI'm here all night, if you want a hand with your firefox issue, let me know.00:37
Ahmuck-Jri noticed bugs about sound again00:38
Ahmuck-Jrcoming through00:38
sbalneavPulse looks like it's got problems.00:38
Ahmuck-Jrok, well i'm here.  let me locate the documentation on ltsp and local apps and make sure everything is in place00:38
Ahmuck-Jri don't have the memory to remember what i did last week, i have to read and re-read00:38
sbalneavI suspect pulse's network code has some bugs.00:39
sbalneavLTSP tends to excercise bugs in a lot of code that "normally" doesn't get executed.00:39
Ahmuck-Jranother question.  i notice that from release to release it seems there's always something different one has to do to get something to work.  is this because of rapidly changing libraries?  backward compatibility is not built in anymore?00:40
sbalneavNo, linux in general has, for the last 2-3 years, been rapidly loosing its roots.00:41
Ahmuck-Jras in the way it used to handle things?00:41
sbalneavIt bothers me quite a bit, because Linux, it seems, has now determined that the way it wants to go is to be another microsoft.00:41
Ahmuck-Jrroots as in /etc/fstab, etc.00:41
sbalneavcorrect.00:41
sbalneaveverything's dbus, policykit, etc.00:42
Ahmuck-Jryes, i agree.  it's getting hard to find the moving target00:42
Ahmuck-Jrwhose to blame?  users, developers or distros?00:42
sbalneavit's added a LOT of complexity, and, as far as I've seen, has had absolutely NO real benefit.00:42
Ahmuck-Jrhow do you fix it, go back to a starting point and re-write?00:43
Ahmuck-Jrwouldn't this affect apps as well?00:43
sbalneavUsers for demanding Linux look and act exactly like windows, distros for pushing devels to give the users what they want, devels for giving in, IMHO00:43
Ahmuck-Jri'm a user of sorts.  i like the gui.  however when the i had problems in gui mode i knew i could always drop to command line and find a man page or --help or something and do it from there.  it's getting harder to do things from command line00:45
Ahmuck-Jrall the changes are confusing for us old guys00:45
sbalneavyes, it's becoming increasingly difficult to get anything done.00:45
sbalneavfor someone like me who learned his unix back in the 80's, it's very frustrating00:46
sbalneavBut the command line has been more or less officially declared A Bad Thing (c)(r), and so...00:46
Ahmuck-Jrhttp://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/12/lucid-to-get-aero-style-rgba.html00:46
Ahmuck-Jr:) just for u :)00:47
Ahmuck-Jrwhoa, i think you just might be older than i00:47
Ahmuck-Jryour what, 82 now ?00:47
sbalneav4100:47
Ahmuck-Jrlol00:47
sbalneavI learned unix back when I was in high school00:47
sbalneavin '8500:48
Ahmuck-Jri went to private school, but no computer00:48
Ahmuck-Jri shuddered at the thought sitting in front of a computer ... till i saw a dos prompt00:49
Ahmuck-Jrin 9200:49
sbalneavI knew more about programming Commodore 64's than my high school Computer Teacher did, so to get me out of the classroom so I'd quit correcting his mistakes, I was given an account on the new "unux" system on the "glass tty" (a vt100 terminal) that they were handing out to the schools.00:49
sbalneavAt that point, the internet had Telnet, FTP, and RFC 822 had been published the year before, and sendmail 0.8mumblesomething was installed on the box.00:50
sbalneavI learned to use email by reading RFC 822 :)00:50
sbalneavTo this day, I'm capable of hand crafting my emails by telnetting to port 25 :)00:51
Ahmuck-Jroooh, scary00:51
sbalneavSo, yeah, all this "no touchy-the-command-line-you-must-do-it-from-the-gui" stuff bothers me.00:51
sbalneavHence, the reason I packaged cnetworkmanager :)00:52
sbalneavHmm, installed gnash tonight00:54
sbalneavI'm playing a flash video right now.00:55
Ahmuck-Jrsooo, really there are three ways to run a classroom so far ... ltsp, drbl, and ldap/nfs/nbd00:55
sbalneav 18:55:06 up 13 days,  9:32,  6 users,  load average: 0.08, 0.03, 0.0000:55
Ahmuck-Jrusing pupet and cfengine or cloning00:55
Ahmuck-Jrwhat's ur client specs?00:55
sbalneavone ghz via boards with one gig of ram.00:56
Ahmuck-Jrah ha.  it's the gig of ram00:56
sbalneavBut I run everything on the server.00:57
sbalneavI don't run any localapps.00:57
Ahmuck-Jri'm going to do a new slogan.  don't believe the hype until you've seen the tripe00:57
Ahmuck-Jrno localapps?  why the gig of ram then?00:57
sbalneavWhen I updated them all 1.5 years ago, it was the best price point.00:58
sbalneavI updated all 185 clients for $35,00000:59
* Ahmuck-Jr falls over00:59
sbalneavwas about 130 for the mobo, 45 for the stick of ram, and taxes :)01:00
sbalneavI run all of Legal Aid Manitoba's systems, which is 6 sites spread over a 900 kilometer radius, for $75,000 per year01:01
sbalneavThat's all in01:01
sbalneavall licenses, all datacomm costs, all hardware, all software, everything.01:01
sbalneavOnly thing that's not in there is salaries.01:02
Ahmuck-Jrhttp://pastebin.be/2242701:02
Ahmuck-JrManitoba, Africa?01:02
sbalneavManitoba Canada.01:02
Ahmuck-Jrah, ok01:03
sbalneavWe're Legal Aid.  No one wants to fund us. We're the poor cousins of govt.01:03
sbalneavYou probably don't want NBD_SWAP = True and USE_LOCAL_SWAP = True at the same time.01:03
Ahmuck-Jrhow's the weather?01:03
sbalneav-17 C at the moment.01:04
Ahmuck-Jri've been thinking about tripping to CA, but more around Alberta01:04
sbalneavs'posed to go down to -28 tonight.01:04
sbalneavAlberta's beatiful, up in the mountains.01:04
Ahmuck-Jri don't think the local hard drives are formated01:04
Ahmuck-Jriirc, they were dbaned01:04
sbalneavI'd turn off USE_LOCAL_SWAP.01:05
Ahmuck-Jrwhat's hotel rates like there?01:05
sbalneavYou say they've got 512 megs of ram?01:05
sbalneavdepends.  If you're going to stay in Banff, prolly 200+ a night :)01:06
* Ahmuck-Jr falls over again01:06
sbalneavIf you're going to stay in a small town, probably 59 bucks at the super 801:06
Ahmuck-Jrsuper8,  that's larger than i was thinking about01:06
sbalneavBanff is *the* tourist attraction, so it'd be like staying at the Mariott times square.01:07
sbalneavIt depends on where you're planning on going.01:07
Ahmuck-Jrsomewhere remote, homey01:08
sbalneavSmall town, locally run hotels tend to run anywhere from $35 -> $60 bucks a night.01:09
sbalneavB&B's can be even cheaper.01:09
Ahmuck-Jrah, and cozier01:10
Ahmuck-Jrfriendlier01:10
Ahmuck-Jrin chroot, i need to install firefox and flashplugin-nonfree - flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound01:25
sbalneavNot sure about the extrasound.01:26
sbalneavBut firefox and flashplugin-nonfree for sure.01:27
Ahmuck-Jrk, i did not have flash installed in the chroot before01:27
Ahmuck-Jri assume this may have been my flash issue01:27
Ahmuck-Jrfor some reason, i was under the impression that someone stated if firefox was a localapp, then flash was too01:27
Ahmuck-Jrwhere does the tradeoff between localapp and serverapp start?01:28
Ahmuck-Jrscribus-ng for example?01:28
sbalneavWell, scribus should make a good server app01:28
sbalneavIt will generate load while it starts01:29
sbalneavbut once it's running, it's load is ONLY based upon user input.01:29
sbalneavSo if the user's not doing anything, it's not generating any load at all01:29
sbalneavOpenOffice.org's another good example.01:29
sbalneavfirefox + flash is the opposite end of the spectrum.  User can be generating scads of cpu time, even tho' they're doing "nothing"01:30
Ahmuck-Jrie, user input, digital camera images?01:30
Ahmuck-Jrsooo, looking at the manual, every server update also requires a ltsp choot update as well01:31
sbalneavIdeally, yes.01:33
Ahmuck-Jrlocal_apps_menu does what?01:33
Ahmuck-Jrbtw, u stated u were not utilizing localapps on your thin clients?01:34
sbalneavCorrect01:34
Ahmuck-Jrsooo, how are you not crashing in 9.10 with firefox/flash?  is this a pulse problem for us?01:34
sbalneavWell, at work, I'm using 8.0401:35
sbalneavAt home I use 9.1001:35
Ahmuck-Jrthat explains it01:35
sbalneavCould be pulse, could be several things.01:35
Ahmuck-Jr8.04 was more stable for ltsp01:35
Ahmuck-Jrpulse was stable in 8.0401:35
sbalneavNo, actually not01:35
Ahmuck-Jrfor me it was01:36
sbalneav8.04 had TONS of problems with firefox01:36
Ahmuck-Jrbefore 9.10 i was looking at regressing01:36
sbalneavuntil stgraber figured out the bug in the X libs.01:36
Ahmuck-Jrperhaps it was 8.10 i had sucess with01:36
sbalneavonce stgraber tracked that down, then things got better.01:37
sbalneavagain, many "ltsp" bugs aren't ANYTHING to do with LTSP itself.01:37
sbalneavthey're bugs in firefox, pulse, xlibs, xorg, etc, that get triggered because these guys aren't testing their programs anymore in remote X situations.01:38
Ahmuck-Jrmakes sense01:38
sbalneavThe libxcb bug was a classic example.01:38
sbalneaveveryone "blamed" ltsp, "it must be something you guys are doing!!!!!" we were told01:39
sbalneavuntil one of us (stgraber) sat down, and emulated it with a full desktop01:39
sbalneavOnce we showed that, then the X guys started to offer help01:39
sbalneavthen we tracked it down, and it was PURELY a fault in libxcb, which is supplied by xorg01:40
sbalneavbut since xorg pretty much EXCLUSIVELY tests only local X + apps, and does little to no remote testing, it was completely missed by them.01:41
sbalneavAnd so it goes.01:41
Ahmuck-Jradm (4)01:53
Ahmuck-JrInfo: port 2000 is already defined with /opt/ltsp/images/i386.img in inetd.conf01:53
Ahmuck-JrInfo: taking no action.01:53
sbalneavThat's fine.01:57
sbalneavYou just rebuilt the image, right?01:57
Ahmuck-Jryep01:58
sbalneavAhmuck-Jr: Things going alright?03:26
brianNew to Ubuntu. I need some help with video settings. ANybody up for it?04:00
cprofitthello all04:36
sbalneavHello04:37
cprofittsbalneav: are you from the US?04:41
sbalneavNo, Canada04:44
sbalneavWinnipeg, Manitoba, to be exact.04:44
cprofittAh... cool.04:45
* sbalneav looks at temp04:45
cprofittAre you a Dev on Edubuntu or an Educator?04:45
sbalneavyeah -18C here04:45
sbalneavcool :)04:45
cprofittouch04:45
cprofittwe are a bit cold, but not that cold04:45
sbalneavDev.  I have nothing to do with education.04:45
sbalneavI'm a systems administrator for Legal Aid Manitoba.04:45
cprofittNice -- do they use Open Source?04:46
sbalneavWe're an all linux shop04:46
cprofittI am stuck as a sysadmin in a school district... and we use Windows/OS X04:46
sbalneavWe run 185 LTSP thin clients.04:46
sbalneavFirefox/OpenOffice.org/Thunderbird04:47
sbalneavI've been a developer for LTSP for 10 years04:47
cprofittNice... perhaps at some point I will work in a Linux shop...04:48
sbalneavAnd I've contributed to the free software movement for 15+ years.04:48
cprofittI am pondering how to raise educators awareness of F/OSS04:48
sbalneavI ran my first Linux distro in fall of 199304:48
cprofittI ran Linux in 1993, but gaming kept me running Windows until two years ago04:48
cprofittand I did not get in to IT until 199704:48
sbalneavI gave up windows at home back in 199904:49
sbalneavLast version of windows I actually know anything useful about is Windows 98 :)04:49
cprofitthttp://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=967104:49
cprofittcurious what you make of that program from Apple -- do you think something similar would aid awareness?04:50
cprofittI actually have experience with Windows all the way up to the current version...04:50
sbalneav"community" things like that I know nothing about.04:50
sbalneavI concentrate mainly on the code.04:51
* cprofitt nods04:52
cprofittnight all06:04
=== LordObama is now known as Unterwelt
Ahmuck-Jrsbalneav:16:35
=== Unterwelt is now known as LordObama
cprofitthello nixternal, stgraber pleia2 and others17:56
Ahmuck-Jrsbalneav: ... firefox and flash works23:07
Ahmuck-Jralbiet, flash is clunky.  but i've dropped back to 500mhz and 256mb ram23:07
Ahmuck-Jrsound is shot however23:07
=== LordObama is now known as Obama-da-PIMP
=== Obama-da-PIMP is now known as fugly
=== fugly is now known as vorian
surfpaymeh23:26

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