[06:33] Good morning [14:15] alkisg: great! [14:32] good afternoon [14:32] Good morning here :P [14:33] highvoltage: have you encountered any nbd-proxy problems? [14:44] vmlintu: hey, what happens? [14:45] highvoltage: we've trying to figure out this problem with nbd-proxy: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ltsp/+bug/589034 [14:45] Ubuntu bug 589034 in LTSP "nbd-proxy hangs the nbd-connection to server" [Undecided,New] [14:48] I'm just wondering how many are affected as it seems to be a problem with all our test systems.. [16:22] Good Day! [16:23] I'd like to double check my UTC conversion abilities... [16:23] is the Edubuntu meeting in about 2:35 min from now? [16:24] is it wednesday again already? [16:25] YES! Yesterday (tuesday) was last student day of the year :), today is grading day, beyond, cleanup and improve... [16:26] Anyone know how to install nVidia restricted drivers on member:a server, so thin clients with nvidia card will use them? [16:27] dgroos: > Next Edubuntu meeting is on Wednesday, 9 June at 20:00 UTC. [16:27] $ LANG=C date -u [16:27] Wed Jun 9 15:27:12 UTC 2010 [16:27] So... in 4.5 hours [16:51] alkisg: thanks for the command and I see that confirms the info from the TOP of this page: http://www.dxing.com/utcgmt.htm [16:52] You're welcome. We [16:53] We've finished teaching here some weeks ago, so I had much time to test fat clients and my "sch-scripts"... everything works great, teacher screen broadcasting is 10 times faster than italc (and much more reliable), client/user autodetection works fine, screen/sound locking... I just wish I had the time to internationalize all that :-/ [16:57] alkisg: "sch-scripts" sound interesting [16:57] http://wiki.ubuntu-gr.org/sch-scripts/screenshots [16:58] italc replacement + wizards for building thin + fat chroots + some other scripts for account management + policy enforment [16:59] It's working great for our needs, we don't need anything else. But it'd be really useful for others if some parts were generalized and internationalized. [16:59] E.g. the networking backend which keeps track of all users + ltsp clients... [17:00] following what's happening on clients is something we want to keep out of, but broadcasting and locking would be needed [17:00] (it only needs 1 Mb on each thin client so the minimum requirements are still 64MB RAM, and it offers the teacher a local shell for remote command execution) [17:01] Well, to run commands on the clients you'd need to keep track of them. I didn't want to install ssh for security reasons (it's less secure than the current reverse connections that we're using) [17:01] How are the commands run? [17:01] The teacher runs them from within the gui [17:02] Technically, each client connects to the server (and stays connected) and offers it a reverse shell [17:02] there has been way too much bad publicity about schools using anything to follow what is happening on users' screens that I don't want to even think about installing something like that.. [17:02] So the server has a root `/bin/sh` on each client and another one for each user [17:03] Right, it's too much tailored to what we need here. Now to install an LTSP fat lab + all edu apps here I just need about 20 mouse clicks. But that isn't suited for everybody. [17:03] So a developer would be needed to extract some parts of the code and generalize them. [17:04] WIth the same network backend another tool would be possible, one that doesn't allow arbitrary commands, but just administrative commands. [17:04] starting commands on the clients could be also useful, I think [17:05] Are the sources available somewhere? [17:05] http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~sch-devs/sch-scripts/trunk/changes [17:08] What does the account management part do? [17:08] E.g. "select 10 users and add them to "class A" group", [17:09] or "export all users. then format the server and install a newer ubuntu version. then import the users while keeping the same uid/gid and their passwords etc" [17:09] it uses /etc/passwd etc? [17:09] Or "select the users that belong to the classes a, b and c, in order to transfer some files to them [17:10] For reading it uses some getent functions so reading should also work with ldap. But for writing it uses useradd, so I don't think that would work with ldap. [17:11] how does it transfer the files? [17:11] All files are on the server, so no transferring is necessary [17:11] Just a cp/chmod [17:11] *chown [17:12] so it just copies them to the home directories of the users? [17:12] Yup. [17:13] E.g. when the teacher wants to copy an exersice to the students' documents, he can do it from that menu. [17:13] Is there anything for the reverse? For the kids to turn their documents back to teacher [17:14] No, we didn't think it's necessary as the teacher already can see all the kids files. They're on the server, and the teacher has root access. [17:15] oh, ok [17:15] (and even if he didn't, he'd still be able to see them but not modify them, at least with the default settings) [17:15] so no english version yet? [17:16] (just got back to this--lots of teachers dropping by to bye :) [17:16] vmlintu: no. It's too tailored to greek needs to just translate it. It should be generalized first, and I'm starting my phd, so I won't have time for it for the next 2 years. [17:17] So first Congrats alkisg on finishing the year AND congrats are due on these "sch-scripts" -- they're sounding incredible. [17:17] Maybe 3-4 different packages could be extracted out of it. [17:17] alkisg: ok.. I'll have a look at the concepts at least to see how it works [17:18] I'm also wondering how one would go about translating to English and I could help with Spanish as well. [17:18] Thanks dgroos... I do think it's a fine work that's why I'm mentioning it, maybe the code will be useful to others, even if I don't have time to generalize it myself now. [17:19] (btw, I tried on a fat client lab this morning, the clients booted in 13 seconds, openoffice started in 2 seconds, and I was able to broadcast a youtube video with 5 fps with x11vnc - italc can only broadcast about 1 fps) [17:20] So... is it the docs or the code or what that has to be translated? [17:21] The user interface (=.glade files mostly), but translating it will only make it usable for similar use cases [17:21] I.e. where the teacher has root access and sits on the server (which has a gui) [17:22] So to make it more widely usable, a programmer would be needed, not a translator.... [17:22] alkisg: are the environments there mostly single lab systems? [17:22] Yes, all of them [17:22] Even on schools with 3-4 labs, each lab are independed of the others [17:23] sounds like total opposite from what we are running here.. [17:23] "sits on the server" you mean they have the server in the classroom? [17:24] Yup [17:24] are there any computers in regular classrooms? [17:24] Rarely, other than the computer lab, there is just one computer in one classroom in the whole school [17:25] (which e.g. gets connected to a projector to show multimedia stuff to kids) [17:25] is this just one school or all the schools around there? [17:25] All of the schools here are like this. [17:26] We also have some kids that bring their own netbooks in the computer lab. Those can be used as fat clients by just pressing F12. sch-scripts work fine with them too. [17:26] (f12 => boot from network, that is) [17:27] Did you ever see the blog post I made about some schools here? I wonder how different it is over there.. http://www.opinsys.fi/en/mista-on-hyvat-koulu-tehty [17:27] (Lots of interruptions on my side here, sorry...) What is the server, isn't it too loud? [17:29] Does the system have to have the server in the class? What about the cluster approach that Asmo has set up that he shared a few hours ago? [17:29] dgroos: no, it's just a normal PC. It's cheaper to reuse the server as the teacher seat, and we don't even have computer rooms. All because of lack of money... [17:29] We don't need cluster as we only have about 12 clients per lab [17:30] vmlintu: my wife (she's a teacher too) visited finland a couple of years ago. She was impressed, nothing like the education level here. [17:32] alkisg: what kind of network the schools have? [17:32] What would be adequate specs for a server serving 12 clients? 30 clients? (running thin vs fat clients)? Any sense? [17:32] All kinds (e.g. even 10 mbps ancient switches), but in order to use ltsp, we force them to upgrade to gigabit [17:33] dgroos: any modern pc or laptop would do. E.g. the last one I installed costed 400 €. [17:36] alkisg: how many schools are using ltsp now? [17:36] over there, I mean [17:37] I estimate about 50. But I hope it'll quickly grow to e.g. 200 or even 500, now that everything works with just a few clicks... [17:40] alkisg: (congrats on the making things so efficient for your country--national treasure status yet? ;) [17:41] Heh, I do work part time for the national support team... [17:41] what does national support team do? [17:42] (seems like I have a lot of questions today.. ;) ) [17:42] Write guides mostly. It's the first time that we're writing software. [17:42] alkisg: are you saying that for using 30 fat clients I could run them, HAPPILY, with some basic dual core PC, 6 gigs ram, usual HD, gig NIC? [17:42] (it also does pilot programs - I got introduced to ltsp with one of those programs) [17:42] dgroos: more than happily. [17:43] 3 GB RAM would also suffice. [17:43] who runs the team? [17:44] Why am I wasting electricity on a xeon quad core RAID etc? I'm going to check into this. I like minimal that works... [17:44] dgroos: my laptop is core 2 duo @ 2GHz, 4 Gb RAM, 250 GB disk (slow as the laptops usually have), and the clients boot in 13 seconds. [17:44] (I'm using it as a roaming server, to demo ltsp) [17:44] vmlintu: the ministry of education [17:45] Hey guys, I am running an LTSP5 test server, and Firefox/flash is running locally, however, the Firefox window itself looks horrible, like a Windows95 interface. The theme doesn't seem to be applied. any ideas? [17:45] dgroos: for fat clients, server CPU is totally useless. Hard disk, ram and network speed are all that matter. [17:47] based on experiences running hardy fat clients I'd make sure that the server's hard drive is fast and reliable [17:47] Right--haven't tried it yet, but I hope that my P4, average 2.0 G Hz, 512 meg RAM will be able to succeed with fat clients--they worked just fine with local apps this year. [17:47] vmlintu: you used nubae's fat clients on hardy? [17:48] dgroos: no.. we are using ldap+kerberos+nfs4 backend, so it's built on top of that [17:48] dgroos: 512 is a little low, it'll be slow. If you could upgrade the ram it'd be much better. Also if they have hard disks you could make a swap partition on them, it'd help. [17:48] xubuntu or lubuntu would work better for 512Mb, I guess, but I haven't tried it. [17:49] (gnome would also work of course - it'd just not be as fast) [17:50] Is your sense that 768--another 256 stick--might be enough for decent performance or I'd need to get it up to a gig, using gnome still? [17:50] I think 768 would be ok [17:51] (at least my daughter doesn't complain since I upgraded her ram to 768 :D) [17:51] These .glade files provide the text on gui pages? [17:51] alkisg: :) [17:51] Yeah, and they're edited from an editor with a gui [17:51] We decided not to support fat clients with less than 1 gig of memory and it's been mostly enough. Just some applications that behave badly.. [17:52] hmmm... which apps in particular? any generalizations? [17:54] In general applications behave well, but sometimes opening some file in openoffice eats a lot of memory. Firefox can be a memory hog too. And Smartboard software eats some memory too.. [17:55] How many .glade files? I've already mentioned my Greek language skills :( but I do know how to use google translator and can get started with that. Are we talking about 5-10 hours? 50-100? [17:55] dgroos: I think you could get it translated in a couple of hours - the problem is that there's no infrastructure for internationalization, so you have to merge any changes manually [17:56] I could get some people here that work on it to internationalize it in the summer, it's not a problem [17:56] The problem is that it's pretty much tailored for greek needs, so I'm not sure if it would be useful to others without modifications [17:57] vmlintu: you use the linux version of notebook software on a fat client :) and it's working? Wow! I wonder if there are more problems with using Firefox as a fat client than as a local app? [17:58] I imagine that that best course would be to break it into 3-4 different packages, and then put the greek customizations on another, seperate package that would depend on those packages. And e.g. some finland schools would create another package that would depend on them, etc. [17:58] dgroos: yes, we've been running it for almost 2 years now on fat clients. It's working as well as it works on linux. The new 10.2 version should fix most of the problems, I think, but we haven't updated to it yet.. [17:59] or is it 1.5 years now.. [18:00] Firefox on fat clients is much better than firefox as a localapp [18:00] dgroos: I have so little experience with localapps that I cannot say if firefox better or worse on fat client vs. local-app [18:01] alkisg: I'd like to help. Gonna be at the meeting today? I know it is most likely past your bedtime ;) [18:01] Thanks Gents, this is MOST interesting! [18:01] Sure, I'll be there unless something comes up. It's at a very good time for me, when the kids go to bed... :) [18:02] alkisg: what kind of problems have you had with firefox as localapp? [18:02] vmlintu: if you open a document, it tries to launch openoffice locally [18:02] Also it needs some care to solve some theme/localization issues [18:03] vmlintu: I checked out your blog--you in Finland as well? [18:04] dgroos: yep, I'm in Finland [18:05] I'm a little slow on the uptake... but I get there! :D Helsinki? [18:05] yep, Helsinki [18:06] alkisg: have you done something with the remote-apps support? [18:06] vmlintu: nope, I'm not using localapps. In my opinion if a client is good enough for localapps, then it should be used as a fat client instead. [18:06] (so no remoteapps too) [18:08] vmlintu: Ever heard of Tarmo Toikkanen? He has helped me with some of the work I'm doing with FLE3/4 and wrote a plone content type to make on online "Vee". [18:09] alkisg: could I use NX client to pretend that I was sitting in front of the server? Could a couple of teachers do that? [18:10] Sure [18:10] neatx-server is also very very easy to setup [18:10] dgroos: I've heard the name, but I don't know more about him.. [18:11] alkisg: I like that 'e' word. I'll check it out. [18:12] dgroos: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FreeNX#Installing%20the%20FreeNX%20server%20on%20Ubuntu%20Lucid%20%2810.04%29 [18:14] vmlintu: He works with a guy named Teemu Leinonen, as I understand, at the Media Lab Helsinki. Have you ever seen FLE3 in use? What's your experience with it? [18:15] alkisg: thanks! [18:16] dgroos: no, I haven't seen FLE3 [18:16] alkisg: hope to talk to you this afternoon/night :) at the meeting. [18:17] Thanks... /me is now looking to support video broadcasting with vlc transcoding / multicasting... [18:19] vmlintu: it is this wonderful server-based program that is specially designed to scaffold students discussions in science. Let me know if you are interested I'd be quite happy to share with you my experience with it. Gotta go back to grading those papers :) [18:20] dgroos: ok, I'll have a look at it [18:23] FLE3 is getting old: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fle3 but the best part of it, the knowledge building, was redeveloped in a wordpress blog which is what I'm currently using: http://fle4.uiah.fi/about/#comment-1312 [18:45] highvoltage: meeting tonight? :) [18:50] bencrisford: yep [18:51] :) === dgroos_ is now known as dgroos [20:01] highvoltage: i make it meeting time ? [20:01] yep [20:01] Meeting time! [20:11] stgraber, what were the problems that made you decide to develop nbd-proxy? Would they also apply to nbd swapping? [20:21] alkisg: I wanted connections to re-establish in failover environments with two nbd servers [20:21] alkisg: so in my case, having that for swap was pointless as the swap wouldn't be the same on both server and so it'd make the thin client to kernel panic anyway [20:21] Ah, got it. So there's no need for it on single server environments. Thank you. [20:57] Meet room again? [21:05] research leads me to think it is in #ubuntu-meeting and others are there... how come nothin' seems to be going on there? Need I knock or something? [21:10] dgroos: you're an hour late [21:10] dgroos: hmm? [21:10] Uhm, or maybe we did the meeting one hour earlier?! [21:11] "Next Edubuntu meeting is on Wednesday, 9 June at 20:00 UTC." [21:11] nope, we did it usual time :) [21:11] !? [21:11] $ LANG=C date -u [21:11] Wed Jun 9 20:11:19 UTC 2010 [21:11] Yeah, the meeting is now :) [21:11] alkisg: eek, that was a mistake [21:11] Heh [21:12] LANG=C date -u says 20:12:35 for me... [21:12] dgroos: yeah the meeting was at 19:00, the mail had the wrong time :-/ [21:12] dgroos: sorry about that [21:13] (dgroos, the LANG=C in front is just so that I don't show greek days to you, you don't actually need it) [21:13] well, that's one way of keeping troublemakers like me from causing trouble ;) [21:13] what did you guys talk about, ie topics? [21:14] dgroos: debian-edu/edubuntu collaboration, website update, tuxpaint langauge fix in alkisg's ppa... [21:14] any decisions about those scripts of yours? [21:15] dgroos: vikram's docs proposal, and also about how few people have had time for edubuntu recently [21:15] dgroos: which ones in particular? live-ltsp? [21:17] highvoltage: the ones that alkig has made for the Greek schools that sets up a classroom LTSP server 'with just a few clicks' :) and has a different kind of remote desktop program that is much more efficient than iTALC, it appears. [21:18] aah, *those* scripts [21:18] alkisg: I see. That little command, date -u, will save me a lot of hassle as long as I put it into long term storage! [21:18] he's been quiet about them recently :) [21:18] :) [21:20] As well he should be! If I created something like that I wouldn't want any of my colleagues to know about them either! [21:24] highvoltage: nah - as a matter of fact today was the announcment day here in greece [21:24] alkisg: ah nice! [21:25] It's a superset of italc + a lot of wizards for easy thin + fat chroot installation [21:25] But it's very customized for greek schools, so if it was to form an upstream project, modifications would be needed - not just translations [21:31] Isn't this the kind of thing we're looking for, something to make edubuntu easy for the masses? I like the idea of a classroom server for schools that are just starting to implement edubuntu where the teacher or tech person doesn't have access to the server and server room. [21:32] And, don't need cat 5e or cat 6 in the walls... [21:33] Sure. What I imagine is an upstream project with the network backend + the main gui, and a lot of subprojects that customize it for specific use cases [21:35] Something like a modular structure where Sabayon (sbalneav's), ldap integration, etc plug in to it? [21:36] I like the idea of user-friendly/user-adjustable scripts to set up a server. [21:38] Right, a plugin idea. Well... I don't use sabayon because I prefer to offer menus for the things that teachers would do by sabayon, and I don't use ldap because having all the users in the ltsp server and editing them with users-admin is easier, but having plugins with those options would be a great idea. [21:40] do you use webmin? [21:41] No I've heard bad things about it. And I don't really need it, it's too technical for the teachers here. [21:41] alkisg: you don't need the user information outside the ltsp environment? [21:42] vmlintu: no, any student databases that we have are unrelated to the user accounts [21:42] I've read some things about it as well, but it has been very useful to me for the last 4 years. I see from his screen shots that Asmo uses it as well. [21:43] But if there was a preinstalled ldap server / client model in edubuntu and/or ltsp, we'd surely use it, I don't see any downsides if all the tools support it (e.g. now users-admin doesn't support it so the teachers don't have an easy way to add ldap users) [21:43] alkisg: do you have a separate database for moodle etc? [21:44] alkisg: don't districts use a centralized authentication database? don't students move between schools within the same region? [21:44] Schools here don't use moodle. We do have a central moodle installation for all schools, but it isn't used much neither. [21:45] dgroos: no - you have central authentication between schools?! Wow... [21:45] The ministry maintains an ldap directory for student emails, but the local schools don't use that information for authentication [21:47] What we are now working is something like that - one central server can manage one or multiple ldap databases and when servers are installed in schools, they are connected to use the central server. This gives the servers instant access to user information and there's no need to install ldap tools on the server itself. [21:47] it can be used locally also if needed [21:47] Same here in Minneapolis. I can be at another school, on a mac or pc, and log in at that school and access my account. [21:48] dgroos: in either windows or linux? Or is it just linux? [21:48] (and macos) [21:49] dgroos: is it school district / city wide or something bigger? [21:49] And how do you access your files? With nfs + kerberos? [21:49] alkisg: we have kerberos+nfs4+autofs+ldap to mount the home directories [21:50] Of the few thousands of computers in Minneapolis, I'm the only one running Linux (plus the 2 other classrooms I'm supporting. [21:50] *Minneapolis Public Schools [21:51] vmlintu: what's the lowest possible network link between where a user logs in and where his files are? E.g. if he logs on in a different school, does he access his files over an adsl line? [21:51] dgroos: how do you share your home dirs then? Active directory over vlans? [21:52] I do want to be able to authenticate to the LDAP next year on my thin client network, but have student accounts on my server. Though, it might be cool to integrate with the rest of the district and have student folders on the district server mount in linux. [21:53] alkisg: adsl speeds don't really work, but luckily most of the connections are at least 100Mbps [21:53] alkisg: it all depends on the number of users using the link, though. 4/4Mbps has been used succesfully [21:53] vmlintu: ah, good. That won't work here for some years though :-/ [21:54] alkisg: we do provide web access to home directories, though, so that can be used in those cases [21:55] Very nice. I do hope we get all those sometime in the future here as well. [21:55] (Note to self--check about my computers mounting student home folders located on district servers...) [21:56] vmlintu: web access to home folders? you mean a student can authenticate and browse and open there files over the web? [21:56] *those [21:56] dgroos: yep [21:57] Cool. [21:59] alkisg: this is our future user management tool: http://wiki.github.com/opinsys/puavo-users/ [22:00] vmlintu: cool, it looks very professional. Do you have any thoughts about providing a wizard-driven initial ldap database setup? [22:01] http://wiki.github.com/opinsys/puavo-tools/ ;) [22:01] the goal is to package this: http://wiki.github.com/opinsys/puavo-users/database-setup [22:01] * alkisg is looking forward to using all those when they're ready [22:02] basically the script just needs basic information for ldap+kerberos and it configures openldap+mit kerberos on the server [22:02] I've read that database setup page. I once made a script to automate somthing similar, and I think sbalneav has made an ldap database installation .deb package [22:04] the puavo-tools script differs from many others so that it can actually configure openldap to run multiple databases that do not share data [22:06] Wish I spoka dat talk. [22:07] Basically it means that one huge server could serve the whole world and every school district would still have their own database and kerberos realm ;) [22:08] I think I kinda got that! :) Google translate couldn't have done that! [22:09] It has been a while since I've been chatting here, nice to get back in touch. Summers are good for teachers (make teaching possible?) Have a good afternoon/evening/night/morning all. [22:09] The ministry of education in Greece could run one central setup where every city would have its own database. Every city could use their own data to authenticate users without the need of having their own user management tools. [22:11] (My uses for it are a bit more modest, but never hurts to think big.. ;) )