| dgroos | Hi high voltage -- what time's the meeting? | 18:17 |
|---|---|---|
| dgroos | * highvoltage | 18:18 |
| highvoltage | in around 40 minutes, dgroos | 18:18 |
| dgroos | 'k | 18:19 |
| highvoltage | howdy! | 19:02 |
| tedmasterweb | hi | 19:02 |
| highvoltage | anyone here for the Edubuntu meeting? | 19:02 |
| tedmasterweb | me | 19:02 |
| highvoltage | great | 19:02 |
| highvoltage | stgraber, dgroos, mgariepy, alkisg: around? | 19:04 |
| highvoltage | I guess I'll start off by mentioning some news | 19:04 |
| dgroos | a round and as usual, a square ;) | 19:04 |
| highvoltage | - Edubuntu 12.04 will be an LTS version | 19:04 |
| highvoltage | We went through the process with the Technical Board and they approved it on Monday | 19:04 |
| dgroos | nice! congrats. | 19:05 |
| highvoltage | I put together a quick blog post about it for the edubuntu blog: http://edubuntu.org/2012-01-10/edubuntu-lts-status | 19:05 |
| highvoltage | - stgraber has been cleaning the python build dependencies for packages shipped with Edubuntu | 19:05 |
| highvoltage | we don't have any legacy python dh scripts anymore | 19:05 |
| * alkisg waves | 19:06 | |
| highvoltage | anyone else have any news to share? | 19:06 |
| highvoltage | one of our goals for 12.04 is also to create some bite size tasks for Unity lenses | 19:07 |
| highvoltage | they're reasonably simple to create and may be really useful in education | 19:07 |
| dgroos | Unity lenses? | 19:07 |
| highvoltage | yep, let me see if I can find a link with more info... | 19:07 |
| dgroos | btw, how easy will the JRE install, be? | 19:08 |
| dgroos | (from your blog post) | 19:08 |
| highvoltage | well, here's a somewhat technical page describing lenses: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity/Lenses | 19:08 |
| highvoltage | dgroos: very easy, the java we're shipping now will just be an apt-get / software center install away. you won't need additional archives or anything fancy. | 19:09 |
| dgroos | Cool. | 19:09 |
| highvoltage | dgroos: basically, lenses allow you to display data you have on your system (or on the internet) in a specially organised way | 19:10 |
| highvoltage | dgroos: have you seen Ubuntu TV? it's main interface is actually a unity lense. | 19:10 |
| dgroos | Not yet, but will check it out. Is this a way that we could do edubuntu-menu type stuff? | 19:11 |
| highvoltage | possibly | 19:11 |
| highvoltage | you could probably implement something like per-grade menus with that | 19:11 |
| dgroos | could it be per-group menus? (user groups) | 19:12 |
| highvoltage | I'm wondering if we should do weekly meetings again too | 19:12 |
| pere | a better way is probably to use desktop-profiles. | 19:12 |
| highvoltage | I think we kind of lost momentum doing it monthly | 19:13 |
| pere | it would allow per-group menu reordering. | 19:13 |
| highvoltage | indeed, desktop-profiles work great for that | 19:13 |
| dgroos | Thanks, I'll check into these as well. | 19:13 |
| highvoltage | I've been looking at our artwork situation last week | 19:14 |
| pere | http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/i386/education-menus/filelist show a desktop-profiles package reordering KDE and Gnome menus. | 19:14 |
| dgroos | pere: thanks. | 19:15 |
| highvoltage | I think that we should actually stick with the wallpaper we used in 11.10. We had great feedback on it and we never really extended it to the whole system. I think it might actually be best to extend that artwork and polish it up more rather than changing it | 19:15 |
| highvoltage | Will talk about that on-list to see if there's any ideas/objections/etc | 19:15 |
| highvoltage | pere: I haven't had much chance yet to try to integrate an edubuntu machine into a debian-edu network yet | 19:16 |
| pere | too bad. squeeze/beta2 is very good now. :) | 19:17 |
| highvoltage | pere: but I've gotten some big hairy sticky things off from my todo list so I should get to it sooner now | 19:17 |
| dgroos | will there be any changes in users and groups tool--sorry I've dropped out of the loop. | 19:19 |
| highvoltage | well, even if we get it right with some documentation on what users have to do, I guess it won't be that bad. if we have something working then we can get it *great* for the next release(s) | 19:19 |
| highvoltage | dgroos: nothing planned as far as I know. aparently the kde users and groups tool is a lot better and someone even suggested that we ship that, but I doubt it would happen | 19:20 |
| highvoltage | dgroos: I guess when we have freeipa in ubuntu we'd probably use that in edubuntu | 19:20 |
| dgroos | I did end up using their tool a couple of years ago due to a bug in the GNOME tool. | 19:21 |
| pere | highvoltage: in theory all you should need to integrate a ubuntu machine into a skolelinux network should be to install libpam-sss and libnss-sss, and the rest will happen automatically. :) | 19:21 |
| dgroos | Cool. How about LDAP tool? I mean a tool that doesn't take too much sys knowledge? | 19:22 |
| highvoltage | pere: I'll try that and paste that back if it doesn't work :) | 19:22 |
| highvoltage | dgroos: that's what freeipa does as well. you get user management and ldap/kerberos/etc all in one | 19:22 |
| pere | dgroos: jxplorer seem to be the best gui for ldap editing. | 19:22 |
| highvoltage | dgroos: and on the client side you install sssd and then you pretty much have authentication against it and cached credentials / kerberos tickets / etc. | 19:23 |
| pere | in Debian Edu/Squeeze, we set up a LDAP backed Kerberos server out of the box, and use sssd for the laptop setup to allow laptops to work also without connection to the LDAP/Kerberos server. | 19:25 |
| highvoltage | anything else that anyone wants to bring up? I guess alkisg, mgariepy and stgraber is busy elsewhere atm :) | 19:25 |
| highvoltage | pere: I didn't realise it did all of that already. When I have a working setup I'll document it for the edubuntu website too | 19:25 |
| pere | am I allowed to talk about Debian Edu? | 19:25 |
| highvoltage | pere: as much as you want! | 19:26 |
| pere | highvoltage: it does all that and more. :) | 19:26 |
| dgroos | I think it's great the collaboration that has started between the diff distress. | 19:26 |
| highvoltage | cool | 19:26 |
| dgroos | *distros | 19:26 |
| pere | in Debian Edu, we have automatic configuration of Nagios and Munin, where clients register with the server and the server automatically start to monitor the services on the clients. | 19:26 |
| pere | this is done using the sitesummary package. | 19:26 |
| highvoltage | I've never heard of that | 19:27 |
| pere | we also provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop solutions. KDE get most work, but the others seem to work fine as well. | 19:27 |
| highvoltage | looking at the package description it looks like it could be useful for a bunch of stuff | 19:27 |
| pere | See <URL: http://narvikskolen.no/munin/localdomain/localhost.localdomain.html#Sitesummary > for the munin count for the city of Narvik. :) | 19:28 |
| pere | The admin set site to be the name of the school, and the stat show how many computers report in from each school. :) | 19:28 |
| dgroos | Wow--mucho info. | 19:29 |
| pere | http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html is the announcement for beta2 of Debian Edu/Squeeze, which I hope to have ready in a few weeks. | 19:30 |
| highvoltage | nice | 19:30 |
| highvoltage | I'm a bit unsure, is this the first squeeze release for debian-edu? or just the point release update? | 19:30 |
| pere | we also provide LTSP setup out of the box, with either thin clients (X terminals running everything on the server) or diskless workstations (workstations running everything locally but with no disk - root is NFS). | 19:31 |
| pere | when we are done, it will be the first squeeze release for debian edu. | 19:31 |
| pere | progress has been slow since I got my second kid. :) | 19:31 |
| highvoltage | I guess we can announce that on the Edubuntu website too when it's ready, if that's ok | 19:32 |
| pere | absolutely. :) | 19:32 |
| pere | one nice feature is our roaming workstation profile, which is the laptop setup with connections to the LDAP/Kerberos server. | 19:32 |
| highvoltage | I'm sure I've seen you post it before in #debian-edu, but where's the link to the iso that should be tested? | 19:32 |
| pere | I made it autodetect everything in a way that allow me to install it at the university of oslo network and get it to connect to the uio.no infrastructure instead. | 19:33 |
| dgroos | That is an important feature for schools that allow integration of student laptops into their network. | 19:33 |
| pere | I made a pam module that create a local home directory for the user on the first login, and after that the user can take the laptop with him and log using the cached password. | 19:33 |
| pere | highvoltage: at the end of <URL: http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html > are the links to the ISOs. | 19:34 |
| highvoltage | thanks | 19:34 |
| pere | we also look up the networked home directory and provide a KDE and Gnome shortcut to the SMB exported home directory. Thanks to Kerberos, this worked flawlessly at the university. :) | 19:34 |
| pere | I could just click on the link and get direct access to my university home directory. :) | 19:35 |
| dgroos | cool, very useful. | 19:36 |
| pere | I guess that is enough adverticement for now. :) There are heaps of other nice stuff in Debian Edu, so check it out. :) | 19:36 |
| highvoltage | that's pretty neet | 19:36 |
| highvoltage | *neat | 19:36 |
| * alkisg wants to try debian-edu in a school some time, but didn't have the chance to do it yet | 19:37 | |
| highvoltage | pere: yeah features like that are a bit harder to just find by yourself though. thanks for mentioning it :) | 19:37 |
| alkisg | highvoltage: about the weekly vs monthly meetings... why not every 2 weeks? | 19:37 |
| highvoltage | alkisg: well, I just sent a mail to the list about it. I think perhaps every week but with alternating times | 19:37 |
| highvoltage | alkisg: this timezone is hard for some people in your timezone because it's in the evening, so perhaps there should be an earlier slot too | 19:38 |
| highvoltage | alkisg: but I guess every 2 weeks would be fine too | 19:38 |
| alkisg | Nah, at 9 a.m. here teachers are at schools so they couldn't attend meetings. It might help people in other timezones though | 19:39 |
| highvoltage | alkisg: perhaps we could try that first | 19:39 |
| highvoltage | well 9:00 UTC would be around 11am for you | 19:39 |
| alkisg | Ah 9 UTC, not 7 UTC... same thing though | 19:39 |
| highvoltage | but yes, they'd still be at school | 19:39 |
| pere | for me it need to be after the kids are in bed, so 19:00 UTC was fine. | 19:40 |
| alkisg | It'd be interesting to try alternate meeting times, yup | 19:40 |
| highvoltage | so perhaps we should keep the last wednesday of the month at 19:00 UTC | 19:40 |
| highvoltage | and then have another one the second wednesday of the month on another time | 19:40 |
| highvoltage | we've had a few people say before that 19:00 never works well for them | 19:41 |
| highvoltage | so it would be nice to have an alternate time | 19:41 |
| dgroos | I can only do it now since I'm not teaching this year. | 19:41 |
| highvoltage | yeah I think you, dinda and flint asked for alternate times a few times | 19:42 |
| highvoltage | ok, I'll update that to the list too | 19:42 |
| highvoltage | I have nothing more, anything else before we wrap up? | 19:42 |
| alkisg | Some small news about epoptes, a new version with groups support will be released soon, I hope stgraber can import it even though we're past debianimportfreeze | 19:43 |
| highvoltage | cool, that's a nice feature | 19:44 |
| dgroos | For sure. | 19:44 |
| highvoltage | pere: have you seen epoptes before? | 19:44 |
| highvoltage | pere: it's similar in some of its functionality to italc, we're moving away from italc to epoptes in edubuntu: http://www.epoptes.org/ | 19:46 |
| pere | highvoltage: nope. the italc alternative I know about is controlaula. | 19:47 |
| pere | I have not investigated any of them. | 19:47 |
| pere | the german group in Debian Edu use italc, and the spanish group use controlaula. | 19:47 |
| pere | highvoltage: why do you move away from italc? | 19:48 |
| highvoltage | pere: stgraber pointed out some concerns over its supportability over the long term. epoptes seems to have less crud and it's very actively maintained by alkisg | 19:49 |
| alkisg | And the reason we developed epoptes in the first place was that italc crashed in more than 50% of our systems... | 19:50 |
| pere | does it work for non-linux machines? | 19:50 |
| alkisg | No | 19:50 |
| alkisg | It works on most Linux DEs, but not on non-linux machines | 19:51 |
| pere | right. I have vague memories of icalc or controlaula working on windows and mac, but might be mistaken. | 19:51 |
| alkisg | Italc does work on windows. The problem is that it's not maintained on linux... | 19:51 |
| alkisg | ...e.g. logout/reboot/shutdown has not been working on linux for years | 19:52 |
| dgroos | I always found iTALC unstable and if a teacher can't depend on something, better to not to even try it. | 19:53 |
| dgroos | That's why I like epoptes. | 19:53 |
| pere | right. did any of you try <URL: http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/controlaula.html >? | 19:54 |
| highvoltage | I've only heard of it before but haven't seen it | 19:55 |
| alkisg | I did, and while it has a lot of features, it's too focused on the specific installations done in Spain... | 19:55 |
| alkisg | I don't think I got it working, and I had to format to get it properly removed :( | 19:55 |
| alkisg | But that was 2-3 years ago, haven't looked at its progress since | 19:55 |
| highvoltage | screenshots look java'y | 19:55 |
| highvoltage | I need to go, can we call it a meeting? | 19:57 |
| alkisg | Thank you highvoltage :) | 19:57 |
| dgroos | I like the, "…share information and files easily". Reminds me of the coccinella I just read about --use jabber? | 19:57 |
| dgroos | OK | 19:57 |
| dgroos | Thanks highvoltage as always. | 19:57 |
| highvoltage | and thanks alkisg, dgroos, pere and tedmasterweb for being here :) | 19:58 |
| highvoltage | I'll paste the meeting notes and log to the edubuntu-devel list tomorrow | 19:58 |
| pere | dgroos: yes, coccinella use the jabber protocol. I just sponsored it into Debian. | 19:58 |
| pere | highvoltage: see you later. :) | 19:59 |
| dgroos | that was you! It is way cool. | 19:59 |
| pere | dgroos: its maintainer hang on #debian-edu (irc.debian.org). | 19:59 |
| dgroos | pere: does controlaula use it? | 19:59 |
| pere | dgroos: no idea, but I doubt it. | 19:59 |
| dgroos | I'll be watching it--I'm also watching how plone implements XMMP, it opens up lots of possibilities. | 20:00 |
| pere | yeah, XMPP looks very promising. :) | 20:01 |
| pere | chat, audio, video and whiteboard in one protocol. but not one tool yet. :) | 20:01 |
| dgroos | My studies focus on how software can scaffold group collaboration and bring it to a level higher then available due to limitations of students' cognition/social levels. | 20:02 |
| dgroos | Sure. Hey, I've been wondering, do you know CmapTools/CmapServer, pere? | 20:02 |
| pere | dgroos: nope. what do they do? | 20:02 |
| dgroos | They are a great combo but not open source--though they are free. They allow for | 20:03 |
| dgroos | individual or group/synchronous mapping. | 20:03 |
| pere | btw, regarding school settings. you might be interested in <URL: http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Changing_the_default_Iceweasel_start_page_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html >. :) | 20:04 |
| dgroos | For example, here's one I just made to show the steps of a unit I taught and the research I did on it: http://ci-cmap.oit.umn.edu:8009/rid=1K5NH8JPQ-1YGSKFB-Q70/Knowledgebuilding2.cmap.jpg?rid=1K5NH8JPQ-1YGSKFB-Q70&partName=htmljpeg | 20:04 |
| pere | right, so a kind of mind mapper? | 20:05 |
| dgroos | Yes. | 20:06 |
| pere | freemind is the only one we have slightly looked at for Debian Edu. | 20:06 |
| pere | I did not track that, so I do not know what was concluded regarding it. I notice it is not included in our DVD. | 20:06 |
| pere | http://freemind.sourceforge.net/ | 20:07 |
| dgroos | The CmapServer part is a web server, allowing both synch. editing as well as instant publishing to the web. | 20:07 |
| pere | right. | 20:07 |
| dgroos | I've tried out free mind but I don't see how to easily do this... | 20:07 |
| dgroos | http://ci-cmap.oit.umn.edu:8009/rid=1K6FBMLGZ-2806BKN-MLZ/aaInquiry-Overview%20of%20Progressive%20Inquiry--for%20Education%20Professionals.cmap | 20:08 |
| dgroos | that is, making the links between the nodes. | 20:08 |
| dgroos | I wonder if XMPP would be the platform on which to build an open source concept mapping/mind-mapping tool. | 20:10 |
| dgroos | Any thoughts? | 20:10 |
| dgroos | *on that :) | 20:10 |
| pere | nope, outside my area of expertice. :) | 20:13 |
| dgroos | 'k thanks, thought I would ask, you never know… :) | 20:14 |
| pere | :) | 20:14 |
| pere | I just sponsored the package on request. I do not know much about XMPP. | 20:15 |
| pere | if you want a package in Debian, my offer is listed on <URL: http://www.hungry.com/~pere/debian-sponsoring.html >. :) | 20:15 |
| dgroos | Cool, I'll check it out. | 20:16 |
| dgroos | highvoltage: ping? | 21:06 |
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