11 January 2012 == Present ==
* dgroos * highvoltage * tedmasterweb * pere * alkisg == Quick Summary of Meeting == * Edubuntu now has LTS Status: http://edubuntu.org/2012-01-10/edubuntu-lts-status * Python build dependencies cleanup completed, thanks to stgraber * Discussion on Edubuntu Unity lenses, we need to do some call for ideas * Discussion on authentication features in Debian Edu server, ldap/kerberos/etc * Revising Edubuntu meeting times, perhaps time to add another meeting in another time slot to accomodate people in different timezones * Debian Edu 6.03 beta 2 is ready, testing is welcomed: http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html * Discussion on epoptes and other control tools == Full IRC Log == 14:05 < highvoltage> howdy! 14:05 < tedmasterweb> hi 14:05 < highvoltage> anyone here for the Edubuntu meeting? 14:05 < tedmasterweb> me 14:05 < highvoltage> great 14:06 < highvoltage> stgraber, dgroos, mgariepy, alkisg: around? 14:07 < highvoltage> I guess I'll start off by mentioning some news 14:07 < dgroos> a round and as usual, a square ;) 14:07 < highvoltage> - Edubuntu 12.04 will be an LTS version 14:07 < highvoltage> We went through the process with the Technical Board and they approved it on Monday 14:08 < dgroos> nice! congrats. 14:08 < highvoltage> I put together a quick blog post about it for the edubuntu blog: http://edubuntu.org/2012-01-10/edubuntu-lts-status 14:08 < highvoltage> - stgraber has been cleaning the python build dependencies for packages shipped with Edubuntu 14:08 < highvoltage> we don't have any legacy python dh scripts anymore 14:09 * alkisg waves 14:09 < highvoltage> anyone else have any news to share? 14:09 < highvoltage> one of our goals for 12.04 is also to create some bite size tasks for Unity lenses 14:10 < highvoltage> they're reasonably simple to create and may be really useful in education 14:10 < dgroos> Unity lenses? 14:10 < highvoltage> yep, let me see if I can find a link with more info... 14:11 < dgroos> btw, how easy will the JRE install, be? 14:11 < dgroos> (from your blog post) 14:11 < highvoltage> well, here's a somewhat technical page describing lenses: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity/Lenses 14:12 < 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. 14:12 < dgroos> Cool. 14:12 < highvoltage> dgroos: basically, lenses allow you to display data you have on your system (or on the internet) in a specially organised way 14:13 < highvoltage> dgroos: have you seen Ubuntu TV? it's main interface is actually a unity lense. 14:14 < dgroos> Not yet, but will check it out. Is this a way that we could do edubuntu-menu type stuff? 14:14 < highvoltage> possibly 14:14 < highvoltage> you could probably implement something like per-grade menus with that 14:15 < dgroos> could it be per-group menus? (user groups) 14:15 < highvoltage> I'm wondering if we should do weekly meetings again too 14:15 < pere> a better way is probably to use desktop-profiles. 14:15 < highvoltage> I think we kind of lost momentum doing it monthly 14:16 < pere> it would allow per-group menu reordering. 14:16 < highvoltage> indeed, desktop-profiles work great for that 14:16 < dgroos> Thanks, I'll check into these as well. 14:17 < highvoltage> I've been looking at our artwork situation last week 14:17 < pere> http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/i386/education-menus/filelist show a desktop-profiles package reordering KDE and Gnome menus. 14:17 < dgroos> pere: thanks. 14:18 < 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 14:18 < highvoltage> Will talk about that on-list to see if there's any ideas/objections/etc 14:19 < highvoltage> pere: I haven't had much chance yet to try to integrate an edubuntu machine into a debian-edu network yet 14:20 < pere> too bad. squeeze/beta2 is very good now. :) 14:20 < highvoltage> pere: but I've gotten some big hairy sticky things off from my todo list so I should get to it sooner now 14:22 < dgroos> will there be any changes in users and groups tool--sorry I've dropped out of the loop. 14:22 < 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) 14:23 < 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 14:23 < highvoltage> dgroos: I guess when we have freeipa in ubuntu we'd probably use that in edubuntu 14:24 < dgroos> I did end up using their tool a couple of years ago due to a bug in the GNOME tool. 14:24 < 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. :) 14:25 < dgroos> Cool. How about LDAP tool? I mean a tool that doesn't take too much sys knowledge? 14:25 < highvoltage> pere: I'll try that and paste that back if it doesn't work :) 14:25 < highvoltage> dgroos: that's what freeipa does as well. you get user management and ldap/kerberos/etc all in one 14:25 < pere> dgroos: jxplorer seem to be the best gui for ldap editing. 14:26 < 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. 14:27 < 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. 14:28 < highvoltage> anything else that anyone wants to bring up? I guess alkisg, mgariepy and stgraber is busy elsewhere atm :) 14:28 < 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 14:28 < pere> am I allowed to talk about Debian Edu? 14:28 < highvoltage> pere: as much as you want! 14:28 < pere> highvoltage: it does all that and more. :) 14:29 < dgroos> I think it's great the collaboration that has started between the diff distress. 14:29 < highvoltage> cool 14:29 < dgroos> *distros 14:29 < 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. 14:29 < pere> this is done using the sitesummary package. 14:29 < highvoltage> I've never heard of that 14:30 < pere> we also provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop solutions. KDE get most work, but the others seem to work fine as well. 14:30 < highvoltage> looking at the package description it looks like it could be useful for a bunch of stuff 14:31 < pere> See <URL: http://narvikskolen.no/munin/localdomain/localhost.localdomain.html#Sitesummary > for the munin count for the city of Narvik. :) 14:31 < pere> The admin set site to be the name of the school, and the stat show how many computers report in from each school. :) 14:32 < dgroos> Wow--mucho info. 14:32 < 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. 14:33 < highvoltage> nice 14:33 < highvoltage> I'm a bit unsure, is this the first squeeze release for debian-edu? or just the point release update? 14:33 < 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). 14:34 < pere> when we are done, it will be the first squeeze release for debian edu. 14:34 < pere> progress has been slow since I got my second kid. :) 14:34 < highvoltage> I guess we can announce that on the Edubuntu website too when it's ready, if that's ok 14:35 < pere> absolutely. :) 14:35 < pere> one nice feature is our roaming workstation profile, which is the laptop setup with connections to the LDAP/Kerberos server. 14:35 < 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? 14:35 < 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. 14:36 < dgroos> That is an important feature for schools that allow integration of student laptops into their network. 14:36 < 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. 14:37 < pere> highvoltage: at the end of <URL: http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html > are the links to the ISOs. 14:37 < highvoltage> thanks 14:37 < 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. :) 14:38 < pere> I could just click on the link and get direct access to my university home directory. :) 14:39 < dgroos> cool, very useful. 14:39 < pere> I guess that is enough adverticement for now. :) There are heaps of other nice stuff in Debian Edu, so check it out. :) 14:39 < highvoltage> that's pretty neet 14:39 < highvoltage> *neat 14:40 * alkisg wants to try debian-edu in a school some time, but didn't have the chance to do it yet 14:40 < highvoltage> pere: yeah features like that are a bit harder to just find by yourself though. thanks for mentioning it :) 14:40 < alkisg> highvoltage: about the weekly vs monthly meetings... why not every 2 weeks? 14:40 < highvoltage> alkisg: well, I just sent a mail to the list about it. I think perhaps every week but with alternating times 14:41 < 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 14:41 < highvoltage> alkisg: but I guess every 2 weeks would be fine too 14:41 < 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 14:41 < highvoltage> alkisg: perhaps we could try that first 14:42 < highvoltage> well 9:00 UTC would be around 11am for you 14:42 < alkisg> Ah 9 UTC, not 7 UTC... same thing though 14:42 < highvoltage> but yes, they'd still be at school 14:42 < pere> for me it need to be after the kids are in bed, so 19:00 UTC was fine. 14:43 < alkisg> It'd be interesting to try alternate meeting times, yup 14:43 < highvoltage> so perhaps we should keep the last wednesday of the month at 19:00 UTC 14:43 < highvoltage> and then have another one the second wednesday of the month on another time 14:44 < highvoltage> we've had a few people say before that 19:00 never works well for them 14:44 < highvoltage> so it would be nice to have an alternate time 14:44 < dgroos> I can only do it now since I'm not teaching this year. 14:45 < highvoltage> yeah I think you, dinda and flint asked for alternate times a few times 14:45 < highvoltage> ok, I'll update that to the list too 14:45 < highvoltage> I have nothing more, anything else before we wrap up? 14:46 < 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 14:47 < highvoltage> cool, that's a nice feature 14:47 < dgroos> For sure. 14:47 < highvoltage> pere: have you seen epoptes before? 14:49 < 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/ 14:50 < pere> highvoltage: nope. the italc alternative I know about is controlaula. 14:50 < pere> I have not investigated any of them. 14:50 < pere> the german group in Debian Edu use italc, and the spanish group use controlaula. 14:51 < pere> highvoltage: why do you move away from italc? 14:52 < 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 14:53 < alkisg> And the reason we developed epoptes in the first place was that italc crashed in more than 50% of our systems... 14:53 < pere> does it work for non-linux machines? 14:53 < alkisg> No 14:53 < alkisg> It works on most Linux DEs, but not on non-linux machines 14:54 < pere> right. I have vague memories of icalc or controlaula working on windows and mac, but might be mistaken. 14:54 < alkisg> Italc does work on windows. The problem is that it's not maintained on linux... 14:55 < alkisg> ...e.g. logout/reboot/shutdown has not been working on linux for years 14:56 < dgroos> I always found iTALC unstable and if a teacher can't depend on something, better to not to even try it. 14:56 < dgroos> That's why I like epoptes. 14:57 < pere> right. did any of you try <URL: http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/controlaula.html >? 14:57 < highvoltage> I've only heard of it before but haven't seen it 14:58 < alkisg> I did, and while it has a lot of features, it's too focused on the specific installations done in Spain... 14:58 < alkisg> I don't think I got it working, and I had to format to get it properly removed :( 14:58 < alkisg> But that was 2-3 years ago, haven't looked at its progress since 14:58 < highvoltage> screenshots look java'y 14:59 < highvoltage> I need to go, can we call it a meeting? 15:00 < alkisg> Thank you highvoltage :) 15:00 < dgroos> I like the, "…share information and files easily". Reminds me of the coccinella I just read about --use jabber? 15:00 < dgroos> OK 15:00 < dgroos> Thanks highvoltage as always. 15:00 < highvoltage> and thanks alkisg, dgroos, pere and tedmasterweb for being here :) -- edubuntu-devel mailing list edubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-devel
