linuxgirlie

We had our ofsted a couple of weeks ago and was judged outstanding. Not heard anything about academies yet though.

This is looking to be true.

Well running sudo ls -l /dev/input/by-id/ Gives me: total 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2010-01-14 18:08 usb-046d_G15_Gaming_Keyboard-event-if01 -> ../event6 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2010-01-14 18:08 usb-046d_G15_Gaming_Keyboard-event-kbd -> ../event5 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2010-01-14 18:24 usb-2000_beba-event-if00 -> ../event7 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2010-01-14 18:08 usb-Logitech_G9_Laser_Mouse_F8A2470F500029-event-if01 -> ../event4 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2010-01-14 18:08 usb-Logitech_G9_Laser_Mouse_F8A2470F500029-event-mouse -> ../event3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2010-01-14 18:08 usb-Logitech_G9_Laser_Mouse_F8A2470F500029-mouse -> ../mouse1 So I am assuming it is the 2000_bebe device.

Well I got it working but I cheated For some reason in Ubuntu in the console it is posting "rwww.edugeek.net" Not sure why the 'r' is there, anyway I just created a script in /usr/bin called "rwww.edugeek.net" that just runs "firefox www.edugeek.net" It works, but I fill it's not quite the proper way! Might come back to it when I have some spare time!! Thanks, Jo

Hello, I didn't get to go to Bett this year:(, but my OH did and bought me back the Emergency Button as a present.... ah geek love Now it glows which is really cool and changes colour when I press it, but does not load up the site, so I was wondering if anyone else has got their working in Linux. Thanks, Jo

1) What are/were the reactions of users to the switch? Shock, annoyance, was to blame for things the end user did, some training due to things being hidden under different menus etc and the fact that the computers are slow - which makes no difference what OS was run on them! The main problem came from the staff not the students but rubbed off on the students. So a student would say something we would ask were it came from and they would say 'mr/miss so and so said'. This years yr7 will be the first to use Linux till leaving(if bsf doesn't eat us in the next 7 years), and have not had not so far complained or had a single problem. The staff are also fine now, and we try and iron out any problems due to the OS asap. 2) Did/do they have any issues adjusting to the new software and look? We use KDE here and I have made it look as close to Windows as possible even down to using 'My Computer' icon. The software seems to be fine, just a few problems when things are in different places. Most of the software we have either found alternatives or they are web-based. In places that we can't do that they still run windows, for example DT suite for pro/desktop and Media have Macs. 3) Do you imagine they'll have trouble adjusting once they get out into the big bad windows world after school? Maybe. The students here are taught using generic terms and could easily cope with a job asking for Excel experience etc. We have had this comment from students before but so far have had various come back to us who have been on work experience, saying things like 'There wasn't a Windows computer in the building' or one guy who came back in awe cause he had just spent the week working on a computer that was just a command line! Also we have had lots of Uni students coming back and telling us that they are grateful for us opening their eyes to open source cause (when doing computer science) they are way ahead of the rest of the class, and an English uni student who said that he can save his loan money cause he built himself a computer and could put all the software on it for free. 4) Worth it? Hmmm, slightly bias but I would say yes, it was tough, it has taken 6 years to get it integrated, in those years there were times I wanted to give up and just use Microsoft, but didn't and now it works well and the maintenance is almost non-existent we allows us to take a pro-active role rather than a reactive one. On the student side it is good cause they are getting a mixed range, Windows at home (but not all we have several students who parents chose to come here cause we use Linux and they use it at home!) a few windows here, macs and Linux. We are getting students coming to us and asking to re-install their computer cause they are fed-up of viruses, crashing and other problems. But this is just my view. Jo

90% Linux here with the rest being a mixture of Mac and Windows.

We have: Email MIS (Serco CMIS/ePortal) Moodle Website Home Access Social Network (elgg) Radio Server (needs one for admin but not currently running yet) Karoshi Web Management VPN So that is 9

Just to let everyone know the demo is now running the latest version! So go ahead and have a play. Jo

oops! 10mins before we uploaded the .iso OH decided to make a last minute change.... This unfortunately this included forgetting to add a 'fi' to the end of the script If you download the iso again it will now working fine! Thanks, Jo

ok, I will give it a test tonight, and let you know.

Was this single server or a specific server?

Thanks Basically as the betas had it now uses ldap, apart from that the main change is the gui which has been completed changed, also you can now (at your own risk) change the default IPs, gateways etc so that you can implement it into your current setup without the use of NAT. A few things that are not completed yet but will be implemented in patches are the new backup system, the current on uses tar which has restrictions so we will be moving to rsync and the printer management which will just be a tidy up and changes to ease of use. It still needs a full test but we are running it in several schools with no hiccups so far so should be fine. I am hoping to get the new version on the demo this week, but the school caught fire last night and I can't access my server room at the moment! Any questions just email us. Jo

Please correct me if I am wrong but I was always told that IPCop was the split off of Smoothwall?

We use: Gimp - for graphics and animation Scratch/Alice - animation Nvu/Kompozer - web editing Scribus - dtp Audacity/Rosegarden - podcasts/music composer I'm sure there are more, but they are the ones that come to mind.

A seasoned KDE lockdowner here, so am quite happy to answer any questions, seeing it has taken me ages to get to this point it will be nice to save people time Saying that if you are using Ubuntu I assume you will be using Gnome, which I have no clue about locking down at all Jo ps. If its any help I have uploaded both my current Skel(including .kde) and Kiosk settings for people to have a look at, most of the lockdown is done in .kde. The kiosk settings are used so we can have seperate restrictions for students and itadmin users. Locks down the norm, like background, screensaver, keyboard shortcuts etc. The skel has our software lockdowns in. Index of /linux

If you have enough space you can do what we do and have a repository in-house. We then set up all the machines to point to this one, and they don't have to go out on the Internet to download (faster for updates as well). We use rsync to sync the repository with our internal one. Hope this helps. Jo

Xdialog is a nice simple frontend for bash scripts. Xdialog That is the website, gives you lots of examples so you can copy and paste (just highlight what one you want and the script appears below), its what we use to use before we went web-based and is really simple. Jo

Ok, you got me all thinking. What do people think of this style of documentation: http://linuxgfx.co.uk/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=209 You might want to PM me instead, don't want to high jack the thread!! Thanks, Jo

Someone must really give me a wave when posts like this come up I only found it looking for something else Right, couple of thing Karoshi is server side, though it does have profiles etc for both Linux and Windows clients that join it. I don't think I got your email nephilim But it might have gone to Paul?! or got Karoshi supports iTalc, got it here and the staff love it, not sure if its coded into the frontend yet, will have to ask Paul. I do have a Linux client which I have worked v v hard on, I can post it to anyone who would like a play but I can't put it on the internet a) because its 4gb and b) cause it wouldn't be legal in certain countries. Lots of things like flash, wmv, mp3 support etc etc. Though the lock down etc come from the profile server side, so it might not be what you want, as it assume (unless standalone) that you will be joining a karoshi domain. Hmmmm, I think thats it. Oh! Also I am trying to do documentation...honest, but its not on my radar at the moment, got lots more to do. Also yes please please please please help us, with suggestions, ideas, coding, translations, testing, documentation anything that will help us improve the system. Thanks, Jo ps. Forgot to say we didn't put much description on the page because we thought people would prefer to play with the demo instead.

Shame really, but understandable....

Article on the BBC about BSF and the Credit Crunch: BBC NEWS | Education | Credit crunch warning for schools

Yeah I agree it's a bit of a shame really, but as we download the repos here I have noticed recently some work going on, rather than a few weeks ago when there wasn't a single change in the repo's at all and when that was going on it was scary!!

Don't use Ubuntu, but on our Clients and Servers (modified pclinuxos) we run Shorewall Firewall. On the servers we run ClamAV to scan for viruses. On the clients we have no antivirus. We also run a dedicated IPCop (ipcop.org) firewall for the entire school. But that is getting off what you would like to do. Ah, forgot to say, we only have ports 5900 and 5858 for the clients open as those are the iTalc ports. All other ports are blocked.

He needs to help some of the schools in his own county first!