Pulling Teeth

Ok, so the day starts off bad.  After reinstalling the system because a mistake in the ldap.conf made it go whack, I needed to start over.  But between me leaving the computer yesterday and getting back on this morning, someone helped themselves to the install disc.  I mean, it’s free software!

But the computer is working well now.  It’s back up to speed and I’m just trying to get it to log in to LDAP, which it is much closer to doing now…

I’ve also added French and Arabic Text support so that the Arabic class can use this computer and French/Arabic spellcheck work.

Little Progress

I’ve been working flat out for what seems like weeks with the big goal still not accomplished:  Authentication.

Since the last post, however, I have:

-Enabled Compiz Desktop Effects, which moves processing of the window manager to the video card thus speeding up the system and making it all wobble

-Connecting reliably to folders.  This is the really infuriating part:  I can access all my data on Bigbrother, everything I have permissions to with no problem at all.  But I stil CAN’T AUTHENTICATE!!!!!  My personal theory is that there’s a different auth server from Bigbrother and that’s why when I see a “cannot find LDAP server at IP” error in bootup.  But that’s improbable as we’d probably already figured that out…

So it now has every functionality of the OS X laptops.  But that’s still not good enough.

I managed to make the system unbootable today.  That’s my majour accomplishment.  Sad.  I changed the boot policy to hard from soft so it keeps trying to connect to Bigbrother again and again and again and you get the picture.  And I can’t just boot up a LiveCD and fix it because it’s on a virtual partition.  But I found instructions on how to mount a virtual partition in Ubuntu, so it shouldn’t take that long to fix…

This is honestly driving me nuts.  I’m going to ask Mr. Park if I can work until 5 after school on Tuesday and then the rest of the day on Wednesday as it’s a halfday, and then work until 5 on Thursday and Friday too.  That’s how bad it’s getting.

Must… authenticate… user…

There must be something really really small and stupid I’m missing.  I’ll post the ldap.conf as soon as I think of it so that anyone who might have an idea can look at it.  Note to self:  Look through lib-nss (or whatever that package is) as it’s implicated in the bootup error as not letting the server and client bind.

Well, at least something works

I just got printers up and running.  With the Ubuntu Printer Manager, it was easy enough.  But that was just a little break from the real task of getting Ubuntu to log in to that blasted Open Directory server!  I still can’t get it to work.  I followed instructions here

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=597056

but when I first installed the package I skipped the form during install (I killed installation and then rebuilt the pipe with sudo apt-get install -f).  Now, even though I use sudo dpkg-reconfigure like all the guides say, I still can’t fill it out again.

Uncle John is working on the problem with me.

But it prints!  If all else fails, this computer now has the functionality of the OS X laptops.  And now even mounting folders is giving me difficulty…  I can’t get at my own folder!

To Mount or not to Mount, sa c’est la question

Ok, so I finally put the final touches on the software for the client and we moved it to the library!

Now the one big problem arises.

How are we going to get it to authenticate? OS X Server is really hard to authenticate against with Linux. Moez (Probably spelled his name wrong. sorry), one of the computer lab workers, and I worked for most of the period on being able to mount each user’s drive. Well, after 45 minutes of trying every combination we could, we found out that the server uses port 548 (or something) with a secure FTP server. We can now mount drives. All we need to do is log in.

And I’ve started to gather a focus group for testing the computer. So far I have Ms. O, Ms Van Pilsum, Joyren and Monica. I’ll make a signup list and put it out there.

Up and running

So I’m finally posting this from the Ubuntu client at ACST.  It’s not connected to the network yet, just running on DSL for faster internet.  I just configured Edubuntu, Flash, MP3 playback, sound, internet, DOCX support for OpenOffice, First Class and a bunch of other stuff.  I just installed the Dansguardian parental controls through Synaptic.

Everything’s going well.  I just need to test Suspend/Resume and hibernate, though those are low priority systems.  I would like to change the boot order, though.  If the person who turns it on just leaves it, it’ll boot into Windows.  I know it can be done, but how?

I’ll run Ubuntu Update right before class is over

Just got WINE up and running.  It’s nice that it’s now Wine 1.0 RC1.  Maybe things will start working reliably.  I just hope that the school doesn’t have any apps that need Windows support that don’t have Open Source/Linux alternatives

Installation!

Well, Mr. Park set up the computer yesterday and called someone in to help me change the cable ends to work with the Tunisian sockets. And then we had to clean out the computer and install an extra 256MB of RAM so Ubuntu would work well. But it’s installing as I speak. I tested it yesterday and all systems are go except sound, which is not nessessary and will probably be fixed once I can link to the Restricted Driver Manager.

I also got to try out the Wubi Windows Based Installer.  I installed the normal way on my system, but I test drove it on Yacintha’s laptop (which works better with Ubuntu than mine.  It’s high res monitor, suspend resume, the works) and it’s evolved alot since I last used it with 7.04 Feisty.  That was buggy.

The website is going well. I’ve gotten two pages down. I couldn’t work on it yesterday because I had no internet and couldn’t check the outline.

Ubuntu How To website

Ok, so I thought that while I’m away from the Ubuntu EE computer, I’ll start on the how-to website.  But I’m too busy to rework the code, so I’m going to borrow some of my old code from the internationalteachersinstitute.com website (and yes, it’s my code).  I’ll rework that code into a website that reaches out to new Ubuntu users and helps them do nessesary but unfortuneate tasks like install from source or from a tarball (personally, I like terminal based installers, but that’s just me).

Here’s the layout:

Index – Introduction to Ubuntu, who this how-to is for

Installation guide

• Test your hardware with Ubuntu Hardware Tester and the Ubuntu DesktopCD
• Wubi dual boot, Ubuntu single boot, or a normal dual boot?
• The Installation process for Wubi and normal

Configuring your system

• CompizFusion effects.  Setting them up and configuring them with the config manager in the repos
• Get DVD playback support, Medibuntu, and audio/video GStreamer codecs to play mp3s, avis and such
• Introduction to Firefox
• Introduction to the Ubuntu Repository System (Synaptic and Add/Remove Programs)

Customize Your Desktop

• Themes for GNOME
• Change wallpaper
• Change system sounds

Install programs

• Apt-get/repositories (sudo apt-get install x)
• Installing from Debian package
• Installing from source
• How to install… Flash (and stuff like it that uses terminal based, automated installers)
• Common problem fix:  sudo apt-get install -f (broken pipe)

Other great Ubuntu resources

• Ubuntuforums
• Other sites

Hopefully this will help someone.  I’m debating whether to use a free online hosting service (110MB) or go with GooglePages (which doesn’t allow me to develop my own code, IIRC)

The Essentials

Ok, so while I’m separated from the computer over the weekend, I decided to get some software essentials down.

First: FirstClass, one of the programs that our infrastructure relies on. This was easy enough; the company provides a Linux client complete with precompiled Debian package.

Then I need to get OpenDirectory working. This will be the most challenging part of the project seeing as I’m having trouble finding online guides and I don’t know much about servers. I finally, however, found Apple’s released source code (it’s Open Source). So let’s just hope it compiles on Linux. Fun.

Press the on button and…

Nothing will work, because I forgot that to have a computer, you need to have something really technical called a power supply.  yah.  So I’ve added it to the materials list.  But I did get the tower and monitor set up and plugged everything (but the power because there are no plugs near my workstation, so I’ll have to find an extension cord) in.  Added the banner to the website.  I had hoped that today would be the day that I commented on software testing and installation…  Well, we’ll have to wait until Monday.

Design Brief

Ok, so I’m here to setup one Ubuntu Education Edition client on the school network of the American Cooperative School of Tunis, in Tunis, Tunisia.  Right now, the school uses a mixed OS infrastructure:  Laptop, servers, and media computers that run Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows XP on desktops in the library.  One solution that has been overlooked is Ubuntu Linux.  The aging desktops need to be replaced for an upgrade to Vista, and they’re not running to well with XP either.  The resources that Ubuntu Education Edition would bring to ACST would contribute to the school environment.

 

Specifications:

1. Run an Ubuntu Education Edition 8.04 client on a school computer
2. Enable client to use the school’s network, specifically to enable people to log on with their usernames and passwords from the Win/Mac infrastructure
3. Have all core systems (Internet, Network, Update, Kernel, and graphics) operating sufficiently, and hopefully to have non-core systems such sound operational as well.
4. Enable students to use the Ubuntu EE client with more efficiency then they would with the aging Win/Mac clients.
5. Educate students and teachers about the new systems and how to use them
6. Spread the word about Ubuntu and Open Source Software through posters and other media.

Materials

1. Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” Desktop CD free from www.ubuntu.com
2. Ubuntu Education Edition (formerly Edubuntu) Addons CD from www.edubuntu.com
3. Non-core system packages to enable interface with the OS X Server
4. Computer with Ubuntu compatible technology
5. Packages to give the Linux client the same functionality as a Win/Mac client.
6. Power supply for both the CPU and monitor.

Roles:

1. I, Chris Tomalty, will work on all facets of the projects while seeking assistance from members of the Ubuntu community.

Procedure

1. Test computer with Ubuntu, including systems such as sound, internet, and graphics.
2. Install Ubuntu and the Educational Addon CD
3. Install and configure packages that enable operation with the existing infrastructure and facilitate use, such as GStreamer audio codecs.
4. Tune up systems
5. Create How To Use Ubuntu guide