gmane.linux.ubuntu.devel.edubuntu

Pessulus

Jonathan Carter (highvoltage — 2012-05-25T14:53:28

Hi Rudolfs

In Edubuntu, we've been following the news 
(http://tranzistors.wordpress.com/) about the Pessulus work you've been 
doing with great anticipation.

The deadline by which any software / new packages that introduce new 
features can be included into Ubuntu is on August 23rd: 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QuantalQuetzal/ReleaseSchedule

We're wondering if you have put any thought into timelines for this 
project and whether it's likely that you'll have something ready that we 
could upload by then. There's no pressure, we're just doing our cycle 
planning and it would be nice to know.

Bug fix uploads are still available after August 23, so it's possible to 
have a beta/rc version uploaded by then and then a final release shortly 
afterwards, if necessary.

Anyway, thanks for your work, there are many people who will appreciate it!

-Jonathan

KDE Education Status in Edubuntu

Jonathan Carter (highvoltage — 2012-05-25T14:26:10

Hi Everyone

For this cycle we're looking at which KDE Education packages we ship and 
whether we need to make any changes, ie: are there any major 
applications we're missing? or are there some that needs to be replaced? 
are they all available in the Ubuntu archives? We haven't done this 
exercise in a while, so this is our KDE Edu checkup that we plan to do 
at the beginning of every cycle from now on.

Here is a comparison of what we have in Edubuntu and what's available 
upstream:

== Preschool Level ==

http://edu.kde.org/applications/preschool/

PackageShipped
------------------------
BlinkenYes
KLettresNo, available in Ubuntu archives
PairsNo, unavailable in Debian and Ubuntu

== School Level ==

http://edu.kde.org/applications/school/

PackageShipped
------------------------
KAlgebraNo, available in Ubuntu archives
KalziumYes
KanagramYes
KBruchYes
KGeographyNo, available in Ubuntu archives
KHangManYes
KigYes
KitenNo, available in Ubuntu archives
KmPlotYes
KStarsNo, available in Ubuntu archives
KTouchYes
KTurtleYes
KWordQuizYes
MarbleYes
ParleyYes

== University Level ==

http://edu.kde.org/applications/university/

PackageShipped
------------------------
CantorNo, available in Ubuntu archives
RocsNo, available in Ubuntu archives
StepYes

That makes:
  * 21 programs
  * 13 of which are shipped with Edubuntu
  * 1 of which aren't packaged in Ubuntu

== Proposed change ==

  * Include the following packages:
   * Klettres: good software, we don't currently ship an equivelent
   * Pairs: New in KDE 4.9 which Kubuntu plans on packaging for 12.10, 
we are invited to assist
   * Kalgebra: We stopped shipping this in favour of geogebra, but never 
put it back when we stopped shipping geogebra by default
   * KGeography: Great software, we should ship it
   * KStars: We already ship alternatives, but I believe kstars provides 
some simplicity and speed that makes it worth while shipping anyway
  * Unsure:
   * Kiten: Japanese learning tool, might not be specific enough, takes 
18.4MB of .debs and 47.1MB of uncompressed disk space (I'd say leave it 
and feature it in Software Center instead)
   * Cantor: Provides a front-end to various mathematical back-ends 
(kalgebra, maxima, r project, sage mathematics, octave, scilab, 
qalculate) - we've always been short on university level software so 
this might be a good inclusion (although I don't know exactly how to use 
it yet, we might have to source some testers)
   * Rocs: a graph theory IDE, similar situation to cantor.

It doesn't seem worth while removing anything that we currently ship at 
this point. If you have any feedback, comments or questions, please fire 
away.

-Jonathan

Possible LDM Login bug

Matthew Armitage — 2012-04-30T21:37:31

I think I've found a bug (might actually be a feature) in LDM. I've been trying to setup a new Fat Client lab, and I've got a ltsp-server build up and running. Authentication on the fat clients with any locally defined users is working, and I setup CentrifyDC for domain authentication. Here's where it gets interesting; I can login as any domain user with a username made of letters (ex. student), but I'm unable to login with a username made of numbers (ex. 99999999). Logging in VIA ssh directly as the number accounts works.

The client's ldm.log file didn't have any hints (x session started, followed immediately by x session ended), and the auth.log on the server just says authenticated then disconnecting.

The only hint I have is that when I tried to make a local account to test my theory the adduser utility wouldn't allow me to create an all number account. This made sense when I read up on why, but I'm kind of in a bind given that every student in our organization has their student number for their username, and a wholesale change to 5000+ users isn't really in the cards.

Any ideas or local patches I can make to try and make this work?

Matthew Armitage
IT Technician
School District 72
250-830-2395

The road to 12.10 and beyond

Jonathan Carter (highvoltage — 2012-04-26T18:44:31

Hi Edubuntu Developers

Disclaimer: This is a braindump of my vision for 12.10, it's not 
official and anything is subject to change

== In preparation for UDS Q ==

With 12.04 LTS freshly out of the door and with UDS just a bit more than 
a week away, I thought I'd bring up some ideas that I've been thinking 
about the last few weeks so that it could be discussed publicly.

Edubuntu 12.04 is a fine release and our release process was smooth and 
fine-tuned. We have the process down like a smooth running engine. It's 
something that we can be proud of and it's great that we've got this far.

A few releases back I had a conversation with Jordan Mantha where he 
basically said that if we don't do big and exciting things, we won't 
ever attract new developers and community members. I think he has a good 
point. Since then we've continued to do small, incremental feature 
changes and in terms of making Edubuntu stable and more reliable, it 
worked. However, I think it's time that we grow the Edubuntu community 
more aggressively and take on some interesting, higher risk tasks.

I believe it's possible to do that without compromising stability or 
affecting Edubuntu adversely. I have two ideas that I think we could 
pursue for 12.10 as concepts that won't be part of the main Edubuntu 
product.

== Edubuntu Server ==

Around 2005/2006, in the stone age of Edubuntu, we used to have an 
Edubuntu Server product. It shipped with tools such as Schooltool and 
Moodle pre-installed. The idea was that an Edubuntu server could be a 
useful single-server solution in some educational environments. 
Unfortunately, due to a combination of web apps being a lot of work to 
maintain and very few people being able to work on it, we decided to 
drop the Edubuntu Server product to focus on the Desktop. Looking back 
it seems like this was a good choice, it allowed the project to focus on 
the Desktop aspect first.

However, we get many requests for functionality that doesn't belong in 
the desktop. We've also received some enthusiastic feedback from people 
willing to work on an Edubuntu Server product.

Common requests that could be useful for a server product include:

  * A disk cloning/storage utility (ala Clonezilla, Fog, Ghost, etc)
  * Wordpress multisite (or anything that works well for classroom blogs)
  * A Backup server (BackupPC)
  * Authentication server (basically, something that provides LDAP/AD
    functionality)

There are probably 100s of things that could be useful for an Edubuntu 
server. For 12.10 I believe that we should round up as many good ideas 
that we can get, vet them, find as many people as we can who's willing 
to work on them and integrate it for 12.10 as a technology preview.

I'd suggest doing it under a banner like "Edubuntu Labs" (almost like 
Google Labs used to do with prototype products it wanted wider testing 
for) and having a section on the website dedicated to these experimental 
features.

== Edubuntu Tablet ==

It's undeniable how big an impact tablets have in educational 
environments. Many schools are investing in buying iPads. While I admit 
that the iPad is a great device with many available applications, I do 
think that in time, we can do better. When we work in the 6 month cycle, 
there's no way we could ever release anything that can compete with the 
iPad, however, if we break it down to smaller, 6 month milestones, then 
it becomes more plausible.

I would propose that for 12.10, we choose a device (like the ASUS Eee 
pad Transformer Prime) and make Edubuntu easily installable on it and 
find a suitable UI for it (like Unity touch or KDE Plasma Active). Both 
the iPad and Android have a huge base of developers that create 
applications using web standards such as HTML, Javascript and CSS. These 
touch-based applications should be relatively easy to port over to 
Ubuntu and could be promoted using the Ubuntu App Developer 
(http://developer.ubuntu.com/) infrastructure.

For 12.10 some integration with the existing Edubuntu features could 
also be done, which includes integration with Epoptes 
(http://epoptes.org) which itself could be extended with more tablet 
features, a remote desktop client to connect to LTSP servers (possibly 
something like x2go) and so forth.

For 13.04 (after 12.10) we should have enough information of what's 
missing to make it a very reasonable tablet platform and take it from 
there, possibly making a finished release. By the next LTS (14.04) it 
could potentially be a great tablet platform.

== Edubuntu Desktop ==

Last but not least is our current, Edubuntu Desktop product. This is 
what's going to take priority and continue to exist for now as our 
flagship product.

For UDS here's a few desktop topics we could discuss:

  * Application selection
   * Tomboy or Gnote
     (we don't inherit either from Ubuntu anymore and didn't ship with
      one of those in 12.04)
   * Review KDE-Edu apps and check that we all have them
     (I believe we're missing at least 2)
   * The inclusion of electronics tools (most notably, fritzing)
   * Vym or promoting Freemind in Edubuntu via software center
     (software center isn't currently flavour aware but it's something
     we could bring up)
   * Recipy managers: krecipies, gnutrition, etc

  * Dynamic Ubiquity Slideshow
   * Show tips and tricks in slides for /only/ components that are
     chosen in the installer. For example, if LTSP or Gnome Fallback
     is chosen, display tips and tricks for those. Perhaps alternate
     slides promoting features that weren't chosen, if appropriate.

  * Educational Unity lenses
   * We should do a call for ideas for Unity lenses that may be useful
     in education, and encourage developers to develop them.

  * Authentication client
   * An installer step that allows authentication against, Samba4/AD
     and LDAP/Debian-edu/FreeIPA

== Edubuntu Community ==

  * Grow contributors and membership base.
  * Improve Edubuntu meetings (make them weekly again)
  * Get people to make more Edubuntu videos (there are already some great
    edubuntu videos on YouTube) (perhaps do a competition?)
  * Map on website with list of where schools are with some more
    information
  * Migrate Edubuntu website to Drupal 7
  * Put together a long-term Edubuntu strategy document (like Xubuntu
    did a while back)

== Proposed Blueprints ==

Many of the ideas above are old ideas, but I think the time is right to 
pursue some of them again. Please don't hesitate in joining in the 
discussion and adding your own.

For UDS Q, I propose that we create the following blueprints:

  * Edubuntu Desktop
  * Edubuntu Community
  * Edubuntu Server
  * Edubuntu Tablet

... and schedule the following 2 sessions for it:

  * Edubuntu Desktop/Community
  * Edubuntu Server/Tablet

So basically one session for the typical Edubuntu work and one for the 
higher risk prototype ideas. If there's lots of interest we could split 
it up a bit.

I'm going to end off here since I've already passed the TL;DR barrier. 
I'd really appreciate if everyone could share their thoughts and ideas. 
Edubuntu 12.10 should be fresh and exciting and I think if we bring 
enough people together, we can make it happen.

Have a good day!

-Jonathan

Edubuntu 12.04 LTS is now available

Stéphane Graber — 2012-04-26T12:04:14

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

After 6 months of preparation, it's with great pride that the Edubuntu
development team announces today the release of Edubuntu 12.04 LTS.

As the first Long Term Support release of the Edubuntu project, this
version will be supported for 5 years (until April 2017).
The Edubuntu development team will also provide "point releases" in
sync with Ubuntu's to offer you new installation medias containing all
the latest bugfixes.

For this release, we focused on stability and bug fixes to deliver the
most stable and best translated Edubuntu release ever.

You can try it online: http://www.edubuntu.org/weblive
or download it: http://www.edubuntu.org/download

Additional download links in case the Edubuntu website is overloaded:
 - http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/12.04/release/
 - http://www.stgraber.org/download/releases/edubuntu/12.04/

You can learn more at: http://www.edubuntu.org/news/12.04-release

The full release notes are also available at:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PrecisePangolin/ReleaseNotes/Edubuntu

Users of Edubuntu 11.10 can also directly upgrade to 12.04 LTS from
the update manager. Note that because of the usual release load on the
archive mirrors, it's recommended to wait a few days before upgrading.

- -- 
Stéphane Graber
Ubuntu developer
http://www.ubuntu.com
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Get access to my pictures and more

quantro — 2012-03-28T12:18:16

Hey,

I have created a Netlog profile with my pictures, videos, blogs and events and I want to add you as a friend so you can see it. You first need to register on Netlog! When you log in, you can create your own profile.

Take a look:
http://en.netlog.com/go/mailurl/-bT0yODkzMjAzNjAzJmw9MSZnbT0xMiZ1PSUyRmdvJTJGcmVnaXN0ZXIlMkZpZCUzRC1aV1IxWW5WdWRIVXRaR1YyWld4QWJHbHpkSE11ZFdKMWJuUjFMbU52YlFfXyUyNnVpZCUzRDg1OTgwNzc1

Cheers,
quantro

----------------------------------------------------------------
Don't want to receive invitations from your friends anymore?
http://en.netlog.com/go/mailurl/-bT0yODkzMjAzNjAzJmw9MiZnbT0xMiZ1PSUyRmdvJTJGbm9tYWlscyUyRmludml0ZSUyRmVtYWlsJTNELVpXUjFZblZ1ZEhVdFpHVjJaV3hBYkdsemRITXVkV0oxYm5SMUxtTnZiUV9fJTI2Y29kZSUzRDAwMjUyMzkx

Csata600exi

Guillem Moyà — 2012-03-19T15:30:55

Hi friends,

recently I bought a new PCIe sata II III card for my pc ( acer X3990 )
because only has 2 sata ports.
This card is only for windows 7 and with ubuntu 11.10 and 12.04  hangs the
computer during installation.  Do you know something else?

Another problem is that the new uEFI bios sucks other operating systems, I
have a lot of problems even with ubuntu installed on other hard disk.

Any help will be apreciated,

many thanks

(unknown)

David Ally — 2012-03-06T12:03:32

http://turkayhaber.com/vehoned44.html

edubuntu-desktop-kde and storages

Valerio Pachera — 2012-02-08T17:31:56

Hi all, I successfuly installed edubuntu-desktop-kde after 'aptitude
safe-upgrade'.
I noticed that usb key do not get mounted in kde (ltsp client).

Is there a way to achive that?

R: stato aggiornamento

LucaTringali — 2012-01-16T17:00:03

I'm translating the mail, so everyone who knows the answer can reply:

"Hello, I would like to know how updated is the guide:
http://help.ubuntu-it.org/7.04/edubuntu/handbook/it/index.html
and if it works for the last version of edubuntu.
In particular, in the XDMCP part, it says that local and audio devices won't 
work, and that this will be solved in a future version of Edubuntu.
reference: (http://help.ubuntu-it.org/7.04/edubuntu/handbook/it/ltsp-client.
html)"

Personally, I was not able to use audio devices when using an LTSP classroom, 
so I think the answer to sirio81 is "no, it doesn't work". But maybe someone 
else knows the way to do this.

Luca Tringali

com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-devel

stato aggiornamento

Valerio Pachera — 2012-01-16T16:38:39

Salve, volevo capire quanto aggiornata è questa guida rispetto
all'ultima versione disponibile di edubuntu:
http://help.ubuntu-it.org/7.04/edubuntu/handbook/it/index.html

In particolare per alcuni punti come questo:
XDMCP
In questa modalità, i dispositivi locali e l'audio non funzioneranno.
Questo problema sarà risolto in una versione futura di Edubuntu.
(http://help.ubuntu-it.org/7.04/edubuntu/handbook/it/ltsp-client.html)

Edubuntu Meeting Notes: 11 January 2012

Jonathan Carter (highvoltage — 2012-01-11T20:09:23

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
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 :)

Weekly meetings

Jonathan Carter (highvoltage — 2012-01-11T19:36:30

Hi Everyone

I think that we had better momentum when we had weekly meetings as
apposed to monthly meetings.

Should we go ahead and move it to weekly again? If I get no objections
I'll go ahead and make it so :)

We used to have it at 19:00 UTC on Wednesdays, but perhaps we should
alternate it between 9:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC to accomodate people in
different timezones?

What do you think?

-Jonathan

Reminder: Edubuntu meeting tomorrow

Jonathan Carter (highvoltage — 2012-01-10T12:23:38

Hi everyone

Happy new year!

Just a reminder that we have an Edubuntu meeting tomorrow.

If you have anything you'd like to bring up, feel free to add it to the
agenda:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Edubuntu/Meetings/Agenda

-Jonathan

Getting rid of python-central and python-support for 12.04

Stéphane Graber — 2011-12-20T09:26:28

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Hey everyone,

One of our goals for 12.04 is to be an LTS, which means supporting all
of Edubuntu 12.04 for 3 to 5 years. To make that easier, we're trying
to limit our dependencies as much as possible.

We already got rid of freemind and geogebra to avoid inheriting all of
java and it's now time to look at our python packages.

A quick look shows the following list of packages that we ship and
rely on python-central or python-support:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BarryWarsaw/PythonHelpers
calibre
    edubuntu-menueditor     (python-central)
    lybniz                  (python-central)
    opendict                (python-central)
    python-cherrypy3        (python-support)
    python-gevent           (python-support)
    python-pyparsing        (python-support)
    python-wxgtk2.8         (python-central)
    python-wxversion        (python-central)
python-x2go

(calibre and python-x2go depend on one of the others but aren't
themselves using python-support or python-central)

The idea is to go through the list above and convert the packaging to
dh_python2 which is the supported way of doing python packaging nowadays.

The conversion steps look like:
1) Check on Debian's side for a newer version of the package already
using dh_python2
2) Check on Debian's side for a patch on the bug tracker that we could use
3) Check on Ubuntu's side for a patch on the bug tracker that we could use
4) Convert the packaging yourself
5) Submit any change back to Debian
6) Upload

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BarryWarsaw/PythonHelpers provides some more
information.

I'll be having a look at the package list above over the next few
days, at least convert any of these packages that's only in Ubuntu and
look for existing fixes in Debian.

If you want to help, feel free to pick any of these, just make sure to
reply to this post so we all know who's doing what.

Thanks

- -- 
Stéphane Graber
Ubuntu developer
http://www.ubuntu.com
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Some nice words from the CC

Jonathan Carter (highvoltage — 2011-12-01T17:28:19

We just had what was meant to be an Edubuntu Council update with the
Community Council, but it ended up being more of an Edubuntu update in
general. We got some kind words that I thought I should share with the list:

12:26 < highvoltage> so yes, I guess this was more of an Edubuntu update
than an Edubuntu Council update, but we don't really have any complaints
from our side
12:26 < sabdfl> useful nonetheless
12:26 < sabdfl> with some impressive, understated achievements
12:26 < sabdfl> well done
12:26 < highvoltage> thanks, I'll be sure to pass that on to the
edubuntu-devel list :)
12:26 < alkisg> Thanks, and thanks for Ubuntu itself again. :)
12:27 < sabdfl> also, worth noting that you folk carry the ubuntu values
very strongly, which is appreciated

Well done everyone :)

-Jonathan

Invitación actualizada: Reminder: Edubuntu Meeting Tonight el mié 30 de nov 20:00 - 22:00 (edubuntu-devel< at >lists.ubuntu.com)

David Van Assche — 2011-11-30T14:21:06

Se ha cambiado este evento.

Título: Reminder: Edubuntu Meeting Tonight
Edubuntu future
Cuándo: mié 30 de nov 20:00 – 22:00 Viena (modificado)
Lugar: online
Calendario: edubuntu-devel< at >lists.ubuntu.com
Quién:
     * dvanassche< at >gmail.com- organizador
     * bjarne< at >slxdrift.no
     * jonathan< at >ubuntu.com
     * kaare.nordby< at >slxdrift.no
     * edubuntu-devel< at >lists.ubuntu.com
     * huayra< at >ubuntu.com

Detalles del evento:  
https://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=VIEW&eid=NzdxZzU0M3NyaWlwZGs3Zm9ubGs5bWlvcjQgZWR1YnVudHUtZGV2ZWxAbGlzdHMudWJ1bnR1LmNvbQ&tok=MjAjZHZhbmFzc2NoZUBnbWFpbC5jb20wZmMxODcyOWE0MjMwY2E5ZWIyMThmOGE1NjVjNjZkNzlmMzlhYThm&ctz=Europe%2FVienna&hl=es

Invitación de Google Calendar: https://www.google.com/calendar/

Recibes este mensaje de cortesía en la dirección  
edubuntu-devel< at >lists.ubuntu.com de la cuenta porque eres uno de los  
asistentes a este evento.

Si deseas dejar de recibir notificaciones para este evento, recházalo. Si  
lo prefieres, solicita una cuenta de Google en  
https://www.google.com/calendar/ y controla la configuración relativa a las  
notificaciones de todo el calendario.

Invitación: Reminder: Edubuntu Meeting Tonight el mié 30 de nov 15:30 - 16:30 (edubuntu-devel< at >lists.ubuntu.com)

David Van Assche — 2011-11-30T14:15:23

Tienes una invitación para el siguiente evento.

Título: Reminder: Edubuntu Meeting Tonight
Edubuntu future
Cuándo: mié 30 de nov 15:30 – 16:30 Viena
Lugar: online
Calendario: edubuntu-devel< at >lists.ubuntu.com
Quién:
     * dvanassche< at >gmail.com- organizador
     * bjarne< at >slxdrift.no
     * jonathan< at >ubuntu.com
     * kaare.nordby< at >slxdrift.no
     * edubuntu-devel< at >lists.ubuntu.com
     * huayra< at >ubuntu.com

Detalles del evento:  
https://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=VIEW&eid=NzdxZzU0M3NyaWlwZGs3Zm9ubGs5bWlvcjQgZWR1YnVudHUtZGV2ZWxAbGlzdHMudWJ1bnR1LmNvbQ&tok=MjAjZHZhbmFzc2NoZUBnbWFpbC5jb20wZmMxODcyOWE0MjMwY2E5ZWIyMThmOGE1NjVjNjZkNzlmMzlhYThm&ctz=Europe%2FVienna&hl=es

Invitación de Google Calendar: https://www.google.com/calendar/

Recibes este mensaje de cortesía en la dirección  
edubuntu-devel< at >lists.ubuntu.com de la cuenta porque eres uno de los  
asistentes a este evento.

Si deseas dejar de recibir notificaciones para este evento, recházalo. Si  
lo prefieres, solicita una cuenta de Google en  
https://www.google.com/calendar/ y controla la configuración relativa a las  
notificaciones de todo el calendario.

Reminder: Edubuntu Meeting Tonight

Jonathan Carter (highvoltage — 2011-11-30T13:17:00

Hi Everyone

Just a reminder of tonight's Edubuntu meeting:

 * Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Edubuntu/Meetings/Agenda
 * Time: 19:00 UTC
 * Network: freenode
 * Channel: #ubuntu-meeting

See you there!

-Jonathan

Meeting Reminder: Wednesday, 30 November 2011

Jonathan Carter (highvoltage — 2011-11-22T15:17:56

Hi Edubuntu Developers

Our next IRC meeting is on Wednesday, 30 November 2011.
 * Time: 19:00 UTC
 * Wiki page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Edubuntu/Meetings/Agenda
 * IRC network: freenode: irc.freenode.net
 * Channel: #ubuntu-meeting

Edubuntu IRC meetings takes place on the last Wednesday of every month.
If you'd like to add a topic, please do so on the wiki page.

Have a good day!

-Jonathan

Edubuntu 11.10 has been released!

Stéphane Graber — 2011-10-13T13:22:30

The Edubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Edubuntu 11.10!

This release brings a refreshed desktop environment based on Ubuntu's
Unity while still offering you easy access to the familiar classic Gnome
environment (through the Gnome fallback mode).

As usual, Edubuntu inherits most of the changes that occur in Ubuntu.
Additionally, this release brings you:
 - New updated version of LTSP Live, translated in multiple languages
 - Updated installer featuring translations in over 25 languages
 - A new version of Gobby, the collaborative text editor, now at version 0.5
 - The latest and greatest version 2 of Gbrainy.
 - A refreshed user interface, now based on Unity by default and
featuring a different icon theme and wallpaper.
 - Support for OEM installations of Edubuntu

To learn more about what's new Ubuntu 11.10, you can read the official
release notes at: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes

The DVD image (also usable as a USB image) is downloadable at:
http://www.edubuntu.org/download

Installation instructions are available at:
http://www.edubuntu.org/documentation/11.10/installation-guide

And if you just want to see what it looks like, we have screenshots
available at: http://www.edubuntu.org/screenshots

As usual, if you want to try it out, but can't wait for your download to
finish, try it out online on Edubuntu WebLive:
http://www.edubuntu.org/weblive

If you already have an Ubuntu or derivative system installed, you can
simply install any additional Edubuntu packages that you would like to use.
Users of Edubuntu 11.04 can also upgrade directly to 11.10, please note
that in all cases you'll get Unity as your new interface, you'll need to
select Gnome fallback from the login screen after reboot if you want a
classic Gnome interface.

This release will be supported for 18 months.

Known issues:
 - Unfortunately, due to Gnome  upstream transitioning to gsettings and
gtk3, we weren't able to include  Gnome Nanny, Sabayon and Pessulus in
this release.
 - Our advanced package selection tool may not appear for users
installing in some languages, in such case, all the Edubuntu packages
will get installed and you'll then need to remove these you don't want
after rebooting to your installed system.
 - When using the Gnome fallback mode, removing a panel will result in a
crash message on the first attempt. After that it works fine.

We all hope you'll enjoy this release!