Say Hi to the Edubuntu Menu Editor

Back at UDS in Dallas, TX we decided that one of the focus for Edubuntu in Lucid would be to to make menu customization a lot easier.

So we wrote a specification covering most use cases for menu customization, editing and sharing.

After a few months of work, mostly done by my colleague at Revolution Linux, Marc Gariepy, we now have a working tool, that’s in Edubuntu’s default installation.

You can install it on a regular Lucid desktop by doing: sudo apt-get install edubuntu-menueditor
A PPA is also available here (Lucid and Karmic).

Or download Edubuntu’s latest daily build here.

It’ll install you two different tools:

  • The menu editor itself in Applications => System Tools => Menueditor
  • The Profile manager in System => Administration => Profile manager

The first can be run by any user, it shows you a window like this one:

menueditor-main

There you can create new sub-menus, copy items in them and hide items from the existing menu. Then save it (as a .tar.gz archive).

With this archive, you can either share it with your friends/colleagues/general community or directly start the Profile manager to import it and assign it to a group.
On login, all users in that group will see that new menu you assigned them.

menueditor-profile

As every new open source projects, it’s not bug free, so if you find a bug or have suggestions, please go to Launchpad and report them here.

Now it’s your turn to start creating and sharing your menus for your region/country/school system or for your company.
And if you aren’t using Ubuntu in English, you can go on Launchpad and help us by translating it to your language !

NOTE: It’s currently “branded” as Edubuntu-specific, that’s done because it’s initially an Edubuntu project but it’ll work with every xdg-based menu (that’s why the Lauchpad project is called “menueditor”).

Posted in Edubuntu, Planet Revolution-Linux, Planet Ubuntu | 3 Comments

The new LTSP-Cluster website’s officially out

The LTSP-Cluster project is proud to announce that its website is now on-line.

LTSP-Cluster is a project to extend LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) with the required components for a large scale deployment. It makes it easy to deploy and manage thousands of thin clients connecting to a cluster of Linux or Windows application servers.

website

The LTSP-Cluster team works very closely with the main LTSP project so the required hooks are included directly in stock LTSP. On top of that, the required load-balancing components, various daemons and a web interface have been developped to add the clustering functionalities.

The LTSP-Cluster packages have been included in Ubuntu in the Karmic development cycle by Jonathan and have already been used for a few large LTSP deployments.

All of these components have been developed by Revolution Linux and integrated with the help of upstream LTSP developers. They are all freely available under a GPLv3+ license.

Existing LTSP users considering to extend their current setup and wanting an easier way to manage it should definitely have a look at it.

People looking for a way to migrate from desktops to a thin client solution for a large network, be that with a Linux desktop or Windows desktop should also check it out.

You can learn more on: https://www.ltsp-cluster.org

If you like it, please Digg it!

Posted in LTSP, Planet Ubuntu | 3 Comments

Last step before LTSP 5.2

ltsp

Tonight I released both LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) 5.1.99 and LDM (LTSP’s display manager) 2.0.54.
Next up will be LTSP 5.2 that will basically be a bugfix release of 5.1.99 that should be rock solid and that we hope we’ll be able to use as a reference in the future.

LTSP 5.1.99 is bringing a lot of changes, optimizations and bug fixes as well as improvements in areas that haven’t been touched for a long time.
Here’s a quick overview:

  • Add Fat client support for Ubuntu (more on that after)
  • General optimization (using shell built-ins when possible, implement caching, improved data parsing, …)
  • Implement nbd-proxy for more stability (developed by Revolution Linux to prevent SQUASHFS errors and properly handle NBD fail-over)
  • Properly save/restore IFS (avoid some bugs that are usually very hard to debug)
  • Implement vendor specific functions in ltsp-build-client
  • Update a lot of ltsp-build-client plugins, sharing more code between Debian and Ubuntu, improving existing common functions
  • Speed up boot process by starting more functions in background and fixing tty/vt detection for flickerless boot

That’s of course not a complete changelog of what happened in 5.1.99, more details can be found in the package changelog or looking at the bzr branch history.

Now, to come back to that Fat client thing, recently, thin clients are getting a lot thicker. What we are now considering as recent thin clients, are actually the exact same hardware as netbooks and these are perfectly capable of running a full desktop.

That Fat client change adds the possibility to do something like:
ltsp-build-client --arch i386 --dist lucid --fat-client --fat-client edubuntu-desktop

And next time you boot, you’ll get the exact same LTSP login screen and will still be logging in against that same LTSP server, only difference, nothing will be running on the server, everything will be running locally. Of course locally means from the NBD image, there’s still no harddisk involved 🙂
Home directory gets mounted over sshfs which will work fine with most applications.

Thanks to both Jonathan Carter and Άλκης Γεωργόπουλος (Alkis Georgopoulos) for making a working LTSP plugin using the few hooks I implemented a while back in LTSP.

Now, as we clearly want LTSP 5.2 to be rock solid, please help us and test LTSP 5.1.99. It can be found in current Lucid and a Karmic backport is available in my PPA (never tried it yet though).
PPA publishing took a lot longer than expected, it should be online by 14:00 UTC on the 26th of January
Bugs can be reported here for Ubuntu-specific ones or here for upstream ones.

We’re usually around in on irc.freenode.net if you want to chat directly with us.

Posted in LTSP, Planet Ubuntu | 4 Comments

Edubuntu wiki day

Wiki day

Following the very successful Bug day we had last week, the Edubuntu project will be having an Edubuntu Wiki day tomorrow.

Wiki reorganization information can be found on this mailing-list post.

As for the Bug day last week, we’ll be discussing on (irc.freenode.net), going through wiki pages, moving them, setting redirections and deleting these that shouldn’t exist anymore.

Jonathan Carter will be coordinating that on IRC, I’ll also be around during the day.

Looking forward to having a clean wiki and discussing with you tomorrow.

Posted in Edubuntu, Planet Ubuntu | Leave a comment

Edubuntu bug day on Tuesday (12nd of January)

On Tuesday the 12nd of January, the Edubuntu project will have its first bug day for the Lucid development cycle.

Edubuntu logo

It’ll be coordinated by Scott Balneaves, our dear LTSP developer, Sabayon developer and most recently Edubuntu council member. The event will take place all day in on irc.freenode.net.

At least Jonathan Carter and I will also be around during that day (as part of our work for Revolution Linux).
We will help these interested in looking for education software bugs in the most recent daily image and confirm/close the various bugs we have on Launchpad.

It’s also a very good opportunity for everyone interested in Edubuntu to come and discuss in .

The announcement from Scott can be found here, bug suggestions can be sent to the Mailing-List.

Looking forward to talking to you in .

Posted in Edubuntu, Planet Ubuntu | Leave a comment