New version of Karoshi

linuxgirlie linuxgirlie at gmail.com
Tue Feb 21 09:28:30 UTC 2006


ok, here goes:

In the UK the majority of schools run a system called RM Community Connect 3
or CC3 (www.rm.com), CC3 is a piece of software that runs on top of a fully
installed Microsoft Windows server, which at the moment I think they are
pushing Server 03. CC3 allows school administrators to do things such as add
users, create windows profiles, change passwords, and the majority of
everyday network managing things that schools need. Now if you where a
Windows sys-admin you could do all that without another layer but in schools
technicians are paid a lot less than there business counterparts and quite
often are the teacher also, so they need this layer to be able to run a
working network.

Before we started Karoshi we would put Linux in schools and as soon as we
left they would change back to windows, we decided that what Linux needed
was an 'RM CC3' so that teachers in school wouldn't have to worry about
consoles, tar files and Linux configuration.

So we started the project with that idea in mind, we made it as easy as
possible, for example using KDE over Gnome (as it's similar to XP-ish
style), we have taken away all need of knowledge of Linux, for example on
the web server we install the school Moodle, (we call it the online
classroom to make things easier) so first when you put the karoshi cd in it
configures your web server for you installing all necessary packages to run
a web page. (This is the same for all servers the PDC for example will
install all the needed software for it to become a PDC) Once the server is
'setup' it will ask you if you want to install for example the online
classroom. If you say yes, it will copy the files to the correct place,
populate the database and most obviously make sure you have the correct
software installed and if not install it. Once this is done you get some
nice icons on the desktop so that you can 'manage' the server, icons can be
anything from a link to the admin page of Moodle, to a link that activates
your wake on LAN in a specified computer room.

Once we had all the features that RM CC3 provide we decided to move on and
really go full force with Open Source, so started to provide features such
as a help desk (using help centre live), web-based email (using
squirrelmail) and more, all was available to schools just by a single click
of a button, basically we have had a full server setup installed by trainee
teachers up and running within a day...including the installation of Linux,
something none of them had done before.

So maybe a simple way of putting it is this, Karoshi is a set of scripts
with nice GUI front end that allows non-experienced administrators to
install, configure and run a Linux network without getting in to deep.

Let me know if you have anymore questions, I may of wandered off during that
and I have a funny feeling that I still may not of explained it enough!

Thanks,

Jo
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