What version of Edubuntu will you run this fall, and why?

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi,

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008, john wrote:

> Thanks for taking the time to reply. The two biggest fixes for us were:
>
> (1)  We had to put in place was a script that would clean up left over
> users processes. The script is based on Matt Oquist's Xterminator
> script, but its called by the user from /etc/profile (I think Matt has
> a different way of doing this). At the start of the session the script
> spawns a daemon that watches the user processes, when that user logs
> off, the daemon makes sure that all of the users left over processes
> are cleaned up, then it kills itself. Since we use LTSP in classrooms
> and libraries, a substantial part of our 1000 students user base may
> check in on any given day.  This version of the Xterminator script has
> helped control creeping memory usage that was really adding up for us.
> I sent our fixes back to Matt a couple months ago, I don't know if he
> plans to release this again as a .deb or not.  In fact we done some
> work since I sent him stuff so I guess I owe him another update.

Will the script need major changes to work on hardy?

> (2) The default OpenOffice setup needed major tweaks for us to be
> happy with it. We wanted everyone to have their defaults set to M$
> formats, we wanted them to save auto-magically to the correct remote
> drive, and be spared the licensing chat. We also had some weird issues
> surrounding logoff/logon and leftover Openoffice session that the
> Xterminator script rewrite solved for us.

Again, would it be a big deal to port these changes to hardy?

> Other things we did  which took some time to set up were getting
> single source authentication via Active Directory to work seamlessly
> for LTSP users, and using a Linux File server to share student files
> via NFS for LTSP users and SMB for windows and Mac users.

If time permits, you'd definitely want to try getting this working on hardy
before you upgrade.  I'm sure it's still possible, but you might need to
spend a little tweaking the config so you'd want to find that out _before_
you upgrade.

> Although not strictly LTSP related, probably the coolest thing we did
> was moving the student file store from MS AD to Linux, that in turn
> allowed us the NFS/SMB options. This fall we're rolling out "files
> from home" using sftp which was made possible by the move away from MS
> based file storage. We think that we have this set up simply enough
> for middle and high-schoolers to use.  We spent the spring testing
> with a group of  students and making sure we were on top of (we hope)
> the security related issues for the fall.

That sounds very cool.  It would be great if you had time to document this
stuff for the rest of the community.  I guess I would have gone for webdav
over SSL myself, but if you have a nice sftp interface I'm sure that'll
work fine too.  It's all about the interface in the end.

> Good point. I am concerned about security, but I feel like our LTSP
> systems are pretty safe on the LAN. I've also found myself holding off on
> patching the system during the week, even for security stuff, since I am
> paranoid that a fix will break something.  Perhaps this is a bad way to
> proceed. I'd be interested to hear how other folks handle this.

Firefox is starting to get quite big.  Flaws in IE are exploited all the
time so I suspect it's a matter of time before someone starts exploiting
them on Firefox (if it's unpatched).  On the other hand, you're on linux
too, so you have an extra level of obscurity.  You say your SSH is visible
to the net though and I'm not sure if the recent openssl fix went into
feisty (search for the package openssh-blacklist).  There have been worms
doing the rounds on weak passwords in ssh for a year or two now so one
which exploits weak keys is probably going to make an appearance soon.

Do your students have strong passwords?  I presume not -- something to
watch out for if you have ssh exposed to the 'net.  If you need more info,
I can flesh this out.

> > 3. Firefox 3, while still slightly unstable, is really quite a good
> >   improvement both in terms of the user and the admin (its ram usage is
> >   substantially lower on both the thin client and the server).
> I am interested to hear this. Firefox is a terrible hog it's probably
> the biggest offender out there for us.
> Right now I am running edubuntu Hardy/ Firefox 3 on my workstation via
> a ntavo 6030 tc, here's what top tells me:
> 
>  8183 john      20   0  380m 220m  33m R    4 10.9 108:54.42 firefox

One of the issues is the X server's RAM usage, but even so I would have
expected firefox v3 (with all the same urls open) to be lower footprint.
Perhaps not.  Different pages do seem to vary radically.

> I think this is still pretty high. And I am not trying to watch flash
> video like the kids are. So I am not sure if I see a memory savings
> here for FF3. I'd be interested to hear your response.

I haven't made any scientific tests.  Perhaps I should if I'm going to echo
these claims of a leaner firefox :-)

> Opera seems to have a lot smaller footprint, with a bunch of windows
> open here's what top says:
> 
> 22767 john      20   0  169m  86m  18m S    0  4.3   0:13.15 opera

Again, it varies wildly depending on the number of tabs and what pages you
have open, but you're right opera does seem a lot leaner.

> Also Opera is WAY more configurable. We can do all kinds of things
> globally with Opera that we can't seem to do with firefox. However I
> believe Opera is non-GPL software.

A lot of configuration stuff in firefox is only available through the
windows registry lookalike that is "about:config".  It's pretty
configurable, though I couldn't claim it's more or as much as opera.
Whether to use or avoid non-GPL stuff is a personal choice.  As proprietary
software goes, opera would be one of the more respected for a lot of
reasons (not least of which that they pioneered most of the best features
firefox has and on linux when it was not so fashionable).

> > 4. The latest OpenOffice version will be best at opening the new Microsoft
> >   Office formats (actually I think you need an external filter for this so
> >   maybe not?)
> 
> Yeah, I think that .docx is support under the version of OO that ships
> with Hardy.

I think you need an add-on to get it to work well:

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/ubuntu-tip-how-to-openview-docx-files-in-openoffice.html
http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:Fsopa0LuY2gJ:www.ubuntugeek.com/ubuntu-tip-how-to-openview-docx-files-in-openoffice.html+ubuntu+hardy+docx&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2

Sadly, the add-on doesn't seem to be in hardy, but is fairly easy to
install.  Perhaps it would also work with the openoffice version in feisty,
I'm not sure.

> Good point. Fiesty is not an LTS version, so that may be a compelling
> reason. One possible downside to LTS releases is that I am not clear
> that Open Office is back-ported to them. I wasn't able to find it just
> now as I looked through the previous LTS release. Maybe you know the
> answer to this?

I don't know if you'd get a guarantee of backports, but I wouldn't see that
as a reason to stay 2 versions older than the LTS :-)

You can always decide there's a compelling reason to move to Intrepid, but
not without going via Hardy!

> Thanks again for taking the time to share your approach. I really appreciate it.

Not at all.  We all learn from these conversations.  I certainly don't
consider I know the right answer or even that there is one single right
answer so thanks for your perspectives also.   It sounds like you're a
substantially bigger setup than our school, which does inevitably lead to
some more conservatism.

Gavin