Roadmap for the ?LinEx convergence into DebianEdu project
Important info:Up to now, the convergence will be done only with the educational installation of ?LinEx in the primary and secondary schools, not for other installations of ?LinEx (health, small business, etc.)
[http://developer.skolelinux.no/design/services-linex.html Some info about the main differences between a DebianEdu school and a ?LinEx school]
Points to consider:
* Main problem: Network and services configuration: Current Debian-Edu config is not valid to be used in ?LinEx schools. In Extremadura all the schools are inside an intranet, and every pc has its own and predetermined ip, so some kind of "linex" mode or "expert" mode should be set up in the installer avoiding the default 10.0.0.x network config.
* Management tools: Currently at linex we're using
-> puppet instead of cfengine (available in etch and later) -> ocs-inventory instead of site-summary (http://packages.debian.org/sid/ocsinventory-agent) -> controlaula instead of italc (not available in debian) -> and some other corporative tools as glpi (available in etch and later) and ocs server (http://packages.debian.org/lenny/ocsinventory-server) -> question from h01ger: are those packages free as in DFSG or at least free as in nonfree? I assume you have packages available Only controlaula is not in Debian and it's gpl'ed. I'll put it into Debian as soon as the new version is finished.
* Scale problems: Due to the big size of Extremadura networks, some utils have shown they're useless in such environments. Munin is a good example of these problems, but also openldap together with libnss-ldap is a non-satisfactory solution.
-> question from h01ger: why is munin and openldap unusable?: -> answer: Munin doesn't scale: since around 100 machines connecting the server is down. Openldap has a lot of problems when 300 or more users are using it to authenticate. It's not an openldap issue, but a libnss-ldap behaviour: it opens and keep open a lot of connections per user for the whole session.
* Repositories: In a perfect world everything should be in the Debian repository. Currently that would be hard because of:
-> Packages that use or depends on Squeak
-> Packages that use or depends on Flash
-> Packages that use or depends on Java (h01ger: shouldnt that be fine in lenny?)
-> Packages with spanish documentation, tutorials or training courses that have restrictive licenses.
* DebianEdu/PackagesOnlyInLinex: Packages currently only in ?LinEx repositories that could go to Debian.
* Different packages to do the same tasks in ?LinEx and DebianEdu
* Different setups: Last september, in Extremadura we have begun to use the same ldap and squid configuration Debian-Edu has. There are a couple of differences: for samba we needed to remove all the samba stuff as we don't use it. For squid we have added some configurations because we don't want users to use IE to browse the web (it's a trojans and viruses network blocker), firefox or opear are mandatory on windows, but windows-update sites has to be available for IE.
* Incorporation of Gnome to DebianEdu
Tasks to work on:
* Migrate services in Extremadura schools: (Sep 2007 already migrated squid & ldap services: some problems had to be fixed and some changes in the config files needed to be done: at clients replace at /etc/libnss-ldap.conf "bind_policy soft" by "bind_policy hard", at server added a "idletimeout 30" option to /etc/ldap/slapd.conf) * ITP and packaging of all the packages that are in ?LinEx but not in Debian:
- pysycache already in Debian ["http://packages.debian.org/lenny/pysycache"]
* Modifications to the Debian Installer:
- - an expert mode to choose IP for the servers and services - ¿cosmetic changes?
* Decide about the different tools, with these options:
- - Choose the current Linex tool - Choose the current Debian Edu tool - Include both tools
* Similar desktop appearance in kde and gnome * Spanish documentation and web sites * Lenny roadmap for Debian Edu * etc.