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 * Is it possible to join the domain with Windows XP/2K machines? (Me (jever) doesn't get it working)
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  * documentation of gosa   * documentation of gosa (jever is working on it, unfortunatly in German)

Status for Debian Edu based on Squeeze

Gosa status

Gosa works as documented, the only missing feature is the netgroups plugin:

The netgroups plugin is not yet installed by default. 
Installation steps:

> aptitude install subversion
> svn co https://oss.gonicus.de/repositories/gosa-contrib/netgroups/trunk netgroups
> cd netgroups/
> update-gosa install plugin.dsc
> /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Issues to test

(Please don't add the status of those tests here, do that below. This list should cover a generic list of issues to test.)

/!\ FIXME: the following instructions what to test include 2 things which should bemoved to the manual, please a bug to be filled. Please help+fix this!

  • Do LTSP clients boot?
  • Does the mail system work?
  • Does the creation of users work properly? Do they get a welcome-email?
  • Do diskless workstations work, allowing users to log in and use their applications.
  • How do KDE now handle LTSP local devices (USB memory sticks) inserted on the client? A popup should show up for the user only when devices on the thin client in use is inserted, and not when a memory stick is inserted on the thin client server. USB sticks do not work on thin clients.
  • Can we adjust the KDE menu to replace the default favorite applications? Yes, done by editing debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu/common/share/config/kickoffrc.
  • Can we adjust the KDE menu to start extra applets? Yes, this is done by adding .desktop files in autostart directories, for example in /etc/xdg/autostart/.
  • Which Iceweasel multimedia plugin work with most sites? The one we used for Lenny is removed in Squeeze. The most promising is gecho-mediaplayer.
  • Is it possible to join the domain with Windows XP/2K machines? (Me (jever) doesn't get it working)

Issues to fix

Critical

  • missing ldap admin is the big blocker
    • we decided on gosa, whats left to do?
      • lacks support for editing netgroups (BTS 602859)

        • Mike is working on this
      • and is unable to configure our dhcp and dns servers (BTS 602863)

    • documentation of gosa (jever is working on it, unfortunatly in German)
      • editing users
      • editing user groups
      • editing machines, dns, dhcp + samba
      • editing machine groups

Important

  • Iceweasel default page is not http://www/. - which is not critical by itself, but indicates our mechanism to set it, is broken, which might have severe other effects.

  • Fix as many FIXMEs in the Manual as possible

  • no autobuilders for amd64 and powerpc.
  • The same set of packages are not installed when using DVD and PXE installation (probably also for netinst installations but this is not tested). Easy to spot by looking in the System KDE menu.
  • We need to use the new pam-config stuff instead of replacing the files in /etc/pam.d/. Might need pam-group support in pam-auth-update (BTS 370346) Workaround implemented in debian-edu-config by adding /usr/share/pam-config/edu-group.

  • On the first login as root, KDE report about old kde3 configuration that need to be converted to kde4 configuration on first time login. First time users should not get such bogus message. (BTS 582568)

  • Installer hangs at the end after accepting the finish-install message when installing in a virtual kvm machine on Lenny. There is a kernel oops within the installer. Please file a bug in the Debian BTS.
  • Installation in a network where the ldap DNS name is already defines breaks the generation and/or the distribution of the LDAP SSL certificate. LDAP connections using TLS do not work. (BTS 570773)

Nice to have

  • Some init.d scripts are not using the output functions in /lib/lsb/init-functions, causing inconsistent output during boot (and no message displayed when running usplash in non-quiet mode): courier-imap-ssl, slapd, autofs5 (autofs), xfs, kdm.

  • missing stuff from ?DebianEdu/ChangesForLTSPinLinex

  • The htpasswd call from cfengine to set a random Nagios password do not work. htpasswd show usage info instead of setting the password. (not valid anoymore... static default passwd is used?, please recheck)

Fixed issues

  • Several error messages are reported from update-alternatives called by openssh-server and heirloom-mailx in the installation log. This leads to bogus error reports from the self testing (BTS 579287, BTS 579285)

  • The grub background image is not activated any more. (BTS 570786)

  • The multimedia plugin for Iceweasel is no longer installed, making all non-flash based video and audio fail to work. (BTS 570785)

  • PXE installer ask for mirror to use even when the default choices work just fine. The preseeding do not seem to work. (BTS 570783)

  • d-i-bootimages package missing in sid (BTS 570767)

  • Celestia is missing norwegian translation of the GUI and demo (BTS 570619 fixes a part of this)

  • KDM do not understand the kdm artwork provided by debian-edu-artwork and refuses to start (BTS 570369)

  • The fetch-ldap-cert init.d script should start after slapd, not after apache. It connects to the ldaps port, not https. The script header should be fixed. (BTS 566973)

  • When installing using norwegian langauge, a question about which (nb/nn) wordlist to use is asked. This should be preseeded if possible. (BTS 566912)

  • hwdetect warn that the file /etc/modprobe.d/debian-edu-install need to end with .conf to be read in the future. This should be fixed. (done)
  • The pdns-recursor scripts start to early in the boot (BTS 566877). Worked around with insserv override in debian-edu-config but should be fixed in pdns instead.

  • Some applications show up in strange places in the KDE menu and should be moved; qsynth (566730), score-reading-trainer(566725), noteedit (566728).

  • The munin cron job complain with email to root about /var/www/munin/ not being available. BTS bug 567168 in sitesummary fixed in svn and unstable, should enter testing 2010-02-16.

  • Samba fail to start on a main-server. (BTS 570775)

  • NFS exports do not seem to work when installing main-server+thin-client-server. The problem is that portmap only allow connections from localhost, and this can be changed using preseeding. There is work in Debian to repace portmap with rpcbind. We might want to do the same. (BTS 570776)

  • Nagios fail to start at first boot because the generated configuration isn't ready yet (sitesummary related?)
  • Is automount support missing? The autofs-ldap package is not installed, at least. Perhaps it changed name to autofs5-ldap? (BTS 570782)

  • Buttons in KDM theme do not work (BTS ). KDM configuration file have moved from /etc/kde3/ to /etc/kde4/, and the settings we want are no longer applied.

  • Default partition sizes are too small for workstation+thin-client-server installation (/opt, /var/ and /usr/ are too full). The cause is probably that all recommended packages are installed, and this require more space. (BTS 570772)

  • USB memory sticks do not work on LTSP thin clients.
  • libnss-ldapd have been split in two, and our preseeding need to preseed the nslcd package instead. Probably want to replace libpam-ldap with libpam-ldapd as well. (BTS 570781)

  • The Apache configuration related to munin was incorrect, causing http://www/munin/ to show error about non-existing page.

  • USB memory sticks did not work on LTSP thin clients. Ensuring ltsp users had group membership in fuse during login solved this.
  • First time KDE users are not prompted for KDE3 to KDE4 config file migrations anymore. BTS 570784)

Translation status

We should make sure all the programs listed on http://www.slx.no/en/take-a-tour are available on our most used languages. Here is a summary of the current status:

Program name

Norwegian Bokmål

Norwegian Nynorsk

German

Spanish

Traditional Chinese

French

Iceweasel

OK

OK

OK

?

OK

OK

GCompris

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

KTouch

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

KAlgebra

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

Kig

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

Kgeography

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

Celestia

Missing

Missing

partial

?

?

OK

Stopmotion

OK

Missing

OK

?

?

OK

Scribus NG

Partly

Missing

OK

?

?

OK

Gimp

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

Digikam

OK

Missing

OK

?

?

Partly

Kino

OK

Missing

OK

?

?

Partly

Blender

Missing

Missing

Missing

?

?

?

Inkscape

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

Rosegarden

Missing

Missing

OK

?

?

OK

Audacity

OK

Missing

OK

?

?

OK

Hydrogen

Missing

Missing

OK

?

?

OK

OpenOffice.org Writer

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

OpenOffice.org Calc

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

OpenOffice.org Impress

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

OpenOffice.org Draw

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

OpenOffice.org Base

OK

OK

OK

?

?

OK

Duplicate targets

It is a goal to only provide the best application for a given task, and avoid several applications for the same tasks. Here is a list of duplicates currently being installed.

video player

Both kaffeine, mplayer, gnome-mplayer and dragonplayer is installed and show up in the KDE menu Multimedia. mplayer is a dependency of gnome-mplayer, which in turn is a dependency of gecko-mediaplayer used by iceweasel for inline video playing and in our task list. dragonplayer is a dependency of kde-standard, which is recommended by kdebase, which is in our task list. kaffine is recommended by education-desktop-other in our task list.

Improvement 2010-07-30: Made video player selection depend on desktop type. Set it to dragonplayer for KDE and totem for Gnome/LXDE. Kaffeine is no longer installed by default. Still several players because geckos-mediaplayer pull in gnome-mplayer and mplayer.

video editor

both kino and kdenlive is installed and show up in the KDE menu Multimedia. Both are recommended by education-desktop-other in our task list.

package manager

Both adept and synaptic is installed and show up in the KDE menu under System. adept | synaptic is recommended by education-desktop-other and pulled in that way, while synaptic is recommended by system-config-printer, which is recommended by printer-applet, which is in our task list.

Improvement 2010-07-30: Changed our tasks to install synaptic by default, and hope this will cause adept to not be installed.

LDAP viewer and editor

Both luma and jxplorer is installed. Both are in our task lists.

Scanner control

There are two scanner applications in the KDE Graphics menu. One is called acquireimages from the kipi-plugins package recommended by the education-desktop-kde package in our task lists. The other is skanlite recommended by education-desktop-other in our task list.

PDF and Postscript viewer

Both gv and okular is installed and showing up in the KDE graphics menu. okular is a dependency of kde-standard in our task lists. gv is a dependency of maxima which is a dependency of wxmaxima which is in our task lists.

PAM is set up to use both LDAP and Kerberos

Both libpam-ldapd and libpam-krb5 is installed. libpam-krb5 is recommended by education-networking and in our task list, while libpam-ldapd is recommended by nslcd, which is a dependency of libnss-ldapd, which is in our task lists.

A bug against nslcd (591773)) is reported to ask for the recommend from nslcd to libpam-ldapd to be changed.

Improvement 2010-08-09: Added cfengine rule to purge libpam-ldapd after tasksel is done installing packages, which solve the problem for us.

Mathematical function plotter

At least three different function plotters are installed by default. grace is recommended by education-mathematics, kmplot is a dependency of kdeedu which is recommended by education-desktop-kde, and gnuplot is recommended by education-mathematics.

Mathematical geometry viewers and plotters

Also some geometry viewers with similar functionality as plotters mentioned above are installed by default. A very subjective review (Bjarne Nielsen, 2010-12-04):

?GeoGebra: ?LooGeoGebra is free and multi-platform dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that joins geometry, algebra, tables, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package. Looks intuitive and useful.

Dr Geo: Looks as it wants to do the same as ?GeoGebra, but less intuitive.

Geomview: Geomview is an interactive 3D viewing program for Unix. Geomview lets you view and manipulate three-dimensional objects: you use the mouse to rotate, translate, zoom in and out, and so on. Seems to be able to do some advanced stuff, but not very intuitive, and not very nice gui. Maybe it should be in another category than mathematics?

Grace: Grace is a WYSIWYG 2D plotting tool for the X Window System and M*tif, successor of ACE/gr (Xmgr). ?GeoGebra and Kig looks nicer and seems to do mostly the same.

?GraphThing: Does not seem very useful to me, compared with the others... No updates since 2006.

Kig: It is meant as a better replacement for such free programs as KGeo, KSeg and Dr. Geo and commercial programs like Cabri.

Cantor: Cantor is an application that lets you use your favorite mathematical applications from within a nice KDE-integrated Worksheet Interface. It offers assistant dialogs for common tasks and allows you to share your worksheets with others. Four backends are curently available: Sage, Maxima, R and KAlgebra. Someone with more knowledge will have to review this, but KAlgebra seem to be the only "backend" that is installed by default.

?GraphMonkey: Plotting tool. Simple gui, but works ok.

KMplot: Plotting tool, intuitive and useful.

KAlgebra: Installed, but not in the menu?

IMHO ?GraphThing, Grace, Dr Geo, ?GraphMonkey and possibly Geomview could be removed. If Cantor is kept, maybe adding r-base could be useful.

Chemistry software

GPeriodic and Kalzium are similar, but Kalzium looks nicer.

Chemtool, XDrawChem, ?EasyChem and GChemPaintm, Ghemical are pretty similar. GChemPaint

?PyMol is probably a bit advanced for most schools, GDIS Molecule Modeller is maybe more relevant and Viewmol probably does about the same, but someone more skilled should maybe have a look.

Kalzium, GChemPaint and GDIS are maybe the ones to keep.

Other pedagogical software

?PySyCache does not seem to have anything you cant do in GCompris.