My Negative Gutsy Experience

[R. Scott Belford]

Denis Melnikov wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm a volunteer to install LTSP at my children's school.
> I'm not a newbie and supposed my skill sufficient to
> deploy Linux in a small school net.
> 
> First, I'd installed Feisty, it happened this spring.
> Two things were striking upon installation, very slow
> thin client booting (3-5 min.), and transparent mounting
> of local devices (CDs, floppies, USB keys) - great!
> Unfortunately the server wasn't put into operation.
> 
> I've been back to the server at the moment of Gutsy release.
> So I decided to upgrade Feisty to Gutsy, first, to speed
> up client booting, and second, to test upgrade
> possibility. Upgrade was successful and booting now
> takes 1 min - great! But this is the end of our success
> story.

Aloha Denis

I admire your diligence, and I feel your pain.  I'd like to help to the 
best of my abilities.  Should you decide to downgrade to Feisty, then 
you will find that there are tested workarounds to some of your 
slow-booting issues.  There are some reasonably monumental improvements 
with Gutsy, but there are also differences.  I, too, have been suffering 
through the differences.

> 
> 1) Local devices stopped mounting.
> Rarely a floppy icon appears at some user's desktop.
> Rarely an USBkey or CD mounts. But this happens without
> any relationship with username or computer. The fact is
> that only one user have an access to local devices at
> a time. Of course, all users are allowed to mount local
> devices.
> 

Have you had a chance, yet, to learn that lts.conf should be in 
/var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/i386/ ?

Also, a newly installed Gutsy server will have this directory

/opt/ltsp/i386/usr/share/doc/ltsp-client-core/examples/

that has good lts.conf examples and descriptions.  Mine currently looks 
like this (note that I specify local devices)

[default]
     X_COLOR_DEPTH=16
     LDM_DIRECTX=True
     X_MODE_0=1024x768
     LOCALDEV=True
     SOUND=True
     NBD_SWAP=True
     SYSLOG_HOST=server


> 2) We need Russian (localization, fonts, layout).
> After installing appropriate packages user need to
> change desired language before EACH logon.
> How to make the language default? For one user and
> for all users?
> Can I leave desktop English, and change locale only?
> When I change language Gnome asks me to rename folders
> in my home - Media, Music, etc. - into Russian.
> If I forget to select language I'm asked to rename
> them back. 'Don't ask me again' checkbox has no role.
> How to make keyboard layout switch default for all?

Don't know enough

> 
> 3) How to make proxy settings in Firefox default for all?

more /etc/firefox/pref/firefox.js
// This is the Debian specific preferences file for Mozilla Firefox
// You can make any change in here, it is the purpose of this file.
// You can, with this file and all files present in the
// /etc/firefox/pref directory, override any preference that is
// present in /usr/lib/firefox/defaults/pref directory.
// While your changes will be kept on upgrade if you modify files in
// /etc/firefox/pref, please note that they won't be kept if you
// do them in /usr/lib/firefox/defaults/pref.


> 
> 4) Sound works from time to time. In Flash clips it
> doesn't work at all. In control panel sound works.
> And sound icon in righthand upper corner always
> looks as 'mute'.

This has been just recently solved on this list in other threads.  The 
question that lead to the answer was

Do you have libflashsupport installed?


> 
> 5) One user's desktop background have disappeared after
> ordinary logon. In this user's session gnome-panel started
> to fail loading modules. When he tried to add Switch-user
> module to the panel, he got the same failure message.
> By the way, how to setup default (again 'default')
> collection of panel modules, i.e. switch-user,
> keyboard-layout, etc.?

Sabayon would fix this, I believe.

> 
> 6) Server downloads and installs updates and display
> an icon asking to reboot after that. But reboot menu
> at client reboots the client only. To reboot the server
> I have to 'shutdown -r now' at command prompt. Clients
> should get a message that allow them to finish their
> work. But alas, they are forcibly logged off.

This is probably a good thing.  I consider it a bonus that clients 
reboot themselves, not the server.

> 
> 7) When one right-click inside entry field at login
> screen, the screen blanks and login reappears in several
> seconds (X restarts?).

This, I believe, is a function of the encrypted login session.  If you 
mistype your username or password, the screen resets itself.  It's 
buggy, but it works.

> 
> After all the troubles I couldn't prove Linux to be the
> good choice if needed. Whether IT teacher wasn't
> interested in it.
> Unfortunately, I have to establish Edubuntu Gutsy
> is far far away from system ready for non-IT admins.

The teacher that I have been helping made the same statement.  That is 
what the community is for.  I will have a good post-install cookbook put 
together soon enough, and newcomers interested in trying this out will 
have a good guide that will not require going to a terminal.

> 
> Denis
> 
> P.S. Now I'll try to install clean Gutsy. If troubles
> stay I'll downgrade to Feisty.
> 

Keep us posted, and keep on keepin` on, Denis.

--scott