Apps hanging around.

[R. Scott Belford]

On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 10:34 AM, Luis Montes <monteslu at cox.net> wrote:
>
>
>>  Do you have some more info on this? The only watchdog app i can find is
> for restarting the box.
>
> Luis
>
>
This was addressed in my 'Edubuntu  - A Released Debacle and a Practice in
Failure' posting last year.  It appears that the lingering user issue
remains.  See below for the link

from 12-11-2007
Lingering Users
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-users/2007-November/002716.html
The average teacher will not be able to fix this

Dennis Melnikov also noted that
"Gnome suffers from multiple user's logins as well as Firefox. There is
'Disable multiple logins for a single user' checkbox in Login Window
Preferences, but it doesn't work. Gnome-watchdog is a great tool but it's a
workaround.  The bug (#83835) was reported 2002-06-01 - FIVE years ago!
I've posted a recent bug in 2007-12-04 (
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=501543) - no reply, no
assignment."

I have not touched 8.04 yet.  The following were other gotchas for 7.10 that
may or may not have been addressed with 8.04.  Maybe some of this will help
for those using thin clients....

Slow Open Office
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-users/2007-November/002716.html
The average teacher will not know to look for this

Thin Client Manager does not work
It worked with 7.04, and teachers depend on it quickly. Yes, I know
that there is a workaround to install TT, but, if our standard is what
can an average teacher do, this is too much. Open a command line, and
you lose half the potential audience.

IP-forwarding
There seems to be uncertainty, conflicting information, and a possible
bug with sysctl.conf
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-users/2007-December/002907.html

No lts.conf file
The LTSP has always worked with most hardware, but it often takes a
tweaked lts.conf file. For there not to be a lts.conf file addressing a
common denominator of our minimally recommended hardware is buggy. A
default of 32 bits for color seems a mistake. Part of the evolution of
the K12ltsp is its well-modified lts.conf file. Asking a teacher not
only to modify one but also to create one is a bit intense.

Amd64 with i386 clients
Several threads have gone unresolved on this. A few examples of success
have been observed. The variable seems to be the speed of the clients.


If you are still reading, I can tell you that I went to great extent to
inform all key Canonical employees, both at IBM's Linuxworld reception a the
W, and at the Moscone in San Francisco, that key opportunities for market
gain were lost last year with the release and management of Edubuntu 7.10.
I am not a troll - I am a social entrepreneur with relationships with our
State Universities, our Department of Education, and our City and County,
all of whom host ubuntu or edubuntu labs donated by our charitable
non-profit.  Many, many people turned to me with 7.10 and said WTF - fix it,
linuxguy!

I appreciate the relationship between Canonical and the community.  It is
admirable.  Seeing that Mark Shuttleworth made an appearance at Debconf is
demonstrative of the commitment between Canonical and the Community.

I am concerned that paid Canonical employees are becoming enraptured with
the idea that "we own the Desktop" and are forgetting that Apple and MS have
historically targeted education to build their customer base.  The flippant
comments I received from key employees at Linuxworld were not encouraging.
I provided them critical, real-world, market feedback from a
well-established 501(c)(3) with strong civic and business relationships in
America's 50th State.

As I write I am rebuilding the 1.7 TB HOSEF mirror hosted at UH, and the
first two distros I began to rsync are Ubuntu and Debian.  Unfortunately, as
I write I am still waiting to hear from the Canonical employees I addressed
at Linuxworld.  As absurd as this seems, I was told that no one from their
support team follows this list, but, if I wanted to address this issue with
Canonical, then I should blog or post about it.  This is what I am now
doing.

Understanding from discussions at IBM's W reception that Canonical was
looking to make inroads in the States, I took action.  I informed Canonical
that I had functioning computer labs running Ubuntu in our City and County
Parks' recreation centers, functioning computer labs running Ubuntu in our
DOE schools, functioning computer labs running Ubuntu at the Boys and Girls
Clubs, functioning computer stations running Ubuntu in Isabela and San
Manuel in the Philippines, in Western and American Samoa, and at an
orphanage and shelter in Cambodia.  After visiting with two particular
employees at the Linux Picnic in Sunnyvale the Saturday following
LInuxworld, I arranged meetings with Canonical to meet with our University's
CIO, our City's CIO, the head of education outreach for our community
colleges, and our DOE.

To date - I have arranged these high level meetings but have not heard back
from the Canonical employee who wanted me to do this so that he could have a
good start in Hawaii's business climate.  My only other tactic is to contact
Barton George of Sun, who was at Debconf with Mark Shuttleworth, and see if
he can help.  Since I hosted both Barton and Richard Stallman as part of our
annual FOSS conference in Hawaii last year, I am hoping that he can
influence Canonical's valuation of its Edubuntu branch.  There are, after
all, some serious sales Government sales for Sun in all this.

I have to believe that someone interested in the long-term growth of
Canonical, the transformational effect from getting Ubuntu's tools into the
K-12 climate, and fostering future users, would take a strategic look at the
management of Edubuntu and say TIME OUT.  There is tremendous opportunity
being left on the table.  Canonical cannot plan, budget, and execute the
kind of success that the 'community' can achieve, but it is up to them to
follow up and build upon it if they wish to 'own the desktop.'

Three years ago I partnered Novell with our DOE and University to provide
the first Linux+ curricula for a State DOE and to expand the certification
offers at our Community Colleges.  There are few communities as mature and
driven as the one HOSEF has catalyzed in Hawaii.  I believe I epitomize the
kind of community Canonical employees can grow upon.  I don't understand how
to close this loop more effectively.  I officially offer myself to be your
North American education Catalyst.

With Respect

--scott
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-users/attachments/20080824/e930f3be/attachment-0001.htm