[K12OSN] Running in to an Edubuntu Wall

[R. Scott Belford]

I have been messing with Edubuntu to see how ready it is for some of our 
projects.  We have several teachers wanting to run GRASS and other more 
ambitious applications.  Having the debian repositories available makes 
this more stable.

Everyone seems to have had a much easier time of this than I, and 
documentation is pretty spotty.  There are three main references I 
worked from. (1) is from this list and has Jim's way to work around LDM. 
  (2) is a brief summary of how the install took place for one person in 
20 minutes.  (3) is the Ubuntu how-to, but it references non-existent 
documents for getting thin-clients to run with Edubuntu.

(1) http://www.redhat.com/archives/k12osn/2006-June/msg00345.html

(2) http://www.redhat.com/archives/k12osn/2006-July/msg00279.html

(3) https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ThinClients

My client is a Dell Optiplex Gs, 48mb, PXE NIC.

Issues

1. ebnet and UBF floppies do not boot clients.  They produce the error
"loading 192.168.0.254:/pxelinux.0.......error, not a valid image"
The same clients boot great with a PXE enabled NIC.
2. eth0 has to be configured, and dhcp likely has to be edited
3. Clients that work great with K12LTSP will not work as well with 
Edubuntu.  I had to use VESA emulation for some of my workhorses.
4. This is hardly the place just to cry about problems.  At the end I 
have a proposed 'fix.'

Synopsis

Installation is pretty but not intuitive.  Using an Edubuntu Install 
ISO, I chose to install to the hard drive.  It is not possible to type 
'server' at the prompt as directions (2) indicate.

The one decision to make during the install is network configuration. 
You will not be prompted to set up your LAN.  You will be asked to 
configure your PRIMARY network interface.  This is what you use to 
connect to your WAN.  (Note, Debian and RedHat reverse the ethX order, 
so eth1 on rhat is eth0 on debian.  This matters if you dual boot 
between the different distros.)

Upon completion of the install, you should have a functioning Edubuntu 
Desktop.  I cannot boot clients from this.  Why?  Because my LAN is not 
configured.  Using the GUI tool, I give eth0 192.168.0.254/255.255.255.0.

I did not try to boot a client after this.  Why?  Because my DHCP server 
is configured to query /etc/ltsp/dhcp.conf, and this file has my Gateway 
and DNS set to 192.168.0.1.  I have no idea why, and, perhaps I should 
have just made eth0 192.168.0.1.  Instead, I edited this file and made 
my GW and DNS match the eth0 address.  One really should edit 
/etc/default/dhcp* and set your DHCP interface to eth0, but it will work 
if you do no.

Now I could boot a client.  It did not complete, though.  Depending on 
what documentation one references, my 48mb RAM is marginal for the whole 
SSH tunnel LDM transaction.  I was able to effortlessly boot a PIII600, 
256MB, 8mb ATI card, PXE NIC.  My PI Dell with an S3 card did not load 
X.  It booted to runlevel 2.  It has worked with *every* K12LTSP install.

I tried Jim's suggestion (1) of editing innitab, turning off tty1, and 
directing X to tty1.  My client stayed stuck on the checkered X screen, 
but no login.  I tried editing lts.conf to include VESA as the default 
display.  No Dice.

I was able to make my PI 48mb S3 client boot from Edubuntu my undoing 
the suggestions in (1) and creating a lts.conf file that sets VESA as 
the default disply.  Once booted, it ran quite nicely.

Frustratingly, NO clients boot with an ebnet or a UBF diskette.  I can 
only boot to Edubuntu with a NIC that has the ROM embedded.  They 
produce the error ""loading 192.168.0.254:/pxelinux.0.......error, not a 
valid image"


So, after far more than just 20 minutes, I was able to get an Edubuntu 
thin-client lab up and running, but with issues.  I have not yet tested 
NAT, but I feel pretty certain that I have to turn it on, too.

If you made it this far, I commend you.  Now, what do we have to do to 
integrate these tweaks into Edubuntu and redistribute it?  This is what 
you do, Eric, with the K12LTSP.  I'd like to be able to help rather than 
just crying about what is not right.

--scott


-- 
R. Scott Belford
Founder/Executive Director
The Hawai`i Open Source Education Foundation
PO Box 2644
Ewa Beach, HI 96706
808.689.6518 phone/fax
scott at hosef.org