[K12OSN] Re: Running in to an Edubuntu Wall

[pogson]

"R. Scott Belford" <scott at hosef.org> wrote:

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.'
----

EdUbuntu does things a little differently than LTSP. LTSP normally boots
by etherboot, which is similar in function but not identical to PXE in
detail. The etherboot loader normally expects a different file structure
than a PXE bootloader. Ubuntu will have a means of producing the
appropriate boot floppy for Ubuntu expects a PXE bootloader to run.

1.
>From http://www.ltsp.org/README.pxe

         Normally, for Etherboot kernels, the kernel is placed
        in /tftpboot/lts.
        But, for PXE kernels, we create a subdirectory in that location
        that
        has a name that matches the version of the kernel.  For example,
        in this release of the kernel, we create
        '/tftpboot/lts/2.4.22-ltsp-1'.
        
        Within that directory, we place the kernel, the initrd image,
        the
        pxelinux.0 bootloader and a configuration subdirectory.

2.If your primary (ISP connection) is on 192.168.0.x, Ubuntu requires
editing. If you control your environment, make sure the LAN with thin
clients is allowed to be 192.168.0.x and Ubuntu scripts do everything.
No editing required. See an article I wrote for Free Software Magazine
about EdUbuntu 5.10:
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/files/nodes/1263/1263.pdf
This is a bit clumsy and lacking foresight, but the vast majority of
EdUbuntu installations will either be in small schools or subnets behind
a firewall/router so its not that limiting. I did the installation both
ways. You want to do it the automatic way, believe me. Since the script
is open source, this would be a neat project for one of my students, to
tune it up for more general cases. "Here are our defaults. Change them
to suit your wishes and click 'OK'". I can see it now.

3. Does LTSP still use XFree86? Dapper uses X.org, perhaps a difference
in drivers. I had no difficulty with several clients I tried with 5.10.

4. That's what open source is all about.

EdUbuntu is the slickest installation of an X server and client
configuration I have ever tried next to K12LTSP. Well, ClusterKNOPPIX
was pretty cool, too (OpenMosix terminal server - uses PXE, DHCP and
tftp to boot linux clients via the network.). I plan to install EdUbuntu
next week in a production environment and I hope it goes smoothly as I
have little time and much to do. Of course, life is always more
interesting with a few challenges. Ubuntu had some difficulty meeting
its target date. I hope some of the glitches will have been hunted down
by next week or I will have to do some hunting myself. I would use
K12LTSP except I have grown fond of apt and Ubuntu has some particular
packages I need. K12LTSP/Fedora likely has them, too, but I know the
Ubuntu repository and I have my own copy.
-- 
A problem is an opportunity.
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