The Summer of Linux

This summer was “The Summer of Linux”; we experimented with Linux for the desktop, Linux for the server, and Linux in clustering. We used the Ubuntu distro for the desktop and server. We actually used the Long Term Support (6.06) version for the desktop, the older version of Ubuntu. I learned that the newest isn’t always the best, as version 7.04 would not install on our hardware. I got a chance to ask my questions about LTSP, to a developer on the Edubuntu irc channel, and we were successful in creating a thin client environment. Of course clustering was a great project where we hit some dead ends, but we recovered before the summer ended, having a functional cluster. Although I had some experience with Ubuntu, using it on my computers, this was a very educational summer. We became the admins and got a chance to implement Linux in a test environment, emulating a school computer lab, where we had to make sure the end users would be able to use Linux without any discomfort. We had to cover everything, from managing user rights to making sure every program a school computer would have, would be included in our Linux machines. In addition, we gained some experience in networking; we received some managed and unmanaged switches, configured them, and had thin clients boot over our network.

Linux has become more user friendly over the years. Ubuntu, for instance, has the nice Gnome interface, a GUI. If this were to be implemented in a school, most end users would be able to adjust. Instead of having a list of programs at the bottom, we have everything at the top. Some applications may be different, the OpenOffice suite vs. Office. It may be slightly more difficult for the end user at home installing it on his/her computer, though, especially if you run into problems. However, if one is dedicated enough, solutions to problems are all over the internet, and you can also ask questions on the Ubuntu irc channel. Once you become used to how Ubuntu works, Synaptics for downloading applications, the Linux alternative software… etc, it becomes easier. If you have to do something beyond the basics, though, you may have to use the terminal. For instance, the Grub bootloader wasn’t booting to the correct partition once, so after determining the path looking at GPart and a little bit of guessing and checking, I accessed the Grub file though the terminal. Or, you may want to install something using the terminal. Personally, I think Linux, due to distros like Ubuntu, has become more appealing, because for basic needs, it can be used without much difficulty.

This was a great summer where I was able to test several environments in which Linux can be used. I am thankful to Mr. Birchall who let us have this experience, allowing us to experiment on our own as long as we documented. We were able to finish all our projects with success, and I was glad documenting our experiences has helped people with their own Linux adventures. Linux and distros like Ubuntu with a cost of nothing are very appealing. Although many people begin using Ubuntu because of the free CDs their friends give them, if some loose ends were tied up (like the bootloader attempting to boot from the wrong partition) and marketed more, we could see an even greater rise in Linux usage.

clusterKnoppix, A Clustering Success

It has been a while since I have posted, because we have been working on our final project, making a cluster out of few computers. As I said before, we were having difficulties getting OSCAR set up. At one point it seemed to have imaged the nodes correctly, however upon testing the cluster using OSCAR’s feature to do so, we found we had several errors. We were unable to fix them, and so we decided to move on for now and try different tools. From here we tried using Rocks Cluster Distribution. You can either download the DVD with the Operating System and all the packages, CDs, or pick and choose what software you wanted and burn them to individual CDs. We originally went with the DVD choice, however, during installation, it asked the source from which it would get the packages, and it wouldn’t recognize our DVD as a choice. We tried CDs, but it would keep restarting in the middle without doing anything. Both Rocks and OSCAR had extensive documentation which I appreciated, however, since we could not get them working, we looked for another solution. During my research, clusterKnoppix always showed up, however, since it was more of a LiveCD based solution, I kept it on hold. Although from what I read, it should be easy to get one going by using LiveCDs. So we burned two and popped them into two computers, and followed these instructions. However, we would keep getting errors setting it up. I went back and did some more research, and found these instructions, which were to just boot from the CDs and they would see each other as long as they were assigned ip addresses. I immediately tried again, and they worked without any problems. I tried out the simple load balancing script that was in the first set of instructions, and it all seemed to work. The next step was to make it a permanent solution by installing it to the hard drive. We followed these instructions (the 7th post, a long set of instructions). Instead of using QTparted to partition our hard drive, we used GPart from the Ubuntu LiveCd because QTparted would not see our hard drive. We did not implement a separate partition for the cd image and we did not copy the clusterKnoppix CD contents to the hard drive the way that was suggested. Once the hard drive install was complete, we followed the instructions up to where it said “3. new: create directory for export: OK” which we selected, and we left the CD in the drive, from which it copied files. However, it created a folder called “diskless” in the root folder. After we found our cluster didn’t work, we deleted the folder and made a new “diskless” in the same location, but we copied the files from the CD to this location. In addition, for the “Client Hardware” section of the how-to, we just left the defaults, and eventually at the end everything works. We skipped some instructions, and went to where it said “Your terminal will complain about /mfs not being set-up correctly when…” and followed these steps. In addition, we also edited a script from these instructions (4th post) which we chose to implement before completing the cluster set-up. Eventually, we restarted terminalopenmosixserver (you may have to select stop, and then start) and did a openmosix restart. We booted up the nodes and watched from openmosixview as they began to appear. Our cluster was a success! During the terminalopenmosixserver and openmosix restarts, and also when booting up the nodes, there may have been small errors or warnings, but we let them be unless our cluster did not work. clusterKnoppix is a great and easy way to cluster; you can have a temporary cluster just to see it work by using the LiveCDs, or have a more permanent hard drive install.

Back To Work

I had been taking a break from work, but now I’m back. There has still been no luck with OSCAR, so we are going to try some different hardware. Meanwhile, we completed two other smaller assignments. The first was writing a guide to use the Imation Pivot Flash Drives. In addition, we also had to finalize on some software we were going to put on a mini-cd that will go home with students. It already had the FirstClass email client, Firefox, and we agreed on adding AVG Anti-Virus, and Ad-Aware Anti-Spyware. I felt if we were adding Anti-Virus software, we should also at least include Anti-Spyware to fully protect the system. We move on from here!

OSCAR…not working quite yet

Yesterday, I used the start_over script in OSCAR to…start over. I did the log out and back in it said, and I proceeded to reinstall and reconfigure OSCAR. This time, though, I opted to use a mirror for the rpms it needed, and I then proceeded to build the client image. After a very long time, an error was reported, it told me to check a log file which is really a script. Meanwhile, the client computers don’t even boot past the bios with the hard drives in. Today, we will have to somehow format the hard drives and start over with OSCAR.

Getting OSCAR ready

Our next task is to set up a small cluster, a “supercomputer”. Right now, there are two software based solutions we are going to look at, both involving Linux. The first one which is supposed to be easier to set up, and very well documented, is OSCAR. I found the instructions to setting it up here. We decided on using Fedora 5 as our OS base, since it was fully supported, so we downloaded it and installed it on the Dell server. Once this was complete, I began setting up OSCAR. Once a lot of the tedious set up was over, I attempted to run the set up script like it said in the documentation. However, the name in the documentation was wrong as I soon discovered, I did find it, though. A few more errors popped up, however, I just looked at the log and made the necessary changes. Once this was complete, the gui based setup came up, and I proceeded to install the server package, and next was the image for the client nodes. Setting it up though, required some more legwork. I had originally set it up so the necessary rpms for the client nodes would be downloaded from a mirror. I thought this would be too slow, so I got the rpms off the cds for Fedora. However, I was getting errors that dependencies, other packages that packages need, were missing. Therefore, we tried a combination of both cds and mirror, and after a long wait, it said completed successfully. Next was the deployment of the images. After setting it so it would get the image off the server, I turned on three clients. The first one got errors, which I believe occurred because the first one has to be the server. The other two seemed to have installed. However, those two no longer can boot from the hard disk, in fact, they don’t boot past the HP screen unless the hard drive is removed. Brian removed the CMOS battery, and I put them back and tried the computers again this morning, however, to no avail. I was waiting to post some good news in our supercomputing ventures, but here is where we’re at.

Applications to Send Home on Mini-CDs

Mr. Birchall wanted us to test some applications to send home, mainly the FirstClass client software so students can access school email. We would place these applications on a mini cd-r. Therefore, we also had to test the integrity of the mini cd-rs. For applications, we decided on adding Firefox and also Pidgin for Windows, and just Firefox for Macs. We like Firefox as an internet browser and we added Pidgin because it is an open source alternative to AOL Instant Messenger. We burned many mini cd-rs with the software and tried them in our different cd readers. We did some more testing by scratching them and exposing them to everyday wear and tear. We concluded the integrity of the discs were fine; we had no problem burning and reading the discs, and the mini cds couldn’t take any less abuse than regular cds.

Edubuntu 7.04 Server Edition…our server operating system edition of choice

    When we tested the desktop versions of Ubuntu, we decided upon Dapper (6.06.1) for its long term support, and the fact that Feisty (7.04) was not installing due to some bugs.  We settled on Ubuntu at the end because we felt Edubuntu was Ubuntu with some childlike icons. However, it was a different story with the server. We switched to Edubuntu when we began, because it had ltsp support built in–all I had to do was install it and a thin client booted up from the start. In addition, it was Ubuntu, which we already loved, and we just changed the theme and icons. However, ltsp in Edubuntu Dapper did not support local devices such as flash drives, and an ltsp developer highly recommended we go to Feisty for its better ltsp features. We did, and we have not had the problems we encountered when using the desktop editions.

Even while we were using the older version, we continued to test software and other settings to emulate a real environment. I used my old list of software and plugins, configured all of them and made sure they worked on the thin clients. A change I made was instead of using realplayer, I found that through synaptics I could get the Fluendo mp3 codec, so music and audio would work using Ubuntu’s default Rhythmbox music player. I had also scrapped Audacity due to the other plugins it was coming with. In addition, a small change I made was the stopping of the bluetooth service at startup. The only other software type changes I made were documented in my previous blog entries.

Regarding user permissions, Ubuntu is already good about limiting people. Even if a limited user knew the root or administrator password, they would not be able to install software or make changes through their own account. Of course they probably be able to login to our account if they knew that much…but they would never find out any of that. In addition, we edited the menus so it would be difficult to see anything important, using the Alacarte menu editor that comes with Ubuntu. One last thing we are going to check is if we can remove Bittorrent and other packages we don’t want that come with Ubuntu completely, although it says it is going to remove the entire desktop. From my research, it won’t be a problem, and if that is not a plausible method, Bittorrent has been disabled since we edited some settings in gconf-editor. In addition a great tool we should use if we deployed this in our environment was sabayon, which I documented earlier, that made configuring users extremely simple, along with our shell script.

Other than the testing to see if some programs that are “locked to ubuntu-desktop”  can be removed (once our backup finishes), we hope to have completely exhausted our research on Ubuntu server editions.

Login Problem With Sabayon-Fixed

We discovered this morning that we had problems logging in at the thin clients with our administrator accounts. I knew that not much had changed other than the fact we updated our computer and install sabayon to customize the user profiles. I was pretty sure the problem came from the new software, so I googled it and found out that it was indeed sabayon’s fault. Only users under the sabayon “group” would be able to log in. Meaning, unless they were added under the group manually, only the users under a sabayon profile like our student profile would be able to log in. The fix was easy-we selected the “add every user” option for student so it would be easier if we had to make hundreds of students/faculty. However, we also made a blank administrator profile, and added ourselves to that one, and still maintained our privileges.

Configuring Many Users In Edubuntu / Ubuntu

A big concern for us was that we would have to add hundreds of users in a real environment. We have a server with a few test users set up and thin clients which work, but we would have to set up hundreds of users with the same settings including the theme (a normal one, not the elementary school one), permissions, menus (so you cannot see administrative functions), and other settings edited in gconf-editor that for instance prevent locking of the screen. After googling for a long time and asking on the Edubuntu and Ubuntu irc channels, someone finally suggested I try Sabayon, which configures user profiles. It is a really great tool; you make a profile, I called ours student, and when you select edit you get a small window which simulates a real desktop. So whatever changes I made were saved and applied to any user I selected. After this was working, there was still the task of adding many users that we would be able to apply the student profile to. I knew that we needed a shell script, so I asked around again and I found the exact syntax. We would still need to enter the password for each person, but that could be done. The syntax goes something like this.

Getting Sound to Work On Flash Applets and Local Devices on Edubuntu Thin Clients

After installing the server, I checked to see if everything worked. I played some test sounds and music…all good. Local devices didn’t work at first. After consulting ogra again on the Edubuntu irc channel, I found I had to allow the use of fuse filesystems in my user account and all other user accounts, guide here. In addition, when I wanted to show this video to Brian during a break, we discovered there was no sound. After asking ogra today, I discovered I had to install another package to get that working, instructions here. It works now! All we have left is to get user accounts set up in an easy manner with the same privileges and settings.

Edubuntu Feisty Server

Edubuntu completed installation during lunch, and I have begun configuring it…setting up a root password, installing packages such as Automatix, and updating the computer. Currently I am setting up everything from my laptop which serves as a thin client. This is what I love about Edubuntu– I popped in the disc, configured it like I did before, and just network booted my laptop, and the other computers connected to the switch, and it just worked. Plus, Feisty comes with a thin client manager which was interesting to play around with.

Linux Server Updates

I spoke with an LTSP developer yesterday who suggested moving to Feisty. To get local devices working on thin clients, we would need to do some intense reprogramming. Therefore, we first tried getting Ubuntu 7.04 server working on the other HP server. We decided today that we should stick with the trusted and true Edubuntu, and use the 7.04 version of that since LTSP support is better and it works out of the box. It is installing right now, and I’ll keep posting more updates.

Localdev Nonexistent in Dapper

After some googling, I found I had to add a file, lts.conf in /opt/ltsp/i386/etc. I added SOUND=TRUE, and LOCALDEV=TRUE. This was to enable sound on the thin clients, and the localdev to enable the use of flash drives and cds. However, the flash drives didn’t work, so I jumped back on the Edubuntu IRC channel. I found out that both sound and local devices are better in the newer versions of Ubuntu. In addition, LOCALDEV would not work with Dapper. Sound works, but it cannot be controlled through the volume control at the top.

Disable Hibernation in Ubuntu / Edubuntu

I just mentioned one of the big problems we discovered was that hibernating the client would cause the server to hibernate or sleep. To discover how to disable hibernation, I thought the quickest way would be to jump on the the freenode channel of Edubuntu, irc://freenode/edubuntu, then the much more active Ubuntu one, irc://freenode/edubuntu. On the Edubuntu one, I discovered that I had to change a hibernate setting in gnome-power-manager. The Ubuntu one helped me locate it; I had to enter gconf-editor in the terminal, find gnome-power-manager, and then uncheck can_hibernate. One problem solved thanks to the support from the community!

Potential Problems and Stuff to Still Work On

As mentioned in my last post, the thin clients and server work very well. In fact, I am writing this post from my laptop which is functioning as a thin client and also allows me to do administrative stuff without actually being at the server’s keyboard and monitor. However, Brian and I discussed some stuff we have to work on during lunch. One major thing we found accidentally was that selecting hibernate from a thin client actually hibernated the server……very bad. The other which should be a simple line of code in a config file is the use of cds and flash drives at the clients.  Some things we still have to work on is perfecting user accounts and doing performance tests making sure things work when multiple applications are being used at multiple stations.

DHCP and Internet with an Edubuntu LTSP Server

We received a network switch to allow us to have an ltsp server and thin clients, which worked fine. However, we were told to keep the switch off the network. We need the internet to update the server and so we added another NIC (network interface card) to the server, and changed the configuration so the new NIC was set to DHCP, and the old one maintained the static ip and was the DHCP server for the thin clients. However, this did not allow us to access the internet. In addition, every time we restarted, the new NIC would change between eth1 and eth2 in the network manager. I edited the interface file (sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces) through the terminal, and commented out every mention of eth2. This did not alleviate the problem, therefore, I turned to a guide I had read before, here. I just had to make one modification, instead of /etc/default/dhcp, which did not exist, I edited /etc/default/dhcp3-server like the guide said, making eth0 the default for serving DHCP requests. After this, the internet works fine and the thin clients work as well. Even better, the thin clients receive internet, and we manage to separate the switch from the network.

Thin Clients With Edubuntu

When we received our first server, we planned on creating an ltsp server with Ubuntu, and have 4-5 thin clients. We followed instructions that were on the internet, but we could not get it working on the first try. The second server came, and we had a chance to split up and see if we could get something to work. I did some more research and found Edubuntu came built-in with ltsp–all I had to do was install it and it would already be set up as a server. I set it up using these instructions. As soon as it finished installing, I decided to see if it worked without doing anything else. Using a network switch, I connected a computer without a hard drive but built-in network booting support, and my new server. I turned on the new thin client, and…it worked perfectly. I moved all the computers Mr.Birchall gave us to the other side of the lab, Rudder North. I was able to set up four thin clients and they are all on the switch, but not the internet, and they are all working perfectly it seems. My goal for tomorrow is to test to see if there are any problems, and then work on setting up users and all the packages we need. When looking at desktop Ubuntu flavors, I had dismissed Edubuntu because it was Ubuntu, just with childlike icons. However, I was impressed by its ease of use in setting up an ltsp server and thin clients, and the icons aren’t that bad. So I will also work on the icons, and see if I can get the more generic Ubuntu feel.     

Printing Issues

Since laptops are not connected to the domain, printing wirelessly can be an issue. Both Brian and I are able to print using a method that could be considered complicated by some end users. Therefore, we have been researching some solutions. We tried software resolutions first. However, we cannot have a new server dedicated for printers and other solutions would lead back to doing what we do. Therefore, we have decided to find hardware solutions, namely a print server, maybe a wireless one. We are still researching, so I will write some more later.

Ubuntu “Model” Machine

To show that everything on our Windows school computers has a Linux equivalent, I had compiled a list, here. Next, I began configuring a machine to use as a model with all the software. However, when I installed Audacity through Automatix, I realized it was also installing packages such as LAME, and others such as Quicktime encoders. There were too many obscure ones to delete individually, and removing Audacity would not get rid of them. Therefore, I reinstalled Ubuntu and the other packages with the exception of using RealPlayer instead of Rhythmbox, although Rhythmbox is still present- it’s just not the default. So I finished setting up a model machine with all the software. Now, we are playing around with user privileges some more, although it may be a bit different if we set up clients and a server.

RealPlayer with Ubuntu

I wanted to make sure there were no issues with using an mp3 codec. I looked up what Thompson, the owner of the mp3 patent had to say, and it seemed that they did not charge royalties unless there was some sort of money involved. The link to that, here. However, I also read LAME (an mp3 codec) was distributed as source code so it was legal, but then you would have to compile it. However, Thompson also said that a free client would be fine, and of course that would include the codec. So, I have been researching this for days now, and I asked Brian to help. While we were searching, Brian found a discussion on a college forum, here. It suggested something I had not thought of, RealPlayer. I found it in Synaptics, and it was already installed. I realized this was a computer on which I had installed multimedia codecs through Automatix. Therefore, I went on a computer without Automatix, and did not find it. I installed Automatix, and it updated the repository. I now found I could install RealPlayer, and that only, from Synaptics Package Manager. I made it the default music player, and it opens mp3 and works fine. This avoids any potential issues. I did not use it, but the bin install is at the RealPlayer site, http://www.real.com/linux/. Here is the Automatix2 install site again,

Tedious Work

I have started adding the final applications we have selected to the Ubuntu image machine. I will praise Automatix2 once again for its ease of use when doing this. I don’t have to add any suspicious repositories to access the packages we need, the official Ubuntu ones and Automatix include everything we need. By the end of today, the image machine will be almost completed. However, I want to look over the mp3 issue again and make sure it’s ok to include the codec for school computers. I will also make sure I haven’t missed anything in terms of useful or better applications.

Linux Alternatives to Windows Programs

Below is a chart of typical Windows programs installed on our school programs and their Linux alternatives. Many were available in Linux as well.

Quicktime with Ubuntu: Not a Great Pair

I played around some more with Wine. I was interested in seeing if I could get Quicktime player to work with Wine, and I was sure it could. I tried with the latest version, however it reported an error right at the end. I tried some other versions unsuccessfully, when I found a good guide from http://tsx.nl/index.php?p=qt4linux, actually found from Frank’s Corner at http://frankscorner.org/. It installed, but it wasn’t perfect. After the installation, the screen went black and portions returned after I moused over them. Quicktime seemed to work, however, the screen would become black. So even after everything, my attempts at implementing Quicktime were futile. We are better off using a similar Linux program instead.

WINE is Not an Emulator…but it is

The bulk of today’s work is finding the Windows programs people use and their Linux equivalents. Most of the programs in the list were easy to find, such as the Office suite. However, there were a few such as Geometer’s Sketchpad and Photoshop that are Windows only and some people may want the exact program. Therefore, we used Wine, and we downloaded a trial version of Geometer’s sketchpad. It worked wonderfully. Although the program doesn’t have much documentation on the Wine HQ site, there is some here http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iAppId=1549. Since we didn’t have Photoshop to play around with, I trusted the site on what it said. http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iAppId=17. It seems perhaps Photoshop 7 may work using Wine. Now, I will complete the list of programs and then work on the model computer.

End of the Day Update

After researching MP3 and DVD codecs, I have set up a machine with a new Ubuntu install that will be the model, the ideal machine that could be used at our school. After testing programs on the test machines, they will be added to the model machine and added to the log. I have also compiled a list of software that runs on a standard school machine, and will find versions that work in Linux or alternatives. In addition, I have installed Wine to play around with.