Dear Linux Community,

Thanks for those of you who responded to my posts. However, I don't think Linux is ready for those of us who aren't advanced users.

I was trying to set up a lab for my students in my classroom so that we could eventually have one computer per child. Moreover, I've had to pretty much do this without the help of my IT department since they seem to be in Micrsoft's pocket.

However, I have found Edubuntu to be very far from the ease of use represented on Edubuntu's website. Most of the information I have found useful has been from other sources. Moreover, when I do find information I follow pathways given to files explicitly and then don't find the files that are supposed to be there or some directory in the pathway is wrong.

I really would like to get this going. However, I dont' think Edubuntu is ready for the person who just has an above average amount of computer knowledge.

Thanks for everything but..I'll check back in a couple of years. Hopefully Edubuntu will live up to the hype as far as ease of use.

If someone is interested, I would be happy to keep trying.

Any linux distro takes some time to learn. I worked in the IT industry for 32 years, however not with linux. ( IBM mainframe stuff ). I used micro$oft stuff at home, loved OS/2, dos etc.

After retiring I taught some hardware and software courses to high school drop outs. That is where I first encountered linux in a big way. It took me ( with all my background ) about six months to learn enough to install, configure and trouble shoot my own problems. So, my first comment is, don't give up. Linux can do so much more than windoze, and for an educational institution with limited budgets this is probably the best learning tool you can find.

I understand you don't have any support ( my wife was a teacher for many years ). The 'pathway' issue can be confusing. Problem is, a lot of the advice you come across may be form a person on a different distro, or release. So you get the wrong 'exact path'. A command like 'locate filemane' will search the entire system and tell you where it is.

What I would suggest is use linux yourself, as much as you can. Don't give up, ask questions. After using linux for more than four years, I have yet to discover a new problem. By that I mean there is an answer for what ever I have run into. I use www.google.ca/linux to search for answers after I can not find a solution here. Note the /linux at the end. This will improve your search results a great deal.

My latest project is to compile a kernel. So, you can learn, given the time. I use xubuntu on an old laptop to learn with. My main system is Mandriva 2008.

I would be happy to help, as I'm sure there are others here that will help also.

Thanks for the encouragement camorri.

Here's where I am.

My client tries to boot and then I have blinking white cursor. When I hit Ctl + Alt + F1, I get Ubuntu 7.10 ltsp tty1. Underneath that I get ltsp login:. Underneath that I get Password. Somebody recommended to type in a valid username and password but that didn't work.

So, I opened the lts file like it says in http://www.edubuntu.org/gettingstarted . However, that gave me this

# This is the default lts.conf file for ltsp 5.
# For more information about valid options please see:
# /usr/share/doc/ltsp-client/examples/lts-parameters.txt.gz
# in the client environment.
#
# Note that things like sound and local device support are
# auto-enabled if the corresponding packages are installed,
# there is no need to manually set these options anymore.
#
# **** THIS FILE SHOULD NO LONGER BE USED FROM HERE !!! ****
#
# With the introduction of the nbd/unionfs/squashfs structure
# the lts.conf file moved to the tftp root please create:
# /var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/i386/lts.conf instead for your changes
#
# In case you want to use the lts.conf here, this still works,
# but you need to run ltsp-update-image after every change.
[default]
LTSP_VERSION=5.0.39
This text looks nothing like the lts.conf that the same gettingstarted page says you edit later to tweak your thin clients.
I even went to the pathway this recommended but didn't find the files it said were supposed to be there.

So I did "gedit /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/ltsp.conf" which is different thatn lts.conf after hitting Alt-F2. It opens up a blank file. The instructions say

"You might want to alter the setup of some of the workstations. For example, you might want to disable or enable sound, or you'd like to change the display resolution, or even the keyboard layout. The Edubuntu server has the option of a configuration file to fine-tune your thin client settings. This file is available at /opt/ltsp/(ARCH)/etc/lts.conf. Replace (ARCH) with your architecture, for example, if you installed the i386 version, you'll need to create a file under the name /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf , as it is not installed by default, and then open it for editing."


I copy and pasted the sample ltsp file into my blank ltsp.conf file. After one change suggested for this problem on http://www.opensubscriber.com/messag...m/7970575.html
my lts.conf and ltsp.conf file looks like this:

# The Default section covers settings that apply to all thin cliens

[Default]

# XSERVER: Thin client display driver. Drivers examples:
# ati cirrus cyrix fbdev i128 i740 i810 mga neomagic nv
# r128 radeon rendition s3 s3virge savage siliconmotion
# sis tdfx tga trident tseng vesa vga.
XSERVER = auto
X_COLOR_DEPTH = 15, X_COLOR_DEPTH = 24


XkbSymboles = "us(pc101)" # Keyboard type

XkbModel = "pc101"

XkbLayout = "us" #Keyboard layout. Examples: de

RCFILE_02 = floppyd

# SOUND: Enable / Disable Sound. Options: True False
SOUND = True

# NETWORK_COMPRESSION: Enable / Disable Network compression.

# Options: True False
NETWORK_COMPRESSION = True

# ----> End of DEFAULT section ---->

#[MAC ADDRESS]: Per thin client settings
[00:d0:b7:6c:e9:4b]


The mac address at the bottom is the mac address for my thin client's nic .card.

I am using an old Dell GX110 as my thin client as they are very plentiful in my school. They also have a NIC card in addition to the Motherboard NIC Card. The additional NIC card is the one that I have been using thus far to boot off of Edubuntu. I can't get the motherboard NIC to even boot.

Thanks in advance.

I have a few questions. You may not be able to answer right away, I think I can give you some direction in order to answer them.

From what you have posted, it appears you have installed the server, and it is version 7.10. There is documentation for each release, so I want to confirm it is 7.10 you have running on the server.

It would help if I have a better understanding of the server hardware, and the network you are building. There is a diagram on the 'Getting Started' how to. If you could tell as much as possible about the server, the type of ethernet nic card, speed etc. that would help. Do you have a second nic for connection to an outside network; or the internet?

Do you have a hub or a switch? If it is a switch, make model etc. Did you configure the switch?

Cables. Did you buy pre-made cables, or did you buy the parts and build your own?

The thin clients. You said they are Dell GX110, and you have added a second nic card. This gives me some concerns. How did you determine the mac address of the nic?

Since there are two nic's in the client, we need to make sure you have the mac of the one you are trying to boot through. ( not the on on the system board ).

Most problems are not that hard to fix, once you define the problem. The fact you could not log in through tty1 leads me to believe we have a vary basic communications fault.

This could be caused by a speed mismatch if you are using a hub or incorrect switch configuration.

I read through the install instructions for the server. Did you leave the IP network address range as default, I think it was 192.168.0.xxx with a mask of 255.255.255.0. If not, would you post the change you made.

The nic you boot the thin client through has to support PXE. If it does not, there is a need to create a boot diskette for the thin client. Which way are you going? Are you sure the thin client nic's support PXE?

On the server, could you open a bash console and run the command '/sbin/ifconfig' ( just type what is between the single quotes ), then cut and paste the results to the forum. If you do not have internet access from the server, you can send the output to a file on a floppy diskette, carry it to a machine that does, then cut and paste the results here. If you need help sending the file to a floppy, let me know.

That is enough for now. Post back, and we'll go from there.

You shouldn't need to. If you put the command in as '/sbin/ifconfig' it will give you a few lines of output, showing the configuration and state of any defined interfaces. If it doesn't work, than you can use sudo, but this doesn't need root privileges on any system I have worked.

After reading your answers, it sounds like the thin client is loading, or at least partially loading.

I'm going to do a little more reading and get back to you. One other thing I noticed.

I don't think the nic going to the router and the one going to the thin clients should be on the same subnet. This isn't a big deal right now, however this will give a problem for the thin clients reaching the router. There is doc on how to set this up, so I think we need to look into that also.

If you're looking for a Linux for newbies, try ArkLinux, it can be setup to be more like Windoze/MacOSX/MacOSClassic (depending on your preference) than any of the other distros I've seen. However, As mentioned above, any distro will require some learning. Just like Windoze or MacOSX, you will need to use the command line (some users call this a terminal, conole, or even CLI for the full screen version) every so often. This goes for any distro, not just Ark. But don't be discouraged if you're afraid of text mode-it's really not that hard to learn once you've gotten used to Linux basics.

Point of interest. I found this on Dells web site, looks like you can select PXE for the onboard nic. This is in the System Setup Guide.

It may be possible for you to get the onboard nics working.

Here is what it says on Dells site for the video. We may need this later.

Graphics and Video
Graphics architecture Intel Dynamic Video Memory (DVM) technology
Graphics accelerator Intel Direct Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) 2D and 3D graphics accelerator
Display cache 4 MB, 133-MHz synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM)
Graphics memory Dynamically assigned from system memory
Video resolutions 800 x 600 pixels; 85 hertz (Hz) refresh rate with 16.7 million colors
1024 x 786 pixels; 85 Hz refresh rate with 64,000 colors
1280 x 1024 pixels; 85 Hz refresh rate with 256 colors
1600 x 1200 pixels; 75 Hz refresh rate with 256 colors

The INTEL 810e Video driver is the onboard.

Camorri,

Here's what I got from typing in that command you told me about.

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1E:4F:B2:3E:32
inet addr:192.168.0.254 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::21e:4fff:feb2:3e32/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:154988 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:204023 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:10862617 (10.3 MB) TX bytes:298109418 (284.2 MB)
Base address:0xecc0 Memory:fe9e0000-fea00000

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1A:70:10:1E:20
inet addr:192.168.0.4 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::21a:70ff:fe10:1e20/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:247389 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:182464 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:317103004 (302.4 MB) TX bytes:14238163 (13.5 MB)
Interrupt:16 Base address:0xdc00

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:57 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:57 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:4708 (4.5 KB) TX bytes:4708 (4.5 KB)

Camorri,

In the thin clients, when I go to the Integrated Devices in the BIOS, the "Network Interface Controller" says "on."


When I try to boot with the motherboard NIC I get this message

PXE-E61 Media Test Failure check cable.

If you look at my post #8, the quote is from the Dell support site. I believe PXE can be enabled or disabled in the BIOS for that device.

It won't boot through that adapter unless PXE is enabled. I don't have one of those machines, so maybe your tech support can help you look into the BIOS settings.

The ifconfig command shows the interfaces you have defined, and their status when you ran the command. Linux knows the interfaces by eth0 and eth1. I can see eth0 is address 192.168.0.254. As I understood the setup pages on Edubuntu doc this interface should connect to the thin clients. Eht1 is your external connection to the router. I can also see both interfaces are sending and receiving. This is good stuff. This command can be used on any linux system to look at the network ( ethernet ) interfaces.

lo is the loopback interface. It is operational also. All good.

I'll do some looking around to see what I can find on the PXE-E61 error.

Camorri,

I think I am one step closer.

I've got the thin client booting from the on board NIC. I had to remove the extra NIC card and change the settings in the BIOS as you said. Thanks for the guidance.


I still wind up at the same DOS screen that I did when I was booting through the extra NICS though. Here's the prompt I get to:

Ubuntu 7.10 ltsp tty1

ltsp login:

At least I'm booting through the onboard NIC instead of the extra NIC.

Good, we are making progress.

I suspect the DOS screen is because the correct driver for the video is not loading, or is not configured correctly. I believe we will need to find out what driver to use, and set it up in the config file on the server. I remember seeing an example on the Edubuntu site for loading a specific video driver.

Could you open a command prompt on the thin client, and run the command '/sbin/lspci' ( without the quotes ) and post the results. The video card should show up. I didn't find the Dell support site too great when I went looking for information on the on board NIC.

One other thing you could try, if you have enough hardware on a thin client... Any Ubuntu CD will boot as a live CD ( assuming you have a system with a CD drive ). Hardware detection will probably find the video hardware and load the correct video driver. Then we could look to see what loaded, and we would know what will work. The other thing we could do is copy the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. This is the configuration file for the video. That may save us some time and work later. You would have to enter the BIOS and set the CD drive so we could boot from it for this procedure to work.

When I run /sbin/lspci using a command prompt, I get Bad command or File name. Did you mean to run it on the Ubuntu command prompt? If so, the command prompt I get to wants a username and password.

I have a Ubuntu disk as well. However, I don't think we can run Ubuntu Live on the thin client because the thin clients only have 128 mb of memory.

Well, I have to eat my words on useability of Linux.

I haven't got the GX110s to work.

However, I plugged my laptop into the network and configured it to boot from the network. It started up just like I was sitting at the server. The Login screen was just like the server login screen.

So, I think the key is to find some newer technology or something.

Anyway, I repent of this post in dust and ashes.

I'm submitting another post to see if anyone has worked with GX110s and Edubuntu.

Thanks to everyone who has posted.