Topics

1

Development and Scripting / Running .network-autostart script not applying changes

« on: April 27, 2015, 09:20:58 AM »

I have added a line to our update.sh script to change some keyboard shortcuts.
If I open a terminal and run

Code: [Select]

sh .network-autostart the changes are made. However on boot/network-disconnect-reconnect the changes don't get made.

Here are the two lines:

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sudo -u user gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings show-desktop "['']"
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings show-desktop "['']" #this is optional but I included it for testing purposes
Other parts of the script work fine on boot. I am thinking it has something to do with how .network-autostart is called. Any thoughts?

2

General Support / Ubermix 2 virtual appliance not loading

« on: June 04, 2014, 11:10:50 AM »

I am getting this error
Internal inconsistency looking up disk image 'vmdisk1'.

Result Code:
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component:
Appliance
Interface:
IAppliance {3059cf9e-25c7-4f0b-9fa5-3c42e441670b}

I have imported other Ubermix OVA in the past. Running Vbox 4.1.18 on Ubuntu 64 bit host

Thanks for any help,

3

General Support / Push out the new SBAC Secure Browser

« on: January 16, 2014, 02:48:00 PM »

Here is how we are installing the new SBAC Secure browser over the network. Below the script is the contents of the SecureBrowser.desktop file which you need to make (for some reason I can't attach it). The .desktop file is used to place a shortcut in the Launcher under the Network category.

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if grep TEST-COMPUTER /etc/hostname
     then

     #this line tests if the browser has been installed by checking for one of the files we added
     if ! [ -e /home/user/.local/share/applications/SecureBrowser63.desktop ]
         then

         #Remove previous versions of secure browser
         rm -rf /opt/SBACSecureBrowser*
         rm -f /home/user/.local/share/applications/SecureBrowser*

         #These two lines download the browser and the shortcut file from your local webserver
         wget http://YOUR-WEB-SERVER/SBACSecureBrowser6.3-Linux.tar.bz2
         wget http://YOUR-WEB-SERVER/SecureBrowser.desktop

         #this untars (unzips) the browser to the /opt folder which is one place to install OPTional apps in linux
         sudo tar xvfj SBACSecureBrowser6.3-Linux.tar.bz2 -C /opt

         #puts the shortcut in the correct folder
         sudo cp SecureBrowser.desktop /home/user/.local/share/applications/SecureBrowser63.desktop

         #cleans up
         sudo rm SecureBrowser.desktop
         sudo rm SBACSecureBrowser6.3-Linux.tar.bz2
     fi
fi


.desktop file

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[Desktop Entry]
Name=SecureBrowser
Exec=/opt/SBACSecureBrowser6.3/SBACSecureBrowser6.3
Type=Application
Categories=Network;
Icon=/opt/SBACSecureBrowser6.3/kiosk.png
Name[en_US]=SecureBrowser.txt


4

Development and Scripting / Uptime Script in development

« on: December 07, 2012, 02:37:39 PM »

Howdy Ubermix Community,

I am working on a script to log computer use. One of the issues we have had with previous computer deployments is that it is hard to keep track of how often the computers are being used so that we can provide support and training to teachers with carts that are more idle than their peers.

What I have done so far is modified a few files that are pushed out to the Ubermix computers to record when the computer: sleeps, wakes, boots, turns off, restarts, wifi connects, and wifi disconnects. The computer then sends this information (along with its name) to an online database (MySQL). Then there are several steps to process this raw log information into a format that makes sense (using PHP), but essentially now I can set a date range and I can see how much a particular computer cart has been used.

I am working on polishing it up so it is more usable to me, and could possibly get it to a state that other folks could use (if you are already using the network update.sh and have access to a webserver). If you are interested or have other methods you are using for recording usage of laptops in your school, I would love to hear about it.

5

Development and Scripting / Push out update to firefox?

« on: November 30, 2012, 10:35:31 AM »

We are running 1.052 on our netbooks, which comes with Firefox 13. Google docs is reporting that we are using an "unsupported browser" and recommends folks use Chrome. It appears everything works, but the message is annoying. What is the best way to have the netbooks update firefox to version 15,16, or 17?

6

General Support / Simple Updates and wine

« on: August 08, 2012, 11:58:04 AM »

We sadly need Wine to install Type To Learn which is a 1.1 GB program on our netbooks. I resize the base partition to 6 GB and then boot into the generic file system and everything installs and runs fine. I can rebuild the image on the key (which is 3.2 GB so it must include the TTL info) and image another system and everything works fine as well. However if I boot into the -aufs file system and change a printer and try to build simple updates it creates a 1.1 GB simple update file because wine is storing the C-drive in a .win folder in the Home directory. This makes the simple update process really long, the restore process take a long time, and ends up making the key larger than 4 GB. I tried removing the .wine folder from the user.tar.gz archive but then when I applied the updates TTL didn't work correctly.

So I can either set the printers for each room in the -generic file system and have a different base image for each classroom (only 6 classrooms so not the end of the world), or figure out a way for the simple updates to not include the .wine folder and also not overwrite the .wine folder, or some other genius idea 

7

Q&A / Slow windows (Samba) shares direcotry display

« on: August 06, 2012, 02:54:23 PM »

Using 1.052 when we navigate to a Windows share it takes a long time to display the directory. The time is proportional to the number of folders and files in the directory, so our public share folder for the school takes about 15 seconds to display contents.
This isn't happening with vanilla Ubuntu machines.

8

Q&A / The .bld file

« on: July 30, 2012, 07:58:49 AM »

Hello Jim,

I have rebuilt an image (using expert options->1) and noticed that the 0 KB .bld file kept the name of the key (which was a different version of Ubermix) and not the name of the image on the machine. Does this file matter or can I just copy over/rename the .bld file to the correct version?

9

General Support / Ubermix 1.x text on startup

« on: July 24, 2012, 11:43:52 AM »

I am easing back from summer and getting the last tweaks on our Ubermix based on 1.052 for deployment and had a question about some text that displays on boot.
After an initial purple screen, there are 30ish lines of text that mostly list a number then:

init- failed to create pty - disabling logging for job (I couldn't attach a screenshot)

Then the Ubuntu logo shows up

There were always 5 or 6 text prompts on boot up, but this many could give users a bad impression. Ideally the system wouldn't have any text on boot except if a verbose option was selected. Any ideas on how to suppress these messages?

Thanks a bunch (especially for adding the wl driver for broadcom into the main Ubermix image!)

10

Development and Scripting / Disable N networking (to try and fix instability with intel 5100 wifi)

« on: May 14, 2012, 11:50:24 AM »

I think if I place this script in our location for the network autostart script

#!/bin/bash
sudo echo options iwlagn 11n_disable=1 >> /etc/modprobe.d/intel_11n_disable.conf
sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo modprobe -r iwlagn
sudo modprobe iwlagn

I have never pushed out a script over the network, so I just wanted to make sure. I have run this file via sudo in terminal on a local machine and it works fine. Would this change "stick" after a system restore?

11

Hardware Specific / Dell e6400 intel 5100 wifi random disconnect

« on: May 10, 2012, 11:30:37 AM »

We have some Dell e6400 (14 inch laptops) that are working really well on Ubermix until randomly a handful of them (3-10) in a class will disconnect from wifi and never reconnect. We have tried toggling the hardware switch and disabling and re-enabling networking from the Network Manager applet and they won't get back on. If the computer is restarted they connect again just fine. Some periods there are no issues.

Any ideas on how to kick the wireless card back into action without a restart?
Or any driver updates we could try to provide more consistent wifi connectivity?

12

How-to / Hardware diagnostic program for Linux

« on: April 23, 2012, 07:55:01 AM »

Howdy,

My tech's tell me they use programs in windows provided by Dell for hardware diagnostics (Harddrive, RAM, fan, etc.). What are some good programs for techs to use as part of the troubleshooting and repair process in the Linux world?

13

Hardware Specific / Acer AspireOne 722 - AMD suspend issues

« on: April 16, 2012, 09:26:01 AM »

The Acer AspireOne 722 is an awesome 11.6 inch netbook, with a full keyboard priced at $330. Using the default Ubermix image 0.914GA there are a few graphics issues (blurred text on occasion) and a fairly high power usage (10 watts during normal web/text usage=5 hours of life). I installed the AMD graphics drivers via the ubermix wiki http://wiki.ubermix.org/page/AMD_Video_Acceleration and via direct download of the latest catalyst drivers from the AMD website http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx and the graphics improves and power use decreases (6 watts during normal web/text usage=8 hours of life).

However, the netbook won't wake from suspend (which kind of cancels out the wonderful new power savings). I have read several wikis and forums that this is a known issue, but am hoping for a fix or another way to decrease battery use.

14

Development and Scripting / Network File Storage

« on: April 03, 2012, 04:01:08 PM »

We have a fairly solid use of network file servers in our district. We can create bookmarks so that students can access the drive quickly, but I wanted to see if we could have the same convenience of our windows mapped network folders. I have added a couple of scripts to automount a public student folder. This also means that there is no need to do any Libre Office work around, as LibreOffice can directly save into the server with this setup.

First I booted with -generic instead of -aufs to make the changes permanent. Then I made sure samba and smbfs was installed:
sudo apt-get install samba
sudo apt-get install smbfs

Then I created a folder to mount the network folder
sudo mkdir /media/server

Then in the file:
/etc/network/if-up.d/mynetstart

I added:
mount -t smbfs //our-server/folder /media/server -o uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=0022,username="generic-student-account",password=""

This means that when a network connection is established the server will be mounted. This works fine, but it wasn't shutting down due to the fact that the wireless was turning off before the folder was unmounted.

So I created a file called S15umount in /etc/rc0.d:

sudo gedit /etc/rc0.d/S15umount
 
with this text:
#!/bin/sh
sudo umount /media/server

and then made the file executable:
sudo chmod a+x S15umount

This works more times but not all the time, so it still hangs on shutdown. Any ideas or suggestions on how to fine tune this auto-mount process would be great. Once it is working perfectly I will post to the wiki.

15

General Support / Change the color of the top bar/panel

« on: March 27, 2012, 02:42:52 PM »

Running .913 and I am changing the background picture. However, the top panel stays blue. I have tried messing with the themes, but I can't seem to get the color to change. This is crucial since I don't want my Ubermix to clash