[frgeek-michiana] Lab Notes, July 10, 2003
- From: Tom Brown <tbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: FreeGeek Michiana <frgeek-michiana@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 12:02:31 -0500
Lab Notes, July 10, 2003
Present: Mike, Goose, Jay, Olin, John, Tom; 5:30 - 9:30 pm
:: Debian for FreeBoxes and Servers
Mike and John are experimenting with low resource Debian distros. Goose had
volunteered to do this project but would rather devote time to the FGM-dev
team.
Mike reports the Debian installer will work with as little as 16mb of ram,
well within the parameters of a FreeBox. John says FGP is drive-cloning
Debian.
Debian has a game oriented sub-project for elementary age kids. Debian just
announced acceptance of sub-project to develop a distribution tailored to
the needs of nonprofits.
Vector Linux announced beta tests for VL 4.0, and Mike signed up as a
tester. All agreed that we like VL and are impressed with the maintainers'
service and willingness to respond to the needs of their users.
FGM now maintains FreeBoxes with VL 3.0 and 3.2, lab servers with
K12LTSP/RH 7.3 and a web server with Debian Woody. The FGM-dev team is
standardizing on Debian Woody. For the sake of efficiency FGM needs to
consolidate on one or no more than two flavors of GNU/Linux.
Mike suggested asking the VL maintainers to adapt LTSP core packages to VL.
Tom suggested installing LTSP core packages on a Debian box to see how
difficult it is. John suggested listing all the packages in K12LTSP, obtain
the source code and compile our own Debian version of K12LTSP.
:: Incorporation
Incorporation is stalled again. John gave Tom our attorney's name, phone,
etc., so Tom can follow up.
:: IRC Meeting in Indianapolis
Jay, Goose and Tom will attend the Indiana Recycling Coalition meeting in
Indianapolis on Thu., July 17. Tom will get details. The IRC obtained a
grant from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) to
formulate rules for electronics recycling in Indiana. The rules will be
submitted as a proposal to IDEM. IRC represents both commercial and
nonprofit recyclers.
:: Vax 4000/60 Fundraiser
The lab crew decided that $50 is a fair donation to ask for a Vax Station
4000/60 including VMS and two consoles. Tom will announce an auction for
the Vax on MLUG. $50 buys it now.
:: Linmodem
Hardware modems ($50-80) cost more than our FreeBox systems are worth. The
only way we can provide Internet function for our clients is to install
inexpensive Linmodems. We are not sure whether Linmodem drivers and
libraries will fit on smallish hard drives or whether low end Pentium
processors can adequately handle soft modems. The only way we'll know is to
experiment.
Jay will continue looking for the library files required by the Intel based
Linmodem. I chose the Intel modem because we can purchase it for $10 each
in reasonable quantities. Mike suggested statically compiling the libraries
so we don't need to install drivers plus libraries on each machine. I
suggested contacting the engineers at Intel and the manufacturer re
obtaining the needed libraries.
:: New Storage Room
Donations to United Way are down severely in Indiana. So the Salvation Army
will raise money directly to preserve day care and latch-key programs, food
pantries, emergency relief services, etc.
The Regional Headquarters in Grand Rapids, MI, is sending a fund raising
(development) staff member to South Bend. The developer's mission is to
raise funds for all Sallie social programs in Indiana.
The South Bend church is the northern-most congregation in Indiana. So it
is the ideal location for the developer's office, in Indiana but close to
the home office in Grand Rapids. Unfortunately the only adequate office
space for the developer is the room FGM is using to store parts to build
FreeBoxes. So the church asked us to move our material into a smaller room.
The council decided to make the move next Thu., July 17. I will follow up
with the ministers so the new room is emptied prior to July 17.
:: MLKC Shutdown
We decided to meet at MLKC on Thu., July 24, to move as much material as
possible to the storage barn. Mike will try to borrow a flatbed trailer
which he can pull with his pickup truck. John will bring his father's cargo
van, and Tom will bring his Astro van (seats removed). Jay will haul
passengers in his car.
If we don't get everything in one trip to the barn, we will finish the job
on Sat., July 26, or the following Thu., July 31.
:: Line Printer
If we don't find a buyer for the line printer by July 17, we will
disassemble it and take it to the barn. Olin would probably like this job.
He may even take the printer home to demanufacture.
Mike said a local office products firm seemed interested in the print
bands. Perhaps we can get them to make a donation for the print bands. Mike
will follow up.
:: FGM Email Lists
FreeLists, our pro bono list manager, was down for three days during severe
storms in central Indiana. FreeLists got back online faster than any of us
expected. The disruption in service was a minor problem but left us feeling
we need to manage our own lists.
John will setup Mailman (web based admin) on the Indy box. Indy runs
Debian, and Debian uses the Exim MTA.
:: FGM-dev Projects
The development team (John, Goose, Tom) asked for guidance on prioritizing
web services learning projects. According to consensus the team will tackle
the following projects in the order given.
1 - volunteer time log
2 - online donation form
3 - food basket tracking system
4 - inventory system
The order increases in complexity. Tracking volunteer time is critical to
documenting community support. An online donation form will eliminate
paperwork and document donations. The food basket tracking system will be
our first shot at providing a web service for another nonprofit. We put it
third so we make our major mistakes on in-house projects before tackling a
client project. The inventory system is the most complex design and the
least pressing need.
The team is setting up individual dev boxes with Debian Woody 3.0 rev 1 and
compiling identical versions of tcl, aolserver, postgresql and openacs.
:: Mile and a Half Yard Sale
After the meeting volunteers helped Jay and Goose select material to sell
at the Wakarusa Mile-and-a-Half annual yard sale. Jay and Goose will set up
the table(s) at 7:30 AM Sat., July 12. John and Tom will arrive later to help.
//tom
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