WCLP Todo List

Last Modified: Sat Mar 12 11:00:07 2005 EDT

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  1. TO DO LIST
    1. 10 concrete projects volunteers can take on:
      1. Write (x)html output routines for woody
        1. Requires some Python programming
        2. Can be contributed upstream
      2. Convert LaTeX documentation to Docbook
        1. Requires learning the Docbook format
        2. Can use existing tools or write their own
        3. We use logical markup (mostly) and no math mode; the translation should be straightforward
        4. Done by Charles.
      3. Design user survey and consent forms
        1. Want to follow up with users who had installed Linux
          1. What did they find good?
          2. What did they find frustrating?
          3. What do they use their computer for?
          4. Do they still use their computer?
          5. What information were they missing
            1. What things did they have trouble doing?
          6. Are they still using our distro?
            1. If yes:
              1. What apps do they use?
              2. What did they find frustrating?
            2. If no:
              1. Why did they switch
              2. When did they switch?
              3. What did they switch to?
              4. Are they happy they switched?
              5. What apps do they use now?
              6. What did they find frustrating?
        2. Need consent forms for this stuff
          1. Contact information (e-mail/phone)
          2. Permission to follow up 1 month after purchase
        3. Organize follow up calls/e-mails.
        4. Collect response statistics
        5. Requires: some knowledge of experiment/survey design
        6. This may not be publishable
          1. If it is we need to follow ethics guidelines
      4. Compile 2.6 kernel with use for the distro
        1. Would like: i486, i586, i686 versions
        2. Kernel should be modular
        3. Kernel should be lightweight
        4. Maybe kernel should use most frequently-encountered hardware:
          1. Sound cards
          2. Network cards
          3. Framebuffer support
        5. Maybe apply packages to make the kernel lighter/smaller?
        6. We need supermount support as well
        7. Look into the 2.6 "linux-tiny" tree
      5. Write documentation
        1. Document applications
          1. Abiword (contribute upstream)
          2. Web browser?
        2. Document procedures
          1. How to set up Internet connection?
          2. How to set up printing?
          3. How to set up scanners?
          4. How to install new programs?
            1. Using aptitude
            2. Using WINE
          5. How to get help
          6. How to create new users
      6. Evaluate security of our machines
        1. Do intrusion testing
          1. nmap
        2. Try out rootkits
        3. Make our local firewall better
        4. Investigate harden- packages
        5. Try out SELinux
        6. Packages to generate passwords:
          1. apg
          2. pwgen
          3. gpw
          4. makepasswd
        7. Packages to check security
          1. john
          2. bastille
          3. dsniff
      7. Install local documentation on the system
        1. Maybe use DHelp to organize information?
      8. Reprogram/repackage lightweight applications
        1. How?
          1. Contact the developers
          2. Fork the code
          3. Package rebuilds of packages
        2. What?
          1. gkdial -- in progress
          2. gdm
            1. Get rid of GNOME dependencies?
            2. Make small graphical login manager with autologin?
          3. TinyX/Kdrive
            1. No packages exist for Debian
              1. Except fbdev, which is not well-maintained
            2. Getting this to work is half the battle
              1. See damnsmalllinux/RULE to see how they do this
          4. links2
            1. Some backports/unofficial builds exist
            2. Could this be used as a primary browser?
      9. Suggest/test packages for the distribution
        1. Contribute findings to RULE database
        2. Look for (and link to) other projects
      10. USE the distribution and contribute usage reports
        1. Install the distro on an older machine
        2. Use that machine exclusively for some time
        3. Report on the experience
        4. See "Design user survey" section for questions
      11. Maintain the website
        1. Write/apply stale link checker
        2. Find similar projects and document them
        3. Find help resources and document them
      12. Participate/lead user training sessions
        1. 3rd Monday of the month at the Working Centre?
      13. Investigate WINE
        1. Is it feasible to run WINE apps on our machines?
        2. This would involve installing Debian on an older machine, then installing WINE and trying to run some programs.
      14. Find a good printing system for us
        1. Preferably it is:
          1. Small
          2. Easy to configure for inexperienced volunteers
          3. Possibly scriptable
          4. lightweight
        2. Candidates
          1. lprng with some shell scripts
          2. CUPS?
          3. wvprint?
      15. Get Bochs working with the distro
        1. This will allow us to take reproducible screenshots
        2. You could use qemu if you wanted
        3. Or vmware, I guess..
      16. Get spam-filtering working with Sylpheed
        1. I want a "Mark as spam" button
        2. I want to call some nice filter
          1. crm114
          2. bogofilter
          3. spamassassin
        3. Can we make this very easy?
      17. Write a backup system
        1. Backup possibilities
          1. CD-based backups
          2. Network backups
            1. Maybe using duplicity?
          3. Floppy backups
          4. Mirror to other hard drive backups
          5. USB key backups
        2. GUI requirements
          1. Fast and light
            1. Preferably GTK, not TK.
          2. Select files/directories to backup
          3. Save the configuration easily
          4. Set up the backup system easily:
            1. Tell the user what information is needed
            2. Get as little information as possible
            3. Set up the system as automatically as possible
          5. Allow archival backups as an option
        3. If you can't write one then you could find one with these requirements.
    2. BUGS
      1. Is the date and time set properly by the installer?
        1. Maybe we should use ntpdate?
      2. Locale generation is still broken
      3. GDM configuration is broken
        1. The hook does not move files to the correct location.
      4. Abiword is in its own class but customizations are not.
      5. feedback form installation is broken
      6. /dev/random needs to be seeded properly.
      7. Xprint-xorg is broken. Report the bug.
      8. I want to be able to cancel autologin
      9. Firewall does not allow outbound NFS connections
      10. nfs-common: why do we want it?
        1. statd hangs on bootup -- maybe because of the firewall?
      11. Mount points don't exist:
        1. /floppy
          1. Why did this disappear?
          2. It is because of FHS 2.3
          3. The floppy is supposed to go to /media/floppy now.
        2. /pts
        3. Why does /floppy not get created anymore?
      12. The feedback program is not getting set properly again.
      13. exim configurations are not set properly
      14. Daniel's halt script disappeared again.
        1. But the script seems to be working...
          1. The problem is that it is scheduled to run AFTER the halt script.
      15. CDROM setup is very poor.
        1. You have to make a link to /dev/cdrom manually
        2. Then you have to change the permissions of the block device corresponding to the CDROM.
      16. Some menu items are reported broken
        1. gnumeric
          1. Maybe just slow?
        2. printer tool
          1. Does not work without a printer configured..
        3. math/bc
        4. math/dc
        5. math/xcalc (!)
        6. net/gaim
        7. net/links
        8. net/links2
        9. net/mutt
        10. net/sylpheed
        11. net/w3m
        12. net/XBiff
        13. Help
        14. TKinfo
        15. WCLP Help
          1. This one is fixed, I think
        16. I can't reproduce most of these..
      17. If you remove a browser the /etc/alternatives do not go away with it. Darn.
    3. FAI
      1. Kernel stuff
        1. Make sure new kernels are working
          1. Which new kernels? fai-kernel?
        2. Build 2.6 kernel
          1. Try using ALSA drivers
          2. Make a SOUND class which discovers modules to be loaded at boot time
          3. Rumour: if you install alsa-base and hotplug, sound Just Works
            1. This rumour is false in at least one case.
            2. I have the sound modules installed and so far I am still hearing nothing.
            3. I have no idea how the isapnp stuff actually activates anything.
          4. Progress
            1. 2004-07-23, pnijjar
              1. Successfully compiled the kernel
              2. Also 2.6.7 kernel packages exist in testing
              3. This needs an initrd, which is not created automatically.
              4. What is grubvars?
      2. Write script to find all classes in an FAI installation
        1. This could be trivial in Perl
      3. Why does make-fai-nfsroot want to write to /boot?
      4. Add GPL notice to all installer files
      5. Add in-house software to distro:
        1. Clock-changing tool
        2. Feedback form (with net access?)
      6. Maybe create "standard" software list automatically:
        1. Here is one dumb way I don't like.
          1. aptitude -F '%p install' search '!i(~pstandard)' > tmpfile
          2. dpkg --set-selections < tmpfile
          3. aptitude install
      7. Debconf seeding
        1. Here is something suggested on the mailing list:
          1. ROOTCMD /bin/sh -c `echo "set openvpn/create-tun true" | debconf-communicate `
          2. ROOTCMD /usr/bin/dpkg-configure -f noninteractive openvpn
        2. Here is another suggestion:
          1. On a server which has good settings:
            1. debconf-copydb configdb newdb --config=Name:newdb --config=Driver:File --config=Filename:/debconf.dat
            2. Use --pattern to get some of the settings (instead of the entire database)
          2. On a client:
            1. #!/bin/sh
            2. cp $FAI/etc/debconf.dat $target/tmp
            3. chroot $target debconf-copydb newdb configdb --config=Name:newdb --config=Driver:File --config=Filename:/tmp/debconf.dat
          3. (But this just makes a new database? Don't you also need to change debconf.conf then?)
        3. Packages that need debconf changes:
          1. ssh: sshd should not run by default
          2. exim4: set up server to deliver local mail by default?
          3. xserver-xfree86
            1. resolutions should be limited to 800x600
            2. Maybe the server should be set to vesa always?
            3. Maybe the horiz/vertical refresh rates should be set conservatively?
            4. I should not use the framebuffer device
            5. There is some bug in this
          4. libpaperg
            1. Set default to letterpaper
          5. base-config: enable MD5 and shadow passwords
            1. Also: change PASSWORDGEN.var to remove the 8 character password restriction
          6. adduser: make home directories private
      8. Does discover work better now?
        1. No
          1. It does not detect the sound card
          2. It does not detect a standard ATI video card
        2. Actually, discover2 works okay
        3. Maybe we can use discover for modems?
      9. Need to define packages for TINYGUI, BAREBONES-X11, FULL, LUXURY
      10. Get random bits from the server if possible.
      11. Automatic software selection
        1. Take into account dual-booting
      12. Separate nonfree components into their own tarball
      13. Automate release process more
        1. Copy config files in the config/ directory automatically
        2. Separate nonfree components
        3. use cdd-dev packages?
      14. Use ntpdate to set the date and time
      15. Use /media/floppy for floppy, not /floppy
      16. Try using LVM for multiple hard drives
        1. What is the performance hit?
      17. Use hwinfo to detect stuff
        1. mice
        2. sound cards
      18. Create WCLP help via a script
    4. Webpage
      1. Should we include menus, etc as PHP scripts?
      2. Links to add:
        1. http://www.direqlearn.org
          1. Open-source software used for schooling in Africa
        2. http://wiki.debian.net/?DebianEdu
        3. http://www.cobind.com
          1. Commercial "simplified" Linux distro
          2. The requirements are a 400MHz processor, however.
    5. WCLP customizations
      1. Get user docs (in some form) on the installed systems
        1. Maybe go with Docbook?
      2. Fill out debian-installer report
      3. Make local mirror of wclp equivs on each machine. Add this to the sources.list
      4. IceWM menu
        1. xterm should be taken out
        2. Other apps should be added
          1. Art
            1. XFig
            2. Sketch
            3. Scribus
            4. The GIMP
          2. Office
            1. Gnumeric
          3. Multimedia
            1. Aumix
            2. gqmpeg
            3. xplaycd
          4. Administration
            1. aptitude
            2. Synaptic
          5. xterm (inside)
          6. printer tool (inside)
        3. Help menu at front
      5. Do IceWM personal menus override system ones?
        1. Yes. They do. Rats.
      6. Autologin
        1. All users should have modified .bashrc
    6. Apps and Software
      1. Instant Messenging
        1. How to register account info
        2. How to import buddy lists
          1. Can you import buddy lists?
      2. Stuff to evaluate
        1. Try Abiword 2.0 on an older machine. Does it work?
          1. No. It's deadly slow on the Pentium 90 w/32MB of RAM.
          2. Maybe this is the video card? But CPU usage is huge as well..
        2. Try thoughttracker
        3. Try XFCE 4
          • I tried XFCE4 and wrote up a web page about my experiences.
            Unfortunately I couldn't login to porchlight's web server - they seem to
            be experiencing problems. Basically the report said that xfce4 has
            elements that make it counter-intuitive for experienced Windows, KDE, or
            Gnome users, but that it is quite usable with a little direction. It
            works extremely well in 128MB of RAM, but I haven't tried it on a lesser
            machine yet (compared to KDE it is a godsend).

            I found it resembled OS/2 more than any other interface I've tried. My
            opinion is that with a little customization and some documentation xfce4
            would be a better choice than Icewm. Xfce4 isn't very windows-like,
            which is a minus, but I *really* like it.
          1. This does not appear to have debian menu support. Why?
            1. It does, but not in the panel. Sheesh.
        4. Try ifplugd
        5. Recompile and install 2.6 series kernel?
          1. This makes ALSA easier
        6. clusterssh
        7. http://www.linuxmafia.com/faq/Apps/office-suites.html
        8. apt-fu
        9. mlterm (or unicode xterm)
        10. ttf-freefont
        11. dhelp
        12. hwinfo
        13. am-utils
      3. Needed software
        1. CD-recording software
          1. gcdw
        2. File managers
          1. xfe (from sourceforge)
            1. We need to set file associations.
            2. Use mime-support for unknown files: /usr/bin/see, /usr/bin/edit
          2. xwc (also from sourceforge)
          3. Requirements
            1. Mime support
            2. Some way to create icons on the desktop (possibly using a different program)
            3. Looks and feels like Windows
          4. I looked at some programs to configure IceWM (pnijjar)
            1. icepref was the only one I liked
            2. iceme was broken
            3. iceconf was yucky
            4. icemc was yucky
          5. FOX's Pathfinder
          6. Endeavour2
        3. Desktop icon drawer
          1. Make clickable icons on the desktop
          2. I looked at some programs to put shortcuts on the desktop:
            1. dfm
              1. Maybe the most powerful. It is a file manager with desktop icons.
              2. No rename! No copy command (right click menu)
              3. Icon support is okay but I don't know how to configure icons
            2. desklaunch
              1. Very primitive, but very small
              2. You can configure static, immovable icons
              3. The icons can launch programs when clicked
            3. idesk
              1. You make icons by making .link files in a home directory
              2. Only supports .png and .svg icons -- no xpm
                1. But xfe currently doesn't support xpm either
              3. This looks promising if we can integrate it with XFE:
                1. Drag an icon to the root window == make shortcut
                2. Put the shortcut into the .idesktop/ directory
                3. This would require some programming
            4. fbdesk
              1. Supposed to be used with fluxbox, but possible to make it work with others
              2. I could not get it working properly
              3. Again, you make the icons by specifying configurations in some directory
            5. wm-icons
              1. Not a desktop launcher but a collection of .xpm icons
              2. 11MB!!
              3. But some of the icons are cute.
          3. I need to look at the following
            1. xtdesk (in DSL)
              1. It is called xtdesktop.
              2. The homepage is:
                1. http://garuda.newmail.ru/xtdesk_e.dhtml
              3. There does not appear to be a Debian package.
              4. It is related to idesk..
              5. Why is this used over idesk?
        4. Floppy formatting tool
          1. Is there a LIGHTWEIGHT graphical tool for this?
          2. Could we write one?
        5. Backup tools
          1. Network backups
            1. hdup
            2. box backup
              1. http://www.fluffy.co.uk/boxbackup
              2. This website has a good comparision of backup systems
            3. duplicity
            4. bksh
          2. CD backups
            1. rab -- random access backup
            2. bobs -- browsable online backup system
            3. kateker
              1. GUI
              2. Supports CDs and hard drives
          3. Multiple format
            1. backup-manager
              1. .deb packages are available.
              2. http://www.sukria.net/packages/backup-manager/
          4. Misc
            1. burt
              1. This used to be mentioned a lot, but now is not.
            2. flexbackup
            3. http://fox.neoarts.org/progs/backup
            4. personalbackup.sf.net
            5. cdtar
            6. ubt -- unix backup tool
        6. Better browser (Opera is nonfree)
          1. And out of date. Opera 7 sucks.
            • Looked at Galeon, it's nice but depends on gnome and mozilla. They say
              it's lightweight, and it may be, but it requires lots of drive space.

              Looked at Multivalent, but it requires java.

              Epoz doesn't have enough information on their web site, but it looks
              more like a document editor than a web browser.

              CUAOffice supposedly contains a browser element, but is commercial.

              Exchanger XML Browser requires java and is more of a document manager
              than web browser.

              XBrowser requires java - bit it is a browser.

              Jazilla requires java.

              Grail looks like a promising project, but they're still stuck supporting
              HTML 2.0 with some HTML 3.2 extensions. I didn't try it out and there
              were no screen shots that I could see. It requires recent versions
              of Python and Tcl/Tk. It might be worth our while to stay in touch with
              these folks, perhaps contribute a bit to their project.

              URL: http://grail.sourceforge.net/

              Cheetah has many of the same goals we have, but it looks like it could
              be at an earlier stage than Grail. Still, it may be worth talking to the
              cheetah team.

              URL: http://cheetah.sourceforge.net/

              Dillo we've tried before and it just doesn't meet our needs, no
              javascript being one of the issues. But it is very small. They have
              moved to their own domain.

              URL: http://www.dillo.org/

              Jbrowser requires java.

              Netraider appears to have kde hooks, but claims to be desktop
              independent. Their project homepage appears to be under construction.
          2. The rundown on links 2
            1. Unfortunately some pages spin
              1. http://cookingloser.blogspot.com
            2. I don't know whether it multilingualizes..
              1. It appears to use .png graphics for fonts!
              2. But it displays some of the Japanese on tawawa.org!
            3. Unfortunately it does not support CSS
              1. When CSS doesn't work you get nasty grey backgrounds. Why not white?
            4. For most sites it is FAST, even on the Pentium 90
          3. How about konq-e?
            1. This stands for "konqueror-embedded"
            2. Apparently it requires framebuffer support..
        7. Better login manager (gdm is too heavy)
          1. Remove dependencies from gdm?
          2. rungetty can autologin a user
          3. Look at what Knoppix does
          4. Also: pdm
        8. Quicken clone
        9. New modem dialer
          1. gkdial was good, but now is huge and bloated.
            • I could write a Tcl/Tk toolkit to do some of the configuration tasks,
              but not detecting the modem or solving IRQ conflicts. (CM)
        10. Siag office is gone!
          1. Why did it disappear?
        11. Instant messaging
          1. Maybe try psi?
          2. ayttm
        12. Small spreadsheet
          1. PuppyLinux has the ABS spreadsheet
        13. Nice GUI text editor
          1. Gnotepad?
          2. Nedit?
          3. aee
          4. cream
            1. This looks good.
            2. How big is it?
            3. It's based on Vim! With all of the features of Vim!
        14. Little Windowmaker apps
          1. wmshutdown
            1. Shut down the system by pressing a button
          2. wmressel
            1. Select X resolution
            2. Very cool. Recommended.
          3. wmsysmon
            1. Pretty display of many system stats.
            2. Maybe it hogs CPU, though.
          4. wmweather+
            1. Very pretty weather tracking applet
            2. There are other applets to tell you sunup/sundown and the phases of the moon, too.
        15. Icons
        16. MS-Word converters/editors
          1. Abiword
            1. Chokes on some documents and I can't figure out why
          2. antiword
            1. Small
            2. Command-line only (but probably scriptable)
            3. If imagemagick is installed, displays images
            4. Can convert to postscript (and it works okay)
              1. Images are not transformed properly
          3. catdoc
            1. Small but requires TK
            2. Only extracts text from the document
            3. Works on all documents I have tried so far
            4. UGLY
            5. No longer maintained (only up to Word 97)?
          4. wv
            1. Supposedly can convert to PDF, Postscript (but this requires tetex -- 170MB!)
            2. programs are named funny -- eg wvPDF
            3. The conversions work pretty well, though
            4. Some problems happen when using tables
        17. Paint programs
          1. xpaint -- soon to be discontinued?
          2. gimp? Probably good for LUXURY class.
          3. tuxpaint
          4. tkpaint
            1. It's like XFig, but dumber. Why bother?
        18. Reminder/calendar programs
          1. mhc-utils
            1. Tool name: gemcal
            2. It's actually pretty good
            3. Unfortunately it requires emacs (!?)
              1. No it doesn't.
            4. mhc-utils alone: 4MB
          2. plan
            1. Ugly interface, but usable
            2. Not very rich set of timeframes.
            3. It's GUI
          3. rclock
          4. calendar
          5. ccal
          6. gcal
          7. mcal
          8. remind
          9. xcal
            1. Yecch.
        19. Backup programs?
          1. Maybe we can write this..
            1. I wonder if there is a GUI for this?
          2. cdbackup
          3. kbackup
          4. cpbk
          5. floppybackup
          6. mirrordir
          7. mondo
          8. multicd
          9. backup2l
          10. backuppc
          11. duplicity
            1. Good for internet backups
          12. hdbackup
        20. GUI firewalls
          1. easyfw
      4. Automate X-server configuration
        1. xdebconfigurator
          1. Makes XF86Config-4 files noninteractively
        2. dexconf may do this automatically
        3. discover may help in finding the x-server to install.
        4. We can preseed debconf databases
        5. Maybe try the TinyX servers?
          1. Look up the configuration from somewhere...
          2. The RULE project has some information about this
      5. Update Abiword icons (for use with IceWM)
      6. Can we get WINE working?
      7. Maybe install x-window-system-core (or x-window-system?)
      8. Printing
        1. Try CUPS
          1. Does this have a non-web based graphical setup tool?
          2. Frontends: xpp, cups, qtcups, cupsys-pt, cupsys-client
          3. How do you get drivers?
        2. Look at wvprint
        3. Look at printtool
        4. Look at pconf_detect
          1. This may be a *scriptable* printer detection tool.
        5. look at xfprint4
          1. xfprint-manager looks good (like printtool?)
          2. Does it allow us to see the STATUS of printers?
    7. fai-bootcd
      1. Try using syslinux as a boot loader
        1. make-fai-bootcd has this, but it is broken!
          1. /usr/sbin/mkbootimg (from mkinitrd-cd) calls mkdosfs
          2. mkdosfs (from dosfstools) sees that some directory is already mounted and (silently) croaks.
          3. I can't repeat this..
        2. Syslinux boot image does not work on my 4x CD-ROM (nor on an 8x one I tried) but does work on a 24x Creative one from the cabinet.
          1. The Morphix CD uses syslinux, but DOES boot on the 4x CD-ROM.
          2. The Morphix CD seems to use 2.88MB floppy emulation as well.
          3. What is the difference between the Morphix CD image and ours? Something must be different. But what?
      2. make FAI_BOOTCD class
      3. How do I exclude OPERA from FAI_BOOTCD stuff?
      4. Do not include nonfree components in CD
      5. We must copy /etc/fai/fai.conf to /etc/fai-bootcd/fai.conf
      6. I have to figure out how to make sources CDs that we can distribute along with the binaries.
      7. The make-fai-repository fails. It can't find libgnutls5 or something. It sucks.
      8. TODO:
        1. Add README, LICENCE, files to bootcd
        2. Add dosutils to CD as well (but how?)
        3. Add patches so that people can interactively specify the keymap and timezone (from DEFAULT.var)
          1. Can we hack something that is built on a floppy?
          2. In the classes, if FAI_BOOTCD is defined we could mount the floppy and look for extra configuration there.
            1. Can we do this for disk partitions too?
        4. Interactively partition hard drives (how?)
          1. nparted is no longer supported
          2. Maybe use cfdisk and mkfs?
          3. Maybe just make a config file?
          4. Here's a hacky way to bypass partitioning:
            1. Put up an information screen on the main installer
              1. Ask the user to use cfdisk/parted to partition
              2. Ask the user to use mkswap/mkfs to format their partitions
              3. Ask the user to fill in templates in /tmp/fai for fstab, disk_var.sh
                1. Where does disk_var.sh get invoked?
              4. Then use that information to install the system.
              5. PROBLEM: If the user screws up then the install crashes.
            2. Unfortunately I don't know of a non-hacky way to do this without rewriting Disk Druid or the Debian partition thing (which I quite hate).
        5. Get the initial boot message loading.
        6. Make script-fai-bootcd better: add a --help option so that I know how to call it. Stupid open source programmers.
        7. Make the CD usable as an APT repository
      9. Patches and suggestions
        1. Allow omitted classes to be put in fai-bootcd.conf
        2. Make make-fai-repository use apt-rdepends instead of regular apt-get.
          1. Other possibilities:
            1. apt-cacher
            2. apt-move
        3. There is a bug with make-fai-bootcd
          1. /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/stage1 --> /lib/grub/i386-pc/stage1
        4. Idea: put hostname in fai-variables.conf
          1. Done.
          2. Doesn't work. You must pass the hostname as a kernel parameter.
        5. Hacked make-fai-repository to ignore packages it can't find.
        6. Put on a --help option for make-fai-bootcd
        7. make-fai-bootcd is broken for fai 2.6:
          1. You need to source make-fai-nfsroot.conf as well as fai.conf
        8. For some reason mkbootimg complains:
          1. Mount: must specify filesystem type. WTF?
          2. Also there is no manpage for this command.
          3. Adding -t vfat to the mount command in /usr/sbin/mkbootimg seemed to work.
    8. Security
      1. upgrade gaim package on server and installer
      2. Do we have MD5 passwords enabled?
      3. Is our autologin script stupid?
    9. Documentation (to be written)
      1. How do people connect to the Internet?
        1. How do they set up ADSL?
        2. How do they set up modems?
          • Modems are problematic because of the potential for IRQ, DMA, and I/O
            conflicts. PCI modems solve part of this problem, but create another
            because there are so many unsupported winmodems. The solution I think is
            strong documentation. We will need to cover things like: jumpering ISA
            modems, disabling IRQs in the BIOS so they can be used by a modem, what
            to do when faced with a winmodem.

            We've mentioned wvdial as a tool in the past. I've also had some success
            setting up modems with pppconfig. However, both tools are still console
            tools, and as Paul has mentioned gkdial now depends on gnome (though I
            think I remember mention on the list of a fork just for us).

            If we need a graphical interface to set up modems I could create a
            Tcl/Tk program to do it.
        3. What software do they need to dial out?
          • Again, it shouldn't be too hard to create a Tcl/Tk program that runs
            ppp-on scripts.
      2. Can we get dhelp working? Some other help system?
        1. We should put this on the help menu.
      3. Setting up a new server
        1. Install a fresh server
        2. Turn off firewall
        3. Install fai, nfs-user-server, fai-kernels
        4. edit files in /etc/fai
          1. set up make-fai-nfsroot.conf
            1. Need to set FAI_DEBOOTSTRAP with apt-proxy
          2. fai.conf
            1. Set up CONFIGDIR, set to ssh, mirrorserver,
            2. There is no $debdist variable anymore
          3. set up sources.list
            1. This should point to the apt-proxy mirror
        5. Run fai-setup
        6. Use CVS to get the installer
        7. Recreate the symlinks in the installer using restore-symlinks
        8. Edit /etc/exports
          1. I needed to change @faiclients to 192.168.1.190/255.255.255.0 to set up non-NIS clients
        9. Make sure hosts.deny is not denying everything
        10. Make sure apg is installed
        11. Make sure SSH works
        12. Make sure you install the kernel packages from the WCLP site. (GRRR)
        13. Make a boot floppy (I modified the mkbootfloppy script)
        14. Profit! (?)
          1. No. It is still not connecting right. Why?
      4. I need to get some funny screenshots
        1. POST screen
        2. GRUB screen
        3. Linux boot screen
        4. consoles
          1. I can use a utility called "snapscreenshot" for this.
          2. It is not packaged for Debian.
    10. User support
      1. Incorporate feedback form (maybe)
        • I've learned enough that I could probably write a CGI interface to a
          form. This assumes we have an apache server on the Internet and we have
          access to write cgi scripts.
      2. Set up user feedback surveys
        1. Is anybody using the software?
        2. What apps do they like?
        3. What do they find frustrating?
        4. What apps do they want?
      3. Tell users about wclp-users@lists.sourceforge.net
  2. ARBITRARY LISTS
    1. Software
      1. Console image viewers
        1. fbview
          1. Part of the ppmtofb package
          2. Doesn't work for me
        2. zgv
          1. This is based on svgalib
          2. It works for me!
          3. It's i386, but who cares. Now I don't need to use X ever.
    2. The competition
      1. DamnSmallLinux (damnsmalllinux.org)
        1. THE WINNER (so far)
        2. Works well on a machine with 32MB of RAM
        3. Does not support 8-bit colour so well
      2. RULE (http://www.rule-project.org)
      3. LNX-BBC
        1. Aimed for administrators
      4. Feather Linux (http://featherlinux.berlios.de)
        1. Nice apps:
          1. RSS reader (custom)
          2. scite editor
        2. Works okay, but DSL seems slicker..
      5. Peanut Linux
        1. http://www.ibiblio.org/peanut/
        2. Could not boot this the first time. Ugh.
        3. No MD5sums, either.
        4. This is not competition. It needs 64MB to install. I install it on a 64MB machine and get out of memory kernel panics.
      6. Puppy Linux
        1. Lots of nice configuration scripts. Steal them.
      7. flonix (http://www.flonix.com)
        1. This is for USB devices
      8. DeLi Linux (http://delilinux.berlios.de)
        1. I still cannot get X to work on this.
      9. Bonzai Linux (Debian on 180MB)
        1. KDE on 180 MB, but includes no real KDE apps.
      10. Skolelinux
        1. Needs lots of space standalone
        2. Maybe good for client/server architectures
        3. http://www.skolelinux.org
    3. Neat miscellaneous packages
      1. Working with APT to build packages
        1. apt-rdepends: show dependencies and reverse dependencies
        2. apt-src: build from source
        3. apt-build: also build from source
        4. pbuilder: create chroot environments
    4. Community OSes
      1. Syllable
      2. OpenBeOS
      3. SkyOS
      4. ReactOS
      5. MenuetOS
      6. FreeVMS
    5. Existing documentation online
      1. The Debian GNU/Linux Survivor's Guide
        1. http://www.togaware.com/linux/survivor
      2. linux-backup.net
    6. Quick Reference
      1. Make new boot floppies. Here is the invocation for wc_193:
        1. make-fai-bootfloppy -F -df "ip=192.168.1.193:192.168.1.191:192.168.1.1:255.255.255.0:wc_193:eth0:off FAI_ACTION=install"
        2. Remember to do this every time the fai-kernels package changes!
      2. Compile a kernel
        1. Apply the patches
          1. supermount-ng
            1. Go to the source directory
              1. HACK: modify the KVERSIONS variable to include the kernel version
              2. REPLACE one of the other kernel versions. Do not add something
              3. Do this in /usr/src/kernel-patches/all/apply/supermount-ng
              4. Nope. It still fails to apply cleanly.
            2. Execute /usr/src/kernel-patches/all/apply/supermount-ng
            3. This does not work. The problem is include/linux/fs.h
              1. #define MS_POSIXACL
              2. This is a bugfix that screws up the patch. ARGH.
              3. I hacked the patchfile
            4. Once you have the patchfile fixed (or you have changed fs.h to move the offending line out of the way) then you execute the patch:
              1. Test: cat <patchfile> | patch --dry-run --force -p1
              2. Real: cat <patchfile> | patch -p1
        2. make-kpkg clean
        3. Copy the kernel config from /boot to a .config file (or symlink it)
          1. Maybe making a copy is better
        4. make menuconfig
          1. Enable supermount support
            1. File Systems --> Supermount removable media support
            2. I made this part of the kernel
          2. You can probably disable some stuff too
          3. Change the processor family to 486
          4. Maybe compile EXT3 into the kernel
          5. Things to remove from the Debian config:
            1. Networking options
              1. Appletalk devices
              2. DECnet support
              3. Acorn Econet AUN
            2. Amateur Radio Support
            3. Old CD-ROM Drivers
            4. Filesystems
              1. Amiga FFS filesystem support
              2. Apple HFS filesystem support
              3. Apple HFS+ Filesystem support
              4. BeOS filesystem support
              5. BFS Filesystem support
              6. EFS filesystem support
              7. FreeVxFS support
              8. QNX4 File system support
        5. Build the kernel using make-kpkg
          1. make-kpkg --revision=custom.wclp.486.vanilla.1.0 --initrd kernel_image
          2. Choose the defaults if it asks you any stupid kernel configuration questions.
          3. Wait and hope
  3. NOTES
    1. 2005-03-11, pnijjar
      1. Got stupid userguide posted and compiling.
        1. I really should use make sometime.
      2. Next day:
        1. Add sources for rawrite.
        2. Get stupid kernel figured out
        3. Look into cdd-dev
          1. Look into simple-cdd
        4. Look into Daniel's scripts again.
        5. Look into ifplugd
        6. Test out SILENT class.
        7. Fix release scripts
          1. Use apt-move
          2. Generate equivs, documentation
          3. Get files from /etc/ and put them in the configuration directory
        8. Clean up server
          1. Remove junk packages that we no longer need
        9. Report apt-proxy bug (2004-10-08)
        10. Make webpage clearer
    2. 2005-03-04, pnijjar
      1. Fixed cvs
        1. The problem was that CVS was complaining about a stale lockfile that did not exist
        2. Solution
          1. cvs checkout as a developer
          2. Add the missing directories
          3. cvs commit
          4. Now cvs commit on the real repository
      2. Compiled a kernel (but it needs to be trimmed. It's huge!)
        1. It also does not work for some reason I cannot figure out yet. Rats.
      3. Removed fcopy of exim.conf, since it is obsolete.
      4. Checked in userguide, but did not compile anything.
    3. 2005-02-04, pnijjar
      1. Added packages from FULL to EXTRAS
        1. Why not? There is enough space..
      2. Took out "show desktop" icon from ICEWM
      3. Added a bunch of icons
        1. wordview
        2. sketch
        3. mhc
      4. Screwed up CVS! I can't commit now!
    4. 2005-01-14, pnijjar
      1. Added abiword-help to ABIWORD
      2. Removed guppi from GNUMERIC
      3. Removed guitar, as XFE does just as much
      4. Added MHC_GEMCAL class
      5. Added mhc to EMACS class
    5. 2004-12-17, pnijjar
      1. Checked out some backup programs.
      2. Tried out a GNUstep environment
      3. Checked out a calendar application.
        1. So far mhc-utils looks best
      4. Messed with the menus again
        1. I am again displaying program names
      5. Added GUItar to the CRAMPED install
    6. 2004-12-11, pnijjar
      1. Updated truecurve theme to show the status symbols better
      2. Modified menu system to advertise (many) more applications.
      3. Moved Abiword skeleton files to their own tarball
      4. Removed .gaimrc, as it is no longer needed.
    7. 2004-12-04, pnijjar
      1. Added ntpdate support (FINALLY)
      2. Disabled auto eth0 for the machines
      3. Fixed timezone information
        1. It was supposed to be Canada/Eastern, not Canada/EST
    8. 2004-11-26, pnijjar
      1. Sometimes classes appear twice in the classlist. Then the scripts are executed twice.
        1. The problem is that you choose classes in 70menu.source
        2. If this is a duplicate class then the class will appear twice.
        3. How can I make the class list unique?
        4. Cludge hack: check in 70menu.source
    9. 2004-11-20, pnijjar
      1. Added gtans to default games, removed groundhog
      2. Added CREAM class
    10. 2004-11-12, pnijjar
      1. Added new hook: configure.GNUMERIC
        1. This uses sed to modify the /usr/lib/gnumeric/<version>/excel/plugin.xml file
        2. The idea is to save to Excel format by default
      2. Gnumeric sucks. It doesn't even start. We need another spreadsheet.
      3. Switched lprngtool to printtool
        1. lprngtool is gone
        2. I still do not know how to add printers to printtool
        3. This takes about 8MB
      4. Good news from the beta tester:
        1. He used the computer and it did not blow up
        2. He edited his resume using abiword and the computer didn't blow up
        3. He tranferred his resume at the HRDC offices and their computers didn't blow up
      5. Updated CVS information on the webpages, but did it suckily.
    11. 2004-11-05, pnijjar
      1. Fixed the weird NFS problem. I had the kernel parameters wrong.
        1. It is fixed in the mkbootfloppy script now
      2. Tested out server configuration and documented it
      3. Worked on the Gnumeric issue a bit.
        1. Not enough, though.
    12. 2004-10-30, pnijjar
      1. Continued move to CVS
        1. Changed installer directory to /usr/local/share/wclp/wclp
          1. This affects the following files:
            1. fai.conf
              1. FAI_CONFIGDIR changes
            2. /etc/exports
              1. The export changes
        2. Added .not_empty_dir files to all directories that contain a symlink. Otherwise CVS ignores them.
      2. Reverted back apt-proxy
        1. I put in apt-proxy 1.3.5 from apt-proxy.sourceforge.net
        2. The version on woody fails for some reason I can't figure out.
      3. Attempted to install new system. I CAN'T DO IT.
        1. There is something funny going on with NFS
        2. RPC is returning error -101
        3. Yet, the pre-existing floppies work fine for some reason.
      4. Changed configure.OPERA
        1. If /usr/bin/opera does not exist then there is no configuration
      5. Added mkbootfloppy script to make floppies easily
        1. BUT THE FLOPPIES DON'T WORK!
    13. 2004-10-29, pnijjar
      1. Modified CVSROOT to count archives as binaries
    14. 2004-10-22, pnijjar
      1. Attempted to get CD-Burner working
      2. It works for regular CD-Rs, but not for CD-RWs. (Sigh)
      3. Attempted to work with CVS
        1. It scares me:
          1. I can't deal with symlinks (I have to write a script??)
          2. Dealing with binary files is unhappy
      4. Cleaned up icons a little.
        1. Gnumeric icons changed -- now have transparent background
        2. new WWW icon, thanks to wm-icons.sourceforge.net
    15. 2004-10-08, pnijjar
      1. Started apt-proxy. It is flaky..
        1. It does not shut down very nicely
        2. I can't figure out where it actually stores its cache
        3. Sometimes there are delays in getting packages
        4. I also had to change the $mirrorhost variable in fai.conf
        5. However, install clients seem to call the proxy (sometimes -- they don't like updating their base, for some reason).
        6. BUG: The cache directory has to be owned by user aptproxy, or else you get permission denied errors and fail to cache anything.
        7. Ironically: it looks like unstable is reverting back to 1.3.6 -- as of today. Sigh.
          1. I am getting permission-denied errors in trying to revert, however. Why?
    16. 2004-10-01, pnijjar
      1. Upgraded server. Did nothing on actual distro.
        1. Apparently apt-proxy is too broken to use in Sarge. I installed it from stable.
        2. twisted and python2.3-twisted have conflicts
        3. space-orbit and space-orbit-common appear to have conflicts
    17. 2004-09-24, pnijjar
      1. Fixed password saving scripts
      2. Cleaned up kernel image file from /root directory.
      3. Cleaned up (and simplified) IceWM menu file
        1. Remove OPERA from IceWM menus.
        2. Add x-www-browser pixmap (and make my scripts install the pixmap)
          1. This is done via a dumb-looking icon
        3. Added extra icon paths
          1. /usr/share/icons/foxicons
        4. Got rid of some confusing menu options (such as "Help")
      4. Got rid of the password_file file in the root account
      5. Looked into MS-Word viewers. None are ideal.
        1. I added antiword and catdoc anyways
      6. Worked on TINYGUI
        1. Added menu to ICEWM
        2. Added XFE class
        3. It still takes over 300MB to install the distro. I can't figure out what is so huge.
      7. Done long ago:
        1. Change TWCN_DISK class to WCLP_DISK or something.
        2. Take into account partition sizes
          1. This is in 07disk-new.pl
    18. 2004-09-10, pnijjar
      1. Added "ifhp" to WINLIKE
        1. Needed for lprngtool
      2. Fixed "WCLP Help" menu item
        1. Now calls x-www-browser and not help-browser
      3. Removed wvdial.conf installation from configure.WINLIKE
        1. We don't use wvdial anymore, I think.
      4. Added link to /dev/cdrom if it exists
        1. This may not work yet
      5. Added ugly message to /etc/issue
      6. Updated README.bootcd to give instructions on booting from floppy
      7. Played with Skolelinux
        1. I think it wants 3GB of space for a standalone installation
        2. However, it would be nice for a networked install
      8. Tried downloading some icons. Maybe we can use them in our menus.
    19. 2004-09-03, pnijjar
      1. It turns out that keymaps should get copied by FAI.
      2. The libpaper1 problem is not fixed.
      3. Looked at some Windowmaker doohickeys
    20. 2004-08-28, pnijjar
      1. Added FLOPPYCONFIG class. This will look for certain files on a floppy disk for some local configuration options.
        1. Allow some boot CD customization without remastering the CD
        2. Paper size
        3. Timezone
        4. Keyboard map
        5. Default hostname and user account
      2. Added icewm-session as an x-window-manager, and Opera as an x-www-browser.
      3. Massively renumbered all the scripts in class/. It's as if I called "renum" in BASIC.
        1. I did not touch scripts provided by Thomas Lange, though, because I will have to change those when he upgrades them.
      4. See how much the bootcd actually installs
        1. Why does this computer keep crashing??
        2. The reboot is not working. I wonder whether this is only this machine, or a general problem?
      5. Fixed (I hope) the libpaper1 config problem. Argh.
    21. 2004-08-21, pnijjar
      1. The mkwclpdocs script is all broken. I have to fix it.
      2. I want to modify the make-fai-repository script to produce *source* pools. Can it be done?
    22. 0.7
      1. 2004-08-20, pnijjar
        1. RELEASE!
          1. Oh no!
          2. What have I done!?
          3. No. No release. I don't know whether I can release the ISO file. ncurses.
        2. Yay! I can pass the hostname to the kernel, by appending a kernel parameter in menu.lst!
        3. We need to add a /cdrom (or /mnt/cdrom) directory.
          1. Done.
        4. Tighten up the logfiles so that not everybody can see the root password.
          1. Getting rid of all instances of the root password is going to be tricky because they are instance variables..
          2. I think getting rid of variables.sh might be sufficient..
          3. Done (I hope)
        5. Made some scary screens to tell users about the FAI_BOOTCD caveats. Hopefully they will not use the installer now.
        6. Tested out the boot floppy.
      2. 2004-08-13, pnijjar
        1. Done stuff (old)
          1. firewall is still broken. again.
            1. Maybe Daniel fixed it now.
            2. We need to check this.
          2. The firewall works but I am not totally confident about it.
          3. Kernel problems:
            1. On the Pentium-90:
              1. "Could not read partition table"
              2. Then the kernel wanted to think that it was 2.4.20-8, which came from.. I don't know where.
              3. Is the kernel not being installed properly?
              4. Maybe I can ms-sys the master boot record beforehand?
                1. This should kill any invocations of LILO.
          4. Fill out Thomas Lange's questionnaire
            1. Did I not mark this as done before?
        2. Nothing got done. It's all my fault for being so lazy. I should be fired.
          1. I did manage to write a dumb script called script-fai-bootcd which builds CDs easier.
          2. I also managed to get the installer working off CD.
            1. It is not perfect yet. For some reason it boots automatically. Why?
      3. 2004-08-07, pnijjar
        1. Mastering and burning CDs takes a LONG TIME!
        2. For some reason 01alias.sh is not grabbing the HOSTNAME. It sucks. Maybe I can search on some other thing?
          1. However, it does appear that something is happening. An install is not completing, though.
        3. FAI_DEBOOTSTRAP is a problem:
          1. If it is local then we can't build the CD nfsroot.
          2. If it is nonlocal then the CD will not mount it properly.
          3. I don't get it...
        4. Found some problems in make-fai-bootcd (which I need to report) and in the new make-fai-nfsroot
        5. Added MBR to the list of classes, so GRUB installs to the MBR instead of on a partition. This should fix quite a few annoyances.
      4. 2004-08-05, pnijjar
        1. Tried to fix wclp-getID to work if there is no logserver.
        2. Threw together a hacky NOPARTITION class, which can use a hard drive without blowing it away. Could this be the start of a real installer?
        3. Fixed a bug in 15softwareset.sh
        4. Rebuilt kernel again
        5. The bootcd still does not install. It wants to connect to 192.168.1.191, which is our server. I can't figure out why, though.
        6. Next day (carried over again. sigh.)
          1. Install Daniel's scripts.
          2. Investigate IceWM "system tray"
          3. Fix my password generation script
          4. Fix my ID creation script
            1. Without a real server it is quite broken..
      5. 2004-07-30, pnijjar
        1. Made ONE_HDD_EXT3 and ONE_HDD_EXT3_NOCHECK classes
        2. Changed make-fai-repository
          1. Now collects information about packages that could not be installed and (hopefully?) prints out the information
          2. Rebuilt fai-bootcd kernels to shrink them down. We need them to fit on a 1.44MB floppy.
            1. Right now I am 83Kb over. Sigh.
            2. No. I recompiled to optimize on space. Now I am 3k over. Double sigh.
        3. Tried out a bunch of distros
          1. Our distro on Charles's Compaq: painfully slow. What's going on?
          2. Puppy Linux: I can't get the boot image to work.
            1. I run out of memory. This is probably my fault.
            2. Maybe I downloaded the wrong image
            3. No. The image is right, but this takes 128MB of RAM!
            4. However, Puppy Linux has all sorts of good configuration scripts I want to steal..
          3. DeLi Linux: Installs but can't get booting yet
            1. This is my incompetence, I bet.
            2. It is now booting but the keyboard map is messed up. How do I change it?
          4. Vector Linux: Installs (slowly) but does not set up X for us. Ugh.
            1. Needs more than 1GB for X-Windows
          5. DSL: Installs and works pretty well.
            1. I am having problems shutting the machine off nicely.
            2. Click-and-load is awesome!
          6. RULE (RedHat 9)
            1. Installs pretty well
            2. Boots slowly but correctly
      6. 2004-07-24, pnijjar
        1. make-fai-bootcd work:
          1. Got package repository built
          2. Burned a CD, but it does not boot on all CD-ROMS (??)
            1. Size: about 600MB! Without OpenOffice!
          3. Have not installed anything yet. That will come later.
          4. Hacked make-fai-repository so that it would work for me.
        2. Wrote wclp-gen_package_selections to automate UNIXLIKE and DEVEL packages, which were out of date.
        3. Added x-www-browser functionality to links and dillo.
          1. These are bugs which need to be reported.
        4. Obsolete bugs
          1. We have no background in IceWM anymore. We need to set it.
            1. Fixed with a hacky "xsetroot" call.
            2. The proper way is to use icewmbg, but I don't know how to do this while still allowing people to choose their own window manager.
          2. Autologin should work even if we don't have X-Windows installed
            1. This is fixed, I think. You will login but X won't try to start.
          3. DHCP appears to be broken. Why?
            1. Could it be the firewall again?
            2. No. I had not installed "dhcp-client". Feh.
        5. Next day:
          1. Select disk class based on CHECKDISKS variable.
          2. Look into putting real file associations with xfe
          3. Try out fai-bootcd
            1. Make a bootable 1.44MB floppy disk, if possible.
          4. Fix up make-fai-repository hack
            1. All the missing files should be printed out at the *end*
      7. 2004-07-23, pnijjar
        1. Todolist cleanup: done/obsolete tasks
          1. gqview (image viewer)
            1. Thanks to Javier for suggesting this
            2. This works well.
          2. Make package lists work with sarge
          3. Hack: Write a script that does autologin
            1. Autologin without X
              1. URL: http://www.thelinuxlink.net/pipermail/lvlug/2001-March/001389.html
              2. Choose the user (say linuxuser)
              3. Make a script. Contents:
                1. #!/bin/bash
                2. exec su -- login linuxuser
                3. Call the script autologin.sh
              4. Make the script executable
              5. Edit inittab
              6. Change the line as follows
                1. 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
                2. 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/autologin.sh tty1
            2. Description
              1. name: /sbin/wclp-autologin
              2. Autologin is done via su (not login)
              3. By default we will run startx to get into graphical mode
              4. There are two config files:
                1. /etc/wclp/autologin_user contains the user name that should be logged in
                2. /etc/wclp/autologin_enable is a flag.
                  1. If it is not present no autologin will be attempted.
              5. The program attempts to log in the specified user.
              6. If this fails (or anything fails) it runs getty to do a normal login session.
              7. After exiting the login session you get getty as well.
              8. rungetty does not work directly because you cannot run it from a script.
                1. I can run a script from getty, but then I don't know how to shut down autologin attempts if something is screwed up.
            3. I currently run autologin from tty1, which is dumb.
            4. I can modify /etc/inittab to autologin only on runlevel 2.
            5. Still TODO:
              1. BUG: signals are trapped by init (I think). Thus we cannot cancel the process manually. Feh.
              2. I am not sure of the security holes of this script.
              3. Next: patch /etc/inittab.
        2. Stuff I did today
          1. Set background in .xsession
          2. Set mouse to default to serial if no mouse is detected
          3. Added dhcp-client to BAREBONES-ESSENTIALS
          4. Added packages for dillo, links2
            1. Unfortunately neither of these actually provides x-www-browser
          5. Compiled kernel for fai-bootcd
        3. Stuff to do next day
          1. Try running make-fai-bootcd
          2. What does icewmbg, icetray do?
          3. Install Daniel's scripts for changing the time.
          4. Set up dillo to be an x-www-browser
          5. Set up links2 to be an x-www-browser
            1. Maybe make a "glinks" script to do this.
          6. Look into metamail
            1. This does what I want for MIME types
            2. but mime-support does it just as easily
              1. /usr/bin/see, /usr/bin/edit ...
      8. 2004-07-17, pnijjar
        1. Why does the kernel package not get installed?
          1. Maybe I need to reinstall the kernel? Sigh.
          2. I think I need to recompile. For some reason the Debian-exim group used to exist way back when, and now it doesn't. If I created the group I could get around this.
          3. The kernel does work for BAREBONES-X11 but fails for STANDARD. I don't get it.
          4. The error is "dpkg: syntax error: unknown group 'Debian-exim' in statusoverride file
          5. Fixed. The problem was in the way the kernel package was installed
            1. It was being installed as "dpkg --root $target -i $kernelpackage"
            2. But that was using the dpkg information for the nfsroot, not the dpkg information for the new machine
            3. Solution: use chroot and call dpkg that way.
        2. I wiped out default.FINISH by accident. I think I managed to recreate it, but this needs to be tested out.
      9. 2004-07-16, pnijjar
        1. Looked into fai-bootcd
          1. See notes in fai-bootcd section above
        2. Next steps (continued again)
          1. Install (and burn!) DSL to hard drive
        3. Added some mouse detection, video card detection to XSERVER-XFREE86
          1. If we are lucky then this will do all xserver configuration for us
        4. Turned off ssh
        5. New bug (pointed out by Charles): the kernel doesn't install.
          1. Looking at shell.log, I see "dpkg: syntax error: unknown group 'Debian-exim' in statusoverride file"
          2. But the installer does work for the barebones class?
      10. 2004-07-10, pnijjar
        1. Autologin is broken
          1. I don't know why. I have no idea.
          2. It looks as if this is fixed
        2. Downloaded xvesa driver (precompiled using Alien)
          1. Doesn't work, yet. I get the error "failed to disable listen for tcp transport"
          2. I modified the startx script from the RULE project
        3. Fixed 07disk-new. It works good now.
        4. Looked into apt-rdepends, apt-src
          1. Unfortunately I screwed up the server
          2. By installing the xfree86 source, I installed a bunch of other packages that should not be on the server
        5. Next steps (taken from previous note)
          1. Install DSL to hard drive
          2. Stop sshd (manually if necessary)
      11. 2004-07-09, pnijjar
        1. Added some new dialogs for the installer
          1. Create dialog to create default user account (instead of "linuxuser"
        2. Played with the competition
          1. RULE: Fair
            1. I was able to install RH9.0 without problem
          2. DSL: Awesome
            1. Add-on packages are available
            2. TinyX works very well
            3. Apps are reasonable
            4. Unfortunately I wrecked the CD by trying to make it multisession. Rats.
        3. Links2 is in unstable. Yay!
          1. Unfortunately it does not have SSL support
            1. This is in elinks but not here
            2. The problem is that the licences of OpenSSL and the GPL are incompatible. Argh!
          2. Unfortunately it does not have tabs and a button bar
        4. Autologin is totally broken
          1. I thought it was working before, though. What's wrong?
        5. Next steps:
          1. Fix 07disk-new
          2. Fix autologin
          3. Try compiling KDrive for our use
      12. 2004-06-12, pnijjar
        1. Fixed?
          1. -su: no job control in this shell. Why?
            1. It has something to do with "pgrps".
            2. http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/sw/usershell.html
              1. This dude implemented autologin properly
              2. It uses a small C program
            3. The rungetty hack seems to work.
        2. Tried installing 2.6 kernel
          1. My machine just reboots now. What's going on?
          2. Also, GRUB does not get updated. Why?
          3. This does need module-init-tools and initrd-tools
        3. The firewall is indeed interfering with statd (in nfs-common). Why?
          1. Hacky solution: decrease priority of firewall.
          2. For now I set it to 50.
        4. sshd still starts. Why?
          1. Maybe because I did not install UNIXLIKE?
          2. CHECK THIS
        5. Attempted to compile links2
          1. Needed packages:
            1. libssl-dev
            2. xlibs-dev
            3. libpng12-dev
            4. libjpeg-dev
            5. pkg-config
            6. libssl-dev
          2. configure options
            1. --enable-graphics
            2. --enable-javascript
            3. --with-ssl
          3. This works!
        6. Next steps (immediate)
          1. Come up with dialogs and question priorities
          2. See whether I can get some discovery happening
          3. Integrate Daniel's perl script to fix password transfers
      13. 2004-06-11, dallen
        1. Added TODO list to webpage, with collapsable links. Updates every 3 hours.
          1. note: sourceforge's CVS server can't be accessed from their shell server, which means I had to use a third server to make this work.
      14. 2004-06-04, pnijjar
        1. Debconf seeding broke root password updates.
          1. Solution? Use debconf directly?
            1. Doesn't work. I don't know exactly why -- maybe it is because the passwd.config script is picky.
          2. This would require updating fai.conf. Ugh.
            1. We disable the FAI_ROOTPW in fai.conf now.
            2. My solution: Steal code from /var/lib/dpkg/info/passwd.config to generate MD5 sums
            3. Use this and "chpasswd -e" to set things up.
            4. This seems to work, sort of.
        2. Latest autologin attempt: hack .bash_profile for the autologin user.
          1. Check for the following:
            1. presence of /etc/wclp/autologin_enable
            2. That the terminal type is "linux"
            3. That this is /dev/tty1
          2. If all of these work, try executing startx.
          3. It seems to work, but I need to test it more.
          4. It uses rungetty (again)
        3. Next:
          1. Try 2.6 kernel
            1. module-init-tools
            2. initrd-tools
            3. Currently I am getting too many module errors
          2. Look at fai-bootcd (again)
      15. 2004-05-28, pnijjar
        1. Started munging autologin scripts
          1. Added some error messages to the script
          2. Took out the countdown messages (we can't cancel the script properly)
          3. I am getting "no job control in this shell" errors
          4. Also: I am getting "user not authorized to run X" which is very bad.
          5. Probably the answer is to run getty or rungetty again.
          6. We can put startx in the .login script
        2. Started playing with debconf seeding
          1. Seeded packages:
            1. passwd: shadow, md5 passwords
              1. I think this broke the root password generation.
              2. Now users can log into root without a password. Yikes!
            2. xserver-xfree86
            3. ssh
              1. Should not run sshd
            4. libpaperg1
              1. Set letterpaper
        3. Abiword is SO SLOW
        4. XFCE does not seem fast either
        5. DONE
          1. ssh keys are not working with install hosts. FAI complains.
            1. Solution: remove $LOGDIR from /etc/fai/fai.conf
      16. 2004-05-21, pnijjar
        1. Worked on getting autologin to work.
        2. I have something working on a demo machine, but I have incorporated nothing into the installer.
        3. I fixed a bug in configure.DEFAULT: we were using the old Discover, and the module detection broke. (We should not actually need this.. discover should handle it.)
      17. 2004-05-21, dallen
        1. fixed firewall again. installed into /usr/local/share/wclp/installer/local.files on server.
          Copied the proper firewall from Linux Security Cookbook, which is a very good book.
      18. 2004-05-15, pnijjar
        1. Should every machine have BAREBONES? Should BAREBONES be default?
          1. Note that some things in BAREBONES are not standard..
          2. For now, they will be separate.
        2. The BOOT script is not working. The parameters to GRUB are wrong.
        3. Change root password to something hard.
          • How about installing something to run pwgen for the root password? pwgen
            generates meaningless but pronounceable passwords. See:

            http://packages.debian.org/stable/admin/pwgen
      19. 2004-05-14, pnijjar
        1. Added apg to the list of extra packages installed in the nfsroot
        2. Also added strace.
        3. Put Abiword in its own class
        4. I generate passwords now.
          1. Unfortunately it is broken
          2. Special quotable characters are a problem
          3. apg is a wrapper script for the real apg
          4. Sometimes there isn't enough randomness for /dev/random, so we have to seed it. Ugh.
          5. The passwords get saved to .passwords/root-passwords in the faiadmin account. Yay.
        5. Discover 2 is in testing. It breaks 06detect.source. Feh.
          1. It also does not detect ISA cards.. Grr.
        6. the wclp-feedback install is broken.
          1. Maybe the tarball needs to be renamed.
        7. Put a bigger hard drive in the Pentium 90
          1. Unfortunately GRUB does not install to the hard drive. Why?
          2. The goal is to install Debian and then try out candidate software (e.g. XFCE4)
      20. 2004-05-07, pnijjar
        1. Move all local changes in scripts to hooks instead... DONE
        2. Does the "shutdown" button break?
          1. /sbin/shutdown reverts after upgrade
            1. I think this has been fixed for some time -- pnijjar
          2. I am pretty sure this is fixed.
        3. Should we be using notes in the woody file?
          1. I personally don't like them because I have to open an editor to see them.
          2. On the other hand they are easy to edit.
        4. Added installer/local.files/WCLP_VERSION
          1. Modified mkrelease to update this version when we release.
        5. Cleaned up installer/hooks and installer/scripts directories.
          1. hooks: scripts we write
          2. scripts: scripts Thomas Lange writes
            1. He changes these every so often without warning.
        6. Idea: for the most part, give each application its own class name.
          1. Added classes: OPERA, ICEWM, GDM, XDM, GDM_AUTOLOGIN
          2. Removed classes: DEBCONF
        7. Once again, AUTOLOGIN causes problems: how can you get GDM_AUTOLOGIN to call AUTOLOGIN as well?
        8. We now generate a unique ID for each installed machine.
          1. The unique ID and WCLP version now get set to /etc/issue
          2. Next step: generate passwords and save them to the server.
        9. XPrt seems to be broken. Sigh
          1. The postrm does not obey the noninteractive install, or something.
      21. 2004-04-28, dallen
        1. comparing memory use of xfce and icewm: relatively unscientifically: (comparing ps aux, RSS column (which correpsonds to the %MEM column):
          xfce: /usr/x11R6/bin/X : 16MB ; xfce4-session : 5.9MB
          icewm: /usr/bin/X11/X : 1.3MB ; x-window-manager: 2.4MB

          comparison was between a fast computer running sarge and xfce4 (Charles's machine) and the old newigor running icewm.
        2. xml-munging to create todo webpage: wclp server is really annoying and doesn't let us compile for the webserver; meaning that we cannot use the perl libraries to parse XML.
          1. Options:
            1. I can run the script on my home computer and automatically upload changes via cvs; and we can auto-download the cvs changes to the server. This seems messy.
            2. We can use a different server for the webpages.
            3. I can write a XML-parsing script using regular experessions, which is intellectually unsatisfying, but probably less work. This is the approach I'm trying.
      22. 2004-04-23, pnijjar
        1. Added debian-reference-en as a package for the STANDARD class. I would like to put it in CRAMPED. It is *awesome*.
        2. Moved our helper scripts (e.g. wclp-equivs) from local.files/ to bin-release. They don't belong there either, but this is a better location for them.
        3. Made a BAREBONES package. It is bare bones. The idea is to see how much space assorted wclp-packages take up.
        4. I fixed all the packages in package_config. They should all install, albeit with huge amounts of space.
          1. Siag office is gone!
            • Siag Office still maintains web sites at:

              http://siag.nu/index.siag.shtml
              http://freshmeat.net/projects/siagoffice/

              Has it just been taken out of Debian or has development stopped?
          2. Maybe we can rebuild from source?
      23. 2004-04-21, pnijjar
        1. Added XSERVER-XFREE86 to CRAMPED class
        2. Made local mirror: /usr/local/mirror/localdebs
          1. It does not work right yet. Why?
        3. Downloaded gkdial from http://beterabba.no-ip.org/debian/gkdial
        4. Removed gdm configurations from configure.WINLIKE scripts
        5. Temporarily disabled FULL and STANDARD package lists.
          1. Remember to reinstate them!
        6. Next steps:
          1. Debug FULL and STANDARD packages
          2. Install FireFox based on amount of RAM available
          3. Figure out how to load modules properly
        7. Installer takes 600MB space (450MB used post-install) for CRAMPED
        8. Paths in icewm changed: updated in configure.WINLIKE
        9. Maybe I fixed the firewall -- the script was not executable.
        10. Looked at desktop shortcut drawers, iceWM preference programs
    23. 0.6
      1. 2004-04-19, dallen
        1. Notes for last Wed., 2004-04-14
          1. released WCLP 0.6
            1. ln -s wclp /usr/local/share/wclp-0.n
              cd /usr/local/share/fai/bin-release
              look at mkrelease and mkwclpdocs
              make sure the manuals are up-to-date by checking CVS
              run: mkrelease wclp-0.n
          2. release script notes
            1. creates 6 .tgz files:

              16 /tmp/wclp-0.6-config.tar.gz
              180 /tmp/wclp-0.6-htmlmanuals.tar.gz
              404 /tmp/wclp-0.6-installer.tar.gz
              12412 /tmp/wclp-0.6-kernels.tar
              484 /tmp/wclp-0.6-manuals.tar.gz
              956 /tmp/wclp-0.6-pdfmanuals.tar.gz

              which get uploaded to sourceforge along with a pithy description.
          3. modified mkrelease script to do a bit more error-checking, diagnostic info
          4. Discussed project makeup with Paul
            1. Basically we have three functional parts:
              1. Installer
                1. makes logical choices based on disk size and a few user choices. Could also auto-detect HW better to make more logical choices.
              2. Packages
                1. One of the features of our project is *fewer* choices than knoppix and morphix- we don't have 3 printing systems, etc.
                2. One of the packages functions sort of duplicates the installer- we have a script to generate dummy packages (which isn't terribly easy to use). This should be documented.
              3. Documentation
                1. Some of our docs might be useful to other projects. How do we contribute it back?
                2. We're not doing so well at completing documentation. How do we do better?...
          5. Reudi added access.html to the website's menu.
        2. todo list stuff: see README in this CVS checkout
      2. 2004-04-16, pnijjar
        1. Created new UNIXLIKE, DEVEL packages
        2. UNIXLIKE: aptitude -F='%d' search '~pstandard!~sdevel' > UNIXLIKE_SARGE
        3. DEVEL: aptitude -F='%d' search '~pstandard~sdevel' > DEVEL_SARGE
        4. gkdial is huge and bloated now. It depends on GNOME. Ugh.
        5. Removed ACROREAD class
        6. Removed PKG_CONFIG class
        7. Removed gmc
          1. Changed .xsession in /local.files/skel-winlike.tar.gz
          2. Changed entry in /local.files/menu
        8. Added xfe
        9. I had to change /etc/exports from the one that FAI created. It wanted to create a netgroup called @faiclients or something. I changed that to 192.168.1.190/255.255.255.0
        10. 06hwdetect.source was broken. Oy. It was modprobing ide-probe-mod instead of ide-detect
        11. The dialog scripts are not working. They do not update the list of classes properly.
          1. They also needed to redirect standard out to /dev/console
          2. Fixed: pnijjar
        12. eeyes is gone from Debian. Replaced by gqview for now.
        13. Temporarily took out eeyes, opera
        14. AIEE! xserver-svga is GONE! Debian has discontinued support for Xfree86 3.3.6!
          1. URL: message 448 of the Debian-x list, October 2003.
          2. http://bugs.debian.org/52427
        15. There is not enough space for all packages on the 400MB hard drive.
          1. gdm has to go.
          2. gkdial has to go.
          3. sylpheed and gaim have to move
          4. All of these are in APPS_STANDARD now
        16. Move gaim, sylpheed from CRAMPED to STANDARD
      3. 2004-04-15, pnijjar
        1. Incorporated Sourceforge tracker tasks
      4. 2004-04-14, pnijjar
        1. Daniel released WCLP 0.6
        2. Woody has a bug: the entry field FLASHES!
        3. (dallen): solution- customize ~/.woody.conf - I've included mine in the CVS project for the todo list.
        4. Set up new server with Sarge
          1. fai-setup takes care of creating a user, ssh keys, /etc/exports... much of the admin guide is redundant
          2. apt-proxy is easy to set up and works well
          3. New debian installer worked
            1. Partitioning hard drives had a confusing interface
            2. I don't know what the happy faces mean
        5. Charles looked at the RULE installer
          1. The installer is more verbose than ours
          2. The installer did not install LILO correctly (it did not want to overwrite GRUB)
        6. Yesterday Ruedi made a new version of the site live
      5. 2004-03-31, dallen
        1. Try XWC file manager
          1. is it packaged?
          2. no.
          3. installing turned out to be too difficult on a first try- depends on a library called 'fox' (itself with depends) but doesn't work with debian 'libfox')
        2. discussed user- and developer- support.
      6. 2004-03-30, dallen
        1. I'm cursed. the two last times I saved notes, something broke. I'll try again though.
        2. latex2html -local_icons adminguide.wclin.tex
          latex2html -local_icons cheatsheet.tex
          ...ran pdflatex on these as well. uploaded them to sf.net site.
        3. updated sf.net documentation.html: referring to new docs; adding a link to http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/ ;
          adding URL for Abiword tutorial (is it the right one?)
      7. 2004-03-10, dallen
        1. added wiki to sf.net. Problems: 1) it's slow; 2) it's missing RCS backup 3) the sf.net server interacts badly with the latest version so we're running one revision behind (fewer features.) Probably we should switch servers for the wiki.
      8. 2004-02-11, pnijjar
        1. Send make-fai-bootfloppy patch to Thomas Lange
          1. No need. The latest make-fai-bootfloppy has this functionality
      9. 2004-02-04, dallen
        1. touched up web page to accurately describe the first-time user doc
        2. having problems getting CVS to check out the manuals directory. grr.
      10. 2004-01-28, dallen
        1. added firewall start/stop/restart parameters. should work now.
        2. decided we shouldn't put the server directly on the net b/c script-kiddies could guess our root password, etc.
      11. 2004-01-24, pnijjar
        1. Changed /etc/fai/fai.conf DEBOOTSTRAP_DEB_OPTS to match the current version of FAI.
        2. Uploaded this file to CVS
      12. 2004-01-14, pnijjar
        1. setup_harddisks is BROKEN! It does not see the current list of classes for some reason, so it does not choose classes correctly.
          1. Daniel found that the disk-size detection routines are failing.
          2. Solution: put on FAI 2.5
          3. Problem: make-fai-nfsroot fails because we cannot get dhcp3-client working (which I don't use anyways). Solution: Remove this package and all invocations to it from /usr/sbin/make-fai-nfsroot
          4. Real solution: enable /usr/share/doc/fai/examples/simple/06hwdetect.source. This modprobes the ide drives.
      13. 2004-01-10, pnijjar
        1. The 4x CD-ROM doesn't read burned CDRWs very well. It does not read Morphix burned to CDRW.
          1. Replaced with a 24x CD-ROM for now.
        2. fai-bootcd will not work with fai-2.5.2 on woody. The dependency on mkinitrd-cd is broken and a pain to fix.
        3. Set up the new FAI. I had to disable dhcp3-client installation.
          1. The client boots. Beyond that I don't know.
  4. CHANGELOG
    1. 0.8
      1. Changed/added/removed files
        1. class
          1. 50softwareset.sh
            1. Made CRAMPED class 800-2000 MB (down from 800-2500)
          2. PASSWORDGEN.var
            1. Fixed to increase number of possible special characters
          3. CRAMPED
            1. Removed BASE, BOOT, GRUB (since they are provided by BAREBONES)
          4. TINYGUI
            1. Added XFE
        2. package_config
          1. WINLIKE
            1. added ifhp (for printing)
            2. Added catdoc, antiword for viewing MS-Word files
            3. Removed xfe
          2. XFE
            1. Provides XFE manager
          3. DEFAULT_WCLP
            1. Removed libpam-cracklib (as we never use it)
        3. local.files
          1. wclp-help.menu
            1. Uses "x-www-browser" and not "help-browser" now
          2. preferences, menu, toolbar, icewm-icons, wclp-icewm-themes.tar.gz
            1. All moved to an "icewm" subdirectory
            2. Pixmaps added for all menu items
            3. Removed mail icon, window list stupidness
          3. XP theme is now gone
        4. hooks
          1. configure.OPERA
            1. Removed creation of "help-browser" link
            2. Removed netscape link
            3. Tested for existence of opera before changing x-www-browser
          2. configure.WINLIKE
            1. Make "netscape" a link to x-www-browser
          3. finish.DEFAULT
            1. Add link to CDROM device called /dev/cdrom, if it exists
          4. configure.DEFAULT
            1. Added ugly "press <ctrl>+<alt>+<delete> to reboot" message to /etc/issue
          5. install.PASSWORDGEN
            1. Added proper (?) quoting to protect passwords from special characters
            2. Passes in one argument instead of three
          6. finish.DEFAULT
            1. removed /root/password_file when I am done with it
        5. scripts
          1. DEFAULT
            1. Remove kernel image .deb when I am done with it
        6. bin
          1. wclp-savepassword
            1. Takes one argument instead of three
      2. Replaced lprngtool with printtool
      3. Added support for ntpdate
      4. Disabled auto eth0 for our machines
    2. 0.7.1
      1. Changed/added/removed files
        1. installer
          1. package_config
            1. Changed FAI:
              1. Now includes "woody"
            2. Added KERNEL_SOURCES
              1. Includes sources for 2.6, 2.4 kernels
              2. Useful for recompiling our stock kernels
              3. Unfortunately it makes the BootCD huge!
            3. Added NEDIT (to CRAMPED)
          2. hooks
            1. savelog.DEFAULT
              1. Removed -- merged into configure.DEFAULT
            2. configure.ICEWM
              1. Changed: now icewm-session provides x-window-manager
            3. configure.OPERA
              1. Changed. Now provides x-www-browser
            4. configure.NEDIT
              1. Provides x-text-editor
            5. configure.WINLIKE
              1. Writes to /etc/papersize directly. Forget Debconf.
          3. class
            1. AUTOLOGIN.var
              1. Default user is not clobbered (in case it comes from floppy)
            2. HOSTNAME.var
              1. Default hostname is not clobbered
            3. FLOPPYMOUNTED.var
              1. Scans floppy for config files and sources them.
            4. Renumbered all the source files not included with FAI to spread them out a bit
              1. 20floppyconfig.source (new)
              2. 30warning.sh (was 02)
              3. 40interactivity.source (was 10)
              4. 50softwareset.source (was 15)
              5. 60base_config.source (was 25)
              6. 70menu.source (was 30)
              7. 80partition.source (was 40)
        2. config
          1. Added KERNEL_SOURCES to EXCLUDE_MIN_PACKAGES
    3. 0.7
      1. Uses Sarge
      2. Uses apt-proxy as a transparent mirror
      3. Refactored hooks. Now more individual apps (e.g. Opera, IceWM) are in their own classes. This allows more mixing and matching than before.
      4. Each installed machine now gets a unique ID (if rsh/ssh is available and logfiles can be transferred properly)
      5. Root passwords are automatically generated
        1. If rsh/ssh is available and $LOGUSER is defined, they are saved to the install server
      6. One user is auto-logged in by default.
      7. Rewrote scripts to be more user-friendly for inexperienced volunteers
      8. Hardware detection
        1. Video card detection and usage
        2. Mouse card and usage (doesn't always work)
      9. Support for boot-cds (sort of)
      10. Took out 2.2.20 kernel
      11. Definitions of CRAMPED, STANDARD changed
        1. Minimum requirements are now about 800x600 resolution, 800MB hard drive
      12. Added some support for manual partitioning (but it is fragile)
    4. 0.6
      1. Included 06hwdetect.source from the FAI examples dist. This is necessary in order to see the hard drives. (pnijjar, 2004-01-14)
      2. Renamed all scripts to autorun so that they begin with two digits (as demanded by FAI now). (2004-01-14)
      3. Changed /etc/fai-bootcd/bootmsg.txt (pnijjar, 2004-01-03)
        1. Added WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! that the CD would overwrite people's hard drives.
        2. This warning is not showing up when I boot...
      4. Last version to work with woody
  5. FUTURE MILESTONES
    1. 0.8
      1. Allow disk partitioning via faiconf files.
      2. Put all installer config files into CVS
        1. How can this be done in a smart way?
      3. Make TINYGUI functional
      4. Implement SILENT class
      5. Document stuff (!!)
      6. Improve mkrelease, build-equivs scripts
        1. Build documentation
        2. Build CDs (and put in the bootcd tarfile as well)
      7. add destdir option to script-fai-bootcd
      8. Get sources CD up and running.
      9. Add GPL licences to all source files
      10. Implement disabling of classes
        1. if you have a variable REMOVECLASSES then remove those classes?