Installation
Rather than an operating system on its own, Edubuntu 9.04 provides an educational application "layer" on top of an existing Ubuntu desktop.
Edubuntu 9.04 is an Add-on on top of regular Ubuntu desktop.
Start by downloading and installing Ubuntu 9.04, then you may install the Edubuntu educational layer one of the following ways:
- Download the Ubuntu 9.04 Educational Addon .iso file and burn it to a CD. After inserting the CD-ROM, a menu will popup and you'll be able to see and install the various educational packages.
- For users with a fast Internet connection it is possible to instead just go to "
Add/Remove..." in the Applications menu and select educational software from the Education and Games categories.
Educational Application Bundles
Edubuntu 9.04 brings new application bundles that group educational software by grade level. You can install from the Education category in the "Add/Remove..." entry in the Applications menu or installing the following packages using your favorite package manager:
ubuntu-edu-preschool- Preschool ( < 5 years old) educational application bundleubuntu-edu-primary- Primary ( ages 6-12) educational application bundleubuntu-edu-secondary- Secondary ( ages 13-18) educational application bundleubuntu-edu-tertiary- Tertiary ( university level ) educational application bundle
Edubuntu for Kubuntu users
With Edubuntu 9.04 Kubuntu users can also now get a full educational desktop by installing the edubuntu-desktop-kde package. This is relatively new and contains some non-KDE components (like Gcompris) so the Edubuntu team is seeking feedback on the application selection and suggestions for new KDE applications to include in the future.
LTSP improvements
LTSP is officially part of the Ubuntu Alternate CD-ROM since Ubuntu 8.04 but because of its massive use in education we thought it would be useful to mention it here anyway. Please download the Ubuntu Alternate CD to install it.
Local applications support
With Ubuntu 9.04's LTSP one now has the possibility to choose which application will run on the server and which will run locally on the thin client.
Installing Firefox inside the LTSP chroot and setting LOCAL_APPS_MENU=True in lts.conf will make Firefox to run locally on the thin client. The XDG integration takes care of adding the application in the menu or replacing it by the local application if it's already present.
Compiz and dual-head support
When using non-encrypted (unsecure) X11 (LDM_DIRECTX=True in lts.conf) one can now start Compiz on compiz-capable video cards by running: env SKIP_CHECKS=yes compiz --replace
Dual-head is also supported through the RandR extension. This can be achieved by setting XRANDR_MODE_X and XRANDR_OUTPUT_X (X starting at 0 for the first defined screen) in lts.conf.
LTSP-Cluster support
Ubuntu 9.04 is also the first Ubuntu release with integrated LTSP-Cluster support on the thin client. You can read more about LTSP-Cluster there: https://launchpad.net/ltsp-cluster
As the server packages are not yet in Ubuntu, you will need to use the packages from LTSP-Cluster's Person Package Archive for the control-center and the load-balancer components.
Other features and caveats
Ubuntu 9.04's LTSP also brings an optional fully-featured dhcp client integration (udhcpc), a new scripting interface for xorg.conf generation, improved ldm scripting and better translation.
Unfortunately bug #277069 still affects LTSP users, a workaround is to run firefox locally using the new LTSP local applications described above.
People using local applications should be careful not to install something depending on gconf as that would cause warning and error messages to appear and potentially cause gconf schema corruption.
Installing LTSP using the Ubuntu Alternate amd64 CD will generate an amd64 chroot with an i386 DHCP configuration. This was done so users with i386 chroot on amd64 servers (most of our amd64 users) won't break their setup by upgrading. If you really want an amd64 chroot on an amd64 server, update your /etc/ltsp/dhcpd.conf replacing i386 by amd64.
