Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[ecomoney]

(Updated 15 Jan 2007, see here)

Software Setup for the cybercafe released, details here...

Hiya Everyone, I just wanted to share with you what has been made possible using Puppy Linux in our area. At our local community centre weve manged to literally piece together a ten computer Cybercafe and teaching suite with an I.T. budget of a mere �30 British pounds (about 50 Dollars)!!!! Most of this was spent on headphones (1 pound each), printer refills, a few ethernet cables and some 4 way mains adaptors.

The cybercafe has 9am-5pm Monday to Saturday internet access, with free uk landline calls from skype, word processing, spreadsheets, amsn etc etc. The computers range from a pentium 500/128 to 1ghz/256 . All of these have been donated from local companies through freecycle or our local linux user group, a few schools, and even at times the odd skip!!! Weve used MU's supurb icewmultra package to theme them to look like xp. Most people dont even realise they are not running doze, but remark on how fast they are compared to their computers at home. Then they find out theyre using linux...

There is a beginners and intermediate computer class running there which is quickly becoming oversubscribed (we had to double up today!). We are also transferring the system used there onto peoples laptops and distributing Puppy CD's from the centre. Word is spreading quickly around the town about what has been achieved, and now other places want similar setups, even if they already have XP computers!!!

Just wanted to say a big thank you to you the puppy team from us and the people of Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire. Without you this would not have been possible.

[Pizzasgood]

Cool. Hope they don't have leash laws over there....

[gliezl]

If I won't be reading your post, and just look at the pictures, you almost get me fooled. I thought the computer were running on winblows.

Good job!

[MU]

great, thanks for the fotos
Mark

[raffy]

Hey, congratulations!

Looking forward to a presentation that we can show teachers and local officials in other parts of the world - say, HTML page with more pictures and text, or a video? With some info about your town...

[Lobster]

Very inspirational story.
Have placed it on the Wiki news for 15 Nov 2006
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LatestNews

[ecomoney]

Hi all

Were actually holding a presentation at the centre on tuesday this week which will be webcast from our site (thanks to plinej!). We will also youtube the video. The presentation is to the local puppy linux group (LUG), and local voluntary agencies about the advantages of open source in the community/voluntary sectors....riveting stuff!!!!

[Ted Dog]

Puppy
Linux
User
Group

That is cool even a screen saver looks like XP. Good work eco.. and the rest of the PLUG

[Lobster]

I would like to have attended but we have the tilers (new bathroom) coming Tuesday.
Let us know of the web cast and other details.

This is what I gleaned from your site:

Riddings Drop in Centre. This centre is open 9-5 Monday to Saturday.

I will try and pop in some time.

[jac1d]

Wow, this is very impressive.

Is it possible to get the ISO of your customizations? I'd like to try it out on some low end systems here for the same purpose.

Do you have any URLs for us?

Nice work! Thanks!

-Jeff

[ecomoney]

Im afraid creating an iso is a little out of my league at the moment

How we did this is create a stock pup001 file (Yes were still using 1.09ce!) to which we added Mark Ulrichs icewm ultra, plus rox 2.5, and the standard "Bliss" xp backdrop. We added amsn and skype and we were literally ready to roll.

We cloned the machines by using the smoothwall box as a dhcp server (most 4-port servers will do this). We shared the pup001 file on one machine using betaFTP and a symlink from /root/ftp to /mnt/home/pup001, then opened a console window and did "ifconfig" to find out the i.p. adress on the network that had been assigned to it using the ethernet wizard. We then booted a "new" machine using the "memory only" option and ran the ethernet setup wizard on that. We then went into either firefox and type ftp://192.168.0.xxx of the other machine, downloaded the pup001 file off the other machine into the root directory. We found if we did this with the 2.xx series puppy then we could use gparted at the same time to create swap partition first.

After I had transferred the pup file, I reloaded with 1.09ce and rebooted. On bootup the computer would drop to the command line where I ran "xorgwizard" to set up the graphics. I then typed "xwin" and ran the alsa sound wizard in the the wizard wizard and I had created a clone of the system!!! Average time about ten minutes and I could do several at once.

I really wouldnt know how to create an ISO, but any tips would be handy. A "public access" version of puppy for cybercafes with all of the privacy settings and software already poreconfigured would make an excellent puppy project though! Any feedback welcome. At a push I think I might be able to uploa the 256mb pup001 file to our webservers for interested parties to play with. Let me know.

Ecomoney

[raffy]

You could zip a pup001 file that has no user files in it (that is, the /root is clean of user files) and then upload it - it must be much reduced in size.

[ecomoney]

WOW!!!! 80mb zipped up!!!

This is the pup file I created. Im just in the process of refreshing all of the computers in the suite with a fresh cloned copy as Im posting this.

Simply download this file and unzip the pup001 file contained in it t the root directory of any pc, boot with puppy 1.09ce, run 'xorgwizard', then 'xwin' and you should have a copy of the system that we use here.

Please note, the suite has not been operational for long so there are likely to be quite a few oversights. Here is a basic added package list.

-Streamtuner Radio
-Amsn 0.94 with the option for remembering email addresses turned off
-Firefox with cookies set to expire after a day, do not remember form fields or passwords etc.
-Skype Telephony

Heres the link.

http://www.ecomoney.eu/puppy/puppyfiles/cybercafepup.zip

Enjoy



Would anyone using it please make a post here with some picture, would be nice to see.

P.S. Have finished cloning the 9 pc's from one "master" pc over a 10mb network, took just 20 minutes!!!!!

[klhrevolutionist]

ecomoney: Congratualtions !!!

Good to see that gnu/linux is able to help the community. And to Puppy !

If there is anything i can do let me know.

[Mr.Goose]

I just joined this forum mainly to say a big "Well Done" to Ecomoney for the cybercafé project.

One of my main clients is a Postgraduate "Deanery" - part of Britain's National Health Service. I am sickened by the sheer waste I see around me - perfectly good kit being slung in skips because it won't run the latest Windoze.

I constantly have to struggle with dinosaur NHS IT managers whose sense of self-worth seems based more on the size of their budgets rather than the quality of service they deliver. Consequently my attempts to sow the seeds of open source software have often fallen on stony ground. But your project gives us great hope.

Anyway out of frustration, a few like-minded colleagues and I recently set up a site called DEOSS - Development & Education in Open Source Systems. It is a site of many parts including a Moodle section for running distance learning projects, and a magazine called Positive. We really would like to cover this story in more depth and show our "leaders" how different things could be if they applied a little open source imagination.

@ Ecomoney: perhaps we could arrange a convenient time to come up and see you please? We are based in Southampton/Winchester. Could you email or PM me please? Your project deserves as much publicity as possible!
http://www.deoss.org/positive

On a completely different tack, did you know that considering open source software alongside proprietrary products as part of the procurement process is actually UK Government Policy? Not that one would notice, of course!

Check out this document published by the Cabinet Office, 2004-10-28...
http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/documents/oss_policy_version2.pdf

Meantime, best wishes to all you puppies from one very respectful goose.