[kwlug-disc] suggestions for promoting linux for whitehorse makerspace

Wed Oct 14 22:16:23 EDT 2015

Thanks all for the feedback so far, it is proving quite useful from
technical and political perspectives.

They have now provided me with a formal list of the applications they are
using and with alternativeto.net and the suggestion of bricsys, there seem
to be feasible alternatives for all but 2 of their applications (*tinkerine*
for 3d printer, and *aspire* for CNC routers). Perhaps kwartzlab has some
suggestions for me on those...

Ubuntu guest account/sessions sounds like the ticket for user sessions.

If anything comes of it I'll send updates!

On 14 October 2015 at 07:49, Chamunks <chamunks at gmail.com> wrote:

> Don't forget orchestration for sanity purposes. Saltstack is very fun and
> extremely simple to get set up with their bootstrap scripts. Go from zero
> to salt in minutes.
>
> I would offer to do a presentation for this but my competence with it can
> be limited.
>
> On Thu, Oct 8, 2015, 4:12 AM Paul Nijjar <paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
>>
>> I do not have a complete solution for you, but here are a few
>> thoughts.
>>
>> Firstly, you should understand that you are going into a potentially
>> hostile environment by advocating some flavour of Linux to people who
>> use Mac and Windows. This has a few implications:
>>
>> - There are effectively no replacements for the software you are
>>   listing. You might be able to make some software work with WINE
>>   (although see below) and there may be other software with similar
>>   functionality, but every quirk will be grumbled about unless your
>>   userbase sees Linux as a grand adventure. Expect a lot of threats
>>   that "if this doesn't work then I am going back to Windows"
>>
>> - By advocating for Linux you are effectively volunteering to become
>>   the systems administrator. Over time you might be able to get other
>>   people sufficiently interested in helping you out, but in addition
>>   to helping research and implement this solution, you are also going
>>   to have to take care of it.
>>
>> Having said this I endorse your efforts to get free software into this
>> makerspace. I think that there is a lot of software available for
>> maker-ing that is available on Linux-type platforms, but little of it
>> will be a direct replacement for what is on Windows.
>>
>> You will have to spend a lot of time figuring out whether you can
>> find software that will work with the 3D printers, CNC routers and
>> other toys. If there are not then you will need at least a few Windows
>> machines on site. (It sounds as if you are on this already.)
>>
>> Your comment about Deepfreeze inspires a rant. We use a competitor
>> called Drive Vaccine in our Windows labs, and we (okay, I) am very
>> unhappy with it. The big issue with these products is that you need to
>> allow changes to the Windows machines to do updates, but not to do
>> anything else. I would hope that Deepfreeze is better than our product
>> in this respect, but I have been pretty unhappy with our experience.
>>
>> In contrast, using guest accounts in Ubuntu has worked really well.
>> The machines stay clean, and if you do the initial setup (which is not
>> trivial -- there are often custom modifications that have to go into
>> /etc/skel, and getting printers to show up automatically can be a
>> pain) and then allow unattended-upgrades then the systems do not
>> require a lot of additional maintenance (in our experience). So I
>> think an Ubuntu environment might give you a clear win there. You can
>> also have an administration account that has sudo access, but which
>> regular members of the makerspace can't log into.
>>
>> WINE can work for some programs, but in my experience it often is a
>> big pain. Trying to get Windows programs working in Linux overall can
>> be a big pain. One big issue is that we have not figured out how to
>> get WINE working system-wide (as opposed to installs on individual
>> user accounts) which makes /etc/skel really big, and in turn makes
>> logins painfully slow.
>>
>> Usually if I want to have access to Windows machines from Linux
>> clients, I just set up an actual Windows machine (physical or virtual)
>> and then use remmina to RDP into those Windows machines. This is not a
>> perfect solution, but it can be "good enough" depending on the tasks
>> you need. Screen sharing with VNC might be another option.
>>
>> If you are administrating computers where each user gets a unique name
>> and password (which I do not think is the case for you now) then
>> managing those accounts centrally can be a pain. You might consider a
>> Samba 4 solution, or even a distro like Zentyal which makes setting up
>> an Active Directory solution easier. The nice thing about this is that
>> then your Windows clients can join the "domain" and have similar
>> access and permissions as your Linux ones.
>>
>> I second the recommendation to raise this thread on the Kwartzlab
>> discussion list.
>>
>> I don't know whether any of this blather was helpful, but I hope it
>> was not too disheartening.
>>
>> - Paul
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 07, 2015 at 11:46:04AM -0700, Jotham Apaloo wrote:
>> >
>> > I moved up north a couple months ago. there's not many tech things
>> going on
>> > here, but there are a couple of organizations around. One is the local
>> > makerspace, yukonstruct. They have a lot of competency in the area of
>> > mechanical devices, and there are a couple computing people but they are
>> > MAC/WIndows users with little time on their hands for administration.
>> >
>> > They need to set up several computers this month. Their current system
>> > consists of 7 workstations in a main computer lab, and 3 or 4 other
>> > workstations connected to 3d printing machine, CNC router, laser
>> cutter. I
>> > don't know the exact models right now. Some of the computers are refurbs
>> > for which they get windows licenses for $10, but a few new ones require
>> > paying for a full windows license. They will also have to pay for deep
>> > freeze licenses.
>> >
>> > I am doing (i.e. emailing you lot) some research to see about putting
>> linux
>> > on all/some of their computers. I think it would be simpler to maintain,
>> > less prone to malware, less expensive, and a better fit with the mission
>> > and values of the makerspace. There is already some resistance to
>> > introducing new things (which is really unfortunate for a makerspace),
>> but
>> > if I can give some specs and pricing for a nice setup of the machines
>> and
>> > network, they may be willing to adopt Linux.
>> >
>> > I'm looking for a distro suggestion and package suggestions for:
>> >
>> >    - *nonpersistent user sessions/data (comparable to deep freeze)*
>> >       - maybe since permissions and resource is easy to limit on linux,
>> >       users could have persistent data
>> >       - *software equivalents for *
>> >       - corel draw suite (inkscape?)
>> >       - sketchup,
>> >       - aspire,
>> >       - autodesk suite, (blender?, +?)
>> >       - preform (looks like no alternative)
>> >    - *best way to incorporate a windows station, if necessary*
>> >       - WINE?
>> >       - virtual machines?
>> >       - a windows server on the network and wine/vm on all other
>> machines
>> >       as clients?
>> >    - *any other related suggestions*
>> >
>> > it would be a bonus if each of the general workstations could send jobs
>> to
>> > the machines connected to manufacturing devices. This could happen on a
>> > longer time frame but open to thoughts now.
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > Jotham
>> > --
>> > Jotham Apaloo
>> > jothamapaloo at gmail.com
>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> "How to Win Proportional Representation" talk: Oct 28, 7pm, St John's
>> Kitchen. All welcome. (Contact me for more info.)
>>
>>
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-- 
Jotham Apaloo
jothamapaloo at gmail.com
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