autoinstallable E-LANE demo CD
In this page you can download a knoppix customized distro that automatically installs and runs a dotLRN openACS portal. It has been developed at the Carlos III University (Madrid, Spain), as part of the project E-LANE.
This cd is mainly intended to be a demo platform for OpenACS and dotLRN, although it deploys a fully functional server and might be used for a first quick-and-easy installation. However, it does not substitute a complete OpenACS installation in a dedicated server.
This cd is based in a similar one created by Bjoern Kiesbye. The improvements added (besides adding dotLRN, more packages and contents, etc.), is to reduce the necessary RAM and to use hard drive to store data.
The cd installation is completely automatic, but needs some free hard drive space in an ext2/3 or vfat partition (or in a NTFS partition). It needs at least 128Mb RAM, recommended 256. However, you can reduce this to 64Mb in textonly mode. Here I explain how.
Once started (it takes a while the first time), it launches an empty OpenACS portal, with the administrator account:
Login: administrator(unless otherwise stated in the version description)
Later you can erase this administrator and create another, as the data is mantained across sessions. In the last version (23-12-2004) you can use the configuration script in the desktop called KNOPPIX_CONF to restart or remove the server files. To restart the portal in earlier versions, just look for the file /knoppix-elane (it is in the 'root'directory of a partition, for example: /mnt/hda5/knoppix-elane) and delete it. Next time the cd boots, it will create the empty portal again.
The cd deploys a fully functional web server, so that the portal can be accesed from other computers in the net. The server takes an IP address via DHCP, so if a DHCP server is not available, the chosen address will be "localhost" and the dotLRN portal will only be accessible from local. In the last version of the cd, you can configure the IP address, the gateway, etc, using the KNOPPIX_CONF script at the desktop.
The URL used by the server can be seen at the web browser which opens automatically at initialization. This browser is showing the URL of the dotlrn portal: http://<IP_ADDRESS>:8000. If this browser closes and you do not remember the URL, you just have to open the file called KNOPPIX, located at the desktop (you can also use ifconfig in a shell).
| Date | Language | Description | Download | ||
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| 2005-10-13 | Spanish (ES) | Release e-lane-1.0b8 with postgreSQL 7.4.7-6sarge1 The CD contains a /contents directory with SCORM E-LANE ICDL Courses in Spanish (Tutorial of edition of contents, Module 1, Module 2, Module 3 (OpenOffice) and Module 7). If you view the CD on Windows, you will see a page explains what the CD contains. (Administrator account: Login: e-lane, Password: e-lane) |
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| 2005-10-12 | English (EN) | Release e-lane-1.0b8 with postgreSQL 7.4.7-6sarge1 The CD contains a /contents directory with SCORM E-LANE ICDL Courses in Spanish (Tutorial of edition of contents, Module 1, Module 2, Module 3 (OpenOffice) and Module 7). If you view the CD on Windows, you will see a page explains what the CD contains. (Administrator account: Login: e-lane, Password: e-lane) |
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Linux, and therefore, Knoppix, does not have a complete support for NTFS partitions, which would mean that this cd cannot be used in a machine with Windows only (although it does support FAT32 partitions). In linux kernel 2.4, read-only access to NTFS files is granted, and in kernel 2.6, you can write existing files, but cannot modify its size, nor create or erase files.
To allow this cd to work with an NTFS partition, we have added in the cd a Windows application that creates a file of a given size, which will be then used by Knoppix to store the data it needs.
The procedure is the following: When knoppix-elane does not find enough free space in a non-NTFS partition (or does not find a non-NTFS partition at all) it will tell the user to enter windows and execute the application E-LANE_createfile.exe that can be found in the knoppix cd. This application will ask the user to enter a file size and the name of the NTFS partiion (the "Windows" name, this is, C, D, F...), and create the knoppix_elane file. Then, when the user reboots again from cd, this file will be formatted and mounted normally. The following sessions will start normally, without further interaction with the user.
Important Note: The NTFS partition selected must be the primary partition (where Windows will be installed). For some reason it does not work properly in a secondary NTFS partitions. I believe it is a problem of Linux kernel 2.6.
You can reduce the RAM requirements if you do not start KDE. To do so, at the boot promt type:
$ knoppix 2
This way the server can work with only 64Mb. Of course, in text mode you will not be able to access the OpenACS portal properly from this server, as mozilla needs a window manager, such as KDE. This option is useful when the machine works as server for remote clients.
The configuration script that was on the desktop in KDE (version 2004-12-23) can still be used. You can find it at /KNOPPIX/home/elane_conf.
If the computer is not cd-bootable, you can still use the knoppix e-lane cd. The script /usr/sbin/mkbootfloppy creates two bootfloppies (I know, to create them you need to enter Knoppix, so you have to find a computer which is cd-bootable...). To use them, just put the cd and the first floppy in their drives and reboot, then change the first floppy for the second when the system says so.
In this step by step tutorial, it is explained how to modify the contents of these cd, to create a new one that exactly fits your needs. You can add or remove new OpenACS packages, SCORM courses, or other programs or files different from OpenACS.
We would like to hear about bugs, suggestions with more software to install, and any comment. For any of these, contact Abelardo Pardo
