Re: [Koha] Live DVD (Was: Master-password (katikoan) and Live-DVD
Like I said before, after learning about Koha and linux using the Live DVD first Mizstik's *Koha Live* CD then Vimal Kumar's. After doing several installations and gaining enough confidence and experience I am able to install Koha in most linux distros. I remember the embarrassment of asking for a Live DVD at KohaCon12 during the Hackfest! All this is behind me now. At my institution, Charles Lwanga College of Education in Southern Zambia we now have Koha 3.12 in Debian Wheezy which I installed with no problems at all except for tinymce2 that Koha grumbled about but was able to install from http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/tinymce2 and then ftp.uk.debian.org/debian<http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/pool/main/t/tinymce2/tinymce2_2.1.3-1_all.deb> afterwards installed the tinymce2 deb package using GDebi package installer. On 22 May 2013 11:00, Mirko <5p4m@gmx.de> wrote:
Chrispin,
Chrispin Simasiku Sitali schrieb am 22.05.2013
Well, to be honest I really benefited from Live DVD. I am a librarian who had no prior experience about linux. The live DVD assisted me a lot to learn about Koha itself and the internal plumbing of linux. I am a self taught koha and linux user. I remember at KohaCon12 in Edinburgh, Scotland asking MJ and Chris Cormack about the possibility of a Koha Lived at the conference. No, was the asnswer. Thanks to Mr Olugbenga Adara of Nigeria and to my own persistence I taught my self. So it was the Live DVD, the Koha mailing list and my own willingness to learn.
So if you ask me today, I am able to install Koha on a server with GUI or not, configure them properly for LAN or internet access and do training. I introduced Koha in all the teacher training colleges under the Ministry of Education, including the three new universities Nkrumah, Mukuba, NISTCOL and at the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA),
I wouldn't strike the Live DVD off. Its a very nice tool to begin with, so please dont shoot it down!
thank you very much for sharing your positive experience! I'm happy that you were able to learn thanks to the Live DVD. I'd love to read more experiences like yours if people have them. :)
It is not my intention to shoot down the Live DVD. If it is used to actively learn your ways around the system (Koha and GNU/Linux) that is fantastic and exactly the way I would like to see it used.
What I consider problematic is to encourage its productive use as a long term option. Not only will it lead to outdated systems, but also to problems regarding community support, as it is not used by developers and there might be problems specific to the DVD. I would love to see Live DVD users teach themselves and later switch to a regular installation, but I am under the impression that this is more of an exeptional case than the rule.
I just realized that you answered offlist, so I will answer directly to you too in case you did not want to share your experience on the list. I encourage you to send it to the list though, so others can read it too. :)
-- Mirko
-- Charles Lwanga College of Education, P. O. Box 660193, Monze, ZAMBIA. Mobile: +26 0979 869471 SKYPE: Libsitali
On 22 May 2013 21:29, Chrispin Simasiku Sitali <libsitali@gmail.com> wrote:
Like I said before, after learning about Koha and linux using the Live DVD first Mizstik's *Koha Live* CD then Vimal Kumar's. After doing several installations and gaining enough confidence and experience I am able to install Koha in most linux distros. I remember the embarrassment of asking for a Live DVD at KohaCon12 during the Hackfest! All this is behind me now. At my institution, Charles Lwanga College of Education in Southern Zambia we now have Koha 3.12 in Debian Wheezy which I installed with no problems at all except for tinymce2 that Koha grumbled about but was able to install from http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/tinymce2 and then ftp.uk.debian.org/debian<http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/pool/main/t/tinymce2/tinymce2_2.1.3-1_all.deb> afterwards installed the tinymce2 deb package using GDebi package installer.
Then we are in agreement, Like Mirko said, we shouldn't encourage the liveDVD for production, but as a learning tool it is fine. That's all Mirko and I were objecting to. Chris
Salvete! I think it's a bit silly for developers to think that someone at a library with extremely limited resources will end up spending a tonne of time learning command line Debian linux to install from packages. I'm very grateful to Robin for putting together the packages, since things are basically a single line now *if* (and it's a huge if) people can get Debian to cooperate with them prior to that joyous apt-get. I think it's even sillier for folks to jump on Vimal for crafting a very widely used tool that is incredibly appreciated and is a great contribution. My hat's off to him. I often point out that usually there's a linux users' group of some variety someplace near you, but this isn't always the case, and they don't always want to help. Sometimes this is people's ONLY option. If the line really is using this or sticking with your card catalogue/excel spreadsheet, do we really want to encourage that? Incredibly negative responses on the list end up feeding crummy articles like this one: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4291/3381 Thankfully, we are not sexist as a community, but I don't want to trade that for trolly. Just sayin' Brooke
I think it's even sillier for folks to jump on Vimal for crafting a very widely used tool that is incredibly appreciated and is a great contribution.
This is a mischaracterization of this thread. No one is criticizing Vimal for creating the Live DVD. My goal in chiming in was to encourage the original poster to spend his time learning how to get packages working rather than spend time debugging problems with the Live DVD. I simply thought that if someone is putting in effort to fix a technical problem, why not spend that effort on a more long-term solution. -- Owen -- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org
Den 22-05-2013 14:28, Owen Leonard skrev:
My goal in chiming in was to encourage the original poster to spend his time learning how to get packages working rather than spend time debugging problems with the Live DVD. I simply thought that if someone is putting in effort to fix a technical problem, why not spend that effort on a more long-term solution. -- Owen
Because I don't have a library ;-) I am not trying to make a working installation for myself. I am trying to make more people start using Koha. Because I think the program is very useful for a lot of people. Unfortunately they often give up, before they really get started. Therefore I want to make the entry level as low as anyway possible. The live DVD is a wonderful way to make more people use Koha. The people that I am dealing with are typically having small school-libraries (with max 10.000 items). They have never been working at a terminal (not even in Windows). Suggesting that they should make a manual installation of Koha - because that is better in the long term, is pure theory without ANY connection to reality. It simply will not happen. The only thing you may accomplish that way, is preventing them from using Koha. -- Venlig hilsen Lars J. Helbo Borgergade 44, Sall DK-8450 Hammel tlf+fax: (+45) 8696 9315 lars@helbo.org www.helbo.org
Lars, Unfortunately they often give up, before they really get started. Therefore
I want to make the entry level as low as anyway possible. The live DVD is a wonderful way to make more people use Koha. The people that I am dealing with are typically having small school-libraries (with max 10.000 items). They have never been working at a terminal (not even in Windows).
This is definitely a problem. However...
Suggesting that they should make a manual installation of Koha - because that is better in the long term, is pure theory without ANY connection to reality. It simply will not happen. The only thing you may accomplish that way, is preventing them from using Koha.
This would be unfortunate. However, there is another side to the coin, which is why the developers are practically unanimous in condemning using live cds in production: using the live cd in production (*production* not "for testing," which is a different beast) is going to result in people being dissatisfied with Koha, in a "Koha sucks I hate it way" rather than a "well, that was too hard so I guess Koha isn't right for me" sort of way. I would prefer neither be the case, of course, but if I have to choose, I'll go with option B every time. When someone sends a message to the mailing list, they are saying, in effect "I want several hundred people to donate their free time in order to solve my problem." And we're happy to do it. Otherwise, we wouldn't bother reading the e-mail. However, things change a bit when you've installed the system in a way that very few (or none) of the developers does. We can't help you. That's all there is to it. Any time I see an e-mail that says "I am using the live cd," I say "oh, well, no point in reading further." And I don't. For proof, consider the fact that I have no idea what the question that started this thread was, despite having opened the message. The reason I ignore the e-mail is because any advice I might try to offer will almost certainly be wrong and counter-productive. I want to help. Above all, I want people to be happy using Koha, and that's just not going to happen if they're using it in an unusual way. That said, I think a live cd is a great idea, absolutely perfect for testing, demoing, and generally seeing what the big deal about this "Koha" thing is. I've recommended it to many people for just that purpose. But if you run a small library, and you run into a problem that takes your ILS down, you need to know that someone can fix it, regardless how small your budget is. If you want that someone to be someone other than you (the general you, not Lars, obviously), that is absolutely legitimate. There are vendors. If you want to rely on the kindness of strangers (keeping in mind, of course, that strangers may not have time to help in the middle of finals week when you have 400 students asking you why the OPAC doesn't work anymore), that's fine too. What's a problem is when you want to rely on the kindness of strangers, even though none of the strangers are willing to help with the system you've set up. This will be my final contribution to this thread, but one thing I am missed when I skimmed through it (when the conversation is busy enough, eventually I'll get curious and actually read live cd-related messages) was a clear explanation of why a live cd in production is a problem not just in a theoretical sense but also in a "strongly connected to reality" sense. Regards, Jared P.S. My cat would like to say the following: " vcb cd34 " -- Jared Camins-Esakov Bibliographer, C & P Bibliography Services, LLC (phone) +1 (917) 727-3445 (e-mail) jcamins@cpbibliography.com (web) http://www.cpbibliography.com/
On 2013-05-23, at 1:11 AM, Jared Camins-Esakov wrote:
Lars,
Unfortunately they often give up, before they really get started. Therefore
I want to make the entry level as low as anyway possible. The live DVD is a wonderful way to make more people use Koha. The people that I am dealing with are typically having small school-libraries (with max 10.000 items). They have never been working at a terminal (not even in Windows).
This is definitely a problem. However...
Suggesting that they should make a manual installation of Koha - because that is better in the long term, is pure theory without ANY connection to reality. It simply will not happen. The only thing you may accomplish that way, is preventing them from using Koha.
This would be unfortunate. However, there is another side to the coin, which is why the developers are practically unanimous in condemning using live cds in production: using the live cd in production (*production* not "for testing," which is a different beast) is going to result in people being dissatisfied with Koha, in a "Koha sucks I hate it way" rather than a "well, that was too hard so I guess Koha isn't right for me" sort of way. I would prefer neither be the case, of course, but if I have to choose, I'll go with option B every time.
When someone sends a message to the mailing list, they are saying, in effect "I want several hundred people to donate their free time in order to solve my problem." And we're happy to do it. Otherwise, we wouldn't bother reading the e-mail. However, things change a bit when you've installed the system in a way that very few (or none) of the developers does. We can't help you. That's all there is to it. Any time I see an e-mail that says "I am using the live cd," I say "oh, well, no point in reading further." And I don't. For proof, consider the fact that I have no idea what the question that started this thread was, despite having opened the message. The reason I ignore the e-mail is because any advice I might try to offer will almost certainly be wrong and counter-productive. I want to help. Above all, I want people to be happy using Koha, and that's just not going to happen if they're using it in an unusual way.
That said, I think a live cd is a great idea, absolutely perfect for testing, demoing, and generally seeing what the big deal about this "Koha" thing is. I've recommended it to many people for just that purpose. But if you run a small library, and you run into a problem that takes your ILS down, you need to know that someone can fix it, regardless how small your budget is. If you want that someone to be someone other than you (the general you, not Lars, obviously), that is absolutely legitimate. There are vendors. If you want to rely on the kindness of strangers (keeping in mind, of course, that strangers may not have time to help in the middle of finals week when you have 400 students asking you why the OPAC doesn't work anymore), that's fine too. What's a problem is when you want to rely on the kindness of strangers, even though none of the strangers are willing to help with the system you've set up.
This will be my final contribution to this thread, but one thing I am missed when I skimmed through it (when the conversation is busy enough, eventually I'll get curious and actually read live cd-related messages) was a clear explanation of why a live cd in production is a problem not just in a theoretical sense but also in a "strongly connected to reality" sense.
Regards, Jared
P.S. My cat would like to say the following: " vcb cd34 "
-- Jared Camins-Esakov Bibliographer, C & P Bibliography Services, LLC (phone) +1 (917) 727-3445 (e-mail) jcamins@cpbibliography.com (web) http://www.cpbibliography.com/ _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
hi Folks i think this topic still needs a little more discussion, so i added it to the agenda of the next Koha meeting http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/General_IRC_meeting,_5_June_2013
Den 28-05-2013 09:39, Mason James skrev:
hi Folks
i think this topic still needs a little more discussion, so i added it to the agenda of the next Koha meeting
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/General_IRC_meeting,_5_June_2013
I was the one, who trickered this discussion - sorry ;-) Anyway, I have a few points, which somebody might want to consider. First of all, I think it would be useful to make a distinction between live DVD and installation DVD. Here we are talking about live DVD (which to me means running the program from the DVD for testing purposes only). But to me this DVD is much more like an installation- or distribution DVD, making the installation proces easier and thus making Koha more easily available to a broader public. The second question is, if it is legitimate to install Koha from a DVD instead og doing a manual installation? For me the only thing that matters is the result! I give lectures in Windows, Excel etc. for absolute beginners and I allways tell my pupils that most things on a computer may be done in several ways. You may copy a string with the menu Edit/Copy, with copy from the contextmenu or by pressing Control-C. But I also tell them that one way of doing things is not better or more correct than the other. I say: "Do things the way you like it, the only thing that matters is that you achieve the result that you wanted to." The same way you may change the MySQL password with a command entered in a terminal, with MySQL Workbench or with phpMyAdmin. But how you do it is up to you. I have a computer here, on which I installed Koha 3.10 from the Live DVD, I installed the Danish language files. Now I have updated it to 3.12, using packages. Everything works like a charm. As far as I can see, the result is exactly as it would have been, if I had made a manual installation in the beginning. So what is the problem? At least the argument being used against the Live DVD with "lack of update path" is definately wrong. Yes, I do have a graphical desktop on this computer. Yes I know, you may run a server without a graphical desktop. But I like to have a graphical desktop, so why shouldn't I? Basically I think this has to do with "freedom of choice", which should be held high in an open source community? Another argument being used is about the possibility of giving support. I dont really understand this. If somebody has installed his Koha from a DVD, then I know that he has a "well defined starting point". That way it sould be easier to guess, where he made the mistakes and tell him, what he still has to do? Just my thoughts :-) -- Venlig hilsen Lars J. Helbo Borgergade 44, Sall DK-8450 Hammel tlf+fax: (+45) 8696 9315 lars@helbo.org www.helbo.org
Let me echo what Lars said. Let's say I used the Live DVD to install our system (which I did). Provided that you: Change the passwords from the default to something more cryptic Update Xubuntu as needed (and the system is not shy about letting me know when new updates are available) Update Koha as needed (I upgraded my Live DVD system from 3.10 to 3.10.5, then to 3.12) then is there any real difference between building an Xubuntu system and installing Koha from packages? As far as I can tell, it's just easier. I know that many folks are concerned that a system built with Live DVD won't get upgraded, but isn't that also an issue with any other system? It's also running Ubuntu rather than Debian, but the beauty of Koha is that it runs on a variety of Linux systems. I happen to like Ubuntu--I chose it for my laptop when I got sick of trying to work with Windows 8. I had something under two months to build a demo to convince the VP in Charge of Funding These Things, order a server, and build a production system. With Live DVD, I can concentrate on the data, not the system. Fred King Medical Librarian, MedStar Washington Hospital Center fred.king@medstar.net 202-877-6221 -----Original Message----- From: koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz [mailto:koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Lars J. Helbo Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 7:32 AM To: koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: Re: [Koha] Live DVD Den 28-05-2013 09:39, Mason James skrev:
hi Folks
i think this topic still needs a little more discussion, so i added it to the agenda of the next Koha meeting
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/General_IRC_meeting,_5_June_2013
I was the one, who trickered this discussion - sorry ;-) Anyway, I have a few points, which somebody might want to consider. First of all, I think it would be useful to make a distinction between live DVD and installation DVD. Here we are talking about live DVD (which to me means running the program from the DVD for testing purposes only). But to me this DVD is much more like an installation- or distribution DVD, making the installation proces easier and thus making Koha more easily available to a broader public. The second question is, if it is legitimate to install Koha from a DVD instead og doing a manual installation? For me the only thing that matters is the result! I give lectures in Windows, Excel etc. for absolute beginners and I allways tell my pupils that most things on a computer may be done in several ways. You may copy a string with the menu Edit/Copy, with copy from the contextmenu or by pressing Control-C. But I also tell them that one way of doing things is not better or more correct than the other. I say: "Do things the way you like it, the only thing that matters is that you achieve the result that you wanted to." The same way you may change the MySQL password with a command entered in a terminal, with MySQL Workbench or with phpMyAdmin. But how you do it is up to you. I have a computer here, on which I installed Koha 3.10 from the Live DVD, I installed the Danish language files. Now I have updated it to 3.12, using packages. Everything works like a charm. As far as I can see, the result is exactly as it would have been, if I had made a manual installation in the beginning. So what is the problem? At least the argument being used against the Live DVD with "lack of update path" is definately wrong. Yes, I do have a graphical desktop on this computer. Yes I know, you may run a server without a graphical desktop. But I like to have a graphical desktop, so why shouldn't I? Basically I think this has to do with "freedom of choice", which should be held high in an open source community? Another argument being used is about the possibility of giving support. I dont really understand this. If somebody has installed his Koha from a DVD, then I know that he has a "well defined starting point". That way it sould be easier to guess, where he made the mistakes and tell him, what he still has to do? Just my thoughts :-) -- Venlig hilsen Lars J. Helbo Borgergade 44, Sall DK-8450 Hammel tlf+fax: (+45) 8696 9315 lars@helbo.org www.helbo.org _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha CONFIDENTIAL: The information contained in this communication, including its attachments, may contain confidential information and is intended only for the individual(s) or entity(ies) to whom it is addressed. The information contained in this communication may also be protected by legal privilege, federal law or other applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient of this communication, you are hereby notified that any distribution, dissemination or duplication of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately delete and destroy all copies of this message and please immediately notify us of the error by separate communication. Thank you.
Dear Fred and Lars,
Let me echo what Lars said. Let's say I used the Live DVD to install our system (which I did). Provided that you: Change the passwords from the default to something more cryptic Update Xubuntu as needed (and the system is not shy about letting me know when new updates are available) Update Koha as needed (I upgraded my Live DVD system from 3.10 to 3.10.5, then to 3.12) then is there any real difference between building an Xubuntu system and installing Koha from packages?
in fact your installation from Live DVD is like installation from source well done. You have installed languges from scracth, you work on command line, you know linux. But if someone uses Live DVD without previous Linux knowledge, a live DVD installation mix Linux and Koha installations. And koha free support is not enogh if you have s.o. problem and you don't distinguish between them. If you don't have Linux knowledge the best path is: -- test with Live DVD -- find a Linux guru to install a Debian/Ubutun on a PC/server -- install Koha with your Linux guru and tell them that 'Koha could be installed with debian packeges'. Bye Zeno Tajoli
On 22 May 2013 23:22, BWS Johnson <abesottedphoenix@yahoo.com> wrote:
Salvete!
I think it's a bit silly for developers to think that someone at a library with extremely limited resources will end up spending a tonne of time learning command line Debian linux to install from packages. I'm very grateful to Robin for putting together the packages, since things are basically a single line now *if* (and it's a huge if) people can get Debian to cooperate with them prior to that joyous apt-get. I think it's even sillier for folks to jump on Vimal for crafting a very widely used tool that is incredibly appreciated and is a great contribution. My hat's off to him. I often point out that usually there's a linux users' group of some variety someplace near you, but this isn't always the case, and they don't always want to help. Sometimes this is people's ONLY option. If the line really is using this or sticking with your card catalogue/excel spreadsheet, do we really want to encourage that? Incredibly negative responses on the list end up feeding crummy articles like this one:
http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4291/3381
Thankfully, we are not sexist as a community, but I don't want to trade that for trolly.
Just sayin' Brooke
My email has offended people. I withdraw it and apologise unreservedly. I will offer no more opinions on the Live DVD/CD Chris
participants (9)
-
BWS Johnson -
Chris Cormack -
Chrispin Simasiku Sitali -
Jared Camins-Esakov -
King, Fred -
Lars J. Helbo -
Mason James -
Owen Leonard -
Zeno Tajoli