LibraryBox as teaching tool?

[Coral Sheldon-Hess]

I want to teach classes of up to 20 people at a time how to do ... various techy things, but the definite first thing is "command line basics." Another is Python. So, one thread of this question is "If I build this, what else comes to mind, to do with it?" :) 

And here's the other thread: I am thinking the easiest way to do my command line class would be to have a fairly insecure portable server, ideally one that would run some flavor of *nix and SSH, accessible via wifi. Maybe also Apache? (Not sure if we'll need that or not. This project is going to stretch my systems administration skills.) It would also have a copy of PuTTY on it, for the Windows users to download; Mac users can use Terminal. 

I know this probably seems like crazy overkill, but I think it is easier than other options, because we teach this class at the local public library, whose bandwidth is embarrassingly bad: our WordPress class almost failed, due to network issues. And we can't rely on the students to download software ahead of time, in part because some of them will be using the library's (horribly crippled) computers. (I'm not actually 100% sure they'll be able to run PuTTY. No joke. They don't even have Notepad; it was apparently deemed a security risk.) 

Anyway, I'm sure you see where this is going -- is this something I could build onto LibraryBox, do you think? And do you think it would be very difficult? 

Can LibraryBox support 10-20 concurrent users? 

(I'm still planning to make a vanilla LibraryBox, too. But it occurs to me, maybe others have done most of the work for this other project, already... :)) 

Thank you! 

-- 
Coral Sheldon-Hess
http://sheldon-hess.org/coral
@web_kunoichi

[Matthias Strubel]

Hi Coral,

interesting idea, but the LibraryBox operating system won't be the thing to use in a multi-user environment. Alot of user tools  are missing, the memory is limited, an the cli-interpreter "ash" has its own specialities.
BUT BUT BUT , you may combine it with an RaspberryPI.

In my mind, you can create a LibraryBox (or PirateBox), where you place some of the Files and Documents. On the 'box you point out, that the login-IP for the CLI-Session is 192.168.1.2

You take a RPi, that you connect via wire to the 'Box and setup the static IP 192.168.1.2 to the RPi.

That is the basic infrastructure. So everyone should be able to access the RPi behind the box across the wifi-network. That is, in my mind, no issue.

Next step for the CLI-course, I describe everything -for time issues- relative abstract:

On the RPi you should create 10 or 20 students-accounts, so that everybody has its own home-directory. You can insert the "user" module in apache, so that everyone can have his/hers own html-play directory which can be visited by 192.168.1.2/~username

Maybe you should think about a CPU quota, that one person doesn't bring the RPi to the limit.

After you made up the basic setup, you take the RaspberryPi's SD-Card an create a backup of it. With this backup you can easily (much easier then on the OpenWRT/LibraryBox -infrastructure) go back to the save-point before the course.

What do you think about that?

Matthias

2013/11/26 Coral Sheldon-Hess <co...@sheldon-hess.org>

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[Coral Sheldon-Hess]

Hi, Matthias! 

Sorry for the delay in replying. I was thinking about your suggestion, and I think in that case I could probably just skip the LibraryBox altogether. I have an 802.11n dongle for the Pi, so it could probably do the work on its own, right?

Thanks for your help! It hadn't even occurred to me to try to use the Pi for this. 

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Coral Sheldon-Hess
http://sheldon-hess.org/coral
@web_kunoichi

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[Matthias Strubel]

Hi Coral,
No worries.
USB WiFi drivers haven't been the best thing human mankind invented up to today.

You can give it a try, but I'm not very convinced in the WiFi-AP capabilities of USB cards. It may work.
You can even use a much cheaper or older access point to bring the RPi into the wireless world.

If you need further help or opinions, please ask :)

Best wishes
Matthias

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