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How-to: Installing Ubuntu Linux on a usb pendrive
July 20, 2009, 4:42 am
Filed under: Tutorial

source: http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-install-ubuntu-linux-on-usb-bar

This tutorial will show how-to install Ubuntu on a usb stick. Even though this tutorial uses Ubuntu as its base distribution, you could virtually use any type of Linux liveCD distribution.

Being able to run Linux out of a usb bar is a great way to enjoy the live CD experience (being able to use Linux on any computer you might get by) and the big advantage of being easier to carry around than a CD.

1. Requirements

In order to reproduce this tutorial,

you will need a few items such as:

  • a ubuntu liveCD
  • a usb bar of at least 1G
  • a running Linux operating system

Now that you have all this, it is time to prepare you USB bar do host the Ubuntu liveCD files.

2. Setting up the USB disk

2.1. Finding the device

In the first place, you need to plug your usb drive and check under which device it is associated. To find out the device, run:

$ sudo fdisk -l

On my system, the device appears as being /dev/sdb, I will therefore use /dev/sdb as a reference for this tutorial, please replace it accordingly to your system (might be sda, sdc …).
Once you found your device, you are going to create the partitions.

Using the wrong device name might destroy your system partition, please double check

2.2. Making the partitions

Make sure every of your already mounted partition are unmounted:

$sudo umount /dev/sdb1

and then launch fdisk, a tool to edit partition under linux:

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

We are going delete all the partition and then create 2 new partition: one fat partition of 750M which will host the files from the live CD iso, and the rest on another partition.

At fdisk prompt type d x where x is the partition number (you can simply type d if you only have one partition), then:

  • n to create a new partition
  • p to make it primary
  • 1 so it is the first primary partition
  • Accept the default or type 1 to start from the first cylinder
  • +750M to make it 750 Meg big
  • a to toggle the partition active for boot
  • 1 to choose the 1 partition
  • t to change the partition type
  • 6 to set it to FAT16

Now we have out first partition set up, let’s create the second one:

  • n to create yet again a new partition
  • p to make it primary
  • 2 to be the second partition
  • Accept the default by typing Enter
  • Accept the default to make your partition as big as possible
  • Finally, type w to write the change to your usb pendrive

Partitions are now created, let’s format them.

2.3. Formatting the partitions

The first partition is going to be formated as a FAT filesystem of size 16 and we are going to attribute it the label “liveusb”.

$ sudo mkfs.vfat -F 16 -n liveusb /dev/sdb1

The second partition is going to be of type ext2 with a blocksize of 4096 bytes and the label casper-rw. Mind that it has to be labeled as casper-rw otherwise the tutorial won’t work!.

$ sudo mkfs.ext2 -b 4096 -L casper-rw /dev/sdb2

At this stage, our usb pendrive is ready to host the liveCD image. Now, let’s copy the files to the usb bar.

3. Installing Ubuntu on the USB stick

3.1. Mounting Ubuntu liveCd image

In the first place we need to mount our ubuntu iso. Depending if you have the .iso file or the CD, there is 2 different ways of mounting it.

3.1.1. Mounting from the CD

People using Ubuntu or any other user-friendly distro, might just have to insert the cd and it will be mounted automatically. If this is not the case:

$ sudo mount /media/cdrom

should mount it.

3.1.2. Mounting from an .iso image file

We will need to create a temporary directory, let say /tmp/ubuntu-livecd and then mount our iso (I will be using a feisty fawn iso).

$ mkdir /tmp/ubuntu-livecd
$ sudo mount -o loop /path/to/feisty-desktop-i386.iso /tmp/ubuntu-livecd

Once the cd image is ready, it is time to mount the newly created usb bar partitions:

3.2. Mounting the usb bar partitions

Same here, you might be able to get both your partition by simply replugging the usb pendrive, partition might appears as: /media/liveusb and /media/casper-rw. If this is not the case, then you will need to mount them manually:

$ mkdir /tmp/liveusb
$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /tmp/liveusb

All the partitions we need are now mounted, let’s copy the files.

3.3. Copying the files to the usb bar

Let positionned yourself on the CD image directory (in my case: /tmp/ubuntu-livecd , but it might be /media/cdrom , and copy at the root of your usb first partition:

  • the directories: ‘casper’, ‘disctree’, ‘dists’, ‘install’, ‘pics’, ‘pool’, ‘preseed’, ‘.disk’
  • The content of directory ‘isolinux’
  • and files ‘md5sum.txt’, ‘README.diskdefines’, ‘ubuntu.ico’
  • as well as files: ‘casper/vmlinuz’, ‘casper/initrd.gz’ and ‘install/mt86plus’

$ cd /tmp/ubuntu-livecd
$ sudo cp -rf casper disctree dists install pics pool preseed .disk isolinux/* md5sum.txt README.diskdefines ubuntu.ico casper/vmlinuz casper/initrd.gz install/mt86plus /tmp/liveusb/

It might complain about symbolic links not being able to create, you can ignore this.

Now let’s go to the first partition of your usb disk and rename isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg:

$ cd /tmp/liveusb
$ sudo mv isolinux.cfg syslinux.cfg

change /tmp/liveusb according to your settings

Edit syslinux.cfg so it looks like:

DEFAULT persistent
GFXBOOT bootlogo
GFXBOOT-BACKGROUND 0xB6875A
APPEND  file=preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=initrd.gz ramdisk_size=1048576 root=/dev/ram rw quiet splash --
LABEL persistent
  menu label ^Start Ubuntu in persistent mode
  kernel vmlinuz
  append  file=preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper persistent initrd=initrd.gz ramdisk_size=1048576 root=/dev/ram rw quiet splash --
LABEL live
  menu label ^Start or install Ubuntu
  kernel vmlinuz
  append  file=preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=initrd.gz ramdisk_size=1048576 root=/dev/ram rw quiet splash --
LABEL xforcevesa
  menu label Start Ubuntu in safe ^graphics mode
  kernel vmlinuz
  append  file=preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper xforcevesa initrd=initrd.gz ramdisk_size=1048576 root=/dev/ram rw quiet splash --
LABEL check
  menu label ^Check CD for defects
  kernel vmlinuz
  append  boot=casper integrity-check initrd=initrd.gz ramdisk_size=1048576 root=/dev/ram rw quiet splash --
LABEL memtest
  menu label ^Memory test
  kernel mt86plus
  append -
LABEL hd
  menu label ^Boot from first hard disk
  localboot 0x80
  append -
DISPLAY isolinux.txt
TIMEOUT 300
PROMPT 1
F1 f1.txt
F2 f2.txt
F3 f3.txt
F4 f4.txt
F5 f5.txt
F6 f6.txt
F7 f7.txt
F8 f8.txt
F9 f9.txt
F0 f10.txt

Woof, finally we have our usb disk almost usuable. We have a last thing to do: make the usb bootable.

3.4. Making the usb bar bootable.


in order to make our usb disk bootable, we need to install syslinux and mtools:

$ sudo apt-get install syslinux mtools

And finally unmount /dev/sdb1 and make it bootable:

$ cd
 $ sudo umount /tmp/liveusb
 $ sudo syslinux -f /dev/sdb1

Here we are :D  , reboot, set your BIOS to boot from the usb bar and enjoy Ubuntu linux from a pendrive

4. Troubleshooting


If you are having trouble booting on the usb bar, this might be due to your MBR being corrupted. In order to fix it up, you can use lilo (I installed lilo on my box only for thid purpose).

$ lilo -M /dev/sdb

will fix the MBR on device /dev/sdb
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Free Resource for Schools
February 11, 2009, 4:53 am
Filed under: Open Source | Tags: ,

Free Resources for Schools

Free Software

Office and Page Layout

Open Office is the free alternative to MS Office and provides similar functionality for most practical purposes (except those spreadsheets requiring Visual Basic). Version 3 (currently in beta) has many more functions including full PDF and .docx support. Full details at http://www.openoffice.org/

Serif PagePlus SE is a cut down version of a commercial package but still provides many of the DTP tools required. See http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/PagePlus/default1.asp .

Scribus is a powerful DTP and page layout application and is an alternative to MS Publisher. Friendly modern interface and easy pdf creation. Available from http://www.scribus.net/ .

Creating Learning Platform Courseware

MOS Solo is a Windows application to create learning courses, presentations, assessments and surveys. The courses created are SCORM conformant and can be viewed in a LMS or directly on the Internet:

http://www.moschorus.com/centre/MosPub/solo_en/index.html

The eXe project is developing a freely available Open Source authoring application to assist teachers in the publishing of web content without the need to become proficient in HTML or XML markup. Resources authored in eXe can be exported in IMS Content Package, SCORM 1.2, or IMS Common Cartridge formats or as simple self-contained web pages http://exelearning.org/

Ispring free 3.1 works with all versions of PowerPoint to convert presentations to Flash files for use in learning platforms, download it from – http://www.ispringsolutions.com/

Graphics

IrfanView is a useful little image editor with many of the features needed to modify and improve photos. Not the most intuitive interface but small, fast and effective. Available from http://www.irfanview.com/ .

GIMP is a well known graphics editor with similar functionality to commercial heavyweights such as Photoshop. Get it from http://www.gimp.org/ .

Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. See http://www.inkscape.org/ .

Google SketchUp is software that you can use to create, modify and share 3D models. Online at http://sketchup.google.com/ .

QCAD is a simple 2D CAD system for Unix and Windows. It offers basic support for the construction and modification of CAD drawings. Download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/qcad/ .

Video Editing

VideoSpin is free video editing software that allows you to create your own movie clips in minutes using your own videos and pictures. A free version of the well-known Pinnacle app it can be found at http://www.videospin.com/

Sound

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ . With the addition of a small ultilty can save as MP3 files for podcasting.

Web tools

GoogleDocs provides online word processor and spreadsheet that can be used individually and as wiki style shared documents. http://docs.google.com/ is the way in. You can register with any email address.

Google Apps provides many more facilities and tools, including the basic GoogleDocs and Gmail emails services and can be integrated with existing facilities. Full details of the Education Edition can be found at http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/editions_spe.html . A useful reference article showing how schools are using Google Apps is available at http://education.guardian.co.uk/link/story/0,,2277942,00.html

Acrobat.com is Adobes answer to Google Apps - different interface of course but some additional functionality including the ability to edit images in the word processor. Also includes online conferencing and document sharing. Only I beat at present but worth a look at https://www.acrobat.com

Other free online work spaces are ZoHo at http://www.zoho.com/ and ThinkFree at http://member.thinkfree.com/ .

Firefox is a superb web browser that many consider far superior to Internet Explorer with its simple interface, tabbed browsing and the facility to install a large range of useful add-ons and utilities. Download from www.mozilla.com/firefox/ .

Thunderbird complements Firefox and is an alternative mail client to MS Outlook. Supports both POP and IMAP servers but won’t talk to MS Exchange servers. Get it from www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/ .

KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing. KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding. Obtainable from http://www.kompozer.net/ .

eyeOS is a new kind of Operating System, where everything resides on a web browser. With eyeOS, you will have your desktop, applications and files always with you, from your home, your college etc. Just open a web browser, connect to your eyeOS System and access your personal desktop and all your stuff just like you left it last time. While eyeOS sits on a public server users can install it on a local Apache server if desired.

Modx – open source website management software

http://modxcms.com/downloads.html

If you need to convert PDF files to Word (and pretty much any other file type to another appropriate one then try the online tool Zamzar found at http://www.zamzar.com/

Utilities

FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java:

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

7-Zip is a useful alternative to WinZIP. See http://www.7-zip.org/ .

Scratch is a tool for teaching control technology and environment development from KS2 upwards. Very user friendly and powerful. Get it from http://scratch.mit.edu/ .

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. See http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ .

CutePDF Writer allows you to create PDF files from any printable document. Very useful little tool from http://www.cutepdf.com/

And these are just a starting point, much more is available and schools may wish to look at the offerings on the following sites:

http://www.opensourcewindows.org/ contains links to several useful applications and utilities.

Techies may wish to browse http://www.freewarefiles.com/ or the well known http://www.tucows.com/ .

Other useful sites include http://www.nedwolf.com/Freeware.htm and http://www.freesoftwarewindows.com/ .

The Asus EeePC and Acer Aspire One run versions of the Linux operating system. Many useful tools for this may be found at The Free Software Foundation http://www.fsf.org/ and at Sourceforge at http://sourceforge.net/ but do be aware that you are entering geek territory here! Best left to specialists unless a particular application clearly states that it will work under the version of Linux supplied with the EeePC.

NB You are advised save all files to disk and to run appropriate virus checks before installing any free software onto your Windows system. The advice above is provided in good faith and basic checks have been made but we cannot guarantee that any software downloaded from the web is free of virus, Trojans or other infections.

Free Music

Yes there is copyright free and Creative Commons licensed music available. However, because of the potential for widespread abuse and subsequent litigation all music, MP3 and similar downloads are currently blocked by PCC web filtering. If legitimate download sites can be identified these will be made available to schools.

Free Images

There are some sources of images which may be used free of charge for educational purposes. These include:

AICT (Art Images for College Teaching): this is a royalty-free image resource for the educational community

DHD photo gallery: over 13,000 very varied images, clip-art, sounds and video clips (from carbon resister strips to Victoria Falls) which may be used subject to very reasonable terms and conditions

FreeFoto.com: over 67,000 images in 117 sections, available for non-commercial use subject to FreeFoto terms and conditions

Flickr hosts a huge and growing library of photographs submitted by individuals. It is possible to search for images with Creative Commons licences allowing educational use.

FreeImages.co.uk: over 2,500 photographs which may be freely used or adapted for use on web sites or in publications, under FreeImages terms and conditions which include that a credit/link is given to the site

Pics4Learning: copyright-friendly images for education.  The site is aimed at primary and secondary education teachers but the images available are broad in range and applicability.

Visual Arts Data Service : access to collections of images which may be used for research or teaching purposes but if used for teaching must be restricted so that access is only available to students who have signed an appropriate undertaking – see VADS conditions for use

Philip’s House of Stock Photography (www.photo.net/stock/): This site provides many free images and also provides links to other free image sites.

NASA http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html – As with mostUSgovernment agency web sites, NASA allows the use of NASA imagery,video and audio material (except the NASA insignia logo) for educational or informational purposes provided proper credit is included.  The terms of use are set out at http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/policies.html.  For a full list of US government graphics and photographs available, see http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml

Botanical Society of America Online Image Collection: education images on botany for instructional use

Earth Science World Imagebank (http://www.earthscienceworld.org/): is a service provided by the American Geological Institute designed to provide quality geoscience images to the public, educators, and the geoscience community.  Most of the images are available free of charge for educational purposes, provided the straightforward terms of use are followed (http://www.earthscienceworld.org/imagebank/imageuse.html).

The Centre for Bioscience ImageBank: thousands of images are available free of charge with copyright cleared for educational use, with due acknowledgement.

Geology by lightplane – 335 colour aerial images of landforms and geological features (in USA), taken from a small airraft, free for non-commercial educational use

Graphic Maps (www.graphicmaps.com) – free images of maps, flags and globes.  (The site also contains many maps and images available for a fee, but the free ones are easy to find).

Health Education Assets Library: a digital library providing freely accessible digital teaching materials aimed to meet the needs of today’s health sciences educators and learners.

Microsoft ClipArt Gallery – copyright free images if you have Microsoft Office software legally installed on your computer. This is a searchable gallery of thousands of images.

Another useful list of imagery that can be used for education purposes cane be found at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nursing/sonet/resources/image_repositories.html

Note: Do not forget to read the licence information on each site.  A web page which promotes a department, as opposed to being part of teaching materials, may or may not be considered “educational purposes”. Copyright and Digital Rights Management (DRM) are complex issues – if an image is not clearly released for open use, whether under a Creative Commons licence or otherwise then it should not be used.

www.portsmouth-learning.net/

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iPOD Classic for Teacher
November 23, 2008, 5:34 am
Filed under: Hard Ware | Tags: , ,

Pendidikan berbasis multimedia telah menjadi keharusan untuk membuka mata lebar-lebar dunia luar. Penggunaan tekhnologi bukan hanya untuk entertainment belaka akan tetapi dapat dimodifikasi penggunaannya. Handphone berbasis game java dapat digunakan untuk media pembelajaran yang efektif.

iPod yang dikenalkan oleh Apple Inc dengan berbagai macam keuntungan disesuaikan dengan peruntukan konsumennya. Apabila anda ingin menggunakan untuk berbagai kepentingan khususnya pendidikan, sebaiknya anda menggunakan iPod Classic. iPod Classic sampai saat ini dengan generasi ke-6 yaitu iPod yang diluncurkan dengan hard drive didalamnya 160Gb (tetapi tidak dilanjutkan).

Fitur yang dapat digunakan pada iPod Classic adalah:

  1. Music dapat digunakan untuk media pembelajaran berbasis sound
  2. Video dapat digunakan untuk mengoperasikan media pembelajaran berbasis video seperti mendownload video pembelajaran dari youtube.com atau yang lainnya, tetapi dengan syarat menggunakan format video mp4. Gunakanlah free video software untuk menconvert dari format video yang lain
  3. Photo dapat digunakan sebagai media pembelajaran berupa foto-foto binatang untuk pelajaran IPA dan aktifitas masyarakat untuk pelajaran IPS
  4. Podcast dapat digunakan untuk media pembelajaran baik berupa audio ataupun video yang dapat didowload secara gratis dengan menggunakan iTune

Manual untuk iPod Classic adalah:

  1. Feature Guide
  2. Apple Component AV Guide
  3. iPod Savety Guide

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Instalasi WordPress di USB WebServer
November 11, 2008, 9:42 pm
Filed under: Tutorial | Tags: , , , ,

WordPress adalah salah satu CMS untuk blog yang relatif mudah digunakan oleh para pemula blogger. Banyak para pelajar di Indonesia khususnya yang memiliki kemampuan menulis sangat tinggi tapi tidak memiliki fasilitas internet untuk menulis. USB web server inilah sebagai alternatif untuk memasyarakatkan blog. Dengan bermodalkan usb/flash disk/thumb drive anda bisa menulis di komputer yang tidak memiliki jaringan internet. Untuk memahami lebih lanjut tentang wordpress bisa di download e-book ini

Langkahnya adalah:

  1. Download USB Web Server versi terakhir versi bahasa Inggris di http://www.usbwebserver.com/
  2. Unzip file USB Server tersebut
  3. Klik dua kali file USB webserver hingga tampilan gambar di bawah ini!

    (more…)
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Petunjuk Praktis Instalasi Moodle
September 17, 2008, 7:37 am
Filed under: Tutorial | Tags: ,

Persyaratan utama:

  1. Sebuah komputer boleh pinjam atau klo tidak ada sama sekali di kampung anda lebih baik gunakan media lain seperti flash disk/USB/apapun namanya yang penting dapat menyimpan data dan dapat writable
  2. Instal webserver dapat berupa WAMP/MAMP/XAMP atau USB server yang support dengan USB anda
  3. Kemauan keras untuk belajar

Langkah-langkah yang harus dilakukan:

  1. Menseting PHP/MySQL

    • Instal WAMP/MAMP/XAMPP
    • Setelah instalasi, download template web gratisan seperti wordpress atau moodle dan simpanlah setelah diekstrak ke dalam forder htdocs dalam apache server atau folder www
      (more…)
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