Re: [Live-demo] [Ica-osgeo-labs] Ideas/inputs for having a cloud service that runs the OSGeo-Live VM
On Oct 14, 2015, at 12:58 PM, Peter Baumann wrote: > - the USB drive is getting too small for the stuff to be shown. And we cannot > use bigger sticks as MacOS doesn't eat them (that's what I have been told). If the sticks are formatted as Mac HFS+ drives, there should be no unreasonable limit. If they are formatted as NTFS, there should again be no unreasonable limit, but Macs can’t write to them. If they are instead formatted as FAT-32, they are limited to 4 GB, though Macs can again write to them. > - I have experienced some people being hesitant to boot from a stick due to > security concerns: "will it now transfer my harddisk contents into the > Internet?" Make sure you’ve double-checked your flash drive with a good malware scanner, as that is a reasonable fear. > - at demos there is a zillion of different participant laptops around causing > all sort of trouble. It is just convenient to point to a website instead. And then you have issues with browser compatibility, etc. Those on limited budgets often turn to open-source software. But this also generally means that have older equipment and operating systems. So I think there is a higher imperative for open-source software to maintain backward operating-system compatibility for as long as possible in current versions of the software. (It often seems to have a shorter lifetime than commercial products.) — Andy ___ Live-demo mailing list Live-demo@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/live-demo http://live.osgeo.org http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc
Re: [Live-demo] [Ica-osgeo-labs] Looking for Web-GIS syllabi
Hi, Alex, Thanks for your observations. When you say “Persistent flash drives run much slower than Virtual Machines” are you booting your virtual machines from a DVD or USB or are they installed on the computer hard drive? In my experience virtual machines are quite slow until you give them a full 4 GB of RAM. I’m sure this varies with the other load on the computer, but on an 8 GB machine you have to be careful what else you run besides the VM and the OS. Since lab computers often have a “typical” hardware configuration, meaning 4 GB, this is likely an issue for us. My last experience with VirtualBox quickly ended in a munged unbootable system, so I think it’s very important to keep content stored outside of the VM. For best results student work needs to be stored in a readily accessible workspace. If they can’t save their materials on the mounted drive, they need a mountable workspace. Uploading/downloading to Google Drive is not an acceptable option, it’s too cumbersome and too easy to forget all of the pieces that you’ve been working on. I know Google Drive now has a mountable option, but Google’s recent attempt at this kept hanging up my Mac (maybe it works better on Windows). DropBox seems to be a better option here. However, we also have concerns about student privacy, so while we can use Google Drive (because the University has a FERPA-compliant contract with them), I don’t think they have such an agreement with Dropbox, so we can’t require students to use it. Git is another option because it can do simple smart uploads/downloads, but again it’s an extra step that students have to remember before they shut down their VM. — Andy On Jun 3, 2015, at 1:30 AM, Alex Mandel wrote: > This question is more for the OSGeo Live list, and I'll be happy to > answer more questions there if you want to continue the conversation. > > Persistent flash drives run much slower than Virtual Machines. There is > a work around to use non-persistent flash drives and then use sudo > permissions to write files back to the flash drives but it's a hassle. I > have also found that computer lab managers often prefer to use Virtual > Machines which pose less of a threat to the main system and network and > the ports are not exposed directly to the network and main hard drive is > not mounted with full read/write. Note, BIOS are often locked to prevent > tampering and UEFI secure boot only machines may not work with current > bootable flash drives (only 64 bit signed kernels work on those). > > The only nice thing about a DVD is you can't accidentally delete files > important to the boot process. Note if you use a DVD or USB (in > non-persistent mode) and the computer has sufficient ram, once running > there may be no noticeable difference in speed so long as the media > isn't needed. > > Generally I have students save all of their work out to a remote server > (Dropbox, Google drive, etc) and make a copy to a flash drive or two. If > they are somewhat more technically savy - version control. Both > Bitbucket(Academic) and Gitlab offer free private repos. > > Thanks, > -- > Alex Mandel, PhD > > Geography Graduate Group > University of California, Davis > http://geography.ucdavis.edu > > On 06/02/2015 09:23 AM, Andy Anderson wrote: >> Thanks, Jeremy! >> >> It does appear that flash drives are replacing disks for many uses, in >> particular they allow local writing of maps and transformed data. With a DVD >> there needs to be writable storage available, ideally on the network so it >> can be accessed from any computer. We will be lacking that for our course so >> this may be the best approach. >> >> Have you tried setting up the flash drives to be bootable, to avoid the need >> for a VM? >> >> http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/bootusbflash.htm >> >> Also, are you encouraging the students to back up their flash drives in some >> way? >> >> — Andy >> >> On Jun 2, 2015, at 8:22 AM, Jeremy Morley >> mailto:jeremy.mor...@nottingham.ac.uk>> >> wrote: >> >> I have training material that is based on OSGeo Live running as a Virtual >> Box VM. The material is designed to run from a 16GB or preferably a 32GB >> memory stick using VirtualBox installed on the local machine. The practicals >> use a pack of UK Open Data so can be redistributed. This scheme is the >> result of a lot of iteration. It now runs pretty smoothly, is fairly easy to >> set up, and using memory sticks means the students can take away a "GIS >> system on a stick" at the end of classes. Typically on 1-2 students of 15-20 >> a year have claimed the deposit back rather than keep the stick. The data
Re: [Live-demo] [Ica-osgeo-labs] Looking for Web-GIS syllabi
Thanks, Jeremy! It does appear that flash drives are replacing disks for many uses, in particular they allow local writing of maps and transformed data. With a DVD there needs to be writable storage available, ideally on the network so it can be accessed from any computer. We will be lacking that for our course so this may be the best approach. Have you tried setting up the flash drives to be bootable, to avoid the need for a VM? http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/bootusbflash.htm Also, are you encouraging the students to back up their flash drives in some way? — Andy On Jun 2, 2015, at 8:22 AM, Jeremy Morley mailto:jeremy.mor...@nottingham.ac.uk>> wrote: I have training material that is based on OSGeo Live running as a Virtual Box VM. The material is designed to run from a 16GB or preferably a 32GB memory stick using VirtualBox installed on the local machine. The practicals use a pack of UK Open Data so can be redistributed. This scheme is the result of a lot of iteration. It now runs pretty smoothly, is fairly easy to set up, and using memory sticks means the students can take away a "GIS system on a stick" at the end of classes. Typically on 1-2 students of 15-20 a year have claimed the deposit back rather than keep the stick. The data pack could go on the web to be downloaded. The practical class material ATM is 4 PDFs (originated from Word docs) I'm seeing Charlie on Friday and can discuss handing this on then. There's also a series of lectures to go with the practicals which use PPT slides. Jeremy -- Jeremy Morley Chief Geospatial Scientist Ordnance Survey, Explorer House, Adanac Drive Southampton. SO16 0AS. United Kingdom jeremy.mor...@os.uk<mailto:jeremy.mor...@os.uk> Honorary Assistant Professor, School of Geography University of Nottingham jeremy.mor...@nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:jeremy.mor...@nottingham.ac.uk> On 28 May 2015, at 09:41, Charles Schweik mailto:cschw...@pubpol.umass.edu>> wrote: Hi Cameron, all: We'll ponder this as well. I'm copying my collaborators. Charlie On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:31 PM, Cameron Shorter mailto:cameron.shor...@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi Jorge, others, One thing which would be very valuable would be to align development of GIS training material with the OSGeo-Live build process. Probably incorporate training material in the documentation at: http://live.osgeo.org<http://live.osgeo.org/> This could be collaboratively developed and continually updated by both project teams, training institutes, and our existing teams of translators. Jorge, it looks like you have a good start on this. I'd be interested to see how we could link with OSGeo-Live. Warm Regards, Cameron On 27/05/2015 7:01 am, Jorge Gustavo Rocha wrote: Hi Charlie, hi Andy, Last year I've started (but not finished) a web gis course, based on OSGeo Live. My goal was to create a course that could be translated to different languages, and always using local data. I've created http://mapmaking.info/ to setup the course. I've just created contents for chinese students, using chinese data (but I didn't had time to write it in mandarim, so it is still in english). Now I'm translating the course to portuguese, using data from Portugal. My suggestion is to use administrative data for some global source like: * http://www.gadm.org/ * http://gdem.ersdac.jspacesystems.or.jp/ * OSM planet extracts Every student would use the same technologies, the same algoritms, but using data that has some meaning for them. Those interested in teaching the course to a new community would have to translate the contents and to provide the equivalent datasets related with the community. We already have tons of open source software available in different languagues and amazing data from all around the globe. It is time to create powerful contens "Think globally" adapted to local learning communities "act locally". As a minor note, whenever possible, we should align our syllabus with the BoK, despite web gis being the weakest BoK topic. Regards, Jorge Gustavo On 26-05-2015 17:37, Charles Schweik wrote: Hello GeoForAll colleagues, Some colleague and I just received some funding to develop a new Web-GIS course for Spring 2016, and this week we are working on a rough draft syllabus as a requirement from the funder. We're in negotiation with the funder on intellectual property rights, but we are confident that we will be able to license the course open access under some Creative Commons license. I also want to try and use this effort as a step forward in our quest to build the content system and a 'new derivative work' system. My request: * * *If you have taught a Web-GIS class in the last few years and are willing to share your syllabus with us*, or if you have relevant materials you are willing to share, please let me know (and copy my dev
[Live-demo] Live Demo Web Site Issue
Hi, I noticed an issue on the Live Demo web site that could lead to some confusion. The main page http://live.osgeo.org/en/index.html has a Quick Start link “Getting started with the OSGeo-Live DVD” further down that leads to this page: http://live.osgeo.org/en/quickstart/osgeolive_quickstart.html And this page has the text “Source an OSGeo-Live DVD, ISO available from: http://download.osgeo.org/livedvd ”. The latter page: http://download.osgeo.org/livedvd/ says “This is an archive of prior final releases of the OSGeo Live disc. For more information about the project, software included, and updates on the latest version please visit our homepagelive.osgeo.org”, and the first version listed is 7.9 rather than the current version 8.5. So it looks to me like the QuickStart page should instead link to: http://live.osgeo.org/en/download.html Thanks, — Andy ___ Live-demo mailing list Live-demo@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/live-demo http://live.osgeo.org http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc
