A deployment service (either for imaging pc’s or applications to pc’s from a central repo) would be a great asset for the edu part.
Any options that come into mind? (Puppet might be a bit heavy 
)
Calibre is mostly a single user desktop app but has calibre-server to share ebooks, although it might have some X dependencies. Installation example on Ubuntu.
Alternatives to calibre-server (but built to use a calibre database) are:
Other options to manage e-books:
- joyread (aka LibreRead, not stable, in its early stage of development)
- Moodle: moodle has a book module that can be combined with Lucimoo to import/export e-books.
- Nextcloud: Nextcloud has an OPDS catalog app and a e-book reader app.
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For imaging PCs:
For apps on Windows: Puppet, Ansible… combined with chocolatey and maybe some powershell involved. An example. Bear in mind Ansible might play a major role on NethServer 8 with Cockpit, if I’m not mistaken.
In other threads some other options were discussed, also Fleet Commander was mentioned but don’t remember if it’s ready for AD environments.
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If so, it would be a no-brainer to work towards that and have Ansible do the distribution of applications too.
I had ansible in mind related to cockpit but I could be wrong.
@davidep @giacomo can you give a headsup for NS8 and cockpit/ansible?
We have a discussion topic about NS8 wishlist (started over a year ago to prepare discussion for the last years community conference) NethServer 8: wishlist for the conference
Could we focus on the progress of NS8 in some way (prefferably in a new topic) and how Cockpit and Ansible will be implemented and what possibilities and challenges this will give for developing new modules?
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The cockpit UI state is described in this other thread Cockpit: new version
About adding Ansible as events/config template engine: it’s just an idea. I’m happy to see you feel it’s a good choice, it makes me think we’re on the same page.
IMO Ansible and e-smith API must live together, so we can develop new things with Ansible, retaining compatibility with the current code.
But apart from some thoughts, I didn’t write anything.
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To not clutter this post I’ve created a “quick and dirty” Howto install Calibre Server in the #howto section.
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I love that initiative. Making NethServer an educational platform is one of my dreams 
@apradoc @syntaxerrormmm how can we work together and make that reality?
Emiliano’s crew did a great job on this
I’m probably saying something really unpopular now, but what we (as LibreSchool project) are aiming for is a didactic environment, not a educational one (at least, for the moment). This is the same difference as designing the Facebook web interface and designing the IT infrastructure behind the big F. What I am saying is that we are now trying to polish the client side, which unfortunately is minimally, if at all, dependent on the server architecture.
I see a lot of thoughtful and good inputs here (and I really love the goals you are setting; loving a lot the Cockpit/Ansible thing in particular), but they are definitely out of scope with the regards of what we expect to implement/work on in the next 5 years or so.
I would love to say I would “adopt and maintain” one or more of the software you mentioned and integrating it in NS, but I would not have time to do it. If you think I can provide some support/experiences for some of them (I don’t, but still…), please feel free to ping me, I would love to help you as much as I can (I was following the thread for some time, unfortunately not having anything smart to say).
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The more I hear about using Ansible for a backend, the more I like it. Especially since @syntaxerrormmm uses Ansible too at the LibreSchool where NS is one of the main parts of that project. It would be good when all these projects come together as a thightly knitted solution.
I added Xibo to the wishlist. An install howto for Centos7 is available on the xibo community forums: https://community.xibo.org.uk/t/installation-guide-of-xibo-1-8-on-centos-7/9429
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While Koha is a high quality library management system, it can be a bit daunting/overkill for staff who might not be trained in the intricacies of MARC, so I’d like to suggest SLIMS8 as an additional option/alternative when it comes to a school level LMS in the wishlist. Extensively used in Indonesia, it’s open-source, also recommended by the Bangladesh Library Association, has a wide set of translations, and is ideally suited for deployment in developing countries.
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Hi @gurujim, Do you have any experience with SLIMS8? Maybe you could create an install howto for Nethserver? You could create a new topic for that. If you run in any issues, don’t hesitate to ask for help.
Thanks, I was fighting with Koha integration because of perl dependencies and zebra/yaz requirements and SLIMS comes with an easy web installer, you just need PHP 5.6/mysql and create database/user.
It seems to support LDAP/AD too. 
Well, I do have experience with SLiMS, having translated the manual, done modifications, and produced this : https://slims.web.id/web/news/turnkey-linux-for-slims/ . But I am just coming to grips with NethServer, discovering it while searching for a solid opensource server for a school in Shan State ( Myanmar ) I’m helping network. [ At the moment TurnKey doesn’t have combined AD and Filesharing really sorted with Samba ] . So when I get Nethserver running confidently, I’ll have a look at that, but that could be a while.
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Welcome Jim, nice to read you have a look at Nethserver.
Assuming you are a (lets say a above) knowledgeable user; you might be interested in some of the internals of Nethserver. Most prominent is the e-simth configuration layer responsible for expansion the templated configuration files.
After your first discovery and if you are unfamiliar with it, the section of the developers manual dealing with e-smith templates is a nice read.
http://docs.nethserver.org/projects/nethserver-devel/en/v7/templates.html
If you have questions feel free to ask.
Edit: sorry about the mistake referring to an other topic you did not open…
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hello,
I recently came a cross a very good system for education use.
which serves as a local shared library server for any education institution
its called RACHEL
its got instructions on building your own though its based on raspberry pi
http://rachelfriends.org/rachel-pi-howto.html
In general I think it should be possible to use the same content here http://rachelfriends.org/
and the entire content visisble here http://rachelfriends.org/previews/rachelplus-en/
this might be probably for Nethserver on pi, but it could be great to have a way to build it into the general Nethserver.
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Hi @oneitonitram,
Thank you for your suggestion. Did you already try to install this on NethServer? I just went over to the website, and am I far off when it looks a bit like Internet-in-a-box?
I know Unleaskids and OLPC Use IIAB for their projects.
I sure am curious if either of them, can be installed on NS and what the options are for these applications.
yes @robb it is more like internet in a box, the difference is that this one is geared towards educational institutions, and the content is mostly curriculum based. and also includes some virtual labs.
A for rachel, there is a way to download a usb version and setup on your own machine, the problem is thats its a small 80 gb version. For my use case, I think the 400 GB version would be great. the challenge is thats its provided as an iso image for rapberry pi.
In our country I have people with version of the content