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Tue Apr 23 12:14:44 2002 UTC (22 years, 4 months ago) by harris41
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suggesting help.lon-capa.org and filling in answer for "what kind of computer?"

1:  2: <html> 3: <head> 4: <title>Frequently Asked Questions</title> 5:  6:  7: </head> 8: <body bgcolor='#ffffff'> 9:  10:   11: 12: 13: 14: Questions about anything and everything 15: 16: 17: 18: Shown below are frequently asked questions others have 19: about LON-CAPA installation and system management. For 20: a more complete FAQ, you are strongly encouraged to visit 21: 22: 23: <a href="http://help.lon-capa.org/">http://help.lon-capa.org/</a> 24: 25: 26: 27: 28:  29:  30: FAQ 31: <ul> 32: 1. <a href='#q1'>What is TtH and how do I know I have it?</a> 33: 2. <a href='#q2'>So I think I'm done with the LON-CAPA installation. 34: Now what do I do? How do I begin?</a> 35: 3. <a href='#q3'>Why do I have to worry about choosing a "role"?</a> 36: 4. <a href='#q4'>What kind of computer and operating will this work 37: on?</a> 38: 4a. <a href='#q4'>Will this work on BSD Unix?</a> 39: 4b. <a href='#q4'>Will this work on Mac OS X?</a> 40: 5. <a href='#q5'>What does LON-CAPA stand for?</a> 41: 6. <a href='#q6'>Who wrote this code?</a> 42: 7. <a href='#q7'>Where is this software being used?</a> 43: 8. <a href='#q8'>What are current plans for the installation?</a> 44: 9. <a href='#q9'>How do I upgrade?</a> 45: 10. <a href='#q10'>What are RPMs?</a> 46: 11. <a href='#q11'>How do I know this will be a secure solution for 47: my users?</a> 48: 12. <a href='#q12'>How do I contribute code?</a> 49: 13. <a href='#q13'>Is LON-CAPA owned by any umbrella company?</a> 50: 14. <a href='#q14'>What are the costs?</a> 51: 15. <a href='#q15'>What kind of computer do I need?</a> 52: 16. <a href='#q16'>Where can I learn more about the technical 53: ideas surrounding the LON-CAPA project?</a> 54: 17. <a href='#q17'>How are you similar or different to 55: WebCT, Blackboard, etc?</a> 56: </ul> 57: <hr />1. <a name='q1' />What is TtH and how do I know I have it? 58: 59: TtH = TeX-to-HTML. 60: You should have a file called tth.so on your system. If you do not 61: have it, then you should download and install the binary 62: http://install.lon-capa.org/3.1/binaries/tth.so 63: into your 64: /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.???/ directory. 65: 66: 67: <hr />2. <a name='q2' />So I think I'm done with the LON-CAPA installation. 68: Now what do I do? How do I begin? 69: 70: You will first need to set up a domain coordinator on your machine. 71: See loncapa/doc/how_to_domain_coordinator.txt in your CVS repository checkout. 72: After this, it is time to play with the interface. We do not 73: yet have a user manual, but 74: <a href='mailto:felicia@lon-capa.org'>Felicia</a> is helping answer 75: questions related to the LON-CAPA web interface. 76: 77: <hr />3. <a name='q3' />Why do I have to worry about choosing a "role"? 78: 79: A critical feature of the LON-CAPA interface is the idea that a user 80: must select a role before doing anything further inside the educational 81: system. 82: 83: <hr />4. <a name='q4' />What kind of 84: computer and operating will this work on? 85: 86: The operating system LON-CAPA runs on is the Linux operating 87: system. LON-CAPA relies on an Intel-based architecture. 88: 89: 90: For full-time, classroom usage, an adequate LON-CAPA server 91: should be/have: 92: 93: <ul> 94: <li>a multiprocessor machine,</li> 95: <li>a CPU speed of 1 gigahertz,</li> 96: <li>a gigabyte of memory,</li> 97: <li>and at least 40 to 80 gigabytes of hard disk space.</li> 98: </ul> 99: 100: A lesser machine can be used for toying around with LON-CAPA 101: (LON-CAPA will run for a single user on most any machine). 102: 103: 104: LON-CAPA servers experience significant peaks of activity 105: before a homework submission deadline. To support these critical 106: peaks of activity, it is strongly advised that LON-CAPA machines 107: fit the above recommendation. 108: 109: 110: If thousands of students start accessing the box as a web server... 111: well you may want to consider more options. The design of the LON-CAPA 112: system is to naturally and transparently load-balance on multiple 113: computer clusters. So, a simple solution for running an entire 114: college campus is to just have an adequate plurality of LON-CAPA 115: servers rather than a single, particularly monstrous server. 116: 117: 118: We like to think of high web server usage as "a good problem" though.. :) 119: 120: <hr />4a. <a name='q4' />Will this work on BSD Unix? 121: 122: No. 123: 124: <hr />4b. <a name='q4' />Will this work on Mac OS X? 125: 126: No. 127: 128: <hr />5. <a name='q5' />What does LON-CAPA stand for? 129: 130: The Learning Online Network with Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach. 131: 132: 133: An eclectic variant is: Look! Our New Car Answers Pizza Appetites. 134: 135: <hr />6. <a name='q6' />Who wrote this code? 136: 137: This code was originally written by a group of staff and graduate assistants 138: at Michigan State University. We are now receiving software contributions 139: from several other universities. The technical design behind the project 140: was constructed by Gerd Kortemeyer. 141: 142: <hr />7. <a name='q7' />Where is this software being used? 143: <hr />8. <a name='q8' />What are current plans for the installation? 144: 145: We have been able to run LON-CAPA on RedHat 6.2, 7.1, 7.2, Debian, and 146: Mandrake. 147: 148: <hr />9. <a name='q9' />How do I upgrade? 149: 150: You must use CVS over the network. 151: Please click on the upgrade button at the top of this web page. 152: 153: <hr />10. <a name='q10' />What are RPMs? 154: 155: Software packages that are (usually) very easy to install. RPM stands 156: for RedHat Packaging Manager software package. 157: 158: <hr />11. <a name='q11' />How do I know this will be a secure solution for 159: my users? 160: 161: LON-CAPA is distributed without warranty as described in the 162: <a href='http://mycrow.mph.msu.edu/docs/license/index.html'>license</a>. 163: 164: 165: We do think our security strategy is fairly robust. Important communications 166: are encrypted and the server-client validation is instantiated in such 167: a way as to prevent any remotely conceivable kind of spoofing. 168: 169: <hr />12. <a name='q12' />How do I contribute code? 170: 171: Send a diff to <a href='mailto:lon-capa-dev@mail.lon-capa.org'> 172: lon-capa-dev@mail.lon-capa.org</a>. It helps if you give it context 173: with the -C option. For example, 174: 175: <pre> 176: diff -u -C3 doc/build/faq.html doc/build/faq.html~ | mail lon-capa-dev@mail.lon-capa.org 177: </pre> 178: <hr />13. <a name='q13' /> 179: Is LON-CAPA owned by any umbrella company? 180: 181: No and hopefully never. That's not what we're about. 182: 183: <hr />14. <a name='q14' /> 184: What are the costs? 185: 186: Time & Money. You and/or somebody else needs the time to learn how to use 187: the LON-CAPA system. You and/or somebody else needs the money to set up and 188: maintain a working computer server(s) for your institution. 189: 190: 191: More importantly, if your institution wants a sound future and a 192: increased ability to configure the LON-CAPA software, we recommend 193: that you assume some responsibility for contributing code to the 194: freeware project. 195: 196: <hr />15. <a name='q15' /> 197: What kind of computer do I need? 198: 199: You need a RedHat 6.2-7.2 Intel-compatible computer. 200: We do not currently support the SPARC and SGI hardware architectures. 201: 202: <hr />16. <a name='q16' /> 203: Where can I learn more about the technical 204: ideas surrounding the LON-CAPA project? 205: 206: You will find the technical manual to be very handy; please visit 207: <a href='http://www.lon-capa.org/technical.html'> 208: http://www.lon-capa.org/technical.html</a>. 209: 210: <hr />17. <a name='q17' /> 211: How are you similar or different to 212: WebCT, Blackboard, etc? 213: 214: I would suggest two major differences 215: <ol> 216: <li>In LON-CAPA, the user is the fundamental data object. 217: Other educational software systems seem to focus on the virtual 218: classroom as the fundamental data object.</li> 219: <li>I look at it like this. Many strictly profit-based enterprises aim to 220: significantly please 80% of their users. LON-CAPA started out, in the 221: beginning, aiming for a much higher percentage since the whole project 222: was about doing what no one had done before. 223: </li> 224: </ol> 225: 226:  227: </body> 228: </html>