FAQ
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1. What is TtH and how do I know I have it? -
2. So I think I'm done with the LON-CAPA installation. -Now what do I do? How do I begin? -
3. Why do I have to worry about choosing a "role"? -
4. What kind of computer and operating will this work -on? -
4a. Will this work on BSD Unix? -
4b. Will this work on Mac OS X? -
4c. Will this work on an old SPARC, Solaris, SGI, NeXT, or -DEC machine that is collecting cobwebs in my university's technology center? -
5. What does LON-CAPA stand for? -
6. Who wrote this code? -
7. Where is this software being used? -
8. What are current plans for the installation? -
9. How do I upgrade? -
10. What are RPMs? -
11. How do I know this will be a secure solution for -my users? -
12. How do I contribute code? -
13. Is LON-CAPA owned by any umbrella company? -
14. What are the costs? -
15. What kind of computer do I need? -
16. Where can I learn more about the technical -ideas surrounding the LON-CAPA project? -
17. How are you similar or different to -WebCT, Blackboard, etc? -
-TtH = TeX-to-HTML. -You should have a file called tth.so on your system. If you do not -have it (should be located somewhere underneath /usr/lib/perl5), then you -should download and install the binary - -http://install.lon-capa.org/resources/tth.so -into your /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.???/ directory (5.??? corresponds -to the version number of your perl distribution). -
--You will first need to set up a domain coordinator on your machine. -See loncapa/doc/how_to_domain_coordinator.txt in your CVS repository checkout. -After this, it is time to play with the interface. We do not -yet have a user manual, but -Felicia is helping answer -questions related to the LON-CAPA web interface. -
--A critical feature of the LON-CAPA interface is the idea that a user -must select a role before doing anything further inside the educational -system. -
--The operating system LON-CAPA runs on is the Linux operating -system. LON-CAPA relies on an Intel-based architecture. -
--For full-time, classroom usage, an adequate LON-CAPA server -should be/have: -
--A lesser machine can be used for toying around with LON-CAPA -(LON-CAPA will run for a single user on most any machine). -
--LON-CAPA servers experience significant peaks of activity -before a homework submission deadline. To support these critical -peaks of activity, it is strongly advised that LON-CAPA machines -fit the above recommendation. -
--If thousands of students start accessing the box as a web server... -you may want to consider more options. The design of the LON-CAPA -system is to naturally and transparently load-balance on multiple -computer clusters. So, a simple solution for running an entire -college campus is to just have an adequate plurality of LON-CAPA -servers rather than a single, particularly monstrous server. -
--We like to think of high web server usage as "a good problem" though.. :) -
--No. -
--No. -
--No. -
--The Learning Online Network with Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach. -
--An eclectic variant is: Look! Our New Car Answers Pizza Appetites. -
--Or something. -
--This code was originally written by a group of staff and graduate assistants -at Michigan State University. We are now receiving software contributions -from several other universities. The original technical design behind the -project was constructed by Gerd Kortemeyer. -
--The existing user sites are: -
--We have been able to run LON-CAPA on RedHat 6.2, 7.1, 7.2, Debian, and -Mandrake. -
--You must use CVS over the network. -Please click on the upgrade button at the top of this web page. -
--Software packages that are (usually) very easy to install. RPM stands -for RedHat Packaging Manager software package. -
--LON-CAPA is distributed without warranty as described in the -license. -
--We do think our security strategy is fairly robust. Important communications -are encrypted and the server-client validation is instantiated in such -a way as to prevent any remotely conceivable kind of spoofing. -
--Send a diff to -lon-capa-dev@mail.lon-capa.org. It helps if you give it context -with the -C option. For example, -
--diff -u -C3 doc/build/faq.html doc/build/faq.html~ | mail lon-capa-dev@mail.lon-capa.org --
-No and hopefully never. That is not what we are about. We are about a -freeware-community oriented approach where the software features are directly -specified by the involved academic institutions and instructors. -
--Time & Money. You and/or somebody else needs the time to learn how to use -the LON-CAPA system. You and/or somebody else needs the money to set up and -maintain a working computer server(s) for your institution. -
--More importantly, if your institution wants a sound future and a -increased ability to configure the LON-CAPA software, we recommend -that you assume some responsibility for contributing code to the -freeware project. -
--You need a RedHat 7.3 Intel-compatible computer. -For more information on RedHat compatible hardware, visit -http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/. -We do not currently support the SPARC, SGI, Macintosh, or other hardware -architectures. -
--You will find the technical manual to be very handy; please visit - -http://www.lon-capa.org/technical.html. -
--I would suggest two major differences: -
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