Petter Reinholdtsen

How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation
17th May 2013

Debian Edu / Skolelinux is an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools. It contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to pupils in the primary schools. It provide both the central server, network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of educational software. The project was founded almost 12 years ago, 2001-07-02. If you want to support the project, which is in need for cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity, please donate some money.

A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation. It isn't very hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by the Debian Edu installer.

The script, debian-edu-bless in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation into a Debian Edu Workstation:

  1. Add skolelinux related APT sources.
  2. Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.
  3. Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in our configuration.
  4. Preseed debconf database with profile setup in /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages according to the profile specified in the config above, overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.
  5. Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything that could not be done using preseeding.
  6. Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.

There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be replicated like this. Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example. So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all the needed packages.

The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on setting up Raspberry Pi as a Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing Raspbian installation and transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).

The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation. If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:

PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
DESKTOP="lxde"

The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first boot.

Tags: debian, debian edu, english.

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