ZenEdu Documentation

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This article is a part of the ZenEdu Live.

[edit] INTRODUCTION

ZenEdu Live is an educational live-cd based on Zenwalk Live which in turn is based on Zenwalk. ZenEdu was the child project of Blunt, a member of the French Zenwalk Forum. The initial iso, which included an important portion of 'French only' educational programs, was made in December 2006. As Blunt has since been unable to continue with this great initiative, this is a community effort, with his approval, to revive it as an international LiveCD.

For complete information of what you can do with ZenEdu Live, please take a look at the Zenwalk LiveCD manual and also the Zenwalk Manual. The main difference between Zenwalk LiveCD and ZenEdu Live is the added and removed applications. We have removed applications that we believe are not educational and added ones that are. Most of this document will focus on educational applications included in the LiveCD and some other highlighted applications. However, with ZenEdu Live, we experimented with Lzma compression in order to be able to fill the iso with as many educational programs as we could and as a result the process for building modules and remastering the iso is somewhat different from Zenwalk Live. If you wish to remaster ZenEdu Live and create your own specific modules, you will find specific instructions in the appendix under the chapter Building modules & remastering ZenEdu Live.

[edit] EDUCATIONAL APPLICATIONS

In choosing these applications, we tried our best to follow the Zenwalk philosophy of one application per task as closely as possible. However, due to the nature of educational needs, this was very challenging. We, finally, decided to choose the best applications that would do the tasks better. Consequently, you will see that some applications have some functionality of others. It is our hope that you will enjoy using these applications. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have suggestions about applications we should consider for the next release. You can find our contact information in the ZenEdu Members page.

[edit] Astronomy

Stellarium: A software planetarium which renders 3D photo-realistic skies in real time with OpenGL. It has robust catalogs of extraterrestrial objects.

[edit] Chemistry

bkchem: A SVG chemical structure drawing program. The drawing can be exported to several different formats to be included, for example, in a publication.
gElemental: A periodic table viewer that provides detailed information on the chemical elements.
ghemical: A computational chemistry package including molecular mechanics and quantum mechanical calculation.

[edit] Language

Stardict: A multilanguage Dictionary with scanning functionality. Dictionaries can be downloaded online from Stardict Dictionaries page.

[edit] Mathematics

Dia: A GTK+ based diagram creation program.
ExtCalc: A scientific graphic calculator with the ability to calculate all standard mathematical operations; perform special functions like integration and differentiation; draw different types of 2D- and 3D-graphs with OpenGL-Acceleration; perform function-analysis features for all supported graph types; and do C-like scripting via script editor.
Maxima: A Computer Algebra System (CAS). It can run in either graphical mode to accustom new users to its features; or in text-mode for those who are familiar with its operation.
Xaos: An interactive fractal zoomer which allows the user to continuously zoom in or out of a fractal in a fluid, continuous motion.

[edit] Music

Solfege: An ear training program with which you can train your rhythm, interval, scale and chord skills.
TuxGuitar: A Multitrack tablature editor and player.

[edit] Programming

LittleWizard: A development environment to teach children the basics of programming, especially concepts such as variables, expressions, loops, conditions, and logical blocks.

[edit] Tools for teachers

iTALC: A useful and powerful didactical tool for teachers that lets you view and control other computers in your network in several ways. It supports Linux and Windows 2000/XP/Vista and it even can be used transparently in mixed environments. For information on how to set up iTALC please take look at the appendix.

[edit] Miscellaneous

gonvert: A unit conversion tool. It consists of 898 units that are divided into 50 categories.
Celtx: A screenwriting program based on mozilla. It helps the user organize their ideas from the conception to production scheduling.
Klavaro: A touch typing tutor program, that intends be keyboard and language independent.
Pita Card: A tool to generate and review flash cards. It is useful for studying foreign languages and other subjects.

[edit] Fun and Educational Games

eboard & GNU Chess : A chess game.
GCompris: An educational game and activity suite for children aged 2 to 10.
Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection: Simon Tathams portable puzzle collection. It features 27 different games.

[edit] OTHER USEFUL APPLICATIONS

Here are some other applications that we believe will be beneficial to you. Some of them, for example Ice Weasel, Ice Dove, and Pidgin, are standard parts of Zenwalk distribution. The others we chose based on their usefulness to students while keeping in mind the things that might interest them.

[edit] Graphics

Blender: A 3-D content creation suite.
Comix: A user-friendly, customizable Comic book viewer.
inkscape: A SVG compliant vector graphics editor.
TuxPaint: A drawing program for children.

[edit] Internet

Ice Weasel: A web-browser equivalent to Firefox.
Ice Dove: An email client equivalent to Thunderbird.
Pidgin: A multi protocol IM client.
KompoZer: A complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing.

[edit] Multimedia

Avidemux: A small and efficient video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities.
gtkpod: A Graphical User Interface for Apple's iPod using GTK2.
ISO Master: A graphical CD image editor.
LMMS: An Electronic Music Creator.
mhWaveEdit: An audio file recorder, player, and editor in WAV, OGG, and MP3.

[edit] Productivity

OpenOffice: A complete Office suite. It features the following applications: Writer (a word processor), Calc (a spreadsheet), Impress (a presentation program), Base (a database application), Draw (a vector graphics editor) and Math (a tool for creating and editing mathematical formulae).
TaskCoach: A simple program to manage personal tasks and todo lists.

[edit] System Tools

lshw: A small tool to provide detailed information on the hardware configuration of your computer.

[edit] APPENDIX

[edit] A Special Note for Teachers

We have added another user to the CD for you to login. When you login with the username teacher, you will be able to operate iTALC. iTALC stands for Intelligent Teaching And Learning with Computers. What it allows you to do is monitor your students' computers. Remote-controlling students' computers to help them to do something, showing a demo by showing your screen to their computers, locking their computers to call their attention to you and sending text messages to them are some of the things you can do with iTALC. Launch the program to learn more about it.

To begin monitoring computers, you need to add them to iTALC. On the left side of that window, you will notice several tabs. Click on Classroom-manager. Right-click on the list and add classroom. When you are done, you can right-click again and add client computers. There are several fields you need to fill in:

Name: A unique name that you can use to identify the client computer.
IP/hostname: This is the location of the client computer.
MAC address: This is important for being able to remotely turn the workstations on (You can find this information by running this command from console/terminal of the client computer:
```
root> ifconfig
```
and looking for the string labeled "HWaddr", it should look something like 12:34:56:78:90:AB).

If you are going to use this program regularly, we suggest you save /home/teacher/.italc/ directory in zenlive/rootcopy of ZenEdu LiveCD by using isomaster. By doing this you will avoid having to do this repeatedly.

[edit] Building modules & remastering ZenEdu Live

Building modules

As an experiment, we have borrowed some excellent scripts from our good friend Grobsch of Goblinx fame to incorporate module building directly in Thunar right click menu. Therefore all you have to do to build a module is to simply right click on a folder or a package(.tgz) and then choose the Build or Create Module submenu from the contextual window.

You must then enter the root password which in ZenEdu Live (like in Zenwalk Live) is ZenLive and is case sensitive.

Then arm yourself with patience as the construction of your module is taking place which in the case of voluminous packages or directories can take quite a while.

Once built, your new module will be found in your opened directory. If you want to use it right-away, please refer to Using modules on-the-fly section.

Remastering ZenEdu Live

To remaster ZenEdu Live, you can simply use the program Isomaster which you will find in Menu/Accessories. You must open an ISO file of ZenEdu Live (for example the one you downloaded) and then add to and/or remove from the modules situated in /zenedu and any of its subfolders. Once you are done, save the modified ISO to your hard drive and use GnomeBaker to burn it on a CD-ROM.

[edit] Additional Modules

Due to size limitations we couldn't fit everything we'd like to on the ISO. But that's not a big problem, as you can remaster ZenEdu Live to your personal needs. Therefore here is a list of additional modules we have built for you. You can include them like described above on your custom ZenEdu Live CD. You can download these modules from ZenEdu Live Modules Repository. Please take care to read the .dep file to make sure you have what you need to make a module work.

Childsplay: A suite of educational games for young children, like gcompris, but without the overkill of c/c++ and the gnome environment. Also the use of the SDL libraries makes smooth animation and the playing of sound very easy.
glade3: A GUI builder for GTK+ that allows quick & easy development of user interfaces for the GTK+ toolkit and the Gnome desktop environment.
gnuplot: An Interactive plotting program. Also included in the module is PlotDrop a minimal frontend to gnuplot.
Hydrogen: An advanced drum machine for Linux.
KDE-Edu: A wonderful collection of educational applications and games, primary focusing on schoolchildren aged 3 to 18. It includes the following applications:
- KStars: A graphical desktop planetarium that lets you explore the night sky from the comfort of your computer chair. KStars provides an accurate graphical representation of the night sky for any date, from any location on Earth. The display includes 126,000 stars to 9th magnitude (well below the naked-eye limit), 13,000 deep-sky objects (Messier, NGC, and IC catalogs), all planets, the Sun and Moon, hundreds of comets and asteroids, the Milky Way, 88 constellations and guide lines such as the celestial equator, the horizon and the ecliptic.
- Kalzium: A digital Periodic Table of the Elements. Kalzium provides you with all kinds of information about the Periodic Table of the Elements. You can lookup lots of information about the elements and also use visualizations to show them. You can visualize the Periodic Table of the Elements by groups, blocks, acidic behavior, families, crystal structure or different states of matter. You can plot data for a range of elements for properties like the density or the atomic mass. You can go back in time and see what elements were known at a given date. You can also calculate the molecular mass of molecules.
- KGeography: A geography learning tool that allows you to learn about the political divisions of some countries (divisions, capitals of those divisions and their associated flags if there are some).
- Kiten: A Japanese reference/learning tool. Kiten is an application with multiple functions. Firstly, it is a convenient English to Japanese and Japanese to English dictionary; secondly, it is a Kanji dictionary, with multiple ways to look up specific characters; thirdly, it is a tool to help you learn Kanji.
- KLatin: A program to help revise latin. There are three "sections" in which different aspects of the language can be revised. These are the vocabulary, grammar and verb testing sections. In addition there is a set of revision notes that can be used for self-guided revision.
- KLettres: An application aimed to help to learn the alphabet in a new language and then to learn to read simple syllables. The user can be a young child aged from two and a half or an adult that wants to learn the basics of different foreign languages.
- KVerbos: A program to practice Spanish verb forms. KVerbos comes with a large set of Spanish verbs. You can select from a list of over 9 000 verbs the ones you want to train and you can select the tenses, too.
- KVocTrain: A vocabulary trainer that uses the "flash card" approach. KVocTrain helps you train your vocabulary, when you are trying to learn a foreign language for example. You can create your own files with the words you need.
- KWordQuiz: A general purpose flash card program, that gives you a powerful way to master new vocabularies. It may be a language or any other kind of terminology.
- KBruch: A program to practice calculating with fractions. 4 different exercises are offered: Solving fraction tasks, comparing fractions, converting given numbers into fractions and factorizing given numbers into their prime factors.
- Kig: An interactive Geometry application that allows to explore mathematical figures and concepts. Kig is also a WYSIWYG tool for drawing mathematical figures and including them in other documents.
- KmPlot: A mathematical function plotter. With KmPlot you can plot different functions simultaneously and combine them to build new functions.
- KPercentage: A small math application that will help pupils to improve their skills in calculating percentages. There is a special training section for the three basic tasks. Finally the pupil can select a random mode, in which all three tasks are mixed randomly.
- KTurtle: An educational programming environment using the Logo programming language. The goal of KTurtle is to make programming as easy and accessible as possible. This makes KTurtle suitable for teaching kids the basics of math, geometry and... programming. The commands used to program are in the style of the Logo programming language. The unique feature of the Logo programming language is that the commands are often translated into the speaking language of the programmer. KTurtle is named after “the turtle” that plays a central role in the programming environment. The user programs the turtle, using the Logo commands, to draw a picture on the canvas.
- KEduca: An educational project to enable the creation and revision of form-based tests and exams. KEduca includes a module for constructing and saving new tests, and a module for loading and running the tests. Images can be included in questions, questions can have multiple answers with different scores, and questions can have a time limit.
- KTouch: A program for learning touch typing. KTouch is a way to learn to type on a keyboard quickly and correctly. Every finger has its place on the keyboard with associated keys to press. KTouch helps you learn to touch typing by providing you with something to write. KTouch can also help you to remember what fingers to use.
- blinKen: The KDE version of the well-known game Simon Says. Follow the pattern of sounds and lights as long as you can! Press the start game button to begin. Watch the computer and copy the pattern it makes. Complete the sequence in the right order to win.
- Kanagram: An anagram game. Kanagram mixes up the letters of a word (creating an anagram), and you have to guess what the mixed up word is. The game features several built-in word lists, hints and a cheat feature which reveals the original word. Kanagram also has a vocabulary editor, so you can make your own vocabularies, and distribute them through Kanagram's KNewStuff download service.
- KHangMan: A game based on the well-known hangman game, aimed at children aged six and over. The game has four levels of difficulty: Animals (animal words), Easy, Medium and Hard. A word is picked at random, the letters are hidden, and you must guess the word by trying one letter after another. Each time you guess a wrong letter, part of a picture of a hangman is drawn. You must guess the word before being hanged! You have 10 tries.
Labplot: A Data analysis and visualisation program that can plot 2-D and 3-D graphs.
LiVES: A Video and VJ editor.
Scribus: A desktop publishing application.
Synfig: A vector-based 2D animation software package.
TuxMath: A math game in the style of "Missile Command".
TuxTyping: A game to teach typing.
VirtualBox: A powerful x86 virtualizer.

[edit] Using modules on-the-fly

If you want to use the modules you built on-the-fly (right away) or if you have downloaded some modules and you want to use them, there are few steps that you have to do.

Make sure the modules are in your physical hard-drive. If they are not there, move them there.
Right-click on each module and select "Use Module" and supply ZenLive for the password.
Normally any X-applications will automatically appear in the menu. If not, open terminal and do
```
su -c update-desktop-database
```
use ZenLive as the password and then, check the menu again. If it is not there, open up Menu-Editor via Menu --> Settings --> Menu Editor. Move an item somewhere and then move it back. Save it to cause the menu to update.

You can now use the applications you have just added.

[edit] Installing ZenEdu Live to USB Flash Memory

If you like your ZenEdu LiveCD, but don't like carrying the cd around, you can actually install it to a USB Flash Memory/Pendrive. The minimum requirement is 1GB. Here is how you do it:

Boot ZenEdu LiveCD without your pendrive connected to your computer.
Once you are in ZenEdu Live's desktop, plug in your pendrive. ZenEdu will detect your pendrive and mount it. If it launches Thunar (file manager), close it.
Now, launch Terminal and type
```
su
```
type in the root password of ZenEdu, which is ZenLive.
If you have any files in the pendrive that you would like to keep, this is the time to save it somewhere because the following steps will erase the content of your pendrive.
To perform the next step, please unmount your pendrive. If you don't know which one it is, type
```
fdisk -l
```
and it will give you a list of drives attached to your computer. Your pendrive will be the one shown last. It will look like /dev/sdXY where X is a letter in the alphabets and Y is a number, for example /dev/sda1. For the remaining of this instruction, sda1 will be used as an example and please replace it with the correct one if it is different.
Unmount it using this command:
```
umount /dev/sda1
```
Next, let's format it and make it bootable. Issue the next command:
```
 cfdisk /dev/sda
```
In this screen, all the operation is done via the menu on the bottom of that screen. Use the left or right arrow to navigate through the menu.
Do the followings sequentially: Delete, New, select Primary, Type, type 06, Bootable, Write, answer yes, and Quit
Eventhough we have specified in cfdisk that the pendrive will be FAT16 format, we must once again make it FAT16. Please issue
```
mkdosfs -F 16 -n ZenEdu /dev/sda1
```
You can name your pendrive whatever you want. Replace ZenEdu in the command with the name you want.
Now, this previous command should have caused Hal to mount your usb-stick automatically on /media/ZenEdu (or whatever name you gave to it) otherwise, create a directory manually & mount the key on it and then, let's begin the copying process
```
mkdir /media/ZenEdu
mount /dev/sda1 /media/ZenEdu

#
# Note: Press the Tab button to complete/expand the next command
# to something like /mnt/live/mnt/hdx)
#
cd /mnt/live/mnt/  
cp -r {boot,zenedu} /media/ZenEdu
```
The copying process will begin and it will take some time, so you can leave it alone while you are doing something else.
When you get your prompt back
```
cd /media/ZenEdu
```
There is only one file that needs to be in the root directory of your pendrive. The file you need is in boot/isolinux and it starts with menu and ends with cfg. You can view the list by using this command
```
ls boot/isolinux/menu*
```
When you know which one is yours, copy it to the root directory. For example, I will use menu_en.cfg
```
cp boot/isolinux/menu_en.cfg ./syslinux.cfg
```
Please check and make sure syslinux.cfg is in your root directory by using
```
ls syslinux.cfg
```
If it is there, you can now now delete both isolinux and syslinux as you won't need them anymore
```
rm -rf boot/{isolinux,syslinux}
```
Now, unmount and install syslinux to your pendrive by doing
```
cd
sync
umount /dev/sda1
syslinux -f /dev/sda1
```
That's it! Reboot your computer and make sure your BIOS is set to boot from your pendrive. It is normally located in the Hard Drive Priority option of your BIOS Boot menu.

[edit] Adding modules to your USB Flash Memory

Adding modules your USB pendrive is a little different as you cannot use the method described in Building Modules & remastering ZenEdu Live. Although, your pendrive is mounted during startup process, you may get a no-space available message when you attempt to add anything to it even if you still have space on it. To add modules to it, here is how you should do it: first, right-click on the module, and select Copy. Now, click on Menu and select Run Program. Type in gksu thunar, press Enter and use ZenLive as password. You are now running thunar as a root user. Navigate to your pendrive located in /mnt/live/mnt/sdXY and locate your zenedu folder. In it, you will see 5 folders: base, modules, optional, persist, and rootcopy. Paste your module into the modules directory if you want it loaded during boot or into the optional directory if you only want to load it occasionally or use it on-the-fly.

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