We are pleased to report that ubermix 6 is now available. Based on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish) the new version offers a plethora of new features and functionality, along with better hardware support than ever. A few of the new features include:
Gnome 42
Gnome is the core user interface (UI) for ubermix, offering an array of design changes and ease of use improvements. The desktop now uses a horizontal workspace switcher, along with new multi-tasking settings to customise it. The app launcher is also switched to a horizontal layout, and app icons can not only be grouped, but also reorganized. There are new, three-finger touchpad gestures for entering and existing the app launcher and workspace switcher as well, making the whole system a pleasure to use.
Other Gnome related changes include a bunch of new file manager features, such a scrollable path-bar, path-bar autocomplete, support for password protected .zip creation and extraction directly from the file manager.
The whole UI is "prettier", with Gnome 42 finally offering a real, system-wide dark mode. There is even a new cleaner screenshot experience that now offers full screencasting functionality.
Other functionality improvements include the ability to set performance modes from the system menu, similar to battery save modes on mobile phones, more sophisticated multitasking settings, the ability to enable/disable animations, better multi-monitor settings with fractional scaling, additional controls for desktop icons, and more.
An ubermix specific tweak you'll notice is the dock, which defaults to floating mode along the left edge. There are a number of dock settings available in the Appearance control panel, and for ubermix we have re-enabled the rest of the more advanced dock options, which are accessible through the Extensions app.
Application Updates
Default applications are updated across the board, including the latest versions of LibreOffice, GIMP, Inkscape, Shotcut, Chrome, and more. Some applications, like Kazam are no longer necessary, due to built-in support through Gnome, but are still installable, of course, should long time users prefer them. A couple of apps have been changed out for alternatives for a variety of reasons; generally better performance or ongoing maintenance. For example, Notable is now standard and KeepNote is out, as Notable has more modern features and is better maintained.
Hardware Support
Significant updates to installer key hardware support enable installation on some of the latest systems from Lenovo and other vendors who utilize storage and other devices that weren't recognized by ubermix 5. We will upgrade the ubermix 5 key soon, as well. In addition, the new kernel in ubermix 6 provides better performance and broader hardware support, including much simpler integration with discreet graphics cards like those from NVidia and AMD.
Ready to give it a try?
Download ubermix 6 here.
- A faster UI with a sleeker look and custom ubermix wallpaper
- Faster boot times
- Fractional scaling for HD displays
- Custom app folder creation with a familiar drag and drop scheme
- Faster Google apps access
- Both Python 2 and Python 3 pre-installed for both the latest applications and solid backward compatibility
- Completely overhauled overlay partition scheme
- Full support for snap packages and the new, fully snap based software center
- Full multi-user support
- Linux kernel 5.4, supporting the latest hardware and a range of new security features
- A redesigned installer key that supports the latest devices
- Tons of application updates
ubermix 5 is the culmination of over a decade of work, and we hope you enjoy it! Download today!
Update to Linux kernel 5.3
Kernel updates typically bring significant improvements in hardware support, with this version making the move to the 5.x kernel. Version 5 brings with it many features, enhancements, and new functionality, such as the following:
- AMD Radeon FreeSync support
- Support for a new VegaM
- NVIDIA Xavier display support
- Continued work on Intel Icelake Gen11 graphics
- Intel VT-d Scalable Mode support for Scalable I/O Virtualization
- New Intel Stratix 10 FPGA drivers
- Fixes for F2FS, EXT4 and XFS
- Btrfs file-system restores support for swap files
- Fscrypt Adiantum support for helping with fast data encryption on low-end hardware. This replaces the infamous Speck algorithm by NSA.
- Realtek R8169 driver improvements
- Logitech High Resolution Scrolling support
- Raspberry Pi Touchscreen driver
- x86 laptop drivers improvement
- Improved power management
User Interface Stack Updates
The user interface stack (Xorg and related software) provides all of the underpinnings for the user interface, including touchpads and touchscreens, accelerated graphics processors, etc. ubermix 4.40 brings ubermix in line with the Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine) Xorg stack.
Other Updates
ubermix is ever evolving, and over the past several updates there have been some significant changes, including:
- Full support for multiple users, including resets and imaging: The instant reset functionality is one of the best features of ubermix, however it was originally only designed to work for the primary user. ubermix now fully supports multiple users for imaging and resets, making it possible to create several user accounts with varying access levels, while still retaining full reset capabilities across all of them. This was a complete overhaul of the reset system, bringing added flexibility and functionality.
- Touch setup improvements: ubermix makes setting up for a touchscreen device easy by doing all of the necessary tweaking of various system and visual settings for you, which is ordinarily quite a chore with a default Ubuntu install. The latest version brings with it much better support for variable resolutions, including automatic detection and scaling for HiDPI displays, and it does a better job of maintaining Gnome extensions already in place.
- Added sound input/output selector to the system menu: One of the shortcomings of the Gnome desktop on which ubermix runs is that managing multiple sound input and output sources can be quite tedious and confusing. Recent versions of ubermix now include an easy to use input and output device selector and volume control, saving users from having to hunt down sound settings every time the need to make a change.
Upcoming Work
Recently we were approached by Green Studio, a African company based in Cabo Verde, West Africa who has been teaching kids in 9 schools how to code, using single board computers with Linux on them. They have been working on plans to expand the project, not only in Cabo Verde, but in all African continent.
As you may or may not know, only 10% of households in Africa has a computer at home, so this is an amazing, powerful effort that might do great good in Africa by bringing an affordable device to many kids. We believe in this project and this team, and are excited to be a part of it!
Single-board computers, like the Raspberry Pi and VIM are extremely inexpensive and surprisingly capable, however they are small, low-power devices with limited memory and storage, so they can be a bit of a challenge to build for. ubermix is already very efficient, however this new challenge and completely different architecture required a rebuild-from-scratch, with an eye toward maximum performance on minimal hardware.
We are pleased to report that preliminary builds for the VIM2 are working extremely well and we are about to begin testing in Africa! Once we tighten things up, we'll work to get images posted and toward support for more single boards in the near future.
Thrilled to learn that Peder Kjærgaard and Henrik Zilstorff have been deploying ubermix in rural schools in Tanzania! Funded by a small Danish NGO (http://marafiki.dk/aims) via Danish government funds, Henrik and Peder sent a box of computers to a small ruaral school and health clinic in Tanzania. In addition, the team built a small set of tutorials on https://freecomputersystem.wordpress.com . We're humbled to have a small part in this exciting effort, and wish the team all the success in the world with their efforts!
We are pleased to announce that ubermix 4 is finally here! Based on Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver), ubermix 4 is the culmination of years of work and experience, with the feedback and support of thousands of users all over the world!
As with prior ubermix releases, ubermix 4 is based on a Long Term Support (LTS) release of Ubuntu, which means that it will receive support and updates from for a full 5 years, through April 2023. LTS releases are the most reliable and stable versions, making them an ideal base to build from. That said, it is time to say goodbye to ubermix 2, as it has just passed its support window. Images will remain available on the ubermix site, however they will no longer be supported or updated.
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As with prior ubermix releases, ubermix 4 is based on a Long Term Support (LTS) release of Ubuntu, which means that it will receive support and updates from for a full 5 years, through April 2023. LTS releases are the most reliable and stable versions, making them an ideal base to build from. That said, it is time to say goodbye to ubermix 2, as it has just passed its support window. Images will remain available on the ubermix site, however they will no longer be supported or updated.
ubermix 3.23 is out and available for your consideration. With nearly 9 years of active development behind it, ubermix is ready to take on your next generation devices, with strong touch support and updates that make it an excellent choice for both personal and school use.
Here are just a few of the new features of ubermix 3.23:
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Here are just a few of the new features of ubermix 3.23:
Touch Support
ubermix now includes hardware support, tools and theming that are designed specifically for touch devices, like the excellent Acer Travelmate Spin B1.
One of the challenges for most operating systems designed for laptops - even Windows - is that they typically run in one of two User Interface (UI) modes: Standard or HiDPI. Standard UI mode is most common for displays with High Definition (HD) resolutions, which typically run 1920×1080 to 2560×1440 on modern hardware. For ultra-high resolution displays, like Apple's Retina and Dell/HP's Quad HD displays running at 3200×1800 or more, the operating system will switch to HiDPI mode, which essentially doubles the size of everything on the screen.
One of the challenges for most operating systems designed for laptops - even Windows - is that they typically run in one of two User Interface (UI) modes: Standard or HiDPI. Standard UI mode is most common for displays with High Definition (HD) resolutions, which typically run 1920×1080 to 2560×1440 on modern hardware. For ultra-high resolution displays, like Apple's Retina and Dell/HP's Quad HD displays running at 3200×1800 or more, the operating system will switch to HiDPI mode, which essentially doubles the size of everything on the screen.
Welcome to the first in a series of posts about awesome apps you can install on ubermix to make it your own!
If you are like me, you try to keep tabs on a number of news feeds from a variety of sources, using Feedly or some other RSS feed aggregator. And while Feedly's web reader is fine, it's far from spectacular, especially when used on a touchscreen device, like the excellent Acer Switch Alpha 12 or Spin 7 (both great choices for ubermix).
Enter FeedReader.
FeedReader is a standalone RSS reader app for Linux desktops that does a nice job of fetching and organizing feed content. It performs all of the functions you would expect, including marking items as read, starred, tagging, and the like, and will even share articles to your Instapaper or Pocket account. And best of all, it caches content, so you can read offline, should you find yourself without an internet connection.
To check it out, open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t is the fastest way to get to one) and copy and paste the following commands:
Enjoy!
READ MORE
If you are like me, you try to keep tabs on a number of news feeds from a variety of sources, using Feedly or some other RSS feed aggregator. And while Feedly's web reader is fine, it's far from spectacular, especially when used on a touchscreen device, like the excellent Acer Switch Alpha 12 or Spin 7 (both great choices for ubermix).
Enter FeedReader.
FeedReader is a standalone RSS reader app for Linux desktops that does a nice job of fetching and organizing feed content. It performs all of the functions you would expect, including marking items as read, starred, tagging, and the like, and will even share articles to your Instapaper or Pocket account. And best of all, it caches content, so you can read offline, should you find yourself without an internet connection.
To check it out, open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t is the fastest way to get to one) and copy and paste the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:eviltwin1/feedreader-stable
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install feedreaderEnjoy!
After months of testing, ubermix 3, the latest and greatest version of the popular operating system, has been released into the wild! Based on Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus), ubermix 3 brings with it a wealth of improvements and interface refinements, based on feedback from thousands of students and educators from all over the world. User experience and flexibility have been a big focus for this release, as has been support for the latest hardware and a host of new, default applications.
At first glance, the thing that jumps out is the new dock along the bottom of the screen, which offers a familiar, icon-based experience that people have become accustomed to in the UIs of modern devices. The dock offers an immediate "something to do" and a familiar location to find and switch between running applications.
At the top right is a new Power & Settings menu, that offers quick, easier access to system settings and functions.
Other things experienced users will immediately notice are that the "Activities" menu has been changed to "Applications" (now that the actions that were there have been moved to the Power/Settings menu), an attractive dark theme throughout, and smoother, more fluid transitions when interacting with the interface.
The default application list has also been updated, with the latest and greatest versions of old favorites and many new ones. New additions include:
There are a number of changes under the hood as well. Now that storage is less of an issue and devices typically include at least 32Gb of space, the default size of the user changes space has been increased to 8Gb and automatic update prompts have been turned on. What this means, however, is that system updates will begin to take up the user space as they are applied. While the default settings will be fine for most users, advanced installers should consider this when selecting a size for the user changes partition while doing an advanced install.
This release will carry ubermixers well into the future, with updates through May 2019. To download, click Download and Install above.
Enjoy!
READ MORE
At first glance, the thing that jumps out is the new dock along the bottom of the screen, which offers a familiar, icon-based experience that people have become accustomed to in the UIs of modern devices. The dock offers an immediate "something to do" and a familiar location to find and switch between running applications.
At the top right is a new Power & Settings menu, that offers quick, easier access to system settings and functions.
Other things experienced users will immediately notice are that the "Activities" menu has been changed to "Applications" (now that the actions that were there have been moved to the Power/Settings menu), an attractive dark theme throughout, and smoother, more fluid transitions when interacting with the interface.
The default application list has also been updated, with the latest and greatest versions of old favorites and many new ones. New additions include:
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Clementine - A new music player with support for listening to internet radio from Spotify, Jamendo, Last.fm, Magnatune, SKY.fm, SomaFM, Icecast, Digitally Imported, Soundcloud and Google Drive and possibly Google Music in the future. |
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Gazebo - A well-designed robot simulator makes it possible to rapidly test algorithms, design robots, and perform regression testing using realistic scenarios. |
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Nitroshare - A cross-platform, peer-to-peer application designed to make transferring files from one device to another extremely simple. |
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TypeCatcher - Google Fonts provides web developers and designers with hundreds of open-source web fonts that can be used for free. This app makes it easy to download and install them. |
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Shotcut - A free, open source, cross-platform video editor. Super fast, with a sleek, intuitive design. Supports HD, wide-formats, and a variety of device and transport options. |
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ArduinoIDE - The Arduino Integrated Development Environment connects to popular, inexpensive Arduino and Genuino open-source hardware to upload programs and communicate with them. Includes Hummingbird robotics support and Ardublock for younger students. |
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Atom - Atom is a text editor that's modern, approachable, yet hackable to the core. It's extremely flexible and customizable, with a built in package manager, smart autocompletion, and multi-pane views. Ideal for scripts and code. |
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Darktable - Open source photography workflow application and RAW developer. A virtual light table and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable light table and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them. |
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LibreCAD - A fully comprehensive 2D CAD application. LibreCAD can read DXF and DWG files (and others). It writes DXF files, but can also export SVG, JPG, PNG, PDF and other files. It has layers, blocks, splines, polylines, ellipse tools, advanced tangent line & circle tools, transformation tools, an advanced snapping system and more. |
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Synfig Studio - 2D animation software, designed as powerful industrial-strength solution for creating film-quality animation using a vector and bitmap artwork. It eliminates the need to create animation frame-by frame, allowing you to produce 2D animation of a higher quality with fewer people and resources. |
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QT QR Code Generator - Software that let's you generate QR codes easily, scan an image file for QR codes and decode them or use your webcam to scan a printed one. |
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Geary - An email application that allows you to read and send email with a simple, modern interface. Supports Gmail (including labels and archive), Yahoo! Mail, Outlook.com, and popular IMAP servers (Dovecot, Cyrus, Zimbra, etc.) |
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Getting Things Gnome - Getting Things GNOME! (GTG) is a personal tasks and TODO-list items organizer, inspired by the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. |
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KeepNote - With KeepNote, you can store class notes, TODO lists, research notes, journal entries, paper outlines, etc in a simple notebook hierarchy with rich-text formatting, images, and more. Using full-text search, you can retrieve any note for later reference. |
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Planner - An planning application with the goal to be an easy-to-use no-nonsense cross-platform project management solution. Features Definition of tasks and subtasks, resources and resource groups, dependencies between tasks, display of the critical path, calendars with working/non-working time, gantt chart and resource usage overview, HTML export of project plans, translated to over 50 languages. |
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BlueJ - An integrated, interactive Java development environment, featuring class structure diagrams, interactive invocation and an easy-to-use interface. |
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Python IDLE -IDLE (Integrated DeveLopment Environment or Integrated Development and Learning Environment) is an integrated development environment for Python, which has been bundled with the default implementation of the language. |
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PiTiVi - An intuitive and flexible video editor that integrates well with ubermix and can appeal to newbies and professionals alike. Pitivi has a beautiful and intuitive user interface, a clean codebase and a fantastic community. |
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Backups (Deja-dup) - A simple backup tool. Features support for local, remote, or cloud backup locations, such as Amazon S3 and Rackspace Cloud Files, securely encrypts and compresses your data, incrementally backs up, letting you restore from any particular backup, schedules regular backups. |
There are a number of changes under the hood as well. Now that storage is less of an issue and devices typically include at least 32Gb of space, the default size of the user changes space has been increased to 8Gb and automatic update prompts have been turned on. What this means, however, is that system updates will begin to take up the user space as they are applied. While the default settings will be fine for most users, advanced installers should consider this when selecting a size for the user changes partition while doing an advanced install.
This release will carry ubermixers well into the future, with updates through May 2019. To download, click Download and Install above.
Enjoy!
ubermix 2.4 is the latest release, bringing ubermix in sync with upstream Ubuntu 14.04.4 (Trusty Tahr) and adding a number of improvements, including:
Changes you'll notice right away include:
Improved Applets
For example, the Sound applet will now overlay track and media controls over cover art when playing music, and offers more detail for input and output options.
An improved power applet that shows battery state for all devices (like wireless mice, etc.) and offers brightness controls for screens and keyboards.
Also, the window list now shows previews of windows when you point to a window button
Improved Settings
There have been many changes to settings panels including an updated Displays panel that shows not just the device it is connected to but also the port, many new Window options for behavior and alt-tab appearance, and much, much more.
Openshot 2.0
A completely rewritten Openshot with an updated UI and better performance. More about Openshot's recent changes can be found on the Openshot blog.
Easier for Customizers
A new partition layout on the installer key makes it far easier to extend the size of the key to accommodate larger images. For further details, see the Customization page.
All of these additions make ubermix 2.4 the best ubermix yet. Click Download and Install above to get it right away, and Enjoy!
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- Updated installer key to newer kernel for better hardware support. The latest key should work with most current and near future devices, including Acer's new Travelmate B117 (tested and confirmed).
- Better EMMC storage handling on Cloudbook-style devices.
- Improved support of USB3 install keys - prevents overwrite when no other disks are found.
- Major Linux kernel update to version 4.2.
- Major xorg server update to Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) equivalent.
- Updates to the EFI installer for UEFI devices.
- Updated Openshot to version 2.0.
- Added browser-check to default image, which notifies of web browser updates.
- Cinnamon UI updated to 2.8 stable.
- Changed the partition layout on the installer key to make it easier to increase the key size for those creating custom images.
Changes you'll notice right away include:
Improved Applets
For example, the Sound applet will now overlay track and media controls over cover art when playing music, and offers more detail for input and output options.
An improved power applet that shows battery state for all devices (like wireless mice, etc.) and offers brightness controls for screens and keyboards.
Also, the window list now shows previews of windows when you point to a window button
Improved Settings
There have been many changes to settings panels including an updated Displays panel that shows not just the device it is connected to but also the port, many new Window options for behavior and alt-tab appearance, and much, much more.
Openshot 2.0
A completely rewritten Openshot with an updated UI and better performance. More about Openshot's recent changes can be found on the Openshot blog.
Easier for Customizers
A new partition layout on the installer key makes it far easier to extend the size of the key to accommodate larger images. For further details, see the Customization page.
All of these additions make ubermix 2.4 the best ubermix yet. Click Download and Install above to get it right away, and Enjoy!
The secure browser is used to administer the Smarter Balanced formative and summative assessments to all students in grades 3-8 and 11 throughout the State of California, and is quite a pain to install according to the "official" instructions, so having it as part of the ubermix ecosystem makes it significantly easier for schools and districts in CA to deploy.
Installation Instructions
The CAASPP Secure Browser and its dependencies are well over 50 megabytes, so if your school is starved for bandwidth, you may want to plan accordingly.
GUI Method:
- Click on Activities, then select Synaptic Package Manager under Administration.
- When the Synaptic Package Manager window appears, click on the Reload button to update the package list for all of the online software repositories.
- Once the reload is complete, use the Quick filter box to search for "secure-browser-ca" for standard ubermix 2.x or "secure-browser-ca-32" for 2.xL(ite) and 1.x. Once it appears on the list, click on the checkbox next to it and choose Mark for Installation.
- Click on the Apply button, and Synaptic will download and install everything you need.
- The CASecureBrowser icon should appear under Internet in the Activities menu. If it doesn't appear immediately, don't panic - it will after a restart.
- Press ctrl-alt-t to open a terminal
- Type sudo apt-get update to update the package list for all of the online software repositories.
- Type sudo apt-get install secure-browser-ca on standard ubermix 2.x or sudo apt-get install secure-browser-ca-32 on ubermix 2.xL(ite) or 1.x to install the browser.
- The CASecureBrowser icon should appear under Internet in the Activities menu. If it doesn't appear immediately, don't panic - it will after a restart.
"Antifragility" was coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book Antifragile. To best explain the idea, we need to discuss fragility and robustness.
FRAGILE
That’s fragility. Introduce a little force or instability, and destruction soon follows. Fragility should be avoided at all costs: fragile governments, fragile investments, fragile jobs… the list goes on.
What does fragility look like in education? Intervention just for the sake of intervention. Unsustainable 1:1 deployments. Rigid adherence to curriculum. Lack of training. Implementation of (big) ‘Systems’. Teachers isolated in classrooms. Spending money on programs, training, and technology that isn’t helpful. Unneeded hierarchy and bureaucracy. A narrow understanding of how to increase student learning.
ROBUST
That’s robustness. Introduce a little force or instability, and the object, person, organization, isn’t affected. Obviously, this is more ideal than fragility; it’s where the bumper sticker "Tough times go away; tough people don’t" comes into play.
What does robustness look like in education? A program that can keep functioning with a lack of funds. Lesson plans that are effective year to year. A 1:1 deployment the district can maintain. A well-rounded understanding of how students learn. A district that is financially stable. Quick reaction to unforeseen events.
ANTIFRAGILE
Do you remember Hydra? When you cut off one of its heads, two more sprout back in its place, like this:
That’s antifragility. Introduce a little force or instability, and the object, person, organization, etc. becomes stronger.
Do you remember Hydra? When you cut off one of its heads, two more sprout back in its place, like this:
That’s antifragility. Introduce a little force or instability, and the object, person, organization, etc. becomes stronger.
What does antifragility look like in education? It’s a 1:1 deployment where the devices are used in new and interesting ways when the WiFi isn't working. It involves teachers who think quickly on their feet and provide engaging lesson plans, even in the midst of all the challenges schools face on a daily basis. It’s principals who implement amazing programs, activities, and training sessions on shoestring budgets. It’s districts who thrive in times of financial hardship. It’s students who enjoy fixing technology in their classrooms and view broken devices as exciting learning challenges. It’s a district or school who, like Hydra, becomes stronger, smarter, and more experienced during times when other districts and schools crumble.
Enter ubermix, which provides over 60 free applications pre-installed. This means students can continue working even if WiFi connectivity is lost. Ubermix allows for greater customization than Windows computers, Chromebooks, and iPads. There's no spyware or malware. Students and parents can download ubermix and use it on devices at home. It provides the ability to quickly recover from problems and restore the system to a default state. Updates are easy and not intrusive; in other words, students won't be forced to restart computers in the middle of a project because of an update. Oh yes--and ubermix is free. So there's no fee for licenses or management. All you need to pay for is the device.
All school and district leaders want their organizations to be antifragile or robust. Choosing a fragile device and operating system for students is a surefire way to create frustration and negatively affect student learning. With the antifragile paradigm in mind, ubermix is a wise choice for every school and district. Even in the midst of instability--be it WiFi issues, lack of funds, or teachers who are inexperienced with technology--ubermix thrives.
Hi. My name is Thomas Hartley, a tech director for a K-8 district in Southeastern Wisconsin. Jim Klein asked me to be a guest blogger and I couldn’t be more excited to share my experiences and resources with the Ubermix Community. I hope you enjoy reading. If nothing else please check out the resources at the bottom of the page - in the spirit of open-source - what's mine is yours :)My Ubermix Story:
Shortly after graduating from Beloit College five years ago, I entered my teaching career as a hybrid K-8 computer instructor and technology integration coach in a rural lake community school in southeastern Wisconsin. Last year, I was promoted to the position of district technology director, along with teaching.
The first change I made as technology director was to halt our district’s switch to Chromebooks. We had always imaged our student laptops with Windows 7 and were switching to Chromebooks to make laptop management easier. I agree with many of Jim’s reasons for sticking with a full desktop OS, as opposed to the web-based restrictive Google Chromebook model that has become popular in educational circles over the past few years. I saw Windows as a difficult OS for students to manage without administrator rights and malware was a common problem. Instead, I asked the school board to approve Ubermix 2.0 as the 1:1 operating system. Their only concern is a common one, “Can the laptops still do everything they can on Windows?”. To paraphrase my answer: “Windows cannot do everything Ubermix can!”
Our district has 3 Windows labs, a Mac lab, and iPads for classroom stations. Often times schools go with one OS and forego the great things offered by each! Obviously Linux is the best :) but applications like Kodu are a must when teaching young children programming. After a year, I can honestly say Ubermix met every student need of our district with the exception of specialized Wisconsin State testing software. Our teachers preferred testing in the labs rather than the 1:1 devices, so this was not an issue. (We did not do Smarter Balance- in which case ubermix is compatible)
After one year of using ubermix, I have no complaints. I have plenty of ideas which I send Jim’s way and often find implemented in the next ubermix changelog. This year, my tech department only had to repair hardware failure and laptop breakage rather than dealing with virus-ridden laptops needing a lengthy Windows re-imaging process. Middle school students like to sit on laptops, leave pencils when closing lids, and expertly drop them in ways to break their laptops in the most peculiar ways :) Ubermix allowed us to focus on repairing laptops swiftly without being kept busy with OS-related issues.
In my next post, I will discuss how we made the switch from a Windows only school to a 1:1 program using ubermix. After a couple years of creating custom images, I will include some tips on customizing your image. Below are a few resources that would be useful to anyone in a K-8 setting. I've also included my changelog for my 2015-16 ubermix image.
In my next post, I will discuss how we made the switch from a Windows only school to a 1:1 program using ubermix. After a couple years of creating custom images, I will include some tips on customizing your image. Below are a few resources that would be useful to anyone in a K-8 setting. I've also included my changelog for my 2015-16 ubermix image.
Resources:
DESKTOP & WEB RESOURCES (This is money! Credit to Rachel Ryan Hartley & Our entire Staff for using these resources & helping compile them into one place.)
WCSCOMPUTERS (My “Learning How To Learn Website”, tons of resources & a technology skills scope and sequence for a K-8 district)
Any opinions in this blog post are solely my own and not that of my employing district or administration.
Follow Me on Twitter: @hartleytek
- Added onboard on-screen keyboard (for touch devices)
- Updated synaptics touchpad to latest upstream and patched for proper palm detection
- Updated Inkscape to latest upstream
- Updated Pinta to latest upstream
- Added thermald for better battery life and thermal control on fanless devices
- Improved disk setup on initial install on Win8 devices
The newly included 3.16 kernel and graphics server include a raft of features including new Kepler GPU support, improved Intel, NVidia, and Radeon graphics support, improved touchscreen and detachable keyboard support, and enhanced support for gaming controllers.
Since many new devices offer touch support, ubermix 2.2 now includes the onboard on-screen keyboard by default, as well as other enhancements to improve the experience on touch-enabled devices.
Inkscape was also updated to version 0.91, which includes an entirely new renderer and over 700 bug fixes. Expect significantly faster rendering of complex images, and new and improved measurement, text, and color tools.
Pinta gains new add-in options, redesigned shape tools, and more flexible layout tools.
Enjoy!
Photo Credit: shioshvili via Compfight cc
The secure browser is used to administer the Smarter Balanced formative and summative assessments to all students in grades 3-8 and 11 throughout the State of California, and is quite a pain to install according to the "official" instructions, so having it as part of the ubermix ecosystem should make it significantly easier for schools and districts in CA to deploy.
Installation Instructions
The CAASPP Secure Browser and its dependencies are well over 50 megabytes, so if your school is starved for bandwidth, you may want to plan accordingly.
GUI Method:
- Click on Activities, then select Synaptic Package Manager under Administration.
- When the Synaptic Package Manager window appears, click on the Reload button to update the package list for all of the online software repositories.
- Once the reload is complete, use the Quick filter box to search for "secure-browser-ca". Once it appears on the list, click on the checkbox next to it and choose Mark for Installation.
- Click on the Apply button, and Synaptic will download and install everything you need.
- The CASecureBrowser6.5 icon should appear under Internet in the Activities menu. If it doesn't appear immediately, don't panic - it will after a restart.
- Press ctrl-alt-t to open a terminal
- Type sudo apt-get update to update the package list for all of the online software repositories.
- Type sudo apt-get install secure-browser-ca to install the browser.
- The CASecureBrowser6.5 icon should appear under Internet in the Activities menu. If it doesn't appear immediately, don't panic - it will after a restart.
Leaders in education technology from a number of U.S. States met at the California Education Technology Professionals Association (CETPA) annual conference in Sacramento, California last week to to learn about the latest tools and strategies for infusing technology into the classroom. With over 900 decision makers in attendance, the event was one of the largest CETPA has ever put on.
I was lucky enough to be able to speak on Friday, and one of my sessions was the "Ultimate ubermix Panel 2.0", which brought together an illustrious team of ubermix leaders to discuss their ubermix-based learning initiatives, including (from left to right):
From the program:
READ MORE
I was lucky enough to be able to speak on Friday, and one of my sessions was the "Ultimate ubermix Panel 2.0", which brought together an illustrious team of ubermix leaders to discuss their ubermix-based learning initiatives, including (from left to right):
- Brad Grumbles, Coordinator of Curriculum, Assessment, and Instructional Technology, Panama-Buena Vista Union School District
- Dr. Mike Vollmert, Director of Technology, Rio School District
- Andrew Schwab, Chief Technology Officer, Union School District
- Larry Rego, Director of Information Technology, Hillmar Unified School District
- Jim Klein (me), Chief Technology Officer, Las Virgenes Unified School District
From the program:
Looking for something more from your student devices? Want a 1:1 solution without limits that is easy-to-deploy, easy-to-manage, and best of all - free? Join the conversation that features a panel of five education technology leaders from all over California as they share and discuss their experiences with deploying and using ubermix in their school classrooms, labs, and their 1:1 laptop deployments. From old-timers who have been using ubermix for years to newbies who have recently deployed as many as 6000 devices (in a single summer!), participants are sure to gain powerful ideas for learning and get all of their questions answered. Join the free software revolution for student devices that is bringing powerful tools for learning into the hands of thousands students all over the world!We had a great crowd and awesome conversation!
For those not yet ready to give up on bulky, clunky, and slow Mac OS, ubermix 2.02 makes it easy to setup a side-by-side, dual-boot installation of ubermix and Mac OS, without losing any existing data on the Mac OS side of the installation. Be sure to check out http://wiki.ubermix.org/page/Apple_Mac for details and instructions.
The version 2.02 release also introduces ubermix lite, a trimmed down version of ubermix for older hardware. First off, ubermix lite is a refactored, 32-bit version that will run on older Intel and AMD hardware that don't support 64-bit, like older Asus EeePCs, Acer Aspire netbooks, and desktop systems from the mid-2000s. It's launcher shares much of the design language of full ubermix 2.0, however does not require any sort of graphics acceleration, making it fast and light on older systems. And its memory footprint is smaller, making it a better fit for systems with 1Gb or less of internal memory.
When you are ready to get going with either ubermix on your Mac or ubermix lite on your older hardware, head over to the Download and Install page to grab the latest version.
- Open a terminal by selecting "Terminal" from "Activities:Accessories" or pressing ctrl-alt-t on your keyboard
- Type "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-wallpapers*" (no quotes) and press the enter key.
Once complete, close the terminal window, right click anywhere on the desktop, and choose "Change Desktop Background" to see all of your new choices.
Just a few samples are below. Enjoy!
- Built on the latest underpinnings from Ubuntu, version 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr)
- Broad hardware support, including the latest tablet and hybrid devices
- 64-bit kernel and applications, bringing support for larger memory configurations and applications
- Modern, easy-to-use interface with plenty to love for novices and power-users alike
- A larger base of more than 80 powerful applications, including greater opportunity to code and learn to code
- Significant improvements to the installation and customization options, providing greater speed, flexibility and performance for large deployments
- Across the board refinement of all ubermix-specific customizations, making this the most powerful, reliable ubermix ever!
It is important to note that ubermix 2 might not run well (or at all) on some of your oldest hardware. For example systems with just 512Mb of RAM and/or a video card lacking acceleration will struggle. And if a system is so old that it is only 32-bit capable, ubermix 2 will not install. While an ubermix 2.0 "lite" is currently under consideration, for such applications, ubermix 1.x is still available, will continue to receive updates through version 1.6, and will be fully supported through the end of 2015.
Also, please bear with us while we update our site and documentation - there is much to go through! We should have everything up to snuff in short order.
If you are ready to give ubermix 2 a go, head on over to the Download and Install page for instructions. And if you need help, be sure to check the wiki and forums.
Thank you to the entire ubermix community for all your support and encouragement! A big thank you to Andrew Schwab, Mike Vollmert, Larry Rego, Thomas Hartley, Bob Henderson, Urko Masse, David Hicks, Jason Ricker, Gary Hampton, and the entire Inyo County tech team for your help and support with development and testing. You're all awesome!
Pipelight is a combination of WINE and a browser plugin that enables using web plugins designed for Windows directly in Firefox on ubermix. Thought you couldn't run Netflix because you can't run Silverlight? Think again! As of this writing, Pipelight supports the following plugins:
Supported standard plugins:
- silverlight5.1
- silverlight5.0
- silverlight4
- flash
- unity3d
- widevine
- shockwave
- foxitpdf
- grandstream
- adobereader
- hikvision
- npactivex
- roblox
- vizzedrgr
- viewright-caiway
- triangleplayer
- x64-unity3d
- x64-flash
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:pipelight/stableOnce complete, Pipelight will be ready to install the plugins of your choosing. To find out which plugins it supports, type:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends pipelight-multi
sudo pipelight-plugin --update
pipelight-plugin --helpOnce you know the name of the plugin you want, simply type a command similar to the following to install it:
pipelight-plugin --enable silverlight...replacing "silverlight" with the name of the plugin you wish to install, of course, if you want to install one of the others.
A few websites, like Netflix, still need one more step to work, because they check to see what operating system you are running before sending the appropriate video. To fake them out into thinking you are running Windows, install install the UAControl or User Agent Overrider extensions and use one of the following user agents:
- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:15.0) Gecko/20120427 Firefox/15.0a1
- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:22.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/22.0
- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:23.0) Gecko/20131011 Firefox/23.0
You may have noticed I said Firefox and not Chrome. It would be nice if plugin support was still available in Chrome, but Google in their infinite wisdom decided to disable external plugins as of version 35. Hopefully, they will come to their senses very soon.
Photo Credit: Bill Selak via Compfight cc
ubermix 2.0 (code name: HoneyBadger) brings with it two years of expertise and ideas from all over the world, packaged on the latest underpinnings from Ubuntu, version 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr). The interface has been updated as well, and is now based on a custom version of Cinnamon, which is modern, light, flexible, and easy to use.
You'll notice in the screenshot above that the categories are all there, just like ubermix 1.x, and that favorites are now in a column on the left. You can drag-n-drop icons from the main list to the favorites bar, or right click on any application and add to the favorites list from the options that appear.
There is also a "search" box at the top, which is active the moment the menu is open (which you can accomplish by clicking "Activities" or pressing the left Super [Windows] key.) Simply start typing and the application list will narrow to the applications that match your search. You then simply press the enter key to open the desired app.
Window snapping is another great feature. If your screen is large enough, simply drag a window to the top, bottom, left, or right edge, and ubermix will automatically resize it to fill half the screen, for side-by-side work. Or you can drag to a corner for a 4-way split.
Switching between running applications is also improved. Alt-tab switching will show you a live preview of the window in each application, and there is a new "Scale" button in the toolbar that shows all open windows, allowing you to click on the one you want.
These are but a few of the improvements - there is plenty more to discover in ubermix 2.0!
Besides interface improvements, ubermix 2.0 comes with a bunch of new applications to go with your old favorites, including:
- Shutter: The ultimate screenshot tool that allows you to edit and annotate your screenshots with all the circles, arrows, and text you want immediately after capturing the screen, a window, or a selected area.
- Anki Memory Trainer: Powerful, intelligent, modern flashcard-style memory trainer (replaces iGnuIt)
- Kojo: A learning environment with many different features that enable play, exploration, creation, and learning in the areas of Computer Programming, Math and Science, Systematic and Computational Thinking, Art, Music, and Creative Thinking.
- WriteType: A word processor that helps students experience success in writing. It features Word Completion, Reading Back the Document, Highlighting, Grammar Checking, Auto-correction, and multiple languages.
- Blender: Free and open 3D creation software. Incredible design, engineering, animation, movie and game making software for advanced users.
- Fotowall: Creative tool that lets you organize photos and videos. Make the perfect arrangement with your photos, add text, live video from your webcam and the best internet pictures into amazing collages.
- Calibre: e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. Features extensive creation and annotation features, broad format support, and the ability to search for new e-books from a variety of free and paid sources.
- FocusWriter: FocusWriter is a simple, distraction-free writing environment. It utilizes a hide-away interface that you access by moving your mouse to the edges of the screen, allowing the program to have a familiar look and feel to it while still getting out of the way so that you can immerse yourself in your work.
- Geany: Geany is a small and lightweight Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for programming. I supports a wide-variety of languages, Syntax highlighting, Code folding, auto-completion, and auto-closing of HTML/XML tags.
- Google Web Designer: Create engaging, interactive HTML5-based designs and motion graphics that can run on any device.
- Ninja IDE: NINJA-IDE (from the recursive acronym: "Ninja-IDE Is Not Just Another IDE"), is a cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) for Python programming. It features a Powerful Code Editor, Amazing Code Locator, simple Project Management, and is Highly Extensible.
- Kazam: Kazam provides a well designed and easy to use interface for capturing screencasts and screenshots. It can record desktop video and multiple audio streams simultaneously with control over audio levels and the screen region being captured.
- MuseScore: Create, play back and print beautiful sheet music with free and easy to use music notation software.
- ubermix 2.0 is now running the latest 64bit Linux kernel from Ubuntu, bringing significantly improved device support, support for larger memory configurations, and more efficient use of hardware, which brings noticeable improvements in overall performance. With that, there is something of a drawback: While ubermix 2.0 will run fine on most systems, particularly ancient devices may be unable to run it due to lack of 64bit support. For those systems I would recommend sticking with 1.x, which will continue to receive updates through May 2015 and maintenance through 2017.
- There is a new "Advanced Install" option that will allow you to set the base system and user changes partition sizes during the installation process, making it far easier to customize the install to your liking.
- ubermix 2.0 is no longer tied to fixed partition sizes on the disk, so there is little cost to having a large base partition. Rather than taking an image of the entire partition when updating a key, it instead shrinks the partition down to the smallest possible size first, prior to copying the image to the key. Conversely, when upgrading from one version to a newer one, rather than looking to see that the disk is configured identically, the installer instead looks to see if the base system partition is big enough to hold the update and, if so, offers to upgrade. All this means smaller keys, greater flexibility, and quicker installs.
- ubermix now supports the latest UEFI hardware, which includes most newer devices that come with Windows 8 by default, including higher end tablets.
Update 5/14/14: The link above now reflects Release Candidate 2.
