local devices (i.e. usb sticks) with ltsp

[Vagrant Cascadian <vagrant@freegeek.org>]

so, at the moment, the ltsp packages in debian/etch and debian-edu/etch
don't have all the needed parts to support local devices, such as usb
sticks, floppies or cdrom.

it's probably a feature that many people will want.

the hooks are in debian's ltsp packages, but it's missing the ltspfs
component.  it's unlikely to be able to get ltspfs into debian/etch, but
maybe debian-edu/etch has a chance :)

what would it take to get support for it?

fortunately, support for this stuff is in ubuntu's ltspfs packages. the
down-side is that these packages contain a number of debian-policy
violations.

essentially, what it needs is a policy-minded person to download and
tweak the ubuntu ltspfs sources to be policy compliant, build packages,
and test them.

i don't have the ability to test them at the moment, but can put some
time towards fixing up the packages.  the sources can be downloaded at:

http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/l/ltspfs/

(at the moment, the current version is: 0.4.3-0ubuntu4)

another issue that may come up, is when multiple users are logged on to
the same server, an icon for each device will appear on every user's
desktop(but won't actually be able to read the files on the device).
this was fixed in ubuntu's gnome, no idea if those patches made it into
debian yet, or if KDE is affected the same way. this is definitely a
significant useability issue.

would this be a good topic to discuss at the upcoming debian-edu irc
meeting?

live well,
  vagrant