Karoshi is a free and open source school server operating system based on PCLINUXOS. It provides a simple graphical interface that allows for quick installation, setup and maintenance of a network.

Linux girlie, the developer in charge of Karoshi's deployment and maintenance, has just announced the availability of the 5.1.3 version, after all tests having been run. There are a lot of changes and improvements brought to this new version, as well as many updates in different applications. For example, there is Joomla, which was upgraded to 1.0.12, Websitebaker updated to 2.6.5, Egroupware upgraded to 1.2.106-2, Squirrelmail upgraded to 1.4.9a or Moodle, which was upgraded to 1.7.2 version. Among the additions made for improving Karoshi's functionalities I could also name here the SSlbridge web file access, which should allow users to get access to their files via a web browser through an ssl connection. There is also the Copyfilestoall, which allows you to copy files to a group of users.

The new version also brings changes in the way new users are created. The new users, apart from the officestaff and itadmin do not belong by default to any supplementary groups. The network backups are different too here. The backups are now kept in current, father, grandfather, and greatgrandfather folders to simplify rotation. The script backs up a server in one go without having to schedule loads of different scripts like before. This should offer higher capacity since all of the archives are being created back to back. There are other features and enhancements brought that are worth mentioning too. For example, Karoshi 5.1.3 automatically detects if a user area is being backed up and if so, it creates individual compressed backup archives for each user in that group.

More highlights:

- the start of an academic year and the total duration of schooling in years is set at initial setup
- Quota support added
- Linux Client startup scripts modified. Printer setup, software install, system config is now in a separate file rather than one big file. These scripts are updated from the PDC at client startup
- LTSP servers DNS setting changed to default to 172.30.0.2 instead of 172.30.0.1. If DNS is not available on 172.30.0.1 to LTSP servers then LTSP clients do not function correctly (clients get a grey box when they boot up)
- extraction from CD improved to stop problems when overwriting an existing setup