[K12OSN] Linux Bell system
Doug Simpson
veewee77 at alltel.net
Thu Nov 10 04:04:07 UTC 2005
Jim Kronebusch wrote:
>I saw the post last week about using linux for a school bell system. My main
>school uses 14 different bell schedules which has always been a nightmare.
>The bell system in place only handles 4 so on the other schedules there have
>been no bells and teachers/students just have to be mindful of the clock.
>Also the bell system needs to be set every day manually (this sucks).
>
>So this prompted some thought on my part. I now have a bell system from a
>linux box that I can program for months ahead of time and automatically
>switches my schedules daily. I can also do unlimited bell tones. For example
>the first tone of the day can announce the schedule for that day, or I can
>swap tones for holidays and such. This is awesome. If anyone would like
>examples of the scripts for this let me know. Basically I did a minimal
>install of FC4 on a desktop machine with a sound card. I hooked the sound
>card to the current receiver that played the old bell system. The set up a
>series of cron files for the root user, one for each bell schedule. Then I
>set up a series of scripts that will cycle out the current cron script for
>root with one for the current bell schedule. I program the cron cycle scripts
>ahead of time with webmins task scheduler. So under /var/spool/cron/ I have a
>series of files named root.schedulename. Each of these files have a listing
>of the times for every bell chime. Then under /root I have a series of files
>named with "schedulename". These files are executable scripts that simply
>move /var/spool/cron/root.schedulename to /var/spool/cron/root. Under /root I
>have bell.wav. I can swap bell.wav with any wav file for the bell sound. I
>call on bell.wav at the specific times with the command "play /root/bell.wav".
>
>This is cool. Thanks for the ideas everyone!
>
>I now have the next 2 months of bells scheduled, and I can fully control them
>from home if I need to with webmin!
>
>Jim Kronebusch
>Cotter Tech Department
>507-453-5188
>
>
>
>
Sure, I would like the scripts. . .
Thanks!
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