[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!





More information about the K12OSN mailing list