blog/tags/english/index.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Entries Tagged english</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9     <link rel="alternate" title="RSS Feed" href="english.rss" type="application/rss+xml" />
  10   </head>
  11   <body>
  12     <div class="title">
  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "english".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         15th January 2016
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
  32 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
  33 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
  34 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
  35 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
  36 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
  37 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
  38 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
  39 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
  40 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
  41 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
  42 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
  43 was not the first to propose this, as the
  44 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
  45 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
  46 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
  47 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
  48
  49 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
  50 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
  51 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
  52 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
  53 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
  54
  55 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
  56 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
  57 urls with tor+http and https, and using the hidden service instead of
  58 the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
  59 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
  60 done in /etc/.</p>
  61
  62 <blockquote><pre>
  63 apt install apt-transport-tor
  64 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/%tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
  65 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
  66 </pre></blockquote>
  67
  68 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
  69 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
  70 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
  71 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
  72
  73 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
  74 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
  75 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
  76 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
  77 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
  78 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
  79
  80 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
  81 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
  82 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
  83 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
  84 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
  85
  86 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
  87 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
  88 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
  89 system.</p>
  90
  91       </div>
  92       <div class="tags">
  93
  94
  95         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
  96
  97
  98       </div>
  99     </div>
 100     <div class="padding"></div>
 101
 102     <div class="entry">
 103       <div class="title">
 104         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</a>
 105       </div>
 106       <div class="date">
 107         23rd December 2015
 108       </div>
 109       <div class="body">
 110         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
 111 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
 112 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
 113 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
 114 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
 115 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
 116
 117 <p>A few days I came across
 118 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
 119 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
 120 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
 121 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
 122 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
 123 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
 124 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
 125 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
 126 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
 127 discovered the developer
 128 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
 129 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
 130 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
 131 archive.</p>
 132
 133 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
 134 it into Debian, where it currently
 135 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
 136 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
 137
 138 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
 139 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
 140 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
 141 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
 142 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
 143 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
 144 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
 145 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
 146 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
 147 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
 148 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
 149 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
 150
 151 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
 152 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
 153 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
 154 package show up in unstable.</p>
 155
 156       </div>
 157       <div class="tags">
 158
 159
 160         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
 161
 162
 163       </div>
 164     </div>
 165     <div class="padding"></div>
 166
 167     <div class="entry">
 168       <div class="title">
 169         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</a>
 170       </div>
 171       <div class="date">
 172         20th December 2015
 173       </div>
 174       <div class="body">
 175         <p>Around three years ago, I created
 176 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
 177 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
 178 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
 179 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
 180 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
 181 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
 182 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
 183 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
 184 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
 185 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
 186 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
 187 with.</p>
 188
 189 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
 190 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
 191 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
 192 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
 193 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
 194 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
 195 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
 196 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
 197 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
 198 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
 199 Debian version of appstream.</p>
 200
 201 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
 202 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
 203 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
 204 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
 205 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
 206 how do add the required
 207 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
 208 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
 209 this content:</p>
 210
 211 <blockquote><pre>
 212 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
 213 &lt;component&gt;
 214   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
 215   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
 216   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
 217   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
 218   &lt;description&gt;
 219     &lt;p&gt;
 220       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
 221       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
 222       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
 223       launcher.
 224     &lt;/p&gt;
 225   &lt;/description&gt;
 226   &lt;provides&gt;
 227     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
 228   &lt;/provides&gt;
 229 &lt;/component&gt;
 230 </pre></blockquote>
 231
 232 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
 233 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
 234 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
 235 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
 236 0202.</p>
 237
 238 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
 239 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
 240 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
 241 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
 242 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
 243 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
 244 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
 245 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
 246
 247 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
 248 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
 249 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
 250 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
 251 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
 252
 253 <blockquote><pre>
 254 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
 255 </pre></blockquote>
 256
 257 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
 258 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
 259 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
 260 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
 261 question.</p>
 262
 263 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
 264 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
 265
 266 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
 267 try running this command on the command line:</p>
 268
 269 <blockquote><pre>
 270 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
 271 </pre></blockquote>
 272
 273 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
 274 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
 275 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
 276
 277       </div>
 278       <div class="tags">
 279
 280
 281         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
 282
 283
 284       </div>
 285     </div>
 286     <div class="padding"></div>
 287
 288     <div class="entry">
 289       <div class="title">
 290         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
 291       </div>
 292       <div class="date">
 293         30th November 2015
 294       </div>
 295       <div class="body">
 296         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
 297 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
 298 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
 299 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
 300 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
 301
 302 <blockquote>
 303
 304 <p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
 305
 306 <blockquote>
 307 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
 308
 309 The first step is to choose a
 310 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
 311 code.<br/>
 312
 313 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
 314 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
 315
 316 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
 317 work<br/>
 318
 319 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
 320 </blockquote>
 321
 322 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
 323 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
 324 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
 325 0x57</a></small></p>
 326
 327 <p>As the Debian Website
 328 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
 329 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
 330 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
 331 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
 332 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
 333 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
 334 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
 335 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
 336 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
 337 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
 338 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
 339 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
 340 Freedom">FaiF</a>
 341 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
 342 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
 343 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
 344 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
 345 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
 346 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
 347 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
 348 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
 349 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
 350 In March the SFC supported a
 351 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
 352 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
 353 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
 354 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
 355 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
 356 conferences
 357 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
 358 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
 359 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
 360 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
 361 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
 362 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
 363 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
 364 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
 365 Software.</p>
 366
 367 <p>If you support Free Software,
 368 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
 369 what the SFC do, agree with their
 370 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
 371 principles</a>, are happy about their
 372 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
 373 work on a project that is an SFC
 374 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
 375 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
 376 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
 377 Allan Webber</a>,
 378 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
 379 Smith</a>,
 380 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
 381 Bacon</a>, myself and
 382 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
 383 becoming a
 384 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
 385 next week your donation will be
 386 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
 387 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
 388 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
 389 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
 390 social media accounts.</p>
 391
 392 </blockquote>
 393
 394 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
 395 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
 396 supporter too?</p>
 397
 398       </div>
 399       <div class="tags">
 400
 401
 402         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
 403
 404
 405       </div>
 406     </div>
 407     <div class="padding"></div>
 408
 409     <div class="entry">
 410       <div class="title">
 411         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
 412       </div>
 413       <div class="date">
 414         17th November 2015
 415       </div>
 416       <div class="body">
 417         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
 418 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
 419 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
 420 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
 421 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
 422 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
 423 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
 424 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
 425 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
 426 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
 427
 428 <pre>
 429 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
 430       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
 431 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
 432 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
 433 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 434 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 435 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 436 </pre>
 437
 438 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
 439 my old key.</p>
 440
 441 <p>If you signed my old key
 442 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
 443 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
 444 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
 445 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
 446
 447       </div>
 448       <div class="tags">
 449
 450
 451         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 452
 453
 454       </div>
 455     </div>
 456     <div class="padding"></div>
 457
 458     <div class="entry">
 459       <div class="title">
 460         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Pentagon_deciding_the_Norwegian_negotiating_position_on_Internet_governance_.html">Is Pentagon deciding the Norwegian negotiating position on Internet governance?</a>
 461       </div>
 462       <div class="date">
 463          3rd November 2015
 464       </div>
 465       <div class="body">
 466         <p>In Norway, all government offices are required by law to keep a
 467 list of every document or letter arriving and leaving their offices.
 468 Internal notes should also be documented.  The document list (called a mail
 469 journal - "postjournal" in Norwegian) is public information and thanks
 470 to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) the mail
 471 journal is available for everyone.  Most offices even publish the mail
 472 journal on their web pages, as PDFs or tables in web pages.  The state-level offices even have a shared web based search service (called
 473 <a href="https://www.oep.no/">Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal -
 474 OEP</a>) to make it possible to search the entries in the list.  Not
 475 all journal entries show up on OEP, and the search service is hard to
 476 use, but OEP does make it easier to find at least some interesting
 477 journal entries .</p>
 478
 479 <p>In 2012 I came across a document in the mail journal for the
 480 Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications on OEP that
 481 piqued my interest.  The title of the document was
 482 "<a href="https://www.oep.no/search/resultSingle.html?journalPostId=4192362">Internet
 483 Governance and how it affects national security</a>" (Norwegian:
 484 "Internet Governance og påvirkning på nasjonal sikkerhet").  The
 485 document date was 2012-05-22, and it was said to be sent from the
 486 "Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations".  I asked for a
 487 copy, but my request was rejected with a reference to a legal clause said to authorize them to reject it
 488 (<a href="http://lovdata.no/lov/2006-05-19-16/§20">offentleglova § 20,
 489 letter c</a>) and an explanation that the document was exempt because
 490 of foreign policy interests as it contained information related to the
 491 Norwegian negotiating position, negotiating strategies or similar.  I
 492 was told the information in the document related to the ongoing
 493 negotiation in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).  The
 494 explanation made sense to me in early January 2013, as a ITU
 495 conference in Dubay discussing Internet Governance
 496 (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union#World_Conference_on_International_Telecommunications_2012_.28WCIT-12.29">World
 497 Conference on International Telecommunications - WCIT-12</a>) had just
 498 ended,
 499 <a href="http://www.digi.no/kommentarer/2012/12/18/tvil-om-usas-rolle-pa-teletoppmote">reportedly
 500 in chaos</a> when USA walked out of the negotiations and 25 countries
 501 including Norway refused to sign the new treaty.  It seemed
 502 reasonable to believe talks were still going on a few weeks later.
 503 Norway was represented at the ITU meeting by two authorities, the
 504 <a href="http://www.nkom.no/">Norwegian Communications Authority</a>
 505 and the <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dep/sd/">Ministry of
 506 Transport and Communications</a>.  This might be the reason the letter
 507 was sent to the ministry.  As I was unable to find the document in the
 508 mail journal of any Norwegian UN mission, I asked the ministry who had
 509 sent the document to the ministry, and was told that it was the Deputy
 510 Permanent Representative with the Permanent Mission of Norway in
 511 Geneva.</p>
 512
 513 <p>Three years later, I was still curious about the content of that
 514 document, and again asked for a copy, believing the negotiation was
 515 over now.  This time
 516 <a href="https://mimesbronn.no/request/kopi_av_dokumenter_i_sak_2012914">I
 517 asked both the Ministry of Transport and Communications as the
 518 receiver</a> and
 519 <a href="https://mimesbronn.no/request/brev_om_internet_governance_og_p">asked
 520 the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva as the sender</a> for a
 521 copy, to see if they both agreed that it should be withheld from the
 522 public.  The ministry upheld its rejection quoting the same law
 523 reference as before, while the permanent mission rejected it quoting a
 524 different clause
 525 (<a href="http://lovdata.no/lov/2006-05-19-16/§20">offentleglova § 20
 526 letter b</a>), claiming that they were required to keep the
 527 content of the document from the public because it contained
 528 information given to Norway with the expressed or implied expectation
 529 that the information should not be made public.  I asked the permanent
 530 mission for an explanation, and was told that the document contained
 531 an account from a meeting held in the Pentagon for a limited group of NATO
 532 nations where the organiser of the meeting did not intend the content
 533 of the meeting to be publicly known.  They explained that giving me a
 534 copy might cause Norway to not get access to similar information in
 535 the future and thus hurt the future foreign interests of Norway.  They
 536 also explained that the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was not
 537 the author of the document, they only got a copy of it, and because of
 538 this had not listed it in their mail journal.</p>
 539
 540 <p>Armed with this
 541 knowledge I asked the Ministry to reconsider and asked who was the
 542 author of the document, now realising that it was not same as the
 543 "sender" according to Ministry of Transport and Communications.  The
 544 ministry upheld its rejection but told me the name of the author of
 545 the document.  According to
 546 <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/unga69_rapport1/id2001204/">a
 547 government report</a> the author was with the Permanent Mission of
 548 Norway in New York a bit more than a year later (2014-09-22), so I
 549 guessed that might be the office responsible for writing and sending
 550 the report initially and
 551 <a href="https://www.mimesbronn.no/request/mote_2012_i_pentagon_om_itu">asked
 552 them for a copy</a> but I was obviously wrong as I was told that the
 553 document was unknown to them and that the author did not work there
 554 when the document was written.  Next, I asked the Permanent Mission of
 555 Norway in Geneva and the Foreign Ministry to reconsider and at least
 556 tell me who sent the document to Deputy Permanent Representative with
 557 the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva.  The Foreign Ministry also
 558 upheld its rejection, but told me that the person sending the document
 559 to Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was the defence attaché with
 560 the Norwegian Embassy in Washington.  I do not know if this is the
 561 same person as the author of the document.</p>
 562
 563 <p>If I understand the situation correctly, someone capable of
 564 inviting selected NATO nations to a meeting in Pentagon organised a
 565 meeting where someone representing the Norwegian defence attaché in
 566 Washington attended, and the account from this meeting is interpreted
 567 by the Ministry of Transport and Communications to expose Norways
 568 negotiating position, negotiating strategies and similar regarding the
 569 ITU negotiations on Internet Governance.  It is truly amazing what can
 570 be derived from mere meta-data.</p>
 571
 572 <p>I wonder which NATO countries besides Norway attended this meeting?
 573 And what exactly was said and done at the meeting?  Anyone know?</p>
 574
 575       </div>
 576       <div class="tags">
 577
 578
 579         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
 580
 581
 582       </div>
 583     </div>
 584     <div class="padding"></div>
 585
 586     <div class="entry">
 587       <div class="title">
 588         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_book___Fri_kultur__by__lessig__a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of__Free_Culture__from_2004.html">New book, "Fri kultur" by @lessig, a Norwegian Bokmål translation of "Free Culture" from 2004</a>
 589       </div>
 590       <div class="date">
 591         31st October 2015
 592       </div>
 593       <div class="body">
 594         <p>People keep asking me where to get the various forms of the book I
 595 published last week, the Norwegian Bokmål edition of Lawrence Lessigs
 596 book <a href="http://www.free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a>.  It was
 597 published on paper via lulu.com, and is also available in PDF, ePub
 598 and MOBI format.  I currently sell the paper edition for self cost
 599 from lulu.com, but might extend the distribution to book stores like
 600 Amazon and Barnes & Noble later.  This will double the price and force
 601 me to make a profit from selling the book.  Anyway, here are links to
 602 get the book in different formats:</p>
 603
 604 <ul>
 605
 606   <li><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22406445.html">Buy
 607     paper edition from lulu.com</a></li>
 608
 609   <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf">Download
 610     PDF, size 7.9 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
 611
 612   <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub">Download
 613     ePub, size 11 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
 614
 615   <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.mobi">Download
 616     MOBI, size 3.8 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
 617
 618 </ul>
 619
 620 <p>Note that the MOBI version have problems with the table of content,
 621 at least with the viewers I have been able to test.  And the ePub file
 622 have several problems according to
 623 <a href="https://github.com/IDPF/epubcheck">epubcheck</a>, but seem
 624 to display fine in the viewers I have tested.  All the files needed to
 625 create the book in various forms are available from
 626 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">the
 627 github project page</a>.</p>
 628
 629 <p>The project got press coverage from the Norwegian IT news site
 630 digi.no.  Check out the article
 631 "<a href="http://www.digi.no/juss_og_samfunn/2015/10/29/vil-apne-politikernes-oyne-for-creative-commons">Vil
 632 åpne politikernes øyne for Creative Commons</a>".</li>
 633
 634 <p>I've <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">blogged
 635 about the project</a> as it moved along.  The blogs document the translation
 636 progress and insights I had along the way.</p>
 637
 638       </div>
 639       <div class="tags">
 640
 641
 642         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
 643
 644
 645       </div>
 646     </div>
 647     <div class="padding"></div>
 648
 649     <div class="entry">
 650       <div class="title">
 651         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Free_Culture__by__lessig___The_background_story_for_Creative_Commons___new_edition_available.html">"Free Culture" by @lessig - The background story for Creative Commons - new edition available</a>
 652       </div>
 653       <div class="date">
 654         23rd October 2015
 655       </div>
 656       <div class="body">
 657         <p><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html">Click
 658 here to buy the book</a>.</p>
 659
 660 <p>In 2004, as the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons
 661 movement</a> gained momentum, its creator Lawrence Lessig wrote the
 662 book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book)">Free
 663 Culture</a> to explain the problems with increasing copyright
 664 regulation and suggest some solutions.  I read the book back then and
 665 was very moved by it.  Reading the book inspired me and changed the
 666 way I looked on copyright law, and I would love it if more people
 667 would read it too.</p>
 668
 669 <p>Because of this, I decided in the summer of 2012 to translate it to
 670 Norwegian Bokmål and publish it for those of my friends and family
 671 that prefer to read books in Norwegian.  I translated the book using
 672 docbook and a gettext PO file, and a byproduct of this process is a
 673 new edition of the English original.  I've been in touch with the
 674 author during by work, and he said it was fine with him if I also
 675 published an English version.  So I decided to do so.  Today, I made
 676 this edition
 677 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html">available
 678 for sale on Lulu.com</a>, for those interested in a paper book.  This
 679 is the cover:
 680
 681 <p align="center"><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-10-23-free-culture-english-published-cover.png"/></a></p>
 682
 683 <p>The Norwegian Bokmål version will be available for purchase in a
 684 few days.  I also plan to publish a French version in a few weeks or
 685 months, depending on the amount of people with knowledge of French to
 686 join the translation project.  So far there is only one active
 687 person, but the French book is almost completely translated but
 688 need some proof reading.</p>
 689
 690 <p>The book is also available in PDF, ePub and MOBI formats from
 691 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">my
 692 github project page</a>.  Note the ePub and MOBI versions have some
 693 formatting problems I believe is due to bugs in the docbook tool
 694 dbtoepub (Debian BTS issues
 695 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=795842">#795842</a>
 696 and
 697 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=796871">#796871</a>),
 698 but I have not taken the time to investigate.  I recommend the PDF and
 699 ePub version for now, as they seem to show up fine in the viewers I
 700 have available.</p>
 701
 702 <p>After the translation to Norwegian Bokmål was complete, I was able
 703 to secure some sponsoring from
 704 <a href="http://www.nuugfoundation.no/">the NUUG Foundation</a> to
 705 print the book.  This is the reason their logo is located on the back
 706 cover. I am very grateful for their contribution, and will use it to
 707 give a copy of the Norwegian edition to members of the Norwegian
 708 Parliament and other decision makers here in Norway.</p>
 709
 710       </div>
 711       <div class="tags">
 712
 713
 714         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
 715
 716
 717       </div>
 718     </div>
 719     <div class="padding"></div>
 720
 721     <div class="entry">
 722       <div class="title">
 723         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lawrence_Lessig_interviewed_Edward_Snowden_a_year_ago.html">Lawrence Lessig interviewed Edward Snowden a year ago</a>
 724       </div>
 725       <div class="date">
 726         19th October 2015
 727       </div>
 728       <div class="body">
 729         <p>Last year, <a href="https://lessig2016.us/">US president candidate
 730 in the Democratic Party</a> Lawrence interviewed Edward Snowden.  The
 731 one hour interview was
 732 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Sr96TFQQE">published by
 733 Harvard Law School 2014-10-23 on Youtube</a>, and the meeting took
 734 place 2014-10-20.</p>
 735
 736 <p>The questions are very good, and there is lots of useful
 737 information to be learned and very interesting issues to think about
 738 being raised.  Please check it out.</p>
 739
 740 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o_Sr96TFQQE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 741
 742 <p>I find it especially interesting to hear again that Snowden did try
 743 to bring up his reservations through the official channels without any
 744 luck.  It is in sharp contrast to the answers made 2013-11-06 by the
 745 Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg to the Norwegian Parliament,
 746 <a href="https://tale.holderdeord.no/speeches/s131106/68">claiming
 747 Snowden is no Whistle-Blower</a> because he should have taken up his
 748 concerns internally and using official channels.  It make me sad
 749 that this is the political leadership we have here in Norway.</p>
 750
 751       </div>
 752       <div class="tags">
 753
 754
 755         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 756
 757
 758       </div>
 759     </div>
 760     <div class="padding"></div>
 761
 762     <div class="entry">
 763       <div class="title">
 764         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Story_of_Aaron_Swartz___Let_us_all_weep_.html">The Story of Aaron Swartz - Let us all weep!</a>
 765       </div>
 766       <div class="date">
 767          8th October 2015
 768       </div>
 769       <div class="body">
 770         <p>The movie "<a href="http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy">The
 771 Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz</a>" is both inspiring
 772 and depressing at the same time.  The work of Aaron Swartz has
 773 inspired me in my work, and I am grateful of all the improvements he
 774 was able to initiate or complete.  I wish I am able to do as much good
 775 in my life as he did in his.  Every minute of this 1:45 long movie is
 776 inspiring in documenting how much impact a single person can have on
 777 improving the society and this world.  And it is depressing in
 778 documenting how the law enforcement of USA (and other countries) is
 779 corrupted to a point where they can push a bright kid to his death for
 780 downloading too many scientific articles.  Aaron is dead.  Let us all
 781 weep.</p>
 782
 783 <p>The movie is also available on
 784 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXr-2hwTk58">Youtube</a>.  I
 785 wish there were Norwegian subtitles available, so I could show it to
 786 my parents.</p>
 787
 788       </div>
 789       <div class="tags">
 790
 791
 792         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
 793
 794
 795       </div>
 796     </div>
 797     <div class="padding"></div>
 798
 799     <div class="entry">
 800       <div class="title">
 801         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_Docbook_PDF_EPUB_MOBI_edition_of_the_Free_Culture_book.html">French Docbook/PDF/EPUB/MOBI edition of the Free Culture book</a>
 802       </div>
 803       <div class="date">
 804          1st October 2015
 805       </div>
 806       <div class="body">
 807         <p>As I wrap up the Norwegian version of
 808 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Free
 809 Culture</a> book by Lawrence Lessig (still waiting for my final proof
 810 reading copy to arrive in the mail), my great
 811 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a> helper and
 812 developer of the dblatex docbook processor, Benoît Guillon, decided a
 813 to try to create a French version of the book.  He started with the
 814 French translation available from the
 815 <a href="http://www.wikilivres.ca/wiki/Culture_libre">Wikilivres wiki
 816 pages</a>, and wrote a program to convert it into a PO file, allowing
 817 the translation to be integrated into the po4a based framework I use
 818 to create the Norwegian translation from the English edition.  We meet
 819 on the <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23dblatex">#dblatex IRC
 820 channel</a> to discuss the work.  If you want to help create a French
 821 edition, check out
 822 <a href="https://github.com/marsgui/free-culture-lessig">his git
 823 repository</a> and join us on IRC.  If the French edition look good,
 824 we might publish it as a paper book on lulu.com.  A French version of
 825 the drawings and the cover need to be provided for this to happen.</p>
 826
 827       </div>
 828       <div class="tags">
 829
 830
 831         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
 832
 833
 834       </div>
 835     </div>
 836     <div class="padding"></div>
 837
 838     <div class="entry">
 839       <div class="title">
 840         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
 841       </div>
 842       <div class="date">
 843         24th September 2015
 844       </div>
 845       <div class="body">
 846         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
 847 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
 848 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
 849 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
 850 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
 851 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
 852 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
 853
 854 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
 855
 856 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
 857 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
 858 by someone else.  I found
 859 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
 860 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
 861 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
 862 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
 863 from him.  Via
 864 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
 865 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
 866 discovered
 867 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
 868 available in Debian.</p>
 869
 870 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
 871 battery stats ever since. Now my
 872 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
 873 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
 874 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
 875 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
 876
 877 <pre>
 878 #!/bin/sh
 879 # Inspired by
 880 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
 881 # See also
 882 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
 883 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
 884
 885 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
 886     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
 887
 888 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
 889     (
 890         printf "timestamp,"
 891         for f in $files; do
 892             printf "%s," $f
 893         done
 894         echo
 895     ) > "$logfile"
 896 fi
 897
 898 log_battery() {
 899     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
 900     # when several log processes run in parallel.
 901     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
 902         for f in $files; do \
 903             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
 904         done)
 905     echo "$msg"
 906 }
 907
 908 cd /sys/class/power_supply
 909
 910 for bat in BAT*; do
 911     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
 912 done
 913 </pre>
 914
 915 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
 916 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
 917 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
 918 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
 919 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
 920 The code for the Debian package
 921 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
 922 available on github</a>.</p>
 923
 924 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
 925
 926 <pre>
 927 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
 928 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
 929 [...]
 930 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 931 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 932 </pre>
 933
 934 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
 935 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
 936 battery.</p>
 937
 938 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
 939 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
 940 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
 941 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
 942 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
 943 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
 944 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
 945 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
 946 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
 947 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
 948 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
 949 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
 950 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
 951 Linux too.</p>
 952
 953 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
 954 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
 955 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
 956 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
 957 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
 958 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
 959 load).</p>
 960
 961 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
 962 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
 963 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
 964 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
 965 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
 966 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
 967 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
 968 those.</p>
 969
 970 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
 971 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
 972 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
 973 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
 974 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
 975 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
 976 specific.</p>
 977
 978       </div>
 979       <div class="tags">
 980
 981
 982         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 983
 984
 985       </div>
 986     </div>
 987     <div class="padding"></div>
 988
 989     <div class="entry">
 990       <div class="title">
 991         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Book_cover_for_the_Free_Culture_book_finally_done.html">Book cover for the Free Culture book finally done</a>
 992       </div>
 993       <div class="date">
 994          3rd September 2015
 995       </div>
 996       <div class="body">
 997         <p>Creating a good looking book cover proved harder than I expected.
 998 I wanted to create a cover looking similar to the original cover of
 999 the
1000 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Free
1001 Culture</a> book we are translating to Norwegian, and I wanted it in
1002 vector format for high resolution printing.  But my inkscape knowledge
1003 were not nearly good enough to pull that off.
1004
1005 <p>But thanks to the great inkscape community, I was able to wrap up
1006 the cover yesterday evening.  I asked on the
1007 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23inkscape">#inkscape IRC channel</a>
1008 on Freenode for help and clues, and Marc Jeanmougin (Mc-) volunteered
1009 to try to recreate it based on the PDF of the cover from the HTML
1010 version.  Not only did he create a
1011 <a href="https://marc.jeanmougin.fr/share/copy1.svg ">SVG document with
1012 the original and his vector version side by side</a>, he even provided
1013 an <a href="https://marc.jeanmougin.fr/share/out-1.ogv">instruction
1014 video</a> explaining how he did it</a>.  But the instruction video is
1015 not easy to follow for an untrained inkscape user. The video is a
1016 recording on how he did it, and he is obviously very experienced as
1017 the menu selections are very quick and he mentioned on IRC that he did
1018 use some keyboard shortcuts that can't be seen on the video, but it
1019 give a good idea about the inkscape operations to use to create the
1020 stripes with the embossed copyright sign in the center.</p>
1021
1022 <p>I took his SVG file, copied the vector image and re-sized it to fit
1023 on the cover I was drawing.  I am happy with the end result, and the
1024 current english version look like this:</p>
1025
1026 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-03-free-culture-cover.png" width="70%" align="center"/>
1027
1028 <p>I am not quite sure about the text on the back, but guess it will
1029 do.  I picked three quotes from the official site for the book, and
1030 hope it will work to trigger the interest of potential readers.  The
1031 Norwegian cover will look the same, but with the texts and bar code
1032 replaced with the Norwegian version.</p>
1033
1034 <p>The book is very close to being ready for publication, and I expect
1035 to upload the final draft to Lulu in the next few days and order a
1036 final proof reading copy to verify that everything look like it should
1037 before allowing everyone to order their own copy of Free Culture, in
1038 English or Norwegian Bokmål.  I'm waiting to give the the productive
1039 proof readers a chance to complete their work.</p>
1040
1041       </div>
1042       <div class="tags">
1043
1044
1045         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
1046
1047
1048       </div>
1049     </div>
1050     <div class="padding"></div>
1051
1052     <div class="entry">
1053       <div class="title">
1054         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/In_my_hand__a_pocket_book_edition_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_.html">In my hand, a pocket book edition of the Norwegian Free Culture book!</a>
1055       </div>
1056       <div class="date">
1057         19th August 2015
1058       </div>
1059       <div class="body">
1060         <p>Today, finally, my first printed draft edition of the Norwegian
1061 translation of Free Culture I have been working on for the last few
1062 years arrived in the mail.  I had to fake a cover to get the interior
1063 printed, and the exterior of the book look awful, but that is
1064 irrelevant at this point.  I asked for a printed pocket book version
1065 to get an idea about the font sizes and paper format as well as how
1066 good the figures and images look in print, but also to test what the
1067 pocket book version would look like.  After receiving the 500 page
1068 pocket book, it became obvious to me that that pocket book size is too
1069 small for this book.  I believe the book is too thick, and several
1070 tables and figures do not look good in the size they get with that
1071 small page sizes.  I believe I will go with the 5.5x8.5 inch size
1072 instead.  A surprise discovery from the paper version was how bad the
1073 URLs look in print.  They are very hard to read in the colophon page.
1074 The URLs are red in the PDF, but light gray on paper.  I need to
1075 change the color of links somehow to look better.  But there is a
1076 printed book in my hand, and it feels great. :)</p>
1077
1078 <p>Now I only need to fix the cover, wrap up the postscript with the
1079 store behind the book, and collect the last corrections from the proof
1080 readers before the book is ready for proper printing.  Cover artists
1081 willing to work for free and create a Creative Commons licensed vector
1082 file looking similar to the original is most welcome, as my skills as
1083 a graphics designer are mostly missing.</p>
1084
1085       </div>
1086       <div class="tags">
1087
1088
1089         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
1090
1091
1092       </div>
1093     </div>
1094     <div class="padding"></div>
1095
1096     <div class="entry">
1097       <div class="title">
1098         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_paper_version_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_heading_my_way.html">First paper version of the Norwegian Free Culture book heading my way</a>
1099       </div>
1100       <div class="date">
1101          9th August 2015
1102       </div>
1103       <div class="body">
1104         <p>Typesetting a book is harder than I hoped.  As the translation is
1105 mostly done, and a volunteer proof reader was going to check the text
1106 on paper, it was time this summer to focus on formatting my translated
1107 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> based version of the
1108 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> book by Lawrence
1109 Lessig.  I've been trying to get both docboox-xsl+fop and dblatex to
1110 give me a good looking PDF, but in the end I went with dblatex, because
1111 its Debian maintainer and upstream developer were responsive and very
1112 helpful in solving my formatting challenges.</p>
1113
1114 <p>Last night, I finally managed to create a PDF that no longer made
1115 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/">Lulu.com</a> complain after uploading,
1116 and I ordered a text version of the book on paper.  It is lacking a
1117 proper book cover and is not tagged with the correct ISBN number, but
1118 should give me an idea what the finished book will look like.</p>
1119
1120 <p>Instead of using Lulu, I did consider printing the book using
1121 <a href="http://www.createspace.com/">CreateSpace</a>, but ended up
1122 using Lulu because it had smaller book size options (CreateSpace seem
1123 to lack pocket book with extended distribution).  I looked for a
1124 similar service in Norway, but have not seen anything so far.  Please
1125 let me know if I am missing out on something here.</p>
1126
1127 <p>But I still struggle to decide the book size.  Should I go for
1128 pocket book (4.25x6.875 inches / 10.8x17.5 cm) with 556 pages, Digest
1129 (5.5x8.5 inches / 14x21.6 cm) with 323 pages or US Trade (6x8 inches /
1130 15.3x22.9 cm) with 280 pages?  Fewer pager give a cheaper book, and a
1131 smaller book is easier to carry around.  The test book I ordered was
1132 pocket book sized, to give me an idea how well that fit in my hand,
1133 but I suspect I will end up using a digest sized book in the end to
1134 bring the prize down further.</p>
1135
1136 <p>My biggest challenge at the moment is making nice cover art.  My
1137 inkscape skills are not yet up to the task of replicating the original
1138 cover in SVG format.  I also need to figure out what to write about
1139 the book on the back (will most likely use the same text as the
1140 description on web based book stores).  I would love help with this,
1141 if you are willing to license the art source and final version using
1142 the same CC license as the book.  My artistic skills are not really up
1143 to the task.</p>
1144
1145 <p>I plan to publish the book in both English and Norwegian and on
1146 paper, in PDF form as well as EPUB and MOBI format.  The current
1147 status can as usual be found on
1148 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
1149 in the archive/ directory.  So far I have spent all time on making the
1150 PDF version look good.  Someone should probably do the same with the
1151 dbtoepub generated e-book.  Help is definitely needed here, as I
1152 expect to run out of steem before I find time to improve the epub
1153 formatting.</p>
1154
1155 <p>Please let me know via github if you find typos in the book or
1156 discover translations that should be improved.  The final proof
1157 reading is being done right now, and I expect to publish the finished
1158 result in a few months.</p>
1159
1160       </div>
1161       <div class="tags">
1162
1163
1164         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
1165
1166
1167       </div>
1168     </div>
1169     <div class="padding"></div>
1170
1171     <div class="entry">
1172       <div class="title">
1173         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_DocBook_footnotes_as_endnotes_with_dblatex.html">Typesetting DocBook footnotes as endnotes with dblatex</a>
1174       </div>
1175       <div class="date">
1176         16th July 2015
1177       </div>
1178       <div class="body">
1179         <p>I'm still working on the Norwegian version of the
1180 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture book by Lawrence
1181 Lessig</a>, and is now working on the final typesetting and layout.
1182 One of the features I want to get the structure similar to the
1183 original book is to typeset the footnotes as endnotes in the notes
1184 chapter.  Based on the
1185 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/685063">feedback from the Debian
1186 maintainer and the dblatex developer</a>, I came up with this recipe I
1187 would like to share with you.  The proposal was to create a new LaTeX
1188 class file and add the LaTeX code there, but this is not always
1189 practical, when I want to be able to replace the class using a make
1190 file variable.  So my proposal misuses the latex.begindocument XSL
1191 parameter value, to get a small fragment into the correct location in
1192 the generated LaTeX File.</p>
1193
1194 <p>First, decide where in the DocBook document to place the endnotes,
1195 and add this text there:</p>
1196
1197 <pre>
1198 &lt;?latex \theendnotes ?&gt;
1199 </pre>
1200
1201 <p>Next, create a xsl stylesheet file dblatex-endnotes.xsl to add the
1202 code needed to add the endnote instructions in the preamble of the
1203 generated LaTeX document, with content like this:</p>
1204
1205 <pre>
1206 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
1207 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
1208   &lt;xsl:param name="latex.begindocument"&gt;
1209     &lt;xsl:text&gt;
1210 \usepackage{endnotes}
1211 \let\footnote=\endnote
1212 \def\enoteheading{\mbox{}\par\vskip-\baselineskip }
1213 \begin{document}
1214     &lt;/xsl:text&gt;
1215   &lt;/xsl:param&gt;
1216 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
1217 </pre>
1218
1219 <p>Finally, load this xsl file when running dblatex, for example like
1220 this:</p>
1221
1222 <pre>
1223 dblatex --xsl-user=dblatex-endnotes.xsl freeculture.nb.xml
1224 </pre>
1225
1226 <p>The end result can be seen on github, where
1227 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">my
1228 book project</a> is located.</p>
1229
1230       </div>
1231       <div class="tags">
1232
1233
1234         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
1235
1236
1237       </div>
1238     </div>
1239     <div class="padding"></div>
1240
1241     <div class="entry">
1242       <div class="title">
1243         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_on__Internet_Broadcast_AVC_Video__licensing_and_non_private_use.html">MPEG LA on "Internet Broadcast AVC Video" licensing and non-private use</a>
1244       </div>
1245       <div class="date">
1246          7th July 2015
1247       </div>
1248       <div class="body">
1249         <p>After asking the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK)
1250 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html">why
1251 they can broadcast and stream H.264 video without an agreement with
1252 the MPEG LA</a>, I was wiser, but still confused.  So I asked MPEG LA
1253 if their understanding matched that of NRK.  As far as I can tell, it
1254 does not.</p>
1255
1256 <p>I started by asking for more information about the various
1257 licensing classes and what exactly is covered by the "Internet
1258 Broadcast AVC Video" class that NRK pointed me at to explain why NRK
1259 did not need a license for streaming H.264 video:
1260
1261 <p><blockquote>
1262
1263 <p>According to
1264 <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf">a
1265 MPEG LA press release dated 2010-02-02</a>, there is no charge when
1266 using MPEG AVC/H.264 according to the terms of "Internet Broadcast AVC
1267 Video".  I am trying to understand exactly what the terms of "Internet
1268 Broadcast AVC Video" is, and wondered if you could help me.  What
1269 exactly is covered by these terms, and what is not?</p>
1270
1271 <p>The only source of more information I have been able to find is a
1272 PDF named
1273 <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf">AVC
1274 Patent Portfolio License Briefing</a>, which states this about the
1275 fees:</p>
1276
1277 <ul>
1278  <li>Where End User pays for AVC Video
1279   <ul>
1280    <li>Subscription (not limited by title) – 100,000 or fewer
1281      subscribers/yr = no royalty; &gt; 100,000 to 250,000 subscribers/yr =
1282      $25,000; &gt;250,000 to 500,000 subscribers/yr = $50,000; &gt;500,000 to
1283      1M subscribers/yr = $75,000; &gt;1M subscribers/yr = $100,000</li>
1284
1285    <li>Title-by-Title - 12 minutes or less = no royalty; &gt;12 minutes in
1286      length = lower of (a) 2% or (b) $0.02 per title</li>
1287   </ul></li>
1288
1289  <li>Where remuneration is from other sources
1290   <ul>
1291    <li>Free Television - (a) one-time $2,500 per transmission encoder or
1292      (b) annual fee starting at $2,500 for &gt; 100,000 HH rising to
1293      maximum $10,000 for &gt;1,000,000 HH</li>
1294
1295    <li>Internet Broadcast AVC Video (not title-by-title, not subscription)
1296      – no royalty for life of the AVC Patent Portfolio License</li>
1297   </ul></li>
1298 </ul>
1299
1300 <p>Am I correct in assuming that the four categories listed is the
1301 categories used when selecting licensing terms, and that "Internet
1302 Broadcast AVC Video" is the category for things that do not fall into
1303 one of the other three categories?  Can you point me to a good source
1304 explaining what is ment by "title-by-title" and "Free Television" in
1305 the license terms for AVC/H.264?</p>
1306
1307 <p>Will a web service providing H.264 encoded video content in a
1308 "video on demand" fashing similar to Youtube and Vimeo, where no
1309 subscription is required and no payment is required from end users to
1310 get access to the videos, fall under the terms of the "Internet
1311 Broadcast AVC Video", ie no royalty for life of the AVC Patent
1312 Portfolio license?  Does it matter if some users are subscribed to get
1313 access to personalized services?</p>
1314
1315 <p>Note, this request and all answers will be published on the
1316 Internet.</p>
1317 </blockquote></p>
1318
1319 <p>The answer came quickly from Benjamin J. Myers, Licensing Associate
1320 with the MPEG LA:</p>
1321
1322 <p><blockquote>
1323 <p>Thank you for your message and for your interest in MPEG LA.  We
1324 appreciate hearing from you and I will be happy to assist you.</p>
1325
1326 <p>As you are aware, MPEG LA offers our AVC Patent Portfolio License
1327 which provides coverage under patents that are essential for use of
1328 the AVC/H.264 Standard (MPEG-4 Part 10).  Specifically, coverage is
1329 provided for end products and video content that make use of AVC/H.264
1330 technology.  Accordingly, the party offering such end products and
1331 video to End Users concludes the AVC License and is responsible for
1332 paying the applicable royalties.</p>
1333
1334 <p>Regarding Internet Broadcast AVC Video, the AVC License generally
1335 defines such content to be video that is distributed to End Users over
1336 the Internet free-of-charge.  Therefore, if a party offers a service
1337 which allows users to upload AVC/H.264 video to its website, and such
1338 AVC Video is delivered to End Users for free, then such video would
1339 receive coverage under the sublicense for Internet Broadcast AVC
1340 Video, which is not subject to any royalties for the life of the AVC
1341 License.  This would also apply in the scenario where a user creates a
1342 free online account in order to receive a customized offering of free
1343 AVC Video content.  In other words, as long as the End User is given
1344 access to or views AVC Video content at no cost to the End User, then
1345 no royalties would be payable under our AVC License.</p>
1346
1347 <p>On the other hand, if End Users pay for access to AVC Video for a
1348 specific period of time (e.g., one month, one year, etc.), then such
1349 video would constitute Subscription AVC Video.  In cases where AVC
1350 Video is delivered to End Users on a pay-per-view basis, then such
1351 content would constitute Title-by-Title AVC Video.  If a party offers
1352 Subscription or Title-by-Title AVC Video to End Users, then they would
1353 be responsible for paying the applicable royalties you noted below.</p>
1354
1355 <p>Finally, in the case where AVC Video is distributed for free
1356 through an "over-the-air, satellite and/or cable transmission", then
1357 such content would constitute Free Television AVC Video and would be
1358 subject to the applicable royalties.</p>
1359
1360 <p>For your reference, I have attached
1361 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-07-07-mpegla.pdf">a
1362 .pdf copy of the AVC License</a>. You will find the relevant
1363 sublicense information regarding AVC Video in Sections 2.2 through
1364 2.5, and the corresponding royalties in Section 3.1.2 through 3.1.4.
1365 You will also find the definitions of Title-by-Title AVC Video,
1366 Subscription AVC Video, Free Television AVC Video, and Internet
1367 Broadcast AVC Video in Section 1 of the License.  Please note that the
1368 electronic copy is provided for informational purposes only and cannot
1369 be used for execution.</p>
1370
1371 <p>I hope the above information is helpful.  If you have additional
1372 questions or need further assistance with the AVC License, please feel
1373 free to contact me directly.</p>
1374 </blockquote></p>
1375
1376 <p>Having a fresh copy of the license text was useful, and knowing
1377 that the definition of Title-by-Title required payment per title made
1378 me aware that my earlier understanding of that phrase had been wrong.
1379 But I still had a few questions:</p>
1380
1381 <p><blockquote>
1382 <p>I have a small followup question.  Would it be possible for me to get
1383 a license with MPEG LA even if there are no royalties to be paid?  The
1384 reason I ask, is that some video related products have a copyright
1385 clause limiting their use without a license with MPEG LA.  The clauses
1386 typically look similar to this:
1387
1388 <p><blockquote>
1389   This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
1390   the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer to (a) encode
1391   video in compliance with the AVC standard ("AVC video") and/or (b)
1392   decode AVC video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a
1393   personal and non-commercial activity and/or AVC video that was
1394   obtained from a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No
1395   license is granted or shall be implied for any other use. additional
1396   information may be obtained from MPEG LA L.L.C.
1397 </blockquote></p>
1398
1399 <p>It is unclear to me if this clause mean that I need to enter into
1400 an agreement with MPEG LA to use the product in question, even if
1401 there are no royalties to be paid to MPEG LA.  I suspect it will
1402 differ depending on the jurisdiction, and mine is Norway.  What is
1403 MPEG LAs view on this?</p>
1404 </blockquote></p>
1405
1406 <p>According to the answer, MPEG LA believe those using such tools for
1407 non-personal or commercial use need a license with them:</p>
1408
1409 <p><blockquote>
1410
1411 <p>With regard to the Notice to Customers, I would like to begin by
1412 clarifying that the Notice from Section 7.1 of the AVC License
1413 reads:</p>
1414
1415 <p>THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR
1416 THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT
1417 RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC
1418 STANDARD ("AVC VIDEO") AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED
1419 BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM
1420 A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED
1421 OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE
1422 OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM</p>
1423
1424 <p>The Notice to Customers is intended to inform End Users of the
1425 personal usage rights (for example, to watch video content) included
1426 with the product they purchased, and to encourage any party using the
1427 product for commercial purposes to contact MPEG LA in order to become
1428 licensed for such use (for example, when they use an AVC Product to
1429 deliver Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free Television or Internet
1430 Broadcast AVC Video to End Users, or to re-Sell a third party's AVC
1431 Product as their own branded AVC Product).</p>
1432
1433 <p>Therefore, if a party is to be licensed for its use of an AVC
1434 Product to Sell AVC Video on a Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free
1435 Television or Internet Broadcast basis, that party would need to
1436 conclude the AVC License, even in the case where no royalties were
1437 payable under the License.  On the other hand, if that party (either a
1438 Consumer or business customer) simply uses an AVC Product for their
1439 own internal purposes and not for the commercial purposes referenced
1440 above, then such use would be included in the royalty paid for the AVC
1441 Products by the licensed supplier.</p>
1442
1443 <p>Finally, I note that our AVC License provides worldwide coverage in
1444 countries that have AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, including
1445 Norway.</p>
1446
1447 <p>I hope this clarification is helpful.  If I may be of any further
1448 assistance, just let me know.</p>
1449 </blockquote></p>
1450
1451 <p>The mentioning of Norwegian patents made me a bit confused, so I
1452 asked for more information:</p>
1453
1454 <p><blockquote>
1455
1456 <p>But one minor question at the end.  If I understand you correctly,
1457 you state in the quote above that there are patents in the AVC Patent
1458 Portfolio that are valid in Norway.  This make me believe I read the
1459 list available from &lt;URL:
1460 <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx">http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx</a>
1461 &gt; incorrectly, as I believed the "NO" prefix in front of patents
1462 were Norwegian patents, and the only one I could find under Mitsubishi
1463 Electric Corporation expired in 2012.  Which patents are you referring
1464 to that are relevant for Norway?</p>
1465
1466 </blockquote></p>
1467
1468 <p>Again, the quick answer explained how to read the list of patents
1469 in that list:</p>
1470
1471 <p><blockquote>
1472
1473 <p>Your understanding is correct that the last AVC Patent Portfolio
1474 Patent in Norway expired on 21 October 2012.  Therefore, where AVC
1475 Video is both made and Sold in Norway after that date, then no
1476 royalties would be payable for such AVC Video under the AVC License.
1477 With that said, our AVC License provides historic coverage for AVC
1478 Products and AVC Video that may have been manufactured or Sold before
1479 the last Norwegian AVC patent expired.  I would also like to clarify
1480 that coverage is provided for the country of manufacture and the
1481 country of Sale that has active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents.</p>
1482
1483 <p>Therefore, if a party offers AVC Products or AVC Video for Sale in
1484 a country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents (for example,
1485 Sweden, Denmark, Finland, etc.), then that party would still need
1486 coverage under the AVC License even if such products or video are
1487 initially made in a country without active AVC Patent Portfolio
1488 Patents (for example, Norway).  Similarly, a party would need to
1489 conclude the AVC License if they make AVC Products or AVC Video in a
1490 country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, but eventually Sell
1491 such AVC Products or AVC Video in a country without active AVC Patent
1492 Portfolio Patents.</p>
1493 </blockquote></p>
1494
1495 <p>As far as I understand it, MPEG LA believe anyone using Adobe
1496 Premiere and other video related software with a H.264 distribution
1497 license need a license agreement with MPEG LA to use such tools for
1498 anything non-private or commercial, while it is OK to set up a
1499 Youtube-like service as long as no-one pays to get access to the
1500 content.  I still have no clear idea how this applies to Norway, where
1501 none of the patents MPEG LA is licensing are valid.  Will the
1502 copyright terms take precedence or can those terms be ignored because
1503 the patents are not valid in Norway?</p>
1504
1505       </div>
1506       <div class="tags">
1507
1508
1509         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1510
1511
1512       </div>
1513     </div>
1514     <div class="padding"></div>
1515
1516     <div class="entry">
1517       <div class="title">
1518         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
1519       </div>
1520       <div class="date">
1521          5th July 2015
1522       </div>
1523       <div class="body">
1524         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
1525 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
1526 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
1527 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
1528 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
1529 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
1530 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
1531 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
1532 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
1533 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
1534 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
1535
1536 <p>One tip I got was to use the
1537 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
1538 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
1539 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
1540 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
1541 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
1542 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
1543
1544 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
1545 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
1546 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
1547 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
1548 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
1549 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
1550 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
1551 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
1552 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
1553 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
1554 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
1555 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
1556 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
1557 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
1558 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
1559
1560 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
1561 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
1562 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
1563 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
1564
1565 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
1566 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
1567
1568 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
1569 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
1570 different
1571 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
1572 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
1573
1574       </div>
1575       <div class="tags">
1576
1577
1578         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1579
1580
1581       </div>
1582     </div>
1583     <div class="padding"></div>
1584
1585     <div class="entry">
1586       <div class="title">
1587         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</a>
1588       </div>
1589       <div class="date">
1590          3rd July 2015
1591       </div>
1592       <div class="body">
1593         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
1594 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
1595 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
1596 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
1597 flickering.</p>
1598
1599 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
1600 still as
1601 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
1602 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
1603 good help from
1604 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
1605 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
1606 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
1607 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
1608 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
1609 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
1610 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
1611 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
1612 deteriorated since X41.</p>
1613
1614 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
1615 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
1616 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
1617 have suggestions.</p>
1618
1619 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
1620 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
1621 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
1622
1623       </div>
1624       <div class="tags">
1625
1626
1627         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1628
1629
1630       </div>
1631     </div>
1632     <div class="padding"></div>
1633
1634     <div class="entry">
1635       <div class="title">
1636         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MakerCon_Nordic_videos_now_available_on_Frikanalen.html">MakerCon Nordic videos now available on Frikanalen</a>
1637       </div>
1638       <div class="date">
1639          2nd July 2015
1640       </div>
1641       <div class="body">
1642         <p>Last oktober I was involved on behalf of
1643 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> with recording the talks at
1644 <a href="http://www.makercon.no/">MakerCon Nordic</a>, a conference for
1645 the Maker movement.  Since then it has been the plan to publish the
1646 recordings on <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, which
1647 finally happened the last few days.  A few talks are missing because
1648 the speakers asked the organizers to not publish them, but most of the
1649 talks are available.  The talks are being broadcasted on RiksTV
1650 channel 50 and using multicast on Uninett, as well as being available
1651 from the Frikanalen web site.  The unedited recordings are
1652 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/">available on
1653 Youtube too</a>.</p>
1654
1655 <p>This is the list of talks available at the moment.  Visit the
1656 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/?q=makercon">Frikanalen video
1657 pages</a> to view them.</p>
1658
1659 <ul>
1660
1661   <li>Evolutionary algorithms as a design tool - from art
1662       to robotics (Kyrre Glette)</li>
1663
1664   <li>Make and break (Hans Gerhard Meier)</li>
1665
1666   <li>Making a one year school course for young makers
1667       (Olav Helland)</li>
1668
1669   <li>Innovation Inspiration - IPR Databases as a Source of
1670       Inspiration (Hege Langlo)</li>
1671
1672   <li>Making a toy for makers (Erik Torstensson)</li>
1673
1674   <li>How to make 3D printer electronics (Elias Bakken)</li>
1675
1676   <li>Hovering Clouds: Looking at online tool offerings for Product
1677       Design and 3D Printing (William Kempton)</li>
1678
1679   <li>Travelling maker stories (Øyvind Nydal Dahl)</li>
1680
1681   <li>Making the first Maker Faire in Sweden (Nils Olander)</li>
1682
1683   <li>Breaking the mold: Printing 1000’s of parts (Espen Sivertsen)</li>
1684
1685   <li>Ultimaker — and open source 3D printing (Erik de Bruijn)</li>
1686
1687   <li>Autodesk’s 3D Printing Platform: Sparking innovation (Hilde
1688       Sevens)</li>
1689
1690   <li>How Making is Changing the World – and How You Can Too!
1691       (Jennifer Turliuk)</li>
1692
1693   <li>Open-Source Adventuring: OpenROV, OpenExplorer and the Future of
1694       Connected Exploration (David Lang)</li>
1695
1696   <li>Making in Norway (Haakon Karlsen Jr., Graham Hayward and Jens
1697       Dyvik)</li>
1698
1699   <li>The Impact of the Maker Movement (Mike Senese)</li>
1700
1701 </ul>
1702
1703 <p>Part of the reason this took so long was that the scripts NUUG had
1704 to prepare a recording for publication were five years old and no
1705 longer worked with the current video processing tools (command line
1706 argument changes).  In addition, we needed better audio normalization,
1707 which sent me on a detour to
1708 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html">package
1709 bs1770gain for Debian</a>.  Now this is in place and it became a lot
1710 easier to publish NUUG videos on Frikanalen.</p>
1711
1712       </div>
1713       <div class="tags">
1714
1715
1716         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
1717
1718
1719       </div>
1720     </div>
1721     <div class="padding"></div>
1722
1723     <div class="entry">
1724       <div class="title">
1725         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Graphing_the_Norwegian_company_ownership_structure.html">Graphing the Norwegian company ownership structure</a>
1726       </div>
1727       <div class="date">
1728         15th June 2015
1729       </div>
1730       <div class="body">
1731         <p>It is a bit work to figure out the ownership structure of companies
1732 in Norway.  The information is publicly available, but one need to
1733 recursively look up ownership for all owners to figure out the complete
1734 ownership graph of a given set of companies.  To save me the work in
1735 the future, I wrote a script to do this automatically, outputting the
1736 ownership structure using the Graphviz/dotty format.  The data source
1737 is web scraping from <a href="http://www.proff.no/">Proff</a>, because
1738 I failed to find a useful source directly from the official keepers of
1739 the ownership data, <a href="http://www.brreg.no/">Brønnøysundsregistrene</a>.</p>
1740
1741 <p>To get an ownership graph for a set of companies, fetch
1742 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/brreg-norway-ownership-graph">the code from git</a> and run it using the organisation number.  I'm
1743 using the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet as an example here, as its
1744 ownership structure is very simple:</p>
1745
1746 <pre>
1747 % time ./bin/eierskap-dotty 958033540 > dagbladet.dot
1748
1749 real    0m2.841s
1750 user    0m0.184s
1751 sys     0m0.036s
1752 %
1753 </pre>
1754
1755 <p>The script accept several organisation numbers on the command line,
1756 allowing a cluster of companies to be graphed in the same image.  The
1757 resulting dot file for the example above look like this.  The edges
1758 are labeled with the ownership percentage, and the nodes uses the
1759 organisation number as their name and the name as the label:</p>
1760
1761 <pre>
1762 digraph ownership {
1763 rankdir = LR;
1764 "Aller Holding A/s" -> "910119877" [label="100%"]
1765 "910119877" -> "998689015" [label="100%"]
1766 "998689015" -> "958033540" [label="99%"]
1767 "974530600" -> "958033540" [label="1%"]
1768 "958033540" [label="AS DAGBLADET"]
1769 "998689015" [label="Berner Media Holding AS"]
1770 "974530600" [label="Dagbladets Stiftelse"]
1771 "910119877" [label="Aller Media AS"]
1772 }
1773 </pre>
1774
1775 <p>To view the ownership graph, run "<tt>dotty dagbladet.dot</tt>" or
1776 convert it to a PNG using "<tt>dot -T png dagbladet.dot >
1777 dagbladet.png</tt>".  The result can be seen below:</p>
1778
1779 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-15-ownership-graphs-norway-dagbladet.png" width="80%">
1780
1781 <p>Note that I suspect the "Aller Holding A/S" entry to be incorrect
1782 data in the official ownership register, as that name is not
1783 registered in the official company register for Norway.  The ownership
1784 register is sensitive to typos and there seem to be no strict checking
1785 of the ownership links.</p>
1786
1787 <p>Let me know if you improve the script or find better data sources.
1788 The code is licensed according to GPL 2 or newer.</p>
1789
1790 <p>Update 2015-06-15: Since the initial post I've been told that
1791 "<a href="http://www.proff.dk/firma/carl-allers-etablissement-aktieselskab/københavn-v/hovedkontorer/13624518-3/">Aller
1792 Holding A/S</a>" is a Danish company, which explain why it did not
1793 have a Norwegian organisation number.  I've also been told that there
1794 is a <a href="http://www.brreg.no/automatiske/webservices/">web
1795 services API available</a> from Brønnøysundsregistrene, for those
1796 willing to accept the terms or pay the price.</p>
1797
1798       </div>
1799       <div class="tags">
1800
1801
1802         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>.
1803
1804
1805       </div>
1806     </div>
1807     <div class="padding"></div>
1808
1809     <div class="entry">
1810       <div class="title">
1811         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html">Measuring and adjusting the loudness of a TV channel using bs1770gain</a>
1812       </div>
1813       <div class="date">
1814         11th June 2015
1815       </div>
1816       <div class="body">
1817         <p>Television loudness is the source of frustration for viewers
1818 everywhere.  Some channels are very load, others are less loud, and
1819 ads tend to shout very high to get the attention of the viewers, and
1820 the viewers do not like this.  This fact is well known to the TV
1821 channels.  See for example the BBC white paper
1822 "<a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP202.pdf">Terminology
1823 for loudness and level dBTP, LU, and all that</a>" from 2011 for a
1824 summary of the problem domain.  To better address the need for even
1825 loadness, the TV channels got together several years ago to agree on a
1826 new way to measure loudness in digital files as one step in
1827 standardizing loudness.  From this came the ITU-R standard BS.1770,
1828 "<a href="http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BS.1770/en">Algorithms to
1829 measure audio programme loudness and true-peak audio level</a>".</p>
1830
1831 <p>The ITU-R BS.1770 specification describe an algorithm to measure
1832 loadness in LUFS (Loudness Units, referenced to Full Scale). But
1833 having a way to measure is not enough.  To get the same loudness
1834 across TV channels, one also need to decide which value to standardize
1835 on.  For European TV channels, this was done in the EBU Recommondaton
1836 R128, "<a href="https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128.pdf">Loudness
1837 normalisation and permitted maximum level of audio signals</a>", which
1838 specifies a recommended level of -23 LUFS.  In Norway, I have been
1839 told that NRK, TV2, MTG and SBS have decided among themselves to
1840 follow the R128 recommondation for playout from 2016-03-01.</p>
1841
1842 <p>There are free software available to measure and adjust the loudness
1843 level using the LUFS.  In Debian, I am aware of a library named
1844 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libebur128">libebur128</a>
1845 able to measure the loudness and since yesterday morning a new binary
1846 named <a href="http://bs1770gain.sourceforge.net">bs1770gain</a>
1847 capable of both measuring and adjusting was uploaded and is waiting
1848 for NEW processing.  I plan to maintain the latter in Debian under the
1849 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=pkg-multimedia-maintainers%40lists.alioth.debian.org">Debian
1850 multimedia</a> umbrella.</p>
1851
1852 <p>The free software based TV channel I am involved in,
1853 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, plan to follow the
1854 R128 recommondation ourself as soon as we can adjust the software to
1855 do so, and the bs1770gain tool seem like a good fit for that part of
1856 the puzzle to measure loudness on new video uploaded to Frikanalen.
1857 Personally, I plan to use bs1770gain to adjust the loudness of videos
1858 I upload to Frikanalen on behalf of <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
1859 NUUG member organisation</a>.  The program seem to be able to measure
1860 the LUFS value of any media file handled by ffmpeg, but I've only
1861 successfully adjusted the LUFS value of WAV files.  I suspect it
1862 should be able to adjust it for all the formats handled by ffmpeg.</p>
1863
1864       </div>
1865       <div class="tags">
1866
1867
1868         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
1869
1870
1871       </div>
1872     </div>
1873     <div class="padding"></div>
1874
1875     <div class="entry">
1876       <div class="title">
1877         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_citizens_now_required_by_law_to_give_their_fingerprint_to_the_police.html">Norwegian citizens now required by law to give their fingerprint to the police</a>
1878       </div>
1879       <div class="date">
1880         10th May 2015
1881       </div>
1882       <div class="body">
1883         <p>5 days ago, the Norwegian Parliament decided, unanimously, that all
1884 citizens of Norway, no matter if they are suspected of something
1885 criminal or not, are
1886 <a href="https://www.holderdeord.no/votes/1430838871e">required to
1887 give fingerprints to the police</a> (vote details from Holder de
1888 ord).  The law make it sound like it will be optional, but in a few
1889 years there will be no option any more.  The ID will be required to
1890 vote, to get a bank account, a bank card, to change address on the
1891 post office, to receive an electronic ID or to get a drivers license
1892 and many other tasks required to function in Norway.  The banks plan
1893 to stop providing their own ID on the bank cards when this new
1894 national ID is introduced, and the national road authorities plan to
1895 change the drivers license to no longer be usable as identity cards.
1896 In effect, to function as a citizen in Norway a national ID card will
1897 be required, and to get it one need to provide the fingerprints to
1898 the police.</p>
1899
1900 <p>In addition to handing the fingerprint to the police (which
1901 promised to not make a copy of the fingerprint image at that point in
1902 time, but say nothing about doing it later), a picture of the
1903 fingerprint will be stored on the RFID chip, along with a picture of
1904 the face and other information about the person.  Some of the
1905 information will be encrypted, but the encryption will be the same
1906 system as currently used in the passports.  The codes to decrypt will
1907 be available to a lot of government offices and their suppliers around
1908 the globe, but for those that do not know anyone in those circles it
1909 is good to know that
1910 <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2006/nov/17/news.homeaffairs">the
1911 encryption is already broken</a>.  And they
1912 <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/article/2215057/wireless/bad-guys-could-read-rfid-passports-at-217-feet--maybe-a-lot-more.html">can
1913 be read from 70 meters away</a>.  This can be mitigated a bit by
1914 keeping it in a Faraday cage (metal box or metal wire container), but
1915 one will be required to take it out of there often enough to expose
1916 ones private and personal information to a lot of people that have no
1917 business getting access to that information.</p>
1918
1919 <p>The new Norwegian national IDs are a vehicle for identity theft,
1920 and I feel sorry for us all having politicians accepting such invasion
1921 of privacy without any objections.  So are the Norwegian passports,
1922 but it has been possible to function in Norway without those so far.
1923 That option is going away with the passing of the new law.  In this, I
1924 envy the Germans, because for them it is optional how much biometric
1925 information is stored in their national ID.</p>
1926
1927 <p>And if forced collection of fingerprints was not bad enough, the
1928 information collected in the national ID card register can be handed
1929 over to foreign intelligence services and police authorities, "when
1930 extradition is not considered disproportionate".</p>
1931
1932 <p>Update 2015-05-12: For those unable to believe that the Parliament
1933 really could make such decision, I wrote
1934 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Blir_det_virkelig_krav_om_fingeravtrykk_i_nasjonale_ID_kort_.html">a
1935 summary of the sources I have</a> for concluding the way I do
1936 (Norwegian Only, as the sources are all in Norwegian).</p>
1937
1938       </div>
1939       <div class="tags">
1940
1941
1942         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1943
1944
1945       </div>
1946     </div>
1947     <div class="padding"></div>
1948
1949     <div class="entry">
1950       <div class="title">
1951         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_would_it_cost_to_store_all_phone_calls_in_Norway_.html">What would it cost to store all phone calls in Norway?</a>
1952       </div>
1953       <div class="date">
1954          1st May 2015
1955       </div>
1956       <div class="body">
1957         <p>Many years ago, a friend of mine calculated how much it would cost
1958 to store the sound of all phone calls in Norway, and came up with the
1959 cost of around 20 million NOK (2.4 mill EUR) for all the calls in a
1960 year.  I got curious and wondered what the same calculation would look
1961 like today.  To do so one need an idea of how much data storage is
1962 needed for each minute of sound, how many minutes all the calls in
1963 Norway sums up to, and the cost of data storage.</p>
1964
1965 <p>The 2005 numbers are from
1966 <a href="http://www.digi.no/analyser/2005/10/04/vi-prater-stadig-mindre-i-roret">digi.no</a>,
1967 the 2012 numbers are from
1968 <a href="http://www.nkom.no/aktuelt/nyheter/fortsatt-vekst-i-det-norske-ekommarkedet">a
1969 NKOM report</a>, and I got the 2013 numbers after asking NKOM via
1970 email.  I was told the numbers for 2014 will be presented May 20th,
1971 and decided not to wait for those, as I doubt they will be very
1972 different from the numbers from 2013.</p>
1973
1974 <p>The amount of data storage per minute sound depend on the wanted
1975 quality, and for phone calls it is generally believed that 8 Kbit/s is
1976 enough.  See for example a
1977 <a href="http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/voice/voice-quality/7934-bwidth-consume.html#topic1">summary
1978 on voice quality from Cisco</a> for some alternatives.  8 Kbit/s is 60
1979 Kbytes/min, and this can be multiplied with the number of call minutes
1980 to get the storage requirements.</p>
1981
1982 <p>Storage prices varies a lot, depending on speed, backup strategies,
1983 availability requirements etc.  But a simple way to calculate can be
1984 to use the price of a TiB-disk (around 1000 NOK / 120 EUR) and double
1985 it to take space, power and redundancy into account.  It could be much
1986 higher with high speed and good redundancy requirements.</p>
1987
1988 <p>But back to the question, What would it cost to store all phone
1989 calls in Norway?  Not much.  Here is a small table showing the
1990 estimated cost, which is within the budget constraint of most medium
1991 and large organisations:</p>
1992
1993 <table border="1">
1994 <tr><th>Year</th><th>Call minutes</th><th>Size</th><th>Price in NOK / EUR</th></tr>
1995 <tr><td>2005</td><td align="right">24 000 000 000</td><td align="right">1.3 PiB</td><td align="right">3 mill / 358 000</td></tr>
1996 <tr><td>2012</td><td align="right">18 000 000 000</td><td align="right">1.0 PiB</td><td align="right">2.2 mill / 262 000</td></tr>
1997 <tr><td>2013</td><td align="right">17 000 000 000</td><td align="right">950 TiB</td><td align="right">2.1 mill / 250 000</td></tr>
1998 </table>
1999
2000 <p>This is the cost of buying the storage.  Maintenance need to be
2001 taken into account too, but calculating that is left as an exercise
2002 for the reader.  But it is obvious to me from those numbers that
2003 recording the sound of all phone calls in Norway is not going to be
2004 stopped because it is too expensive.  I wonder if someone already is
2005 collecting the data?</p>
2006
2007       </div>
2008       <div class="tags">
2009
2010
2011         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2012
2013
2014       </div>
2015     </div>
2016     <div class="padding"></div>
2017
2018     <div class="entry">
2019       <div class="title">
2020         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_beta_release.html">First Jessie based Debian Edu beta release</a>
2021       </div>
2022       <div class="date">
2023         26th April 2015
2024       </div>
2025       <div class="body">
2026         <p>I am happy to report that the Debian Edu team sent out
2027 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2015/04/msg00000.html">this
2028 announcement today</a>:</p>
2029
2030 <pre>
2031 the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is pleased to announce the first
2032 *beta* release of Debian Edu "Jessie" 8.0+edu0~b1, which for the first
2033 time is composed entirely of packages from the current Debian stable
2034 release, Debian 8 "Jessie".
2035
2036 (As most reading this will know, Debian "Jessie" hasn't actually been
2037 released by now. The release is still in progress but should finish
2038 later today ;)
2039
2040 We expect to make a final release of Debian Edu "Jessie" in the coming
2041 weeks, timed with the first point release of Debian Jessie. Upgrades
2042 from this beta release of Debian Edu Jessie to the final release will
2043 be possible and encouraged!
2044
2045 Please report feedback to debian-edu@lists.debian.org and/or submit
2046 bugs: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs
2047
2048 Debian Edu - sometimes also known as "Skolelinux" - is a complete
2049 operating system for schools, universities and other
2050 organisations. Through its pre- prepared installation profiles
2051 administrators can install servers, workstations and laptops which
2052 will work in harmony on the school network.  With Debian Edu, the
2053 teachers themselves or their technical support staff can roll out a
2054 complete multi-user, multi-machine study environment within hours or
2055 days.
2056
2057 Debian Edu is already in use at several hundred schools all over the
2058 world, particularly in Germany, Spain and Norway. Installations come
2059 with hundreds of applications pre-installed, plus the whole Debian
2060 archive of thousands of compatible packages within easy reach.
2061
2062 For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
2063 installation instructions are available, including detailed
2064 instructions in the manual explaining the first steps, such as setting
2065 up a network or adding users.  Please note that the password for the
2066 user your prompted for during installation must have a length of at
2067 least 5 characters!
2068
2069 == Where to download ==
2070
2071 A multi-architecture CD / usbstick image (649 MiB) for network booting
2072 can be downloaded at the following locations:
2073
2074     http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-CD.iso
2075     rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-CD.iso .
2076
2077 The SHA1SUM of this image is: 54a524d16246cddd8d2cfd6ea52f2dd78c47ee0a
2078
2079 Alternatively an extended DVD / usbstick image (4.9 GiB) is also
2080 available, with more software included (saving additional download
2081 time):
2082
2083     http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-USB.iso
2084     rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-USB.iso
2085
2086 The SHA1SUM of this image is: fb1f1504a490c077a48653898f9d6a461cb3c636
2087
2088 Sources are available from the Debian archive, see
2089 http://ftp.debian.org/debian-cd/8.0.0/source/ for some download
2090 options.
2091
2092 == Debian Edu Jessie manual in seven languages ==
2093
2094 Please see https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/ for
2095 the English version of the Debian Edu jessie manual.
2096
2097 This manual has been fully translated to German, French, Italian,
2098 Danish, Dutch and Norwegian Bokmål. A partly translated version exists
2099 for Spanish.  See http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/ for
2100 online version of the translated manual.
2101
2102 More information about Debian 8 "Jessie" itself is provided in the
2103 release notes and the installation manual:
2104 - http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes
2105 - http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual
2106
2107
2108 == Errata / known problems ==
2109
2110     It takes up to 15 minutes for a changed hostname to be updated via
2111     DHCP (#780461).
2112
2113     The hostname script fails to update LTSP server hostname (#783087).
2114
2115 Workaround: run update-hostname-from-ip on the client to update the
2116 hostname immediately.
2117
2118 Check https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie for a possibly
2119 more current and complete list.
2120
2121 == Some more details about Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~b1 Codename Jessie released 2015-04-25 ==
2122
2123 === Software updates ===
2124
2125 Everything which is new in Debian 8 Jessie, e.g.:
2126
2127  * Linux kernel 3.16.7-ctk9; for the i386 architecture, support for
2128    i486 processors has been dropped; oldest supported ones: i586 (like
2129    Intel Pentium and AMD K5).
2130
2131  * Desktop environments KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.11.13, GNOME 3.14,
2132    Xfce 4.12, LXDE 0.5.6
2133    * new optional desktop environment: MATE 1.8
2134    * KDE Plasma Workspaces is installed by default; to choose one of
2135      the others see the manual.
2136  * the browsers Iceweasel 31 ESR and Chromium 41
2137  * LibreOffice 4.3.3
2138  * GOsa 2.7.4
2139  * LTSP 5.5.4
2140  * CUPS print system 1.7.5
2141  * new boot framework: systemd
2142  * Educational toolbox GCompris 14.12
2143  * Music creator Rosegarden 14.02
2144  * Image editor Gimp 2.8.14
2145  * Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.13.1
2146  * golearn 0.9
2147  * tuxpaint 0.9.22
2148  * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
2149  * Debian Jessie includes about 43000 packages available for installation.
2150  * More information about Debian 8 Jessie is provided in its release
2151    notes and the installation manual, see the link above.
2152
2153 === Installation changes ===
2154
2155     Installations done via PXE now also install firmware automatically
2156     for the hardware present.
2157
2158 === Fixed bugs ===
2159
2160 A number of bugs have been fixed in this release; the most noticeable
2161 from a user perspective:
2162
2163  * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
2164    DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
2165    information is corrected (710362)
2166
2167  * shutdown-at-night now shuts the system down if gdm3 is used (775608).
2168
2169 === Sugar desktop removed ===
2170
2171 As the Sugar desktop was removed from Debian Jessie, it is also not
2172 available in Debian Edu jessie.
2173
2174
2175 == About Debian Edu / Skolelinux ==
2176
2177 Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based on
2178 Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
2179 configured school network. Directly after installation a school server
2180 running all services needed for a school network is set up just
2181 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
2182 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
2183 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
2184 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
2185 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
2186 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
2187 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
2188 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
2189 can choose between KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
2190 environment.
2191
2192 == About Debian ==
2193
2194 The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
2195 free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
2196 the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
2197 volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
2198 maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a
2199 huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
2200 operating system.
2201
2202 == Thanks ==
2203
2204 Thanks to everyone making Debian and Debian Edu / Skolelinux happen!
2205 You rock.
2206 </pre>
2207
2208       </div>
2209       <div class="tags">
2210
2211
2212         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2213
2214
2215       </div>
2216     </div>
2217     <div class="padding"></div>
2218
2219     <div class="entry">
2220       <div class="title">
2221         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Shirish_Agarwal.html">Debian Edu interview: Shirish Agarwal</a>
2222       </div>
2223       <div class="date">
2224         15th April 2015
2225       </div>
2226       <div class="body">
2227         <p>It was a surprise to me to learn that project to create a complete
2228 computer system for schools I've involved in,
2229 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, was
2230 being used in India.  But apparently it is, and I managed to get an
2231 interview with one of the friends of the project there, Shirish
2232 Agarwal.</p>
2233
2234 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2235
2236 <p>My name is Shirish Agarwal. Based out of the educational and
2237 historical city of Pune, from the western state of Maharashtra, India.
2238 My bread comes from giving training, giving policy tips,
2239 installations on free software to mom and pop shops in different
2240 fields from Desktop publishing to retail shops as well as work with
2241 few software start-ups as well.</p>
2242
2243 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
2244 project?</strong></p>
2245
2246 <p>It started innocently enough. I have been using Debian for a few
2247 years and in one local minidebconf / debutsav I was asked if there was
2248 anything for schools or education. I had worked / played with free
2249 educational softwares such as Gcompris and Stellarium for my many
2250 nieces and nephews so researched and found Debian Edu or Skolelinux as
2251 it was known then.  Since then I have started using the various
2252 education meta-packages provided by the project.</p>
2253
2254 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2255 Edu?</strong></p>
2256
2257 <p>It's closest I have seen where a package full of educational
2258 software are packed, which are free and open (both literally and
2259 figuratively).  Even if I take the simplest software which is
2260 gcompris, the number of activities therein are amazing. Another one of
2261 the softwares that I have liked for a long time is stellarium. Even
2262 pysycache is cool except for couple of issues I encountered
2263 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/781841">#781841</a> and
2264 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/781842">#781842</a>.</p>
2265
2266 <p>I prefer software installed on the system over web based solutions,
2267 as a web site can disappear any time but the software on disk has the
2268 possibility of a larger life span.  Of course with both it's more a
2269 question if it has enough users who make it fun or sustainable or both
2270 for the developer per-se.</p>
2271
2272 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2273 Edu?</strong></p>
2274
2275 <p>I do see that the Debian Edu team seems to be short-handed and I
2276 think more efforts should be made to make it popular and ask and take
2277 help from people and the larger community wherever possible.</p>
2278
2279 <p>I don't see any disadvantage to use Skolelinux apart from the fact
2280 that most apps. are generic which is good or bad how you see it.
2281 However, saying that I do acknowledge the fact that the canvas is
2282 pretty big and there are lot of interesting ideas that could be done
2283 but for reasons not known not done or if done I don't know about them.
2284 Let me share some of the ideas (these are more upstream based but
2285 still) I have had for a long time :</p>
2286
2287 <p>1. Classical maths question of two trains in opposing directions
2288 each running @x kmph/mph at y distance, when they will meet and how
2289 far would each travel and similar questions like these.
2290
2291 <p>The computer is a fantastic system where questions like these can
2292 be drawn, animated and the methodology and answers teased out in
2293 interactive manner. While sites such as the
2294 <a href="http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.two.trains.html">Ask
2295 Dr. Math FAQ on The Two Trains problem</a> (as an example or point of
2296 inspiration) can be used there is lot more that can be done.  I dunno
2297 if there is a free software which does something like this.  The idea
2298 being a blend of objects + animation + interaction which does
2299 this. The whole interaction could be gamified with points or sounds or
2300 colourful celebration whenever the user gets even part of the question
2301 or/and methodology right. That would help reinforce good behaviour.
2302 This understanding could be used to share/showcase everything from how
2303 the first wheel came to be, to evolution to how astronomy started,
2304 psychics and everything in-between.</p>
2305
2306 <p>One specific idea in the train part was having the Linux mascot on
2307 one train and the BSD or GNU mascot on the other train and they
2308 meeting somewhere in-between. Characters from blender movies could
2309 also be used.</p>
2310
2311 <p>2. Loads of crossword-puzzles with reference to subjects: We have
2312 enormous data sets in Wikipedia and Wikitionary.  I don't think it
2313 should be a big job to design crossword puzzles. Using categories and
2314 sub-categories it should be doable to have Q&A single word answers
2315 from the existing data-sets. What would make it easy or hard could be
2316 the length of the word + existence of many or few vowels depending on
2317 the user's input.</p>
2318
2319 <p>3. Jigsaw puzzles - We already have a great software called
2320 palapeli with number of slicers making it pretty interesting. What
2321 needs to be done is to download large number of public domain and
2322 copyleft images, tease and use IPTC tags to categorise them into
2323 nature, history etc.  and let it loose. This could turn to be really
2324 huge collection of images. One source could be taken from
2325 commons.wikimedia.org, others could be huge collection of royalty-free
2326 stock photos. Potential is immense.</p>
2327
2328 <p>Apart from this, free software suffers in two directions, we lag
2329 both in development (of using new features per-se) and maintenance a
2330 lot.  This is more so in educational software as these applications
2331 need to be timely and the opportunity cost of missing deadlines is
2332 immense. If we are able to solve issues of funding for development and
2333 maintenance of such software I don't see any big difficulties. I know
2334 of few start-ups in and around India who would love to develop and
2335 maintain such software if funding issues could be solved.</p>
2336
2337 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2338
2339 <p>That would be huge list. Some of the softwares are obviously apt,
2340 aptitude, debdelta, leafpad, the shell of course (zsh nowadays),
2341 quassel for IRC. In games I use shisen-sho while card-games are evenly
2342 between kpat and Aiselriot.  In desktops it's a tie between
2343 gnome-flashback and mate.</p>
2344
2345 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2346 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2347
2348 <p>I think it should first start with using specific FOSS apps. in
2349 whatever environment they are. If it's MS-Windows or Mac so be it.
2350 Once they are habitual with the apps. and there is buy-in from the
2351 school management then it could be installed anywhere. Most of the
2352 people now understand the concept of a repository because of the
2353 various online stores so it isn't hard to convince on that front.</p>
2354
2355 <p>What is harder is having enough people with technical skills and
2356 passion to service them. If you get buy-in from one or two teachers
2357 then ideas like above could also be asked to be done as a project as
2358 well.</p>
2359
2360 <p>I think where we fall short more than anything is in marketing. For
2361 instance, Debian has this whole range of fonts in its archive but
2362 there isn't even a page where all those different fonts in the La
2363 Ipsum format could be tried out for newcomers.</p>
2364
2365 <p>One of the issues faced constantly in installations is with updates
2366 and upgrades.  People have this myth that each update and upgrade
2367 means the user interface will / has to change. I have seen this
2368 innumerable times.  That perhaps is one of the reasons which browsers
2369 like Iceweasel / Firefox change user interfaces so much, not because
2370 it might be needed or be functional but because people believe that
2371 changed user interfaces are better. This, can easily be pointed with
2372 the user interfaces changed with almost every MS-Windows and Mac OS
2373 releases.</p>
2374
2375 <p>The problems with Debian Edu for deployment are many. The biggest
2376 is the huge gap between what is taught in schools and what Debian Edu
2377 is aimed at.
2378
2379 <p>Me and my friends did teach on week-ends in a government school for
2380 around 2 years, and
2381 <a href="https://flossexperiences.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/sharings/">gathered
2382 some experience</a> there.  Some of the things we learnt/discovered
2383 there was :</p>
2384
2385 <ol>
2386
2387   <li>Most of the teachers are very territorial about their subjects
2388    and they do not want you to teach anything out of the
2389    portion/syllabus given.</li>
2390
2391   <li>They want any activity on the system in accordance to whatever
2392    is in the syllabus.</li>
2393
2394   <li>There are huge barriers both with the English language and at
2395    times with objects or whatever. An example, let's say in gcompris
2396    you have objects falling down and you have to name them and let's
2397    say the falling object is a hat or a fedora hat, this would not be
2398    as recognizable as say a
2399    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puneri_Pagadi">Puneri
2400    Pagdi</a> so there is need to inject local objects, words wherever
2401    possible. Especially for word-games there are so many hindi words
2402    which have become part of english vocabulary (for instance in
2403    parley), those could be made into a hinglish collection or
2404    something but that is something for upstream to do.</li>
2405
2406 </ol>
2407
2408       </div>
2409       <div class="tags">
2410
2411
2412         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
2413
2414
2415       </div>
2416     </div>
2417     <div class="padding"></div>
2418
2419     <div class="entry">
2420       <div class="title">
2421         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_m_going_to_the_Open_Source_Developers__Conference_Nordic_2015_.html">I'm going to the Open Source Developers' Conference Nordic 2015!</a>
2422       </div>
2423       <div class="date">
2424          7th April 2015
2425       </div>
2426       <div class="body">
2427         <p>I am happy to let you all know that I'm going to the <a
2428 href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/">Open Source Developers'
2429 Conference Nordic 2015</a>!</p>
2430
2431 <p>It take place Friday 8th to Sunday 10th of May in Oslo next to
2432 where I work, and I finally got around to submitting
2433 <a href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/talk/6192">a talk proposal for
2434 it</a> (dead link for most people until the talk is accepted).  As
2435 part of my involvement with the
2436 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group member
2437 association</a> I have been slightly involved in the planning of this
2438 conference for a while now, with a focus on organising a Civic Hacking
2439 Hackathon with our friends
2440 over at <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> and
2441 <a href="http://www.holderdeord.no/">Holder de ord</a>.  This part is
2442 named the 'My Society' track in the program.  There is still space for
2443 more talks and participants.  I hope to see you there.</p>
2444
2445 <p>Check out <a href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/talks">the talks
2446 submitted and accepted so far</a>.</p>
2447
2448       </div>
2449       <div class="tags">
2450
2451
2452         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>.
2453
2454
2455       </div>
2456     </div>
2457     <div class="padding"></div>
2458
2459     <div class="entry">
2460       <div class="title">
2461         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Proof_reading_the_Norwegian_translation_of_Free_Culture_by_Lessig.html">Proof reading the Norwegian translation of Free Culture by Lessig</a>
2462       </div>
2463       <div class="date">
2464          4th April 2015
2465       </div>
2466       <div class="body">
2467         <p>During eastern I had some time to continue working on the Norwegian
2468 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
2469 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
2470 At the moment I am proof reading the finished text, looking for typos,
2471 inconsistent wordings and sentences that do not flow as they should.
2472 I'm more than two thirds done with the text, and welcome others to
2473 check the text up to chapter 13.  The current status is available on the
2474 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
2475 project pages.  You can also check out the
2476 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>,
2477 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
2478 and HTML version available in the
2479 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/tree/master/archive">archive
2480 directory</a>.</p>
2481
2482 <p>Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if
2483 you find any.</p>
2484
2485       </div>
2486       <div class="tags">
2487
2488
2489         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
2490
2491
2492       </div>
2493     </div>
2494     <div class="padding"></div>
2495
2496     <div class="entry">
2497       <div class="title">
2498         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen__Norwegian_TV_channel_for_technical_topics.html">Frikanalen, Norwegian TV channel for technical topics</a>
2499       </div>
2500       <div class="date">
2501          9th March 2015
2502       </div>
2503       <div class="body">
2504         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a>,
2505 where I am a member, and where people interested in free software,
2506 open standards and UNIX like operating systems like Linux and the BSDs
2507 come together, record our monthly technical presentations on video.
2508 The purpose is to document the talks and spread them to a wider
2509 audience.  For this, the the Norwegian nationwide open channel
2510 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> is a useful venue.
2511 Since a few days ago, when I figured out the
2512 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/api/">REST API</a> to program the
2513 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/guide/">channel time schedule</a>,
2514 the channel has been filled with NUUG talks, related recordings and
2515 some Creative Commons licensed TED talks (from archive.org).  I fill
2516 all "leftover bits" on the channel with content from NUUG, which at
2517 the moment is almost 17 of 24 hours every day.</p>
2518
2519 <p>The list of NUUG videos
2520 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/organization/82">uploaded so far</a>
2521 include things like a
2522 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/625090">one hour talk by John
2523 Perry Barlow when he visited Oslo</a>, a presentation of
2524 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/624275">Haiku, the BeOS
2525 re-implementation</a>, the
2526 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/624493">history of FiksGataMi,
2527 the Norwegian version of FixMyStreet</a>, the good old
2528 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/623566">Warriors of the net
2529 video</A> and many others.</p>
2530
2531 <p>We have a large backlog of NUUG talks not yet uploaded to
2532 Frikanalen, and plan to upload every useful bit to the channel to
2533 spread the word there.  I also hope to find useful recordings from the
2534 Chaos Computer Club and Debian conferences and spread them on the
2535 channel as well.  But this require locating the videos and their meta
2536 information (title, description, license, etc), and preparing the
2537 recordings for broadcast, and I have not yet had the spare time to
2538 focus on this.  Perhaps you want to help.  Please join us on IRC,
2539 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
2540 if you want to help make this happen.</p>
2541
2542 <p>But as I said, already the channel is already almost exclusively
2543 filled with technical topics, and if you want to learn something new
2544 today, check out the <a href="http://www.frikanalen.tv/se">Ogg Theora
2545 web stream</a> or use one of the other ways to get access to the
2546 channel.  Unfortunately the Ogg Theora recoding for distribution still
2547 do not properly sync the video and sound.  It is generated by recoding
2548 a internal MPEG transport stream with MPEG4 coded video (ie H.264) to
2549 Ogg Theora / Vorbis, and we have not been able to find a way that
2550 produces acceptable quality.  Help needed, please get in touch if you
2551 know how to fix it using free software.</p>
2552
2553       </div>
2554       <div class="tags">
2555
2556
2557         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2558
2559
2560       </div>
2561     </div>
2562     <div class="padding"></div>
2563
2564     <div class="entry">
2565       <div class="title">
2566         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Citizenfour_documentary_on_the_Snowden_confirmations_to_Norway.html">The Citizenfour documentary on the Snowden confirmations to Norway</a>
2567       </div>
2568       <div class="date">
2569         28th February 2015
2570       </div>
2571       <div class="body">
2572         <p>Today I was happy to learn that the documentary
2573 <a href="https://citizenfourfilm.com/">Citizenfour</a> by
2574 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Poitras">Laura Poitras</a>
2575 finally will show up in Norway.  According to the magazine
2576 <a href="http://montages.no/">Montages</a>, a deal has finally been
2577 made for
2578 <a href="http://montages.no/nyheter/snowden-dokumentaren-citizenfour-far-norsk-kinodistribusjon/">Cinema
2579 distribution in Norway</a> and the movie will have its premiere soon.
2580 This is great news.  As part of my involvement with
2581 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the Norwegian Unix User Group</a>, me and
2582 a friend have
2583 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Dokumentar_om_Snowdenbekreftelsene_til_Norge_.shtml">tried
2584 to get the movie to Norway</a> ourselves, but obviously
2585 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Dokumentar_om_Snowdenbekreftelsene_endelig_til_Norge_.shtml">we
2586 were too late</a> and Tor Fosse beat us to it.  I am happy he did, as
2587 the movie will make its way to the public and we do not have to make
2588 it happen ourselves.
2589 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiGwAvd5mvM">The trailer</a>
2590 can be seen on youtube, if you are curious what kind of film this
2591 is.</p>
2592
2593 <p>The whistle blower Edward Snowden really deserve political asylum
2594 here in Norway, but I am afraid he would not be safe.</p>
2595
2596       </div>
2597       <div class="tags">
2598
2599
2600         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2601
2602
2603       </div>
2604     </div>
2605     <div class="padding"></div>
2606
2607     <div class="entry">
2608       <div class="title">
2609         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Norwegian_open_channel_Frikanalen___24x7_on_the_Internet.html">The Norwegian open channel Frikanalen - 24x7 on the Internet</a>
2610       </div>
2611       <div class="date">
2612         25th February 2015
2613       </div>
2614       <div class="body">
2615         <p>The Norwegian nationwide open channel
2616 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> is still going
2617 strong.  It allow everyone to send the video they want on national
2618 television.  It is a TV station administrated completely using a web
2619 browser, running only <ahref="https://github.com/Frikanalen">Free
2620 Software</a>, providing <ahref="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/api">a REST
2621 api</a> for administrators and members, and with distribution on the
2622 national DVB-T distribution network RiksTV.  But only between 12:00
2623 and 17:30 Norwegian time.  This has finally changed, after many years
2624 with limited distribution.  A few weeks ago, we set up a Ogg Theora
2625 stream via icecast to allow everyone with Internet access to check out
2626 the channel the rest of the day.  This is presented on
2627 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.tv/se">the Frikanalen web site now</a>.  And
2628 since a few days ago, the channel is also available
2629 via <a href="https://www.uninett.no/iptv-tilgang">multicast on
2630 UNINETT</a>, available for those using IPTV TVs and set-top boxes in
2631 the Norwegian National Research and Education network.</p>
2632
2633 <p>If you want to see what is on the channel, point your media player
2634 to one of these sources.  The first should work with most players and
2635 browsers, while as far as I know, the multicast UDP stream only work
2636 with VLC.</p>
2637
2638 <ul>
2639   <li><a href="http://video.nuug.no/frikanalen.ogv">http://video.nuug.no/frikanalen.ogv</a></li>
2640   <li>udp://@224.17.43.129:1234</li>
2641 </ul>
2642
2643 <p>The Ogg Theora / icecast stream is not working well, as the video
2644 and audio is slightly out of sync.  We have not been able to figure
2645 out how to fix it.  It is generated by recoding a internal MPEG
2646 transport stream with MPEG4 coded video (ie H.264) to Ogg Theora /
2647 Vorbis, and the result is less then stellar.  If you have ideas how to
2648 fix it, please let us know on frikanalen (at) nuug.no.  We currently
2649 use this with ffmpeg2theora 0.29:</p>
2650
2651 <blockquote><pre>
2652 ./ffmpeg2theora.linux &lt;OBE_gemini_URL.ts&gt; -F 25 -x 720 -y 405 \
2653  --deinterlace --inputfps 25 -c 1 -H 48000 --keyint 8 --buf-delay 100 \
2654  --nosync -V 700 -o - | oggfwd video.nuug.no 8000 &lt;pw&gt; /frikanalen.ogv
2655 </pre></blockquote>
2656
2657 <p>If you get the multicast UDP stream working, please let me know, as
2658 I am curious how far the multicast stream reach.  It do not make it to
2659 my home network, nor any other commercially available network in
2660 Norway that I am aware of.</p>
2661
2662       </div>
2663       <div class="tags">
2664
2665
2666         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2667
2668
2669       </div>
2670     </div>
2671     <div class="padding"></div>
2672
2673     <div class="entry">
2674       <div class="title">
2675         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Nude_body_scanner_now_present_on_Norwegian_airport.html">Nude body scanner now present on Norwegian airport</a>
2676       </div>
2677       <div class="date">
2678         10th February 2015
2679       </div>
2680       <div class="body">
2681         <p>Aftenposten, one of the largest newspapers in Norway, today report
2682 that
2683 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/reise/Slik-skannes-kroppen-din-i-fremtidens-sikkerhetskontroll-490666_1.snd">three
2684 of the nude body scanners now is put to use at Gardermoen</a>, the
2685 main airport in Norway.  This way the travelers can have their body
2686 photographed without cloths when visiting Norway.  Of course this
2687 horrible news is presented with a positive spin, stating that "now
2688 travelers can move past the security check point faster and more
2689 efficiently", but fail to mention that the machines in question take
2690 pictures of their nude bodies and store them internally in the
2691 computer, while only presenting sketch figure of the body to the
2692 public.  The article is written in a way that leave the impression
2693 that the new machines do not take these nude pictures and only create
2694 the sketch figures.  In reality the same nude pictures are still
2695 taken, but not presented to everyone.  They are still available for
2696 the owners of the system and the people doing maintenance of the
2697 scanners, as long as they are taken and stored.</p>
2698
2699 <p>Wikipedia have a more on
2700 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_body_scanner">Full body
2701 scanners</a>, including example images and a summary of the
2702 controversy about these scanners.</p>
2703
2704 <p>Personally I will decline to use these machines, as I believe strip
2705 searches of my body is a very intrusive attack on my privacy, and not
2706 something everyone should have to accept to travel.</p>
2707
2708       </div>
2709       <div class="tags">
2710
2711
2712         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
2713
2714
2715       </div>
2716     </div>
2717     <div class="padding"></div>
2718
2719     <div class="entry">
2720       <div class="title">
2721         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Nagios_module_to_check_if_the_Frikanalen_video_stream_is_working.html">Nagios module to check if the Frikanalen video stream is working</a>
2722       </div>
2723       <div class="date">
2724          8th February 2015
2725       </div>
2726       <div class="body">
2727         <p>When running a TV station with both broadcast and web stream
2728 distribution, it is useful to know that the stream is working.  As I
2729 am involved in the Norwegian open channel
2730 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> as part of my
2731 activity in the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member
2732 organisation</a>, I wrote a script to use mplayer to connect to a
2733 video stream, pick two images 35 seconds apart and compare them.  If
2734 the images are missing or identical, something is probably wrong with
2735 the stream and an alarm should be triggered.  The script is written as
2736 a Nagios plugin, allowing us to use Nagios to run the check regularly
2737 and sound the alarm when something is wrong.  It is able to detect
2738 both a hanging and a broken video stream.</p>
2739
2740 <p>I just uploaded the code for the script into the
2741 <a href="https://github.com/Frikanalen/frikanalen/blob/master/nagios-plugin/check_video_stream_images">Frikanalen
2742 git repository</a> on github.  If you run a TV station with web
2743 streaming, perhaps you can find it useful too.</p>
2744
2745 <p>Last year, the Frikanalen public TV station transformed into using
2746 only Linux based free software to administrate, schedule and
2747 distribute the TV content.  The
2748 <a href="https://github.com/Frikanalen">source code for the entire TV
2749 station</a> is available from the Github project page.  Everyone can
2750 use it to send their content on national TV, and we provide both a web
2751 GUI and <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/api/">a web API</a> to
2752 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/login/?next=/members/video/">add</a>
2753 and <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/members/plan/">schedule
2754 content</a>.  And thanks to last weeks developer gathering and
2755 following activity, we now have the schedule
2756 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/xmltv/2015/01/01">available as
2757 XMLTV</a> too.  Still a lot of work left to do, especially with the
2758 process to add videos and with the scheduling, so your contribution is
2759 most welcome.  Perhaps you want to set up your own TV station?</p>
2760
2761 <p>Update 2015-02-25: Got a tip from Uninett about their
2762 <a href="https://scm.uninett.no/maalepaaler/qstream/">qstream
2763 monitoring system</a>, which gather connection time, jitter, packet
2764 loss and burst bandwidth usage.  It look useful to check if UDP
2765 streams are working as they should.</p>
2766
2767       </div>
2768       <div class="tags">
2769
2770
2771         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2772
2773
2774       </div>
2775     </div>
2776     <div class="padding"></div>
2777
2778     <div class="entry">
2779       <div class="title">
2780         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_subtitles_for_the_FSF_video_User_Liberation.html">Norwegian Bokmål subtitles for the FSF video User Liberation</a>
2781       </div>
2782       <div class="date">
2783         12th January 2015
2784       </div>
2785       <div class="body">
2786         <p>A few days ago, the <a href="https://www.fsf.org/">Free Software
2787 Foundation</a> announced a new video
2788 <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/user-liberation-watch-and-share-our-new-video">explaining
2789 Free software</a> in simple terms.  The video named User Liberation is
2790 3 minutes long, and I recommend showing it to everyone you know as a
2791 way to explain what Free Software is all about.  Unfortunately several
2792 of the people I know do not understand English and Spanish, so it did
2793 not make sense to show it to them.</p>
2794
2795 <p>But today I was told that
2796 <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/user-liberation-watch-and-share-our-new-video">English
2797 subtitles were available</a> and set out to provide Norwegian Bokmål
2798 subtitles based on these.  The result has been sent to FSF and made
2799 available in
2800 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/fsf-video-user-liberation-subtitles">a
2801 git repository</a> provided by Github.  Please let me know if you find
2802 errors or have improvements to the subtitles.</p>
2803
2804 <p>Update 2015-02-03: Since I publised this post, FSF created a
2805 Libreplanet
2806 <a href="http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:FSF/User_Liberation_Video_Translation">project
2807 to track subtitles</A> for the video.</p>
2808
2809       </div>
2810       <div class="tags">
2811
2812
2813         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2814
2815
2816       </div>
2817     </div>
2818     <div class="padding"></div>
2819
2820     <div class="entry">
2821       <div class="title">
2822         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Updated_version_of_the_Norwegian_web_service_FiksGataMi.html">Updated version of the Norwegian web service FiksGataMi</a>
2823       </div>
2824       <div class="date">
2825         30th December 2014
2826       </div>
2827       <div class="body">
2828         <p>I am very happy that we in the
2829 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User group (NUUG)</a>,
2830 spearheaded by Marius Halden from NUUG and Matthew Somerville from
2831 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>, finally managed to
2832 upgrade the code base for the Norwegian version of
2833 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org/">FixMyStreet</a>.  This
2834 was the first major update since 2011. The refurbished
2835 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is already live, and
2836 seem to hold up the pressure.  The
2837 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Pressemelding__FiksGataMi_i_oppdatert_og_mobilvennlig_klesdrakt.shtml">press
2838 release and announcement</a> went out this morning.</p>
2839
2840 <p>FixMyStreet is a web platform for allowing the citizens to easily
2841 report problems with public infrastructure to the responsible
2842 authorities.  Think of it as a shared mail client with map support,
2843 allowing everyone to see what already was reported and comment on the
2844 reports in public.</p>
2845
2846       </div>
2847       <div class="tags">
2848
2849
2850         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
2851
2852
2853       </div>
2854     </div>
2855     <div class="padding"></div>
2856
2857     <div class="entry">
2858       <div class="title">
2859         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Of_course_USA_loses_in_cyber_war___NSA_and_friends_made_sure_it_would_happen.html">Of course USA loses in cyber war - NSA and friends made sure it would happen</a>
2860       </div>
2861       <div class="date">
2862         19th December 2014
2863       </div>
2864       <div class="body">
2865         <p>So, Sony caved in
2866 (<a href="https://twitter.com/RobLowe/status/545338568512917504">according
2867 to Rob Lowe</a>) and demonstrated that America lost its first cyberwar
2868 (<a href="https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/545339074975109122">according
2869 to Newt Gingrich</a>).  It should not surprise anyone, after the
2870 whistle blower Edward Snowden documented that the government of USA
2871 and their allies for many years have done their best to make sure the
2872 technology used by its citizens is filled with security holes allowing
2873 the secret services to spy on its own population.  No one in their
2874 right minds could believe that the ability to snoop on the people all
2875 over the globe could only be used by the personnel authorized to do so
2876 by the president of the United States of America.  If the capabilities
2877 are there, they will be used by friend and foe alike, and now they are
2878 being used to bring Sony on its knees.</p>
2879
2880 <p>I doubt it will a lesson learned, and expect USA to lose its next
2881 cyber war too, given how eager the western intelligence communities
2882 (and probably the non-western too, but it is less in the news) seem to
2883 be to continue its current dragnet surveillance practice.</p>
2884
2885 <p>There is a reason why China and others are trying to move away from
2886 Windows to Linux and other alternatives, and it is not to avoid
2887 sending its hard earned dollars to Cayman Islands (or whatever
2888 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_haven">tax haven</a>
2889 Microsoft is using these days to collect the majority of its
2890 income. :)</p>
2891
2892       </div>
2893       <div class="tags">
2894
2895
2896         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2897
2898
2899       </div>
2900     </div>
2901     <div class="padding"></div>
2902
2903     <div class="entry">
2904       <div class="title">
2905         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
2906       </div>
2907       <div class="date">
2908         22nd November 2014
2909       </div>
2910       <div class="body">
2911         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
2912 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
2913 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
2914 courtesy of
2915 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
2916 Schubert</a> and
2917 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
2918 McVittie</a>.
2919
2920 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
2921 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
2922 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
2923 you upgrade:</p>
2924
2925 <p><blockquote><pre>
2926 Package: systemd-sysv
2927 Pin: release o=Debian
2928 Pin-Priority: -1
2929 </pre></blockquote><p>
2930
2931 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
2932 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
2933 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
2934 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
2935 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
2936
2937 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
2938 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
2939 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
2940 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
2941 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
2942 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
2943
2944 <p><blockquote><pre>
2945 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
2946 </pre></blockquote><p>
2947
2948 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
2949
2950 <p><blockquote><pre>
2951 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
2952 </pre></blockquote><p>
2953
2954 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
2955 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
2956
2957 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
2958 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
2959 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
2960 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
2961 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
2962 Jessie is released.</p>
2963
2964 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
2965 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
2966 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
2967 line.</p>
2968
2969       </div>
2970       <div class="tags">
2971
2972
2973         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2974
2975
2976       </div>
2977     </div>
2978     <div class="padding"></div>
2979
2980     <div class="entry">
2981       <div class="title">
2982         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
2983       </div>
2984       <div class="date">
2985         10th November 2014
2986       </div>
2987       <div class="body">
2988         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
2989 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
2990 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
2991
2992 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
2993 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
2994 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
2995 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
2996 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
2997 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
2998 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
2999 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
3000 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
3001 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
3002 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
3003 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
3004 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
3005 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
3006 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
3007
3008 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
3009 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
3010 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
3011 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
3012 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
3013 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
3014 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
3015 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
3016 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
3017 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
3018 were fairly easy, and
3019 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
3020 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
3021 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
3022 useful approach.</p>
3023
3024 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
3025 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
3026 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
3027 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
3028 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
3029 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
3030 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
3031 this:</p>
3032
3033 <p><blockquote><pre>
3034 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
3035   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
3036 </pre></blockquote></p>
3037
3038 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
3039 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
3040
3041 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
3042 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
3043 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
3044 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
3045 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
3046 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
3047 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
3048 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
3049 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
3050 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
3051 system.</p>
3052
3053 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
3054 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
3055 SMTorP. :)</p>
3056
3057       </div>
3058       <div class="tags">
3059
3060
3061         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
3062
3063
3064       </div>
3065     </div>
3066     <div class="padding"></div>
3067
3068     <div class="entry">
3069       <div class="title">
3070         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html">First Jessie based Debian Edu released (alpha0)</a>
3071       </div>
3072       <div class="date">
3073         27th October 2014
3074       </div>
3075       <div class="body">
3076         <p>I am happy to report that I on behalf of the Debian Edu team just
3077 sent out
3078 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2014/10/msg00000.html">this
3079 announcement</a>:</p>
3080
3081 <pre>
3082 The Debian Edu Team is pleased to announce the release of Debian Edu
3083 Jessie 8.0+edu0~alpha0
3084
3085 Debian Edu is a complete operating system for schools. Through its
3086 various installation profiles you can install servers, workstations
3087 and laptops which will work together on the school network. With
3088 Debian Edu, the teachers themselves or their technical support can
3089 roll out a complete multi-user multi-machine study environment within
3090 hours or a few days. Debian Edu comes with hundreds of applications
3091 pre-installed, but you can always add more packages from Debian.
3092
3093 For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
3094 installation instructions are available, including detailed
3095 instructions in the manual[1] explaining the first steps, such as
3096 setting up a network or adding users. Please note that the password
3097 for the user your prompted for during installation must have a length
3098 of at least 5 characters!
3099
3100  [1] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie</a> &gt;
3101
3102 Would you like to give your school's computer a longer life? Are you
3103 tired of sneaker administration, running from computer to computer
3104 reinstalling the operating system? Would you like to administrate all
3105 the computers in your school using only a couple of hours every week?
3106 Check out Debian Edu Jessie!
3107
3108 Skolelinux is used by at least two hundred schools all over the world,
3109 mostly in Germany and Norway.
3110
3111 About Debian Edu and Skolelinux
3112 ===============================
3113
3114 Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux[2], is a Linux distribution based
3115 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
3116 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
3117 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
3118 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
3119 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
3120 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
3121 machines can be installed via the network.  The provided school server
3122 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
3123 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
3124 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
3125 packages[3] and more are available from the Debian archive, and
3126 schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
3127 environment.
3128
3129  [2] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">http://www.skolelinux.org/</a> &gt;
3130  [3] &lt;URL: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html</a> &gt;
3131
3132 Full release notes and manual
3133 =============================
3134
3135 Below the download URLs there is a list of some of the new features
3136 and bugfixes of Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie. The full
3137 list is part of the manual. (See the feature list in the manual[4] for
3138 the English version.) For some languages manual translations are
3139 available, see the manual translation overview[5].
3140
3141  [4] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features</a> &gt;
3142  [5] &lt;URL: <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/</a> &gt;
3143
3144 Where to get it
3145 ---------------
3146
3147 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release (624 MiB) you can use
3148
3149  * <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso</a>
3150  * <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso</a>
3151  * rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso .
3152
3153 The SHA1SUM of this image is: 361188818e036ce67280a572f757de82ebfeb095
3154
3155 New features for Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie released 2014-10-27
3156 ===============================================================================
3157
3158
3159 Installation changes
3160 --------------------
3161
3162  * PXE installation now installs firmware automatically for the hardware present.
3163
3164 Software updates
3165 ----------------
3166
3167 Everything which is new in Debian Jessie 8.0, eg:
3168
3169  * Linux kernel 3.16.x
3170  * Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.11.12, GNOME 3.14, Xfce 4.10,
3171    LXDE 0.5.6 and MATE 1.8 (KDE "Plasma" is installed by default; to
3172    choose one of the others see manual.)
3173  * the browsers Iceweasel 31 ESR and Chromium 38
3174  * !LibreOffice 4.3.3
3175  * GOsa 2.7.4
3176  * LTSP 5.5.4
3177  * CUPS print system 1.7.5
3178  * new boot framework: systemd
3179  * Educational toolbox GCompris 14.07
3180  * Music creator Rosegarden 14.02
3181  * Image editor Gimp 2.8.14
3182  * Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.13.0
3183  * golearn 0.9
3184  * tuxpaint 0.9.22
3185  * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
3186  * Debian Jessie includes about 42000 packages available for
3187    installation.
3188  * More information about Debian Jessie 8.0 is provided in the release
3189    notes[6] and the installation manual[7].
3190
3191  [6] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes</a> &gt;
3192  [7] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual</a> &gt;
3193
3194 Fixed bugs
3195 ----------
3196
3197  * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
3198    DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
3199    information is corrected (Debian bug #710362)
3200  * and many others.
3201
3202 Documentation and translation updates
3203 -------------------------------------
3204
3205  * The Debian Edu Jessie Manual is fully translated to German, French,
3206    Italian, Danish and Dutch. Partly translated versions exist for
3207    Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.
3208
3209 Other changes
3210 -------------
3211
3212  * Due to new Squid settings, powering off or rebooting the main
3213    server takes more time.
3214  * To manage printers localhost:631 has to be used, currently www:631
3215    doesn't work.
3216
3217 Regressions / known problems
3218 ----------------------------
3219
3220  * Installing LTSP chroot fails with a bug related to eatmydata about
3221    exim4-config failing to run its postinst (see Debian bug #765694
3222    and Debian bug #762103).
3223  * Munin collection is not properly configured on clients (Debian bug
3224    #764594).  The fix is available in a newer version of munin-node.
3225  * PXE setup for Main Server and Thin Client Server setup does not
3226    work when installing on a machine without direct Internet access.
3227    Will be fixed when Debian bug #766960 is fixed in Jessie.
3228
3229 See the status page[8] for the complete list.
3230
3231  [8] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie</a> &gt;
3232
3233 How to report bugs
3234 ------------------
3235
3236 &lt;URL: <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a> &gt;
3237
3238 About Debian
3239 ============
3240
3241 The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
3242 free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
3243 the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
3244 volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
3245 maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a
3246 huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
3247 operating system.
3248
3249 Contact Information
3250 For further information, please visit the Debian web pages[9] or send
3251 mail to press@debian.org.
3252
3253  [9] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a> &gt;
3254 </pre>
3255
3256       </div>
3257       <div class="tags">
3258
3259
3260         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3261
3262
3263       </div>
3264     </div>
3265     <div class="padding"></div>
3266
3267     <div class="entry">
3268       <div class="title">
3269         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_spent_last_weekend_recording_MakerCon_Nordic.html">I spent last weekend recording MakerCon Nordic</a>
3270       </div>
3271       <div class="date">
3272         23rd October 2014
3273       </div>
3274       <div class="body">
3275         <p>I spent last weekend at <a href="http://www.makercon.no/">Makercon
3276 Nordic</a>, a great conference and workshop for makers in Norway and
3277 the surrounding countries.  I had volunteered on behalf of the
3278 Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG) to video record the talks, and we
3279 had a great and exhausting time recording the entire day, two days in
3280 a row.  There were only two of us, Hans-Petter and me, and we used the
3281 regular video equipment for NUUG, with a
3282 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">dvswitch</a>, a
3283 camera and a VGA to DV convert box, and mixed video and slides
3284 live.</p>
3285
3286 <p>Hans-Petter did the post-processing, consisting of uploading the
3287 around 180 GiB of raw video to Youtube, and the result is
3288 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/">now becoming
3289 public</a> on the MakerConNordic account.  The videos have the license
3290 NUUG always use on our recordings, which is
3291 <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/no/">Creative
3292 Commons Navngivelse-Del på samme vilkår 3.0 Norge</a>.  Many great
3293 talks available.  Check it out! :)</p>
3294
3295       </div>
3296       <div class="tags">
3297
3298
3299         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
3300
3301
3302       </div>
3303     </div>
3304     <div class="padding"></div>
3305
3306     <div class="entry">
3307       <div class="title">
3308         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
3309       </div>
3310       <div class="date">
3311         22nd October 2014
3312       </div>
3313       <div class="body">
3314         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
3315 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
3316 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
3317 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
3318 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
3319 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
3320 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
3321 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
3322 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
3323 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
3324 lists I recently took over:</p>
3325
3326 <p><blockquote><pre>
3327 % time listadmin xiph
3328 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
3329 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
3330
3331 real    0m1.709s
3332 user    0m0.232s
3333 sys     0m0.012s
3334 %
3335 </pre></blockquote></p>
3336
3337 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
3338 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
3339 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
3340 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
3341 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
3342 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
3343 program.</p>
3344
3345 <p>If you install
3346 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
3347 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
3348 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
3349
3350 <p><blockquote><pre>
3351 username username@example.org
3352 spamlevel 23
3353 default discard
3354 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
3355
3356 password secret
3357 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
3358 mailman-list@lists.example.com
3359
3360 password hidden
3361 other-list@otherserver.example.org
3362 </pre></blockquote></p>
3363
3364 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
3365 learn the details.</p>
3366
3367 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
3368 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
3369 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
3370 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
3371
3372 <p><blockquote><pre>
3373 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
3374 </pre></blockquote></p>
3375
3376 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
3377 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
3378 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
3379 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
3380 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
3381 email.</p>
3382
3383 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
3384 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
3385 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
3386 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
3387 software.</p>
3388
3389 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3390 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3391 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3392
3393 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
3394 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
3395 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
3396 sure why.</p>
3397
3398       </div>
3399       <div class="tags">
3400
3401
3402         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
3403
3404
3405       </div>
3406     </div>
3407     <div class="padding"></div>
3408
3409     <div class="entry">
3410       <div class="title">
3411         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
3412       </div>
3413       <div class="date">
3414         17th October 2014
3415       </div>
3416       <div class="body">
3417         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
3418 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
3419 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
3420 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
3421 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
3422 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
3423 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
3424
3425 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
3426 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
3427 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
3428 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
3429 of this story.)</p>
3430
3431 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
3432 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
3433 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
3434 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
3435 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
3436 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
3437 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
3438 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
3439 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
3440 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
3441
3442 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
3443 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
3444 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
3445 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
3446
3447 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
3448 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
3449
3450 <p><blockquote><pre>
3451 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
3452 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
3453 </pre></blockquote></p>
3454
3455 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
3456 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
3457 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
3458 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
3459 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
3460 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
3461 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
3462 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
3463
3464 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
3465 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
3466
3467 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
3468 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
3469 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
3470 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
3471 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
3472
3473 <p><blockquote><pre>
3474 Task: isenkram-packages
3475 Section: hardware
3476 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3477  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
3478  proposed.
3479 Test-new-install: show show
3480 Relevance: 8
3481 Packages: for-current-hardware
3482
3483 Task: isenkram-firmware
3484 Section: hardware
3485 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3486  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
3487  packages are proposed.
3488 Test-new-install: mark show
3489 Relevance: 8
3490 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
3491 </pre></blockquote></p>
3492
3493 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
3494 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
3495 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
3496 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
3497 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
3498
3499 <p><blockquote><pre>
3500 #!/bin/sh
3501 #
3502 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
3503 export PATH
3504 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
3505 </pre></blockquote></p>
3506
3507 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
3508 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
3509
3510 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
3511 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
3512 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
3513 install.</p>
3514
3515 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
3516 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
3517 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
3518
3519       </div>
3520       <div class="tags">
3521
3522
3523         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
3524
3525
3526       </div>
3527     </div>
3528     <div class="padding"></div>
3529
3530     <div class="entry">
3531       <div class="title">
3532         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
3533       </div>
3534       <div class="date">
3535          4th October 2014
3536       </div>
3537       <div class="body">
3538         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
3539 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
3540 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
3541 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
3542
3543 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
3544
3545 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
3546 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
3547 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
3548
3549       </div>
3550       <div class="tags">
3551
3552
3553         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3554
3555
3556       </div>
3557     </div>
3558     <div class="padding"></div>
3559
3560     <div class="entry">
3561       <div class="title">
3562         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
3563       </div>
3564       <div class="date">
3565          4th October 2014
3566       </div>
3567       <div class="body">
3568         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
3569 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
3570 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
3571 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
3572 Dibb.</p>
3573
3574 <p>I just wrapped up
3575 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
3576 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
3577 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
3578 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
3579 0.17.</p>
3580
3581 <ul>
3582
3583  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
3584  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
3585    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
3586  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
3587  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
3588  <li>Fix include orders</li>
3589  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
3590  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
3591  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
3592    the palette size is the same.</li>
3593  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
3594  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
3595  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
3596  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
3597    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
3598
3599 </ul>
3600
3601 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
3602 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
3603 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
3604
3605       </div>
3606       <div class="tags">
3607
3608
3609         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
3610
3611
3612       </div>
3613     </div>
3614     <div class="padding"></div>
3615
3616     <div class="entry">
3617       <div class="title">
3618         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
3619       </div>
3620       <div class="date">
3621         26th September 2014
3622       </div>
3623       <div class="body">
3624         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3625 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
3626 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
3627 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
3628 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
3629 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
3630 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
3631 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
3632 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
3633 future.  The
3634 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
3635 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
3636 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
3637 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
3638 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
3639
3640 <p>First, download the test ISO via
3641 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
3642 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
3643 or rsync (use
3644 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
3645 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
3646 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
3647 install with some tweaking.</p>
3648
3649 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
3650 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
3651
3652 <p><blockquote><pre>
3653 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
3654 </pre></blockquote></p>
3655
3656 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
3657 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
3658 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
3659 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
3660
3661 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
3662 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
3663 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
3664 your need.</p>
3665
3666 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
3667 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
3668 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
3669 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
3670 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
3671 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
3672 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
3673 days.</p>
3674
3675 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
3676 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
3677 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
3678 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
3679 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
3680 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
3681 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
3682 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
3683 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
3684
3685 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
3686 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
3687 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
3688
3689       </div>
3690       <div class="tags">
3691
3692
3693         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3694
3695
3696       </div>
3697     </div>
3698     <div class="padding"></div>
3699
3700     <div class="entry">
3701       <div class="title">
3702         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
3703       </div>
3704       <div class="date">
3705         25th September 2014
3706       </div>
3707       <div class="body">
3708         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
3709 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
3710 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
3711 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
3712 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
3713 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
3714 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
3715 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
3716 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
3717 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
3718 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
3719 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
3720 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
3721
3722 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
3723 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
3724 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
3725 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
3726 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
3727 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
3728 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
3729 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
3730 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
3731 list</a>. :)</p>
3732
3733       </div>
3734       <div class="tags">
3735
3736
3737         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
3738
3739
3740       </div>
3741     </div>
3742     <div class="padding"></div>
3743
3744     <div class="entry">
3745       <div class="title">
3746         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
3747       </div>
3748       <div class="date">
3749         16th September 2014
3750       </div>
3751       <div class="body">
3752         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
3753 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
3754 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
3755 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
3756 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
3757 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
3758 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
3759 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
3760 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
3761 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
3762 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
3763 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
3764 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
3765 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
3766
3767 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
3768 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
3769 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
3770 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
3771 depend on the small and clever package
3772 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
3773 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
3774 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
3775 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
3776 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
3777 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
3778 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
3779 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
3780 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
3781 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
3782 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
3783
3784 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
3785 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
3786 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
3787 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
3788 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
3789 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
3790 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
3791 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
3792 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
3793 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
3794 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
3795 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
3796 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
3797 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
3798 dialog.</p>
3799
3800 <p><table>
3801
3802 <tr>
3803 <th>Machine/setup</th>
3804 <th>Original tasksel</th>
3805 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
3806 <th>Reduction</th>
3807 </tr>
3808
3809 <tr>
3810 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
3811 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
3812 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
3813 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
3814 </tr>
3815
3816 <tr>
3817 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
3818 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
3819 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
3820 <td>23 min 40%</td>
3821 </tr>
3822
3823 <tr>
3824 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
3825 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
3826 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
3827 <td>11 min 50%</td>
3828 </tr>
3829
3830 <tr>
3831 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
3832 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
3833 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
3834 <td>2 min 33%</td>
3835 </tr>
3836
3837 <tr>
3838 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
3839 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
3840 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
3841 <td>4 min 21%</td>
3842 </tr>
3843
3844 </table></p>
3845
3846 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
3847 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
3848 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
3849 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
3850 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
3851 installed.</p>
3852
3853 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
3854 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
3855 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
3856 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
3857 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
3858 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
3859 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
3860 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
3861 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
3862 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
3863 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
3864 for the entire installation.</p>
3865
3866 <p>I've implemented this in the
3867 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
3868 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
3869 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
3870 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
3871 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
3872
3873 <p><blockquote><pre>
3874 #!/bin/sh
3875 set -e
3876 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
3877 info() {
3878     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
3879 }
3880 error() {
3881     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
3882 }
3883 override_install() {
3884     apt-install eatmydata || true
3885     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
3886         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
3887             file=/usr/bin/$bin
3888             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
3889             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
3890                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
3891                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
3892                     > /target$file.edu
3893                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
3894                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
3895                     --rename --quiet --add $file
3896                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
3897             else
3898                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
3899             fi
3900         done
3901     else
3902         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
3903     fi
3904 }
3905
3906 override_install
3907 </pre></blockquote></p>
3908
3909 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
3910 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
3911
3912 <p><blockquote><pre>
3913 #! /bin/sh -e
3914 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
3915 error() {
3916     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
3917 }
3918 remove_install_override() {
3919     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
3920         file=/usr/bin/$bin
3921         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
3922             rm /target$file
3923             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
3924                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
3925             rm /target$file.edu
3926         else
3927             error "Missing divert for $file."
3928         fi
3929     done
3930     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
3931 }
3932
3933 remove_install_override
3934 </pre></blockquote></p>
3935
3936 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
3937 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
3938 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
3939
3940 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
3941 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
3942 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
3943 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
3944 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
3945 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
3946 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
3947 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
3948 everyone.</p>
3949
3950 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
3951 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
3952 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
3953 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
3954
3955 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
3956 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
3957 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
3958 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
3959 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
3960
3961 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
3962 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
3963 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
3964 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
3965 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
3966
3967       </div>
3968       <div class="tags">
3969
3970
3971         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3972
3973
3974       </div>
3975     </div>
3976     <div class="padding"></div>
3977
3978     <div class="entry">
3979       <div class="title">
3980         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
3981       </div>
3982       <div class="date">
3983         10th September 2014
3984       </div>
3985       <div class="body">
3986         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
3987 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
3988 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
3989 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
3990 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
3991 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
3992 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
3993 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
3994 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
3995 those problems are gone now.</p>
3996
3997 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
3998 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
3999 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
4000 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
4001 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
4002
4003 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
4004 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
4005 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
4006
4007 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
4008 line:</p>
4009
4010 <p><blockquote><pre>
4011 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
4012 </pre></blockquote></p>
4013
4014 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
4015 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
4016 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
4017 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
4018
4019 <p><blockquote><pre>
4020 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
4021 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
4022 %
4023 </pre></blockquote></p>
4024
4025 <p>Now if only
4026 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
4027 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
4028 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
4029 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
4030 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
4031 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
4032 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
4033 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
4034 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
4035
4036       </div>
4037       <div class="tags">
4038
4039
4040         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
4041
4042
4043       </div>
4044     </div>
4045     <div class="padding"></div>
4046
4047     <div class="entry">
4048       <div class="title">
4049         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Do_you_need_an_agreement_with_MPEG_LA_to_publish_and_broadcast_H_264_video_in_Norway_.html">Do you need an agreement with MPEG-LA to publish and broadcast H.264 video in Norway?</a>
4050       </div>
4051       <div class="date">
4052         25th August 2014
4053       </div>
4054       <div class="body">
4055         <p>Two years later, I am still not sure if it is legal here in Norway
4056 to use or publish a video in H.264 or MPEG4 format edited by the
4057 commercially licensed video editors, without limiting the use to
4058 create "personal" or "non-commercial" videos or get a license
4059 agreement with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com">MPEG LA</a>.  If one
4060 want to publish and broadcast video in a non-personal or commercial
4061 setting, it might be that those tools can not be used, or that video
4062 format can not be used, without breaking their copyright license.  I
4063 am not sure.
4064 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html">Back
4065 then</a>, I found that the copyright license terms for Adobe Premiere
4066 and Apple Final Cut Pro both specified that one could not use the
4067 program to produce anything else without a patent license from MPEG
4068 LA.  The issue is not limited to those two products, though.  Other
4069 much used products like those from Avid and Sorenson Media have terms
4070 of use are similar to those from Adobe and Apple.  The complicating
4071 factor making me unsure if those terms have effect in Norway or not is
4072 that the patents in question are not valid in Norway, but copyright
4073 licenses are.</p>
4074
4075 <p>These are the terms for Avid Artist Suite, according to their
4076 <a href="http://www.avid.com/US/about-avid/legal-notices/legal-enduserlicense2">published
4077 end user</a>
4078 <a href="http://www.avid.com/static/resources/common/documents/corporate/LICENSE.pdf">license
4079 text</a> (converted to lower case text for easier reading):</p>
4080
4081 <p><blockquote>
4082 <p>18.2. MPEG-4. MPEG-4 technology may be included with the
4083 software. MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice: </p>
4084
4085 <p>This product is licensed under the MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio
4086 license for the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer for (i)
4087 encoding video in compliance with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4
4088 video”) and/or (ii) decoding MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a
4089 consumer engaged in a personal and non-commercial activity and/or was
4090 obtained from a video provider licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4
4091 video.  No license is granted or shall be implied for any other
4092 use. Additional information including that relating to promotional,
4093 internal and commercial uses and licensing may be obtained from MPEG
4094 LA, LLC.  See http://www.mpegla.com. This product is licensed under
4095 the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license for encoding in compliance
4096 with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except that an additional license
4097 and payment of royalties are necessary for encoding in connection with
4098 (i) data stored or replicated in physical media which is paid for on a
4099 title by title basis and/or (ii) data which is paid for on a title by
4100 title basis and is transmitted to an end user for permanent storage
4101 and/or use, such additional license may be obtained from MPEG LA,
4102 LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for additional details.</p>
4103
4104 <p>18.3. H.264/AVC. H.264/AVC technology may be included with the
4105 software.  MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice:</p>
4106
4107 <p>This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
4108 the personal use of a consumer or other uses in which it does not
4109 receive remuneration to (i) encode video in compliance with the AVC
4110 standard (“AVC video”) and/or (ii) decode AVC video that was encoded
4111 by a consumer engaged in a personal activity and/or was obtained from
4112 a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No license is granted
4113 or shall be implied for any other use. Additional information may be
4114 obtained from MPEG LA, L.L.C. See http://www.mpegla.com.</p>
4115 </blockquote></p>
4116
4117 <p>Note the requirement that the videos created can only be used for
4118 personal or non-commercial purposes.</p>
4119
4120 <p>The Sorenson Media software have
4121 <a href="http://www.sorensonmedia.com/terms/">similar terms</a>:</p>
4122
4123 <p><blockquote>
4124
4125 <p>With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4 Video
4126 Decoders and/or Encoders: Any such product is licensed under the
4127 MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio license for the personal and
4128 non-commercial use of a consumer for (i) encoding video in compliance
4129 with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4 video”) and/or (ii) decoding
4130 MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a personal and
4131 non-commercial activity and/or was obtained from a video provider
4132 licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4 video. No license is granted or
4133 shall be implied for any other use. Additional information including
4134 that relating to promotional, internal and commercial uses and
4135 licensing may be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See
4136 http://www.mpegla.com.</p>
4137
4138 <p>With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4
4139 Consumer Recorded Data Encoder, MPEG-4 Systems Internet Data Encoder,
4140 MPEG-4 Mobile Data Encoder, and/or MPEG-4 Unique Use Encoder: Any such
4141 product is licensed under the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license
4142 for encoding in compliance with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except
4143 that an additional license and payment of royalties are necessary for
4144 encoding in connection with (i) data stored or replicated in physical
4145 media which is paid for on a title by title basis and/or (ii) data
4146 which is paid for on a title by title basis and is transmitted to an
4147 end user for permanent storage and/or use. Such additional license may
4148 be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for
4149 additional details.</p>
4150
4151 </blockquote></p>
4152
4153 <p>Some free software like
4154 <a href="https://handbrake.fr/">Handbrake</A> and
4155 <a href="http://ffmpeg.org/">FFMPEG</a> uses GPL/LGPL licenses and do
4156 not have any such terms included, so for those, there is no
4157 requirement to limit the use to personal and non-commercial.</p>
4158
4159       </div>
4160       <div class="tags">
4161
4162
4163         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
4164
4165
4166       </div>
4167     </div>
4168     <div class="padding"></div>
4169
4170     <div class="entry">
4171       <div class="title">
4172         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Bernd_Zeitzen.html">Debian Edu interview: Bernd Zeitzen</a>
4173       </div>
4174       <div class="date">
4175         31st July 2014
4176       </div>
4177       <div class="body">
4178         <p>The complete and free “out of the box” software solution for
4179 schools, <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4180 Skolelinux</a>, is used quite a lot in Germany, and one of the people
4181 involved is Bernd Zeitzen, who show up on the project mailing lists
4182 from time to time with interesting questions and tips on how to adjust
4183 the setup.  I managed to interview him this summer.</p>
4184
4185 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4186
4187 <p>My name is Bernd Zeitzen and I'm married with Hedda, a self
4188 employed physiotherapist.  My former profession is tool maker, but I
4189 haven't worked for 30 years in this job.  30 years ago I started to
4190 support my wife and become her officeworker and a few years later the
4191 administrator for a small computer network, today based on Ubuntu
4192 Server (Samba, OpenVPN). For her daily work she has to use Windows
4193 Desktops because the software she needs to organize her business only
4194 works with Windows . :-(</p>
4195
4196 <p>In 1988 we started with one PC and DOS, then I learned to use
4197 Windows 98, 2000, XP, …, 8, Ubuntu, MacOSX.  Today we are running a
4198 Linux server with 6 Windows clients and 10 persons (teacher of
4199 children with special needs, speech therapist, occupational therapist,
4200 psychologist and officeworkers) using our Samba shares via OpenVPN to
4201 work with the documentations of our patients.</p>
4202
4203 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
4204 project?</strong></p>
4205
4206 <p>Two years ago a friend of mine asked me, if I want to get a job in
4207 his school (<a href="http://www.gymnasium-harsewinkel.de/">Gymnasium
4208 Harsewinkel</a>).  They started with Skolelinux / Debian Edu and they
4209 were looking for people to give support to the teachers using the
4210 software and the network and teaching the pupils increasing their
4211 computer skills in optional lessons.  I'm spending 4-6 hours a week
4212 with this job.</p>
4213
4214 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
4215 Edu?</strong></p>
4216
4217 <p>The independence.</p>
4218
4219 <p>First: Every person is allowed to use, share and develop the
4220 software. Even if you are poor, you are allowed to use the software
4221 included in Skolelinux/Debian Edu and all the other Free Software.</p>
4222
4223 <p>Second: The software runs on old machines and this gives us the
4224 possibility to recycle computers, weeded out from offices.  The
4225 servers and desktops are running for more than two years and they are
4226 working reliable. </p>
4227
4228 <p>We have two servers (one tjener and one terminal server), 45
4229 workstations in three classrooms and seven laptops as a mobile
4230 solution for all classrooms.  These machines are all booting from the
4231 terminal server.  In the moment we are installing 30 laptops as mobile
4232 workstations.  Then the pupils have the possibility to work with these
4233 machines in their classrooms.  Internet access is realized by a WLAN
4234 router, connected to the schools network. This is all done without a
4235 dedicated system administrator or a computer science teacher.</p>
4236
4237 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
4238 Edu?</strong></p>
4239
4240 <p>Teachers and pupils are Windows users.  &lt;Irony on&gt; And Linux
4241 isn't cool. It's software for freaks using the command line. &lt;Irony
4242 off&gt; They don't realize the stability of the system. </p>
4243
4244 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4245
4246 <p>Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Ubuntu Server 12.04 (Samba,
4247 Apache, MySQL, Joomla!, … and Skolelinux / Debian Edu)</p>
4248
4249 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4250 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4251
4252 <p>In Germany we have the situation: every school is free to decide
4253 which software they want to use. This decision is influenced by
4254 teachers who learned to use Windows and MS Office. They buy a PC with
4255 Windows preinstalled and an additional testing version of MS
4256 Office. They don't know about the possibility to use Free Software
4257 instead.  Another problem are the publisher of school books.  They
4258 develop their software, added to the school books, for Windows.</p>
4259
4260       </div>
4261       <div class="tags">
4262
4263
4264         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
4265
4266
4267       </div>
4268     </div>
4269     <div class="padding"></div>
4270
4271     <div class="entry">
4272       <div class="title">
4273         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/98_6_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">98.6 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a>
4274       </div>
4275       <div class="date">
4276         23rd July 2014
4277       </div>
4278       <div class="body">
4279         <p>This summer I finally had time to continue working on the Norwegian
4280 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
4281 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
4282 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with todays copyright
4283 law.  Yesterday, I finally completed translated the book text.  There
4284 are still some foot/end notes left to translate, the colophon page
4285 need to be rewritten, and a few words and phrases still need to be
4286 translated, but the Norwegian text is ready for the first proof
4287 reading. :) More spell checking is needed, and several illustrations
4288 need to be cleaned up.  The work stopped up because I had to give
4289 priority to other projects the last year, and the progress graph of
4290 the translation show this very well:</p>
4291
4292 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
4293
4294 <p>If you want to read the result, check out the
4295 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
4296 project pages and the
4297 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>,
4298 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
4299 and HTML version available in the
4300 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/tree/master/archive">archive
4301 directory</a>.</p>
4302
4303 <p>Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if
4304 you find any.</p>
4305
4306       </div>
4307       <div class="tags">
4308
4309
4310         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
4311
4312
4313       </div>
4314     </div>
4315     <div class="padding"></div>
4316
4317     <div class="entry">
4318       <div class="title">
4319         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
4320       </div>
4321       <div class="date">
4322         17th June 2014
4323       </div>
4324       <div class="body">
4325         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4326 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
4327 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
4328 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
4329 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
4330
4331 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
4332 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
4333 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
4334 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
4335 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
4336 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
4337 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
4338 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
4339 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
4340 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
4341 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
4342 goals.</p>
4343
4344 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
4345 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
4346 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
4347 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
4348 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
4349 chapters together into one large web page (aka
4350 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
4351 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
4352 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
4353 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
4354 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
4355 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
4356 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
4357 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
4358 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
4359 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
4360 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
4361 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
4362 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
4363 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
4364 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
4365 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
4366 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
4367 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
4368
4369 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
4370 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
4371 track the English original.  For this we use the
4372 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
4373 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
4374 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
4375 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
4376 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
4377 files), which the translations update with the native language
4378 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
4379 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
4380 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
4381 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
4382 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
4383 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
4384 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
4385 of the documentation.</p>
4386
4387 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
4388 recommend using
4389 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
4390 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
4391 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
4392 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
4393 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
4394 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
4395 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
4396 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
4397
4398 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
4399 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
4400 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
4401 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
4402 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
4403 translated images by storing translated versions in
4404 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
4405 package maintainers know more.</p>
4406
4407 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
4408 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
4409 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
4410 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
4411 PDF version</a> or the
4412 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
4413 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
4414 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
4415
4416 <p>To learn more, check out
4417 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
4418 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
4419 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
4420 manual on the wiki</a> and
4421 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
4422 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
4423
4424       </div>
4425       <div class="tags">
4426
4427
4428         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4429
4430
4431       </div>
4432     </div>
4433     <div class="padding"></div>
4434
4435     <div class="entry">
4436       <div class="title">
4437         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_car_computer_solution_.html">Free software car computer solution?</a>
4438       </div>
4439       <div class="date">
4440         29th May 2014
4441       </div>
4442       <div class="body">
4443         <p>Dear lazyweb.  I'm planning to set up a small Raspberry Pi computer
4444 in my car, connected to
4445 <a href="http://www.dx.com/p/400a-4-0-tft-lcd-digital-monitor-for-vehicle-parking-reverse-camera-1440x272-12v-dc-57776">a
4446 small screen</a> next to the rear mirror.  I plan to hook it up with a
4447 GPS and a USB wifi card too.  The idea is to get my own
4448 "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carputer">Carputer</a>".  But I
4449 wonder if someone already created a good free software solution for
4450 such car computer.</p>
4451
4452 <p>This is my current wish list for such system:</p>
4453
4454 <ul>
4455
4456  <li>Work on Raspberry Pi.</li>
4457
4458  <li>Show current speed limit based on location, and warn if going too
4459    fast (for example using color codes yellow and red on the screen,
4460    or make a sound).  This could be done either using either data from
4461    <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">Openstreetmap</a> or OCR
4462    info gathered from a dashboard camera.</li>
4463
4464  <li>Track automatic toll road passes and their cost, show total spent
4465    and make it possible to calculate toll costs for planned
4466    route.</li>
4467
4468  <li>Collect GPX tracks for use with OpenStreetMap.</li>
4469
4470  <li>Automatically detect and use any wireless connection to connect
4471    to home server.  Try IP over DNS
4472    (<a href="http://dev.kryo.se/iodine/">iodine</a>) or ICMP
4473    (<a href="http://code.gerade.org/hans/">Hans</a>) if direct
4474    connection do not work.</li>
4475
4476  <li>Set up mesh network to talk to other cars with the same system,
4477    or some standard car mesh protocol.</li>
4478
4479  <li>Warn when approaching speed cameras and speed camera ranges
4480    (speed calculated between two cameras).</li>
4481
4482  <li>Suport dashboard/front facing camera to discover speed limits and
4483    run OCR to track registration number of passing cars.</li>
4484
4485 </ul>
4486
4487 <p>If you know of any free software car computer system supporting
4488 some or all of these features, please let me know.</p>
4489
4490       </div>
4491       <div class="tags">
4492
4493
4494         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4495
4496
4497       </div>
4498     </div>
4499     <div class="padding"></div>
4500
4501     <div class="entry">
4502       <div class="title">
4503         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_the_Coverity_issues_in_Gnash_fixed_in_the_next_release.html">Half the Coverity issues in Gnash fixed in the next release</a>
4504       </div>
4505       <div class="date">
4506         29th April 2014
4507       </div>
4508       <div class="body">
4509         <p>I've been following <a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">the Gnash
4510 project</a> for quite a while now.  It is a free software
4511 implementation of Adobe Flash, both a standalone player and a browser
4512 plugin.  Gnash implement support for the AVM1 format (and not the
4513 newer AVM2 format - see
4514 <a href="http://lightspark.github.io/">Lightspark</a> for that one),
4515 allowing several flash based sites to work.  Thanks to the friendly
4516 developers at Youtube, it also work with Youtube videos, because the
4517 Javascript code at Youtube detect Gnash and serve a AVM1 player to
4518 those users. :) Would be great if someone found time to implement AVM2
4519 support, but it has not happened yet.  If you install both Lightspark
4520 and Gnash, Lightspark will invoke Gnash if it find a AVM1 flash file,
4521 so you can get both handled as free software.  Unfortunately,
4522 Lightspark so far only implement a small subset of AVM2, and many
4523 sites do not work yet.</p>
4524
4525 <p>A few months ago, I started looking at
4526 <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/">Coverity</a>, the static source
4527 checker used to find heaps and heaps of bugs in free software (thanks
4528 to the donation of a scanning service to free software projects by the
4529 company developing this non-free code checker), and Gnash was one of
4530 the projects I decided to check out.  Coverity is able to find lock
4531 errors, memory errors, dead code and more.  A few days ago they even
4532 extended it to also be able to find the heartbleed bug in OpenSSL.
4533 There are heaps of checks being done on the instrumented code, and the
4534 amount of bogus warnings is quite low compared to the other static
4535 code checkers I have tested over the years.</p>
4536
4537 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I've been working with the other Gnash
4538 developers squashing bugs discovered by Coverity.  I was quite happy
4539 today when I checked the current status and saw that of the 777 issues
4540 detected so far, 374 are marked as fixed.  This make me confident that
4541 the next Gnash release will be more stable and more dependable than
4542 the previous one.  Most of the reported issues were and are in the
4543 test suite, but it also found a few in the rest of the code.</p>
4544
4545 <p>If you want to help out, you find us on
4546 <a href="https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash-dev">the
4547 gnash-dev mailing list</a> and on
4548 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#gnash">the #gnash channel on
4549 irc.freenode.net IRC server</a>.</p>
4550
4551       </div>
4552       <div class="tags">
4553
4554
4555         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
4556
4557
4558       </div>
4559     </div>
4560     <div class="padding"></div>
4561
4562     <div class="entry">
4563       <div class="title">
4564         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
4565       </div>
4566       <div class="date">
4567         23rd April 2014
4568       </div>
4569       <div class="body">
4570         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
4571 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
4572 So I implemented one, using
4573 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
4574 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
4575 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
4576 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
4577 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
4578 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
4579
4580 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
4581 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
4582 packages to install.  The first part is in
4583 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
4584 this:</p>
4585
4586 <p><blockquote><pre>
4587 Task: isenkram
4588 Section: hardware
4589 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
4590  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
4591  proposed.
4592 Test-new-install: mark show
4593 Relevance: 8
4594 Packages: for-current-hardware
4595 </pre></blockquote></p>
4596
4597 <p>The second part is in
4598 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
4599 this:</p>
4600
4601 <p><blockquote><pre>
4602 #!/bin/sh
4603 #
4604 (
4605     isenkram-lookup
4606     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
4607 ) | sort -u
4608 </pre></blockquote></p>
4609
4610 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
4611 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
4612 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
4613 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
4614 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
4615 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
4616
4617 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
4618 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
4619 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
4620 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
4621 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
4622 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
4623 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
4624 the python-apt code (bug
4625 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
4626 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
4627 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
4628 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
4629 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
4630 unstable today.</p>
4631
4632 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
4633 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
4634 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
4635 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
4636 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
4637 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
4638 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
4639 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
4640 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
4641
4642 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
4643 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
4644 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
4645 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
4646 package.  See also
4647 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
4648 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
4649 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
4650 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
4651
4652       </div>
4653       <div class="tags">
4654
4655
4656         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4657
4658
4659       </div>
4660     </div>
4661     <div class="padding"></div>
4662
4663     <div class="entry">
4664       <div class="title">
4665         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
4666       </div>
4667       <div class="date">
4668         15th April 2014
4669       </div>
4670       <div class="body">
4671         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
4672 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
4673 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
4674 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
4675 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
4676 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
4677
4678 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
4679 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
4680 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
4681 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
4682 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
4683 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
4684 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
4685
4686 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
4687 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
4688 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
4689 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
4690 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
4691 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
4692 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
4693 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
4694 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
4695 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
4696 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
4697 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
4698
4699 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
4700 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
4701 become root:</p>
4702
4703 <p><pre>
4704 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
4705   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
4706   u-boot-tools
4707 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
4708   freedom-maker
4709 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
4710 </pre></p>
4711
4712 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
4713 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
4714 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
4715 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
4716 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
4717 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
4718 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
4719 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
4720
4721 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
4722 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
4723 the preseed values:</p>
4724
4725 <p><pre>
4726 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
4727 </pre></p>
4728
4729 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
4730 it still work.</p>
4731
4732 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
4733 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
4734 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
4735 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
4736 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
4737 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
4738 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
4739
4740 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
4741 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
4742 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
4743 irc.debian.org)</a> and
4744 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4745 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
4746
4747       </div>
4748       <div class="tags">
4749
4750
4751         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
4752
4753
4754       </div>
4755     </div>
4756     <div class="padding"></div>
4757
4758     <div class="entry">
4759       <div class="title">
4760         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
4761       </div>
4762       <div class="date">
4763          9th April 2014
4764       </div>
4765       <div class="body">
4766         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
4767 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
4768 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
4769 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
4770 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
4771 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
4772 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
4773 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
4774 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
4775 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
4776 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
4777 have looked at a system called
4778 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
4779 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
4780
4781 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
4782 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
4783 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
4784 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
4785 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
4786 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
4787 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
4788 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
4789 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
4790 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
4791 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
4792 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
4793 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
4794
4795 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
4796 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
4797 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
4798 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
4799 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
4800 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
4801 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
4802 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
4803 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
4804 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
4805 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
4806 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
4807 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
4808 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
4809 account.</p>
4810
4811 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
4812 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
4813 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
4814 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
4815 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
4816 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
4817 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
4818
4819 <p><blockquote><pre>
4820 [s3c]
4821 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
4822 backend-login: API-login
4823 backend-password: API-password
4824 fs-passphrase: local-password
4825 </pre></blockquote></p>
4826
4827 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
4828 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
4829 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
4830 details and password to create it:</p>
4831
4832 <p><blockquote><pre>
4833 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
4834 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4835   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
4836 Enter backend login:
4837 Enter backend password:
4838 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
4839 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
4840 Enter encryption password:
4841 Confirm encryption password:
4842 Generating random encryption key...
4843 Creating metadata tables...
4844 Dumping metadata...
4845 ..objects..
4846 ..blocks..
4847 ..inodes..
4848 ..inode_blocks..
4849 ..symlink_targets..
4850 ..names..
4851 ..contents..
4852 ..ext_attributes..
4853 Compressing and uploading metadata...
4854 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
4855 # </pre></blockquote></p>
4856
4857 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
4858
4859 <p><blockquote><pre>
4860 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4861   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
4862 Using 4 upload threads.
4863 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
4864 Reading metadata...
4865 ..objects..
4866 ..blocks..
4867 ..inodes..
4868 ..inode_blocks..
4869 ..symlink_targets..
4870 ..names..
4871 ..contents..
4872 ..ext_attributes..
4873 Mounting filesystem...
4874 # df -h /s3ql
4875 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
4876 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
4877 #
4878 </pre></blockquote></p>
4879
4880 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
4881 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
4882 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
4883 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
4884 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
4885 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
4886
4887 <p><blockquote><pre>
4888 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
4889 #
4890 </pre></blockquote></p>
4891
4892 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
4893 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
4894 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
4895 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
4896 file system:</p>
4897
4898 <p><blockquote><pre>
4899 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
4900 Using cached metadata.
4901 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
4902 Checking DB integrity...
4903 Creating temporary extra indices...
4904 Checking lost+found...
4905 Checking cached objects...
4906 Checking names (refcounts)...
4907 Checking contents (names)...
4908 Checking contents (inodes)...
4909 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
4910 Checking objects (reference counts)...
4911 Checking objects (backend)...
4912 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
4913 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
4914 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
4915 Checking objects (sizes)...
4916 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
4917 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
4918 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
4919 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
4920 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
4921 Checking inodes (sizes)...
4922 Checking extended attributes (names)...
4923 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
4924 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
4925 Checking directory reachability...
4926 Checking unix conventions...
4927 Checking referential integrity...
4928 Dropping temporary indices...
4929 Backing up old metadata...
4930 Dumping metadata...
4931 ..objects..
4932 ..blocks..
4933 ..inodes..
4934 ..inode_blocks..
4935 ..symlink_targets..
4936 ..names..
4937 ..contents..
4938 ..ext_attributes..
4939 Compressing and uploading metadata...
4940 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
4941 #
4942 </pre></blockquote></p>
4943
4944 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
4945 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
4946 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
4947 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
4948 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
4949 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
4950 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
4951 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
4952 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
4953 working set.</p>
4954
4955 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
4956 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
4957 busy:</p>
4958
4959 <p><blockquote><pre>
4960 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4961   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
4962 Using 8 upload threads.
4963 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
4964 #
4965 </pre></blockquote></p>
4966
4967 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
4968 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
4969 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
4970 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
4971 s3qlctrl:
4972
4973 <p><blockquote><pre>
4974 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
4975 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
4976 #
4977 </pre></blockquote></p>
4978
4979 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
4980 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
4981 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
4982 a report:</p>
4983
4984 <p><blockquote><pre>
4985 # s3qlstat /s3ql
4986 Directory entries:    9141
4987 Inodes:               9143
4988 Data blocks:          8851
4989 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
4990 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
4991 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
4992 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
4993 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
4994 #
4995 </pre></blockquote></p>
4996
4997 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
4998 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
4999 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
5000 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
5001 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
5002 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
5003 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
5004 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
5005 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
5006 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
5007 best.</p>
5008
5009 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
5010 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
5011 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
5012 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
5013 poster is titled
5014 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
5015 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
5016 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
5017 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
5018 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
5019
5020 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
5021 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
5022 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
5023 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
5024 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
5025 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
5026 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
5027 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
5028
5029 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
5030 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
5031 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
5032 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
5033 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
5034 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
5035 only read from it.</p>
5036
5037 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5038 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5039 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5040
5041       </div>
5042       <div class="tags">
5043
5044
5045         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
5046
5047
5048       </div>
5049     </div>
5050     <div class="padding"></div>
5051
5052     <div class="entry">
5053       <div class="title">
5054         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ReactOS_Windows_clone___nice_free_software.html">ReactOS Windows clone - nice free software</a>
5055       </div>
5056       <div class="date">
5057          1st April 2014
5058       </div>
5059       <div class="body">
5060         <p>Microsoft have announced that Windows XP reaches its end of life
5061 2014-04-08, in 7 days.  But there are heaps of machines still running
5062 Windows XP, and depending on Windows XP to run their applications, and
5063 upgrading will be expensive, both when it comes to money and when it
5064 comes to the amount of effort needed to migrate from Windows XP to a
5065 new operating system.  Some obvious options (buy new a Windows
5066 machine, buy a MacOSX machine, install Linux on the existing machine)
5067 are already well known and covered elsewhere.  Most of them involve
5068 leaving the user applications installed on Windows XP behind and
5069 trying out replacements or updated versions. In this blog post I want
5070 to mention one strange bird that allow people to keep the hardware and
5071 the existing Windows XP applications and run them on a free software
5072 operating system that is Windows XP compatible.</p>
5073
5074 <p><a href="http://www.reactos.org/">ReactOS</a> is a free software
5075 operating system (GNU GPL licensed) working on providing a operating
5076 system that is binary compatible with Windows, able to run windows
5077 programs directly and to use Windows drivers for hardware directly.
5078 The project goal is for Windows user to keep their existing machines,
5079 drivers and software, and gain the advantages from user a operating
5080 system without usage limitations caused by non-free licensing.  It is
5081 a Windows clone running directly on the hardware, so quite different
5082 from the approach taken by <a href="http://www.winehq.org/">the Wine
5083 project</a>, which make it possible to run Windows binaries on
5084 Linux.</p>
5085
5086 <p>The ReactOS project share code with the Wine project, so most
5087 shared libraries available on Windows are already implemented already.
5088 There is also a software manager like the one we are used to on Linux,
5089 allowing the user to install free software applications with a simple
5090 click directly from the Internet.  Check out the
5091 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/screenshots">screen shots on the
5092 project web site</a> for an idea what it look like (it looks just like
5093 Windows before metro).</p>
5094
5095 <p>I do not use ReactOS myself, preferring Linux and Unix like
5096 operating systems.  I've tested it, and it work fine in a virt-manager
5097 virtual machine.  The browser, minesweeper, notepad etc is working
5098 fine as far as I can tell.  Unfortunately, my main test application
5099 is the software included on a CD with the Lego Mindstorms NXT, which
5100 seem to install just fine from CD but fail to leave any binaries on
5101 the disk after the installation.  So no luck with that test software.
5102 No idea why, but hope someone else figure out and fix the problem.
5103 I've tried the ReactOS Live ISO on a physical machine, and it seemed
5104 to work just fine.  If you like Windows and want to keep running your
5105 old Windows binaries, check it out by
5106 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/download">downloading</a> the
5107 installation CD, the live CD or the preinstalled virtual machine
5108 image.</p>
5109
5110       </div>
5111       <div class="tags">
5112
5113
5114         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos</a>.
5115
5116
5117       </div>
5118     </div>
5119     <div class="padding"></div>
5120
5121     <div class="entry">
5122       <div class="title">
5123         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html">Debian Edu interview: Roger Marsal</a>
5124       </div>
5125       <div class="date">
5126         30th March 2014
5127       </div>
5128       <div class="body">
5129         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
5130 keep gaining new users.  Some weeks ago, a person showed up on IRC,
5131 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>, with a
5132 wish to contribute, and I managed to get a interview with this great
5133 contributor Roger Marsal to learn more about his background.</p>
5134
5135 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5136
5137 <p>My name is Roger Marsal, I'm 27 years old (1986 generation) and I
5138 live in Barcelona, Spain. I've got a strong business background and I
5139 work as a patrimony manager and as a real estate agent.  Additionally,
5140 I've co-founded a British based tech company that is nowadays on the
5141 last development phase of a new social networking concept.</p>
5142
5143 <p>I'm a Linux enthusiast that started its journey with Ubuntu four years
5144 ago and have recently switched to Debian seeking rock solid stability
5145 and as a necessary step to gain expertise.</p>
5146
5147 <p>In a nutshell, I spend my days working and learning as much as I
5148 can to face both my job, entrepreneur project and feed my Linux
5149 hunger.</p>
5150
5151 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
5152 project?</strong></p>
5153
5154 <p>I discovered the <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP</a> advantages
5155 with "Ubuntu 12.04 alternate install" and after a year of use I
5156 started looking for an alternative.  Even though I highly value and
5157 respect the Ubuntu project, I thought it was necessary for me to
5158 change to a more robust and stable alternative.  As far as I was using
5159 Debian on my personal laptop I thought it would be fine to install
5160 Debian and configure an LTSP server myself.  Surprised, I discovered
5161 that the Debian project also supported a kind of Edubuntu equivalent,
5162 and after having some pain I obtained a Debian Edu network up and
5163 running.  I just loved it.</p>
5164
5165 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5166 Edu?</strong></p>
5167
5168 <p>I found a main advantage in that, once you know "the tips and
5169 tricks", a new installation just works out of the box. It's the most
5170 complete alternative I've found to create an LTSP network. All the
5171 other distributions seems to be made of plastic, Debian Edu seems to
5172 be made of steel.</p>
5173
5174 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5175 Edu?</strong></p>
5176
5177 <p>I found two main disadvantages.</p>
5178
5179 <p>I'm not an expert but I've got notions and I had to spent a considerable
5180 amount of time trying to bring up a standard network topology. I'm quite
5181 stubborn and I just worked until I did but I'm sure many people with few
5182 resources (not big schools, but academies for example) would have switched
5183 or dropped.</p>
5184
5185 <p>It's amazing how such a complex system like Debian Edu has achieved
5186 this out-of-the-box state. Even though tweaking without breaking gets
5187 more difficult, as more factors have to be considered. This can
5188 discourage many people too.</p>
5189
5190 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5191
5192 <p>I use Debian, Firefox, Okular, Inkscape, LibreOffice and
5193 Virtualbox.</p>
5194
5195
5196 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5197 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5198
5199 <p>I don't think there is a need for a particular strategy. The free
5200 attribute in both "freedom" and "no price" meanings is what will
5201 really bring free software to schools. In my experience I can think of
5202 the <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">"R" statistical language</a>; a
5203 few years a ago was an extremely nerd tool for university people.
5204 Today it's being increasingly used to teach statistics at many
5205 different level of studies.  I believe free and open software will
5206 increasingly gain popularity, but I'm sure schools will be one of the
5207 first scenarios where this will happen.</p>
5208
5209       </div>
5210       <div class="tags">
5211
5212
5213         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
5214
5215
5216       </div>
5217     </div>
5218     <div class="padding"></div>
5219
5220     <div class="entry">
5221       <div class="title">
5222         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Public_Trusted_Timestamping_services_for_everyone.html">Public Trusted Timestamping services for everyone</a>
5223       </div>
5224       <div class="date">
5225         25th March 2014
5226       </div>
5227       <div class="body">
5228         <p>Did you ever need to store logs or other files in a way that would
5229 allow it to be used as evidence in court, and needed a way to
5230 demonstrate without reasonable doubt that the file had not been
5231 changed since it was created?  Or, did you ever need to document that
5232 a given document was received at some point in time, like some
5233 archived document or the answer to an exam, and not changed after it
5234 was received?  The problem in these settings is to remove the need to
5235 trust yourself and your computers, while still being able to prove
5236 that a file is the same as it was at some given time in the past.</p>
5237
5238 <p>A solution to these problems is to have a trusted third party
5239 "stamp" the document and verify that at some given time the document
5240 looked a given way.  Such
5241 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notarius">notarius</a> service
5242 have been around for thousands of years, and its digital equivalent is
5243 called a
5244 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping">trusted
5245 timestamping service</a>.  <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">The Internet
5246 Engineering Task Force</a> standardised how such service could work a
5247 few years ago as <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3161">RFC
5248 3161</a>.  The mechanism is simple.  Create a hash of the file in
5249 question, send it to a trusted third party which add a time stamp to
5250 the hash and sign the result with its private key, and send back the
5251 signed hash + timestamp.  Both email, FTP and HTTP can be used to
5252 request such signature, depending on what is provided by the service
5253 used. Anyone with the document and the signature can then verify that
5254 the document matches the signature by creating their own hash and
5255 checking the signature using the trusted third party public key.
5256 There are several commercial services around providing such
5257 timestamping.  A quick search for
5258 "<a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rfc+3161+service">rfc 3161
5259 service</a>" pointed me to at least
5260 <a href="https://www.digistamp.com/technical/how-a-digital-time-stamp-works/">DigiStamp</a>,
5261 <a href="http://www.quovadisglobal.co.uk/CertificateServices/SigningServices/TimeStamp.aspx">Quo
5262 Vadis</a>,
5263 <a href="https://www.globalsign.com/timestamp-service/">Global Sign</a>
5264 and <a href="http://www.globaltrustfinder.com/TSADefault.aspx">Global
5265 Trust Finder</a>.  The system work as long as the private key of the
5266 trusted third party is not compromised.</p>
5267
5268 <p>But as far as I can tell, there are very few public trusted
5269 timestamp services available for everyone.  I've been looking for one
5270 for a while now. But yesterday I found one over at
5271 <a href="https://www.pki.dfn.de/zeitstempeldienst/">Deutches
5272 Forschungsnetz</a> mentioned in
5273 <a href="http://www.d-mueller.de/blog/dealing-with-trusted-timestamps-in-php-rfc-3161/">a
5274 blog by David Müller</a>.  I then found
5275 <a href="http://www.rz.uni-greifswald.de/support/dfn-pki-zertifikate/zeitstempeldienst.html">a
5276 good recipe on how to use the service</a> over at the University of
5277 Greifswald.</p>
5278
5279 <p><a href="http://www.openssl.org/">The OpenSSL library</a> contain
5280 both server and tools to use and set up your own signing service.  See
5281 the ts(1SSL), tsget(1SSL) manual pages for more details.  The
5282 following shell script demonstrate how to extract a signed timestamp
5283 for any file on the disk in a Debian environment:</p>
5284
5285 <p><blockquote><pre>
5286 #!/bin/sh
5287 set -e
5288 url="http://zeitstempel.dfn.de"
5289 caurl="https://pki.pca.dfn.de/global-services-ca/pub/cacert/chain.txt"
5290 reqfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsq)
5291 resfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsr)
5292 cafile=chain.txt
5293 if [ ! -f $cafile ] ; then
5294     wget -O $cafile "$caurl"
5295 fi
5296 openssl ts -query -data "$1" -cert | tee "$reqfile" \
5297     | /usr/lib/ssl/misc/tsget -h "$url" -o "$resfile"
5298 openssl ts -reply -in "$resfile" -text 1>&2
5299 openssl ts -verify -data "$1" -in "$resfile" -CAfile "$cafile" 1>&2
5300 base64 < "$resfile"
5301 rm "$reqfile" "$resfile"
5302 </pre></blockquote></p>
5303
5304 <p>The argument to the script is the file to timestamp, and the output
5305 is a base64 encoded version of the signature to STDOUT and details
5306 about the signature to STDERR.  Note that due to
5307 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=742553">a bug
5308 in the tsget script</a>, you might need to modify the included script
5309 and remove the last line.  Or just write your own HTTP uploader using
5310 curl. :) Now you too can prove and verify that files have not been
5311 changed.</p>
5312
5313 <p>But the Internet need more public trusted timestamp services.
5314 Perhaps something for <a href="http://www.uninett.no/">Uninett</a> or
5315 my work place the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
5316 to set up?</p>
5317
5318       </div>
5319       <div class="tags">
5320
5321
5322         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
5323
5324
5325       </div>
5326     </div>
5327     <div class="padding"></div>
5328
5329     <div class="entry">
5330       <div class="title">
5331         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Video_DVD_reader_library___python_dvdvideo___nice_free_software.html">Video DVD reader library / python-dvdvideo - nice free software</a>
5332       </div>
5333       <div class="date">
5334         21st March 2014
5335       </div>
5336       <div class="body">
5337         <p>Keeping your DVD collection safe from scratches and curious
5338 children fingers while still having it available when you want to see a
5339 movie is not straight forward.  My preferred method at the moment is
5340 to store a full copy of the ISO on a hard drive, and use VLC, Popcorn
5341 Hour or other useful players to view the resulting file.  This way the
5342 subtitles and bonus material are still available and using the ISO is
5343 just like inserting the original DVD record in the DVD player.</p>
5344
5345 <p>Earlier I used dd for taking security copies, but it do not handle
5346 DVDs giving read errors (which are quite a few of them).  I've also
5347 tried using
5348 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">dvdbackup
5349 and genisoimage</a>, but these days I use the marvellous python library
5350 and program
5351 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">python-dvdvideo</a>
5352 written by Bastian Blank.  It is
5353 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/python-dvdvideo.html">in Debian
5354 already</a> and the binary package name is python3-dvdvideo. Instead
5355 of trying to read every block from the DVD, it parses the file
5356 structure and figure out which block on the DVD is actually in used,
5357 and only read those blocks from the DVD.  This work surprisingly well,
5358 and I have been able to almost backup my entire DVD collection using
5359 this method.</p>
5360
5361 <p>So far, python-dvdvideo have failed on between 10 and
5362 20 DVDs, which is a small fraction of my collection.  The most common
5363 problem is
5364 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720831">DVDs
5365 using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8 characters</a>, which according to
5366 Bastian is against the DVD specification (and seem to cause some
5367 players to fail too).  A rarer problem is what seem to be inconsistent
5368 DVD structures, as the python library
5369 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=723079">claim
5370 there is a overlap between objects</a>.  An equally rare problem claim
5371 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=741878">some
5372 value is out of range</a>.  No idea what is going on there.  I wish I
5373 knew enough about the DVD format to fix these, to ensure my movie
5374 collection will stay with me in the future.</p>
5375
5376 <p>So, if you need to keep your DVDs safe, back them up using
5377 python-dvdvideo. :)</p>
5378
5379       </div>
5380       <div class="tags">
5381
5382
5383         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5384
5385
5386       </div>
5387     </div>
5388     <div class="padding"></div>
5389
5390     <div class="entry">
5391       <div class="title">
5392         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
5393       </div>
5394       <div class="date">
5395         14th March 2014
5396       </div>
5397       <div class="body">
5398         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
5399 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
5400 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
5401 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
5402 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
5403 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
5404 release (0.2).</p>
5405
5406 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
5407 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
5408 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
5409 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
5410 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
5411 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
5412 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
5413 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
5414 and build using
5415 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
5416 with a user with sudo access to become root:
5417
5418 <pre>
5419 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
5420   freedom-maker
5421 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
5422   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
5423   u-boot-tools
5424 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
5425 </pre>
5426
5427 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
5428 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
5429 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
5430 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
5431 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
5432 kpartx call.</p>
5433
5434 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
5435 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
5436 the preseed values:</p>
5437
5438 <pre>
5439 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
5440 </pre>
5441
5442 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
5443 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
5444 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
5445 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
5446 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
5447 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
5448
5449 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
5450 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
5451 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
5452 irc.debian.org)</a> and
5453 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
5454 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
5455
5456       </div>
5457       <div class="tags">
5458
5459
5460         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
5461
5462
5463       </div>
5464     </div>
5465     <div class="padding"></div>
5466
5467     <div class="entry">
5468       <div class="title">
5469         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_add_extra_storage_servers_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">How to add extra storage servers in Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
5470       </div>
5471       <div class="date">
5472         12th March 2014
5473       </div>
5474       <div class="body">
5475         <p>On larger sites, it is useful to use a dedicated storage server for
5476 storing user home directories and data.  The design for handling this
5477 in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, is
5478 to update the automount rules in LDAP and let the automount daemon on
5479 the clients take care of the rest.  I was reminded about the need to
5480 document this better when one of the customers of
5481 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a>, where I am
5482 on the board of directors, asked about how to do this.  The steps to
5483 get this working are the following:</p>
5484
5485 <p><ol>
5486
5487 <li>Add new storage server in DNS.  I use nas-server.intern as the
5488 example host here.</li>
5489
5490 <li>Add automoun LDAP information about this server in LDAP, to allow
5491 all clients to automatically mount it on reqeust.</li>
5492
5493 <li>Add the relevant entries in tjener.intern:/etc/fstab, because
5494 tjener.intern do not use automount to avoid mounting loops.</li>
5495
5496 </ol></p>
5497
5498 <p>DNS entries are added in GOsa², and not described here.  Follow the
5499 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/GettingStarted">instructions
5500 in the manual</a> (Machine Management with GOsa² in section Getting
5501 started).</p>
5502
5503 <p>Ensure that the NFS export points on the server are exported to the
5504 relevant subnets or machines:</p>
5505
5506 <p><blockquote><pre>
5507 root@tjener:~# showmount -e nas-server
5508 Export list for nas-server:
5509 /storage         10.0.0.0/8
5510 root@tjener:~#
5511 </pre></blockquote></p>
5512
5513 <p>Here everything on the backbone network is granted access to the
5514 /storage export.  With NFSv3 it is slightly better to limit it to
5515 netgroup membership or single IP addresses to have some limits on the
5516 NFS access.</p>
5517
5518 <p>The next step is to update LDAP.  This can not be done using GOsa²,
5519 because it lack a module for automount.  Instead, use ldapvi and add
5520 the required LDAP objects using an editor.</p>
5521
5522 <p><blockquote><pre>
5523 ldapvi --ldap-conf -ZD '(cn=admin)' -b ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5524 </pre></blockquote></p>
5525
5526 <p>When the editor show up, add the following LDAP objects at the
5527 bottom of the document.  The "/&" part in the last LDAP object is a
5528 wild card matching everything the nas-server exports, removing the
5529 need to list individual mount points in LDAP.</p>
5530
5531 <p><blockquote><pre>
5532 add cn=nas-server,ou=auto.skole,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5533 objectClass: automount
5534 cn: nas-server
5535 automountInformation: -fstype=autofs --timeout=60 ldap:ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5536
5537 add ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5538 objectClass: top
5539 objectClass: automountMap
5540 ou: auto.nas-server
5541
5542 add cn=/,ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5543 objectClass: automount
5544 cn: /
5545 automountInformation: -fstype=nfs,tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,intr,hard,nodev,nosuid,noatime nas-server.intern:/&
5546 </pre></blockquote></p>
5547
5548 <p>The last step to remember is to mount the relevant mount points in
5549 tjener.intern by adding them to /etc/fstab, creating the mount
5550 directories using mkdir and running "mount -a" to mount them.</p>
5551
5552 <p>When this is done, your users should be able to access the files on
5553 the storage server directly by just visiting the
5554 /tjener/nas-server/storage/ directory using any application on any
5555 workstation, LTSP client or LTSP server.</p>
5556
5557       </div>
5558       <div class="tags">
5559
5560
5561         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>.
5562
5563
5564       </div>
5565     </div>
5566     <div class="padding"></div>
5567
5568     <div class="entry">
5569       <div class="title">
5570         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
5571       </div>
5572       <div class="date">
5573         22nd February 2014
5574       </div>
5575       <div class="body">
5576         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
5577 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
5578 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
5579 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
5580 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
5581 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
5582 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
5583 proper home since then.</p>
5584
5585 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
5586 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
5587 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
5588 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
5589 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
5590
5591 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
5592 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
5593 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
5594 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
5595 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
5596 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
5597 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
5598 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
5599 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
5600
5601       </div>
5602       <div class="tags">
5603
5604
5605         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5606
5607
5608       </div>
5609     </div>
5610     <div class="padding"></div>
5611
5612     <div class="entry">
5613       <div class="title">
5614         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
5615       </div>
5616       <div class="date">
5617          3rd February 2014
5618       </div>
5619       <div class="body">
5620         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
5621 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
5622 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
5623 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
5624 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
5625 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
5626 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
5627 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
5628 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
5629
5630 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
5631 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
5632 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
5633 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
5634 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
5635 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
5636
5637 <p><blockquote><pre>
5638 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
5639 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
5640 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
5641 dhclient /dev/eth0
5642 </pre></blockquote></p>
5643
5644 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
5645 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
5646 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
5647
5648 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
5649 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
5650 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
5651 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
5652 side.</p>
5653
5654 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
5655 stuff:</p>
5656
5657 <p><blockquote><pre>
5658 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
5659 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
5660 EOF
5661 apt-get update
5662 apt-get dist-upgrade
5663 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
5664     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
5665 update-alternatives --config runsystem
5666 </pre></blockquote></p>
5667
5668 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
5669 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
5670 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
5671 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
5672 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
5673 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
5674 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
5675 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
5676 ssh instead.
5677
5678 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
5679 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
5680 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
5681 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
5682 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
5683 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
5684
5685 <p><blockquote><pre>
5686 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
5687 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
5688 EOF
5689 </pre></blockquote></p>
5690
5691 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
5692 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
5693 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
5694 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
5695
5696 <p><blockquote><pre>
5697 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
5698 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
5699 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
5700 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
5701 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
5702 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
5703 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
5704 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
5705 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
5706 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
5707 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
5708 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
5709 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
5710 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
5711 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
5712 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
5713 #
5714 </pre></blockquote></p>
5715
5716 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
5717 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
5718 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
5719 command line stuff.<p>
5720
5721       </div>
5722       <div class="tags">
5723
5724
5725         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5726
5727
5728       </div>
5729     </div>
5730     <div class="padding"></div>
5731
5732     <div class="entry">
5733       <div class="title">
5734         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_fist_full_of_non_anonymous_Bitcoins.html">A fist full of non-anonymous Bitcoins</a>
5735       </div>
5736       <div class="date">
5737         29th January 2014
5738       </div>
5739       <div class="body">
5740         <p>Bitcoin is a incredible use of peer to peer communication and
5741 encryption, allowing direct and immediate money transfer without any
5742 central control.  It is sometimes claimed to be ideal for illegal
5743 activity, which I believe is quite a long way from the truth.  At least
5744 I would not conduct illegal money transfers using a system where the
5745 details of every transaction are kept forever.  This point is
5746 investigated in
5747 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">USENIX ;login:</a>
5748 from December 2013, in the article
5749 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/03_meiklejohn-online.pdf">A
5750 Fistful of Bitcoins - Characterizing Payments Among Men with No
5751 Names</a>" by Sarah Meiklejohn, Marjori Pomarole,Grant Jordan, Kirill
5752 Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker, and Stefan Savage.  They
5753 analyse the transaction log in the Bitcoin system, using it to find
5754 addresses belong to individuals and organisations and follow the flow
5755 of money from both Bitcoin theft and trades on Silk Road to where the
5756 money end up.  This is how they wrap up their article:</p>
5757
5758 <p><blockquote>
5759 <p>"To demonstrate the usefulness of this type of analysis, we turned
5760 our attention to criminal activity. In the Bitcoin economy, criminal
5761 activity can appear in a number of forms, such as dealing drugs on
5762 Silk Road or simply stealing someone else’s bitcoins. We followed the
5763 flow of bitcoins out of Silk Road (in particular, from one notorious
5764 address) and from a number of highly publicized thefts to see whether
5765 we could track the bitcoins to known services. Although some of the
5766 thieves attempted to use sophisticated mixing techniques (or possibly
5767 mix services) to obscure the flow of bitcoins, for the most part
5768 tracking the bitcoins was quite straightforward, and we ultimately saw
5769 large quantities of bitcoins flow to a variety of exchanges directly
5770 from the point of theft (or the withdrawal from Silk Road).</p>
5771
5772 <p>As acknowledged above, following stolen bitcoins to the point at
5773 which they are deposited into an exchange does not in itself identify
5774 the thief; however, it does enable further de-anonymization in the
5775 case in which certain agencies can determine (through, for example,
5776 subpoena power) the real-world owner of the account into which the
5777 stolen bitcoins were deposited.  Because such exchanges seem to serve
5778 as chokepoints into and out of the Bitcoin economy (i.e., there are
5779 few alternative ways to cash out), we conclude that using Bitcoin for
5780 money laundering or other illicit purposes does not (at least at
5781 present) seem to be particularly attractive."</p>
5782 </blockquote><p>
5783
5784 <p>These researches are not the first to analyse the Bitcoin
5785 transaction log.  The 2011 paper
5786 "<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4524">An Analysis of Anonymity in
5787 the Bitcoin System</A>" by Fergal Reid and Martin Harrigan is
5788 summarized like this:</p>
5789
5790 <p><blockquote>
5791 "Anonymity in Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic currency system, is a
5792 complicated issue. Within the system, users are identified by
5793 public-keys only. An attacker wishing to de-anonymize its users will
5794 attempt to construct the one-to-many mapping between users and
5795 public-keys and associate information external to the system with the
5796 users. Bitcoin tries to prevent this attack by storing the mapping of
5797 a user to his or her public-keys on that user's node only and by
5798 allowing each user to generate as many public-keys as required. In
5799 this chapter we consider the topological structure of two networks
5800 derived from Bitcoin's public transaction history. We show that the
5801 two networks have a non-trivial topological structure, provide
5802 complementary views of the Bitcoin system and have implications for
5803 anonymity. We combine these structures with external information and
5804 techniques such as context discovery and flow analysis to investigate
5805 an alleged theft of Bitcoins, which, at the time of the theft, had a
5806 market value of approximately half a million U.S. dollars."
5807 </blockquote></p>
5808
5809 <p>I hope these references can help kill the urban myth that Bitcoin
5810 is anonymous.  It isn't really a good fit for illegal activites.  Use
5811 cash if you need to stay anonymous, at least until regular DNA
5812 sampling of notes and coins become the norm. :)</p>
5813
5814 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5815 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5816 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5817
5818       </div>
5819       <div class="tags">
5820
5821
5822         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix</a>.
5823
5824
5825       </div>
5826     </div>
5827     <div class="padding"></div>
5828
5829     <div class="entry">
5830       <div class="title">
5831         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
5832       </div>
5833       <div class="date">
5834         14th January 2014
5835       </div>
5836       <div class="body">
5837         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
5838 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
5839 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
5840 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
5841 the source.  The company behind it provide
5842 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
5843 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
5844 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
5845 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
5846 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
5847 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
5848 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
5849 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
5850 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
5851 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
5852 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
5853 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
5854 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
5855 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
5856 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
5857 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
5858 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
5859 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
5860 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
5861
5862 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
5863
5864 <ul>
5865
5866   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
5867   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
5868   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
5869
5870 </ul>
5871
5872 <p>You can
5873 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
5874 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
5875 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
5876 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
5877 include a test suite check.</p>
5878
5879       </div>
5880       <div class="tags">
5881
5882
5883         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5884
5885
5886       </div>
5887     </div>
5888     <div class="padding"></div>
5889
5890     <div class="entry">
5891       <div class="title">
5892         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html">Debian Edu interview: Dominik George</a>
5893       </div>
5894       <div class="date">
5895         25th December 2013
5896       </div>
5897       <div class="body">
5898         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5899 project</a> consist of both newcomers and old timers, and this time I
5900 was able to get an interview with a newcomer in the project who showed
5901 up on the IRC channel a few weeks ago to let us know about his
5902 successful installation of Debian Edu Wheezy in his School.  Say hello
5903 to <a href="https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/Natureshadow">Dominik
5904 George</a>.</p>
5905
5906 <!-- http://www.dominik-george.de/images/foto.jpg -->
5907
5908 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5909
5910 <p>I am a 23 year-old student from Germany who has spent half of his
5911 life with open source. In "real life", I am, as already mentioned, a
5912 student in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
5913 Information Technologies and Anglistics. Due to my (only partially
5914 voluntary) huge engagement in the open source world, these things are
5915 a bit vacant right now however.</p>
5916
5917 <p>I also have been working as a project teacher at a Gymasnium
5918 (public school) for various years now. I took up that work some time
5919 around 2005 when still attending that school myself and have continued
5920 it until today. I also had been running the (kind of very advanced)
5921 network of that school together with a team of very interested and
5922 talented students in the age of 11 to 15 years, who took the chance to
5923 learn a lot about open source and networking before I left the school
5924 to help building another school's informational education concept from
5925 scratch.</p>
5926
5927 <p>That said, one might see me as a kind of "glue" between school kids
5928 and the elderly of teachers as well as between the open source
5929 ecosystem and the (even more complex) educational ecosystem.</p>
5930
5931 <p>When I am not busy with open source or education, I like Geocaching
5932 and cycling.</p>
5933
5934 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
5935 project?</strong></p>
5936
5937 <p>I think that happened some time around 2009 when I first attended
5938 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">FrOSCon</a> and visited the project
5939 booth. I think I wasn't too interested back then because I used to
5940 have an attitude of disliking software that does too much stuff on its
5941 own. Maybe I was too inexperienced to realise the upsides of an
5942 "out-of-the-box" solution ;).</p>
5943
5944 <p>The first time I actively talked to Skolelinux people was at
5945 <a href="http://www.openrheinruhr.de">OpenRheinRuhr</a> 2011 when the
5946 BiscuIT project, a home-grewn software used by my school for various
5947 really cool things from timetables and class contact lists to lunch
5948 ordering, student ID card printing and project elections first got to
5949 a stage where it could have been published. I asked the Skolelinux
5950 guys running the booth if the project were interested in it and gave a
5951 small demonstration, but there wasn't any real feedback and the guys
5952 seemed rather uninterested.</p>
5953
5954 <p>After I left the school where I developed the software, it got
5955 mostly lost, but I am now reimplementing it for my new school. I have
5956 reusability and compatibility in mind, and I hop there will be a new
5957 basis for contributing it to the Skolelinux project ;)!</p>
5958
5959 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5960 Edu?</strong></p>
5961
5962 <p>The most important advantage seems to be that it "just
5963 works". After overcoming some minor (but still very annoying) glitches
5964 in the installer, I got a fully functional, working school network,
5965 without the month-long hassle I experienced when setting all that up
5966 from scratch in earlier years. And above that, it rocked - I didn't
5967 have any real hardware at hand, because the school was just founded
5968 and has no money whatsoever, so I installed a combined server (main
5969 server, terminal services and workstation) in a VM on my personal
5970 notebook, bridging the LTSP network interface to the ethernet port,
5971 and then PXE-booted the Windows notebooks that were lying around from
5972 it. I could use 8 clients without any performance issues, by using a
5973 tiny little VM on a tiny little notebook. I think that's enough to say
5974 that it rocks!</p>
5975
5976 <p>Secondly, there are marketing reasons. Life's bad, and so no
5977 politician will ever permit a setup described as "Debian, an universal
5978 operating system, with some really cool educational tools" while they
5979 will be jsut fine with "Skolelinux, a single-purpose solution for your
5980 school network", even if both turn out to be the very same thing (yes,
5981 this is unfair towards the Skolelinux project, and must not be taken
5982 too seriously - you get the idea, anyway).</p>
5983
5984 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5985 Edu?</strong></p>
5986
5987 <p>I have not been involved with Skolelinux long enough to really
5988 answer this question in a fair way. Thus, please allow me to put it in
5989 other words: "What do you expect from Skolelinux to keep liking it?" I
5990 can list a few points about that:</p>
5991
5992 <ul>
5993
5994  <li>always strive to get all things integrated into Debian upstream
5995  <li>be open to discussion about changes and the like, even with newcomers
5996  <li>be helpful at being helpful ;)
5997
5998 </ul>
5999
6000 <p>I'm really sorry I cannot say much more about that :(!</p>
6001
6002 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6003
6004 <p>First of all, all software I use is free and open. I have abandoned
6005 all non-free software (except for firmware on my darned phone) this
6006 year.</p>
6007
6008 <p>I run Debian GNU/Linux on all PC systems I use. On that, I mostly
6009 run text tools. I use
6010 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm">mksh</a> as shell,
6011 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm">jupp</a> as very advanced
6012 text editor (I even got the developer to help me write a script/macro
6013 based full-featured student management software with the two),
6014 <a href="http://mcabber.com/">mcabber</a> for XMPP and
6015 <a href="http://www.irssi.org/">irssi</a> for IRC. For that overly
6016 coloured world called the WWW, I use
6017 <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Iceweasel
6018 (Firefox)</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a> for
6019 e-mail.</p>
6020
6021 <p>However, while I am personally aware of the fact that text tools
6022 are more efficient and powerful than anything else, I also use (or at
6023 least operate) some tools that are suitable to bring open source to
6024 kids. One of these things is <a href="http://jappix.org/">Jappix</a>,
6025 which I already introduced to some kids even before they got aware of
6026 Facebook, making them see for themselves that they do not need
6027 Facebook now ;).</p>
6028
6029 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6030 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6031
6032 <p>Well, that's a two-sided thing. One side is what I believe, and one
6033 side is what I have experienced.</p>
6034
6035 <p>I believe that the right strategy is showing them the benefits. But
6036 that won't work out as long as the acceptance of free alternatives
6037 grows globally. What I mean is that if all the kids are almost forced
6038 to use Windows, Facebook, Skype, you name it at home, they will not
6039 see why they would want to use alternatives at school. I have seen
6040 students take seat in front of a fully-functional, modern Debian
6041 desktop that could do anything their Windows at home could do, and
6042 they jsut refused to use it because "Linux sucks". It is something
6043 that makes the council of our city spend around 600000 € to buy
6044 software - not including hardware, mind you - for operating school
6045 networks, and for installing a system that, as has been proved, does
6046 not work. For those of you readers who are good at maths, have you
6047 already found out how many lives could have been saved with that money
6048 if we had instead used it to bring education to parts of the world
6049 that need it? I have, and found it to be nothing less dramatic than
6050 plain criminal.</p>
6051
6052 <p>That said, the only feasible way appears to be the bottom up
6053 method. We have to bring free software to kids and parents. I have
6054 founded an association named
6055 <a href="https://www.teckids.org">Teckids</a> here in Germany that does
6056 just that. We organise several events for kids and adolescents in the
6057 area of free and open source software, for example the
6058 <a href="http://kids.froscon.org">FrogLabs</a>, which share staff with
6059 Teckids and are the youth programme of
6060 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">the Free and Open Source Software
6061 Conference (FrOSCon)</a>. We do a lot more than most other conferences
6062 - this year, we first offered the FrogLabs as a holiday camp for kids
6063 aged 10 to 16. It was a huge success, with approx. 30 kids taking part
6064 and learning with and about free software through a whole weekend. All
6065 of us had a lot of fun, and the results were really exciting.</p>
6066
6067 <p>Apart from that, we are preparing a campaign that is supposed to bring
6068 the message of free alternatives to stuff kids use every day to them and
6069 their parents, e.g. the use of Jabber / Jappix instead of Facebook and
6070 Skype. To make that possible, we are planning to get together a team of
6071 clever kids who understand very well what their peers need and can bring
6072 it across to them. So we will have a peer-driven network of adolescents
6073 who teach each other and collect feedback from the community of minors.
6074 We then take that feedback and our own experience to work closely with
6075 open source projects, such as Skolelinux or Jappix, at improving their
6076 software in a way that makes it more and more attractive for the target
6077 group. At least I hope that we will have good cooperation with
6078 Skolelinux in the future ;)!</p>
6079
6080 <p>So in conclusion, what I believe is that, if it weren't for the world
6081 being so bad, it should be very clear to the political decision makers
6082 that the only way to go nowadays is free software for various reasons,
6083 but I have learnt that the only way that seems to work is bottom up.</p>
6084
6085 <!--
6086
6087 >  * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
6088
6089 That's probably the hardest question of them all, as I do not know the
6090 community. However, I would be willing to do the following:
6091
6092  <li>Run an interview with a German headteacher who is very open to
6093    free software, and also prefers it, but cannot really use it because
6094    of the decision makers above;
6095  <li>Run interviews with some kids, both with and without previous
6096    knowledge about free software
6097
6098 If that is wanted, just let me know ;).
6099
6100 -->
6101
6102       </div>
6103       <div class="tags">
6104
6105
6106         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
6107
6108
6109       </div>
6110     </div>
6111     <div class="padding"></div>
6112
6113     <div class="entry">
6114       <div class="title">
6115         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html">Debian Edu interview: Klaus Knopper</a>
6116       </div>
6117       <div class="date">
6118          6th December 2013
6119       </div>
6120       <div class="body">
6121         <p>It has been a while since I managed to publish the last interview,
6122 but the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
6123 Skolelinux</a> community is still going strong, and yesterday we even
6124 had a new school administrator show up on
6125 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a> to share
6126 his success story with installing Debian Edu at their school.  This
6127 time I have been able to get some helpful comments from the creator of
6128 Knoppix, Klaus Knopper, who was involved in a Skolelinux project in
6129 Germany a few years ago.</p>
6130
6131 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6132
6133 <p>I am Klaus Knopper.  I have a master degree in electrical
6134 engineering, and is currently professor in information management at
6135 the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
6136 freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.</p>
6137
6138 <p>All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
6139 from teaching, I'm also conducting some more or less experimental
6140 projects like the <a href="http://www.knoppix.org">Knoppix GNU/Linux live
6141 system</a> (Debian-based like Skolelinux),
6142 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html">ADRIANE</a>
6143 (a blind-friendly talking desktop system) and
6144 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/linbo/index-en.html">LINBO</a>
6145 (Linux-based network boot console, a fast remote install and repair
6146 system supporting various operating systems).</p>
6147
6148 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
6149 project?</strong></p>
6150
6151 <p>The credit for this have to go to Kurt Gramlich, who is the German
6152 coordinator for Skolelinux.  We were looking for an all-in-one open
6153 source community-supported distribution for schools, and Kurt
6154 introduced us to Skolelinux for this purpose.</p>
6155
6156 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6157 Edu?</strong></p>
6158
6159 <ul>
6160   <li>Quick installation,</li>
6161   <li>works (almost) out of the box,</li>
6162   <li>contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,</li>
6163   <li>is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
6164     single company,</li>
6165   <li>has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
6166     experience and problem solutions.</li>
6167 </ul>
6168
6169 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6170 Edu?</strong></p>
6171
6172 <ul>
6173   <li>Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to
6174   the next version.  Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to
6175   a new version means a full new installation from scratch to get it
6176   working again reliably.
6177
6178   <li>Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a
6179   little outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or
6180   similar educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing
6181   as their base.
6182
6183   <li>Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
6184   configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is
6185   not always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network
6186   configuration is actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux
6187   and not easy to change, so schools sometimes have to change their
6188   network configuration to make it "Skolelinux-compatible".
6189
6190   <li>Some proposed extensions, which were made available as
6191   contribution, like secure examination mode and lecture material
6192   distribution and collection, were not accepted into the mainline
6193   Skolelinux development and are now not easy to maintain in the
6194   future because of Skolelinux somewhat undeterministic update
6195   schemes.</li>
6196
6197   <li>Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers
6198   compared to Debian.</li>
6199
6200 </ul>
6201
6202 <p>For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
6203 rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
6204 Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
6205 upgradeable without reinstallation.</p>
6206
6207 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6208
6209 <p>GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
6210 programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
6211 occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
6212 programming languages for teaching.</p>
6213
6214 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6215 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6216
6217 <p>Strong arguments are</p>
6218
6219 <ul>
6220
6221   <li>Knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
6222     teaching and learning.</li>
6223
6224   <li>Students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
6225     home, and at their working place without running into license or
6226     conversion problems.</li>
6227
6228   <li>Closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
6229     than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
6230     customers to certain products.  But teachers need to teach
6231     science, not products.</li>
6232
6233   <li>If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
6234     would you need proprietary software for?</li>
6235
6236 </ul>
6237
6238       </div>
6239       <div class="tags">
6240
6241
6242         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
6243
6244
6245       </div>
6246     </div>
6247     <div class="padding"></div>
6248
6249     <div class="entry">
6250       <div class="title">
6251         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle__a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo__take_shape.html">Dugnadsnett for alle, a wireless community network in Oslo, take shape</a>
6252       </div>
6253       <div class="date">
6254         30th November 2013
6255       </div>
6256       <div class="body">
6257         <p>If you want the ability to electronically communicate directly with
6258 your neighbors and friends using a network controlled by your peers in
6259 stead of centrally controlled by a few corporations, or would like to
6260 experiment with interesting network technology, the
6261 <a href="http://www.dugnadsnett.no/">Dugnasnett for alle i Oslo</a>
6262 might be project for you.  39 mesh nodes are currently being planned,
6263 in the freshly started initiative from NUUG and Hackeriet to create a
6264 wireless community network.  The work is inspired by
6265 <a href="http://freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a>,
6266 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan
6267 Network</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roofnet">Roofnet</a>
6268 and other successful mesh networks around the globe.  Two days ago we
6269 held a workshop to try to get people started on setting up their own
6270 mesh node, and there we decided to create a new mailing list
6271 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/dugnadsnett">dugnadsnett
6272 (at) nuug.no</a> and IRC channel
6273 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#dugnadsnett.no">#dugnadsnett.no</a> to
6274 coordinate the work.  See also the NUUG blog post
6275 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/E_postliste_og_IRC_kanal_for_Dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">announcing
6276 the mailing list and IRC channel</a>.</p>
6277
6278       </div>
6279       <div class="tags">
6280
6281
6282         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6283
6284
6285       </div>
6286     </div>
6287     <div class="padding"></div>
6288
6289     <div class="entry">
6290       <div class="title">
6291         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
6292       </div>
6293       <div class="date">
6294         24th November 2013
6295       </div>
6296       <div class="body">
6297         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
6298 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
6299 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
6300 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
6301 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
6302 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
6303 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
6304 is working on.  I checked the
6305 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
6306 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
6307 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
6308 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
6309 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
6310 These are the release notes:</p>
6311
6312 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
6313
6314 <ul>
6315
6316   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
6317    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
6318    up.</li>
6319
6320   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
6321
6322   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
6323    Matthias Klose.</li>
6324
6325   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
6326    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
6327
6328   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
6329    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
6330    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
6331
6332 </ul>
6333
6334 <p>You can
6335 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
6336 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
6337 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
6338 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
6339 include a testsuite check.</p>
6340
6341       </div>
6342       <div class="tags">
6343
6344
6345         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6346
6347
6348       </div>
6349     </div>
6350     <div class="padding"></div>
6351
6352     <div class="entry">
6353       <div class="title">
6354         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/All_drones_should_be_radio_marked_with_what_they_do_and_who_they_belong_to.html">All drones should be radio marked with what they do and who they belong to</a>
6355       </div>
6356       <div class="date">
6357         21st November 2013
6358       </div>
6359       <div class="body">
6360         <p>Drones, flying robots, are getting more and more popular.  The most
6361 know ones are the killer drones used by some government to murder
6362 people they do not like without giving them the chance of a fair
6363 trial, but the technology have many good uses too, from mapping and
6364 forest maintenance to photography and search and rescue.  I am sure it
6365 is just a question of time before "bad drones" are in the hands of
6366 private enterprises and not only state criminals but petty criminals
6367 too.  The drone technology is very useful and very dangerous.  To have
6368 some control over the use of drones, I agree with Daniel Suarez in his
6369 TED talk
6370 "<a href="https://archive.org/details/DanielSuarez_2013G">The kill
6371 decision shouldn't belong to a robot</a>", where he suggested this
6372 little gem to keep the good while limiting the bad use of drones:</p>
6373
6374 <blockquote>
6375
6376 <p>Each robot and drone should have a cryptographically signed
6377 I.D. burned in at the factory that can be used to track its movement
6378 through public spaces. We have license plates on cars, tail numbers on
6379 aircraft. This is no different. And every citizen should be able to
6380 download an app that shows the population of drones and autonomous
6381 vehicles moving through public spaces around them, both right now and
6382 historically. And civic leaders should deploy sensors and civic drones
6383 to detect rogue drones, and instead of sending killer drones of their
6384 own up to shoot them down, they should notify humans to their
6385 presence. And in certain very high-security areas, perhaps civic
6386 drones would snare them and drag them off to a bomb disposal facility.</p>
6387
6388 <p>But notice, this is more an immune system than a weapons system. It
6389 would allow us to avail ourselves of the use of autonomous vehicles
6390 and drones while still preserving our open, civil society.</p>
6391
6392 </blockquote>
6393
6394 <p>The key is that <em>every citizen</em> should be able to read the
6395 radio beacons sent from the drones in the area, to be able to check
6396 both the government and others use of drones.  For such control to be
6397 effective, everyone must be able to do it.  What should such beacon
6398 contain?  At least formal owner, purpose, contact information and GPS
6399 location.  Probably also the origin and target position of the current
6400 flight.  And perhaps some registration number to be able to look up
6401 the drone in a central database tracking their movement.  Robots
6402 should not have privacy.  It is people who need privacy.</p>
6403
6404       </div>
6405       <div class="tags">
6406
6407
6408         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
6409
6410
6411       </div>
6412     </div>
6413     <div class="padding"></div>
6414
6415     <div class="entry">
6416       <div class="title">
6417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo_.html">Lets make a wireless community network in Oslo!</a>
6418       </div>
6419       <div class="date">
6420         13th November 2013
6421       </div>
6422       <div class="body">
6423         <p>Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced
6424 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Bli_med___bygge_dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">our
6425 plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in
6426 Oslo</a>.  The workshop to help people get started will take place
6427 Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of
6428 people joining forces to make this happen.  We have
6429 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/oslo-nodes.geojson">9
6430 locations plotted on the map</a>, but we will need more before we have
6431 a connected mesh spread across Oslo.  If this sound interesting to
6432 you, please join us at the workshop.  If you are too impatient to wait
6433 15 days, please join us on the IRC channel
6434 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
6435 right away. :)</p>
6436
6437       </div>
6438       <div class="tags">
6439
6440
6441         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6442
6443
6444       </div>
6445     </div>
6446     <div class="padding"></div>
6447
6448     <div class="entry">
6449       <div class="title">
6450         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Running_TP_Link_MR3040_as_a_batman_adv_mesh_node_using_openwrt.html">Running TP-Link MR3040 as a batman-adv mesh node using openwrt</a>
6451       </div>
6452       <div class="date">
6453         10th November 2013
6454       </div>
6455       <div class="body">
6456         <p>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
6457 use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
6458 bought arrived on Friday.  Here are my notes on how to set up the
6459 MR3040 as a mesh node using
6460 <a href="http://www.openwrt.org/">OpenWrt</a>.</p>
6461
6462 <p>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
6463 <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040">TL-MR3040</a>,
6464 and downloaded
6465 <a href="http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin">the
6466 recommended firmware image</a>
6467 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
6468 uploaded it into the original web interface.  The flashing went fine,
6469 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port.  After
6470 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
6471 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.</p>
6472
6473 <p>I started off by reading the instructions from
6474 <a href="http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine's_Research">Wireless
6475 Africa</a>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
6476 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
6477 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config">using
6478 batman-adv on OpenWrt</a>.  A small snag was the fact that the
6479 <tt>opkg install kmod-batman-adv</tt> command did not work as it
6480 should.  The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
6481 dependency crc16 was not already loaded.  I
6482 <a href="https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14452">reported the bug</a> to
6483 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon.  But the problem
6484 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
6485 seem to work when booting from scratch.</p>
6486
6487 <p>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/.  I did not bridge
6488 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
6489 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
6490 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
6491 them:</p>
6492
6493 <p><tt>/etc/config/network</tt></p>
6494
6495 <pre>
6496
6497 config interface 'loopback'
6498         option ifname 'lo'
6499         option proto 'static'
6500         option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
6501         option netmask '255.0.0.0'
6502
6503 config globals 'globals'
6504         option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
6505
6506 config interface 'lan'
6507         option ifname 'eth0'
6508         option type 'bridge'
6509         option proto 'dhcp'
6510         option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
6511         option netmask '255.255.255.0'
6512         option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
6513         option ip6assign '60'
6514
6515 config interface 'mesh'
6516         option ifname 'adhoc0'
6517         option mtu '1528'
6518         option proto 'batadv'
6519         option mesh 'bat0'
6520 </pre>
6521
6522 <p><tt>/etc/config/wireless</tt></p>
6523 <pre>
6524
6525 config wifi-device 'radio0'
6526         option type 'mac80211'
6527         option channel '11'
6528         option hwmode '11ng'
6529         option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
6530         option htmode 'HT20'
6531         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
6532         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
6533         list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
6534         list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
6535         option disabled '0'
6536
6537 config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
6538         option device 'radio0'
6539         option ifname 'adhoc0'
6540         option network 'mesh'
6541         option encryption 'none'
6542         option mode 'adhoc'
6543         option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
6544         option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
6545 </pre>
6546 <p><tt>/etc/config/batman-adv</tt></p>
6547 <pre>
6548
6549 config 'mesh' 'bat0'
6550         option interfaces 'adhoc0'
6551         option 'aggregated_ogms'
6552         option 'ap_isolation'
6553         option 'bonding'
6554         option 'fragmentation'
6555         option 'gw_bandwidth'
6556         option 'gw_mode'
6557         option 'gw_sel_class'
6558         option 'log_level'
6559         option 'orig_interval'
6560         option 'vis_mode'
6561         option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
6562         option 'distributed_arp_table'
6563         option 'network_coding'
6564         option 'hop_penalty'
6565
6566 # yet another batX instance
6567 # config 'mesh' 'bat5'
6568 #       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
6569 </pre>
6570
6571 <p>The mesh node is now operational.  I have yet to test its range,
6572 but I hope it is good.  I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box
6573 still wrapped up in plastic.</p>
6574
6575       </div>
6576       <div class="tags">
6577
6578
6579         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6580
6581
6582       </div>
6583     </div>
6584     <div class="padding"></div>
6585
6586     <div class="entry">
6587       <div class="title">
6588         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
6589       </div>
6590       <div class="date">
6591          2nd November 2013
6592       </div>
6593       <div class="body">
6594         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
6595 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
6596 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
6597 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
6598 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
6599
6600 <p><pre>
6601 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
6602 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
6603 # Provides:          rsyslog
6604 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
6605 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
6606 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
6607 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
6608 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
6609 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
6610 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
6611 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
6612 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
6613 ### END INIT INFO
6614 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
6615 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
6616 </pre></p>
6617
6618 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
6619 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
6620 info/comments.</p>
6621
6622 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
6623 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
6624
6625 <p><pre>
6626 #!/bin/sh
6627
6628 # Define LSB log_* functions.
6629 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
6630 # and status_of_proc is working.
6631 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
6632
6633 #
6634 # Function that starts the daemon/service
6635
6636 #
6637 do_start()
6638 {
6639         # Return
6640         #   0 if daemon has been started
6641         #   1 if daemon was already running
6642         #   2 if daemon could not be started
6643         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
6644                 || return 1
6645         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
6646                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
6647                 || return 2
6648         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
6649         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
6650         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
6651 }
6652
6653 #
6654 # Function that stops the daemon/service
6655 #
6656 do_stop()
6657 {
6658         # Return
6659         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
6660         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
6661         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
6662         #   other if a failure occurred
6663         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
6664         RETVAL="$?"
6665         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
6666         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
6667         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
6668         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
6669         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
6670         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
6671         # sleep for some time.
6672         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
6673         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
6674         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
6675         rm -f $PIDFILE
6676         return "$RETVAL"
6677 }
6678
6679 #
6680 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
6681 #
6682 do_reload() {
6683         #
6684         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
6685         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
6686         # then implement that here.
6687         #
6688         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
6689         return 0
6690 }
6691
6692 SCRIPTNAME=$1
6693 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
6694 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
6695 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
6696     script="$1"
6697     shift
6698     . $script
6699 else
6700     exit 0
6701 fi
6702
6703 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
6704 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
6705
6706 # Exit if the package is not installed
6707 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
6708
6709 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
6710 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
6711
6712 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
6713 . /lib/init/vars.sh
6714
6715 case "$1" in
6716   start)
6717         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
6718         do_start
6719         case "$?" in
6720                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
6721                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
6722         esac
6723         ;;
6724   stop)
6725         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
6726         do_stop
6727         case "$?" in
6728                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
6729                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
6730         esac
6731         ;;
6732   status)
6733         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
6734         ;;
6735   #reload|force-reload)
6736         #
6737         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
6738         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
6739         #
6740         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
6741         #do_reload
6742         #log_end_msg $?
6743         #;;
6744   restart|force-reload)
6745         #
6746         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
6747         # 'force-reload' alias
6748         #
6749         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
6750         do_stop
6751         case "$?" in
6752           0|1)
6753                 do_start
6754                 case "$?" in
6755                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
6756                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
6757                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
6758                 esac
6759                 ;;
6760           *)
6761                 # Failed to stop
6762                 log_end_msg 1
6763                 ;;
6764         esac
6765         ;;
6766   *)
6767         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
6768         exit 3
6769         ;;
6770 esac
6771
6772 :
6773 </pre></p>
6774
6775 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
6776 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
6777 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
6778 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
6779
6780 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
6781 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
6782 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
6783 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
6784 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
6785
6786       </div>
6787       <div class="tags">
6788
6789
6790         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6791
6792
6793       </div>
6794     </div>
6795     <div class="padding"></div>
6796
6797     <div class="entry">
6798       <div class="title">
6799         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
6800       </div>
6801       <div class="date">
6802          1st November 2013
6803       </div>
6804       <div class="body">
6805         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
6806 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
6807 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
6808 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
6809 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
6810 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
6811 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
6812 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
6813 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
6814 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
6815 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
6816 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
6817
6818 <p>The source is now available from
6819 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
6820
6821       </div>
6822       <div class="tags">
6823
6824
6825         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6826
6827
6828       </div>
6829     </div>
6830     <div class="padding"></div>
6831
6832     <div class="entry">
6833       <div class="title">
6834         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
6835       </div>
6836       <div class="date">
6837         27th October 2013
6838       </div>
6839       <div class="body">
6840         <p>The
6841 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
6842 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
6843 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
6844 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
6845 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
6846 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
6847 of a plan to simplify the build system for
6848 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
6849 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
6850 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
6851 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
6852 Raspberry Pi.</p>
6853
6854 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
6855 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
6856 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
6857 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
6858 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
6859 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
6860 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
6861 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
6862 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
6863 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
6864 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
6865 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
6866 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
6867 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
6868 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
6869 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
6870 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
6871 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
6872 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
6873 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
6874 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
6875 available from
6876 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
6877 upstream project page</a>.</p>
6878
6879 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
6880 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
6881 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
6882 list:</p>
6883
6884 <p><pre>
6885 #!/bin/sh
6886 set -e # Exit on first error
6887 rootdir="$1"
6888 cd "$rootdir"
6889 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
6890 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
6891 EOF
6892 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
6893 # install a kernel somewhere too.
6894 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
6895     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
6896 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
6897 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
6898 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
6899 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
6900 </pre></p>
6901
6902 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
6903 to build the image:</p>
6904
6905 <pre>
6906 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
6907     --variant minbase \
6908     --arch armel \
6909     --distribution jessie \
6910     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
6911     --image test.img \
6912     --size 600M \
6913     --bootsize 64M \
6914     --boottype vfat \
6915     --log-level debug \
6916     --verbose \
6917     --no-kernel \
6918     --no-extlinux \
6919     --root-password raspberry \
6920     --hostname raspberrypi \
6921     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
6922     --customize `pwd`/customize \
6923     --package netbase \
6924     --package git-core \
6925     --package binutils \
6926     --package ca-certificates \
6927     --package wget \
6928     --package kmod
6929 </pre></p>
6930
6931 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
6932 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
6933 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
6934 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
6935 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
6936 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
6937 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
6938
6939 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
6940 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
6941 build dependency list.</p>
6942
6943 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
6944 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
6945 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
6946 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
6947
6948       </div>
6949       <div class="tags">
6950
6951
6952         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
6953
6954
6955       </div>
6956     </div>
6957     <div class="padding"></div>
6958
6959     <div class="entry">
6960       <div class="title">
6961         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</a>
6962       </div>
6963       <div class="date">
6964         21st October 2013
6965       </div>
6966       <div class="body">
6967         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
6968 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
6969 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
6970 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
6971 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
6972 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
6973 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
6974 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
6975
6976 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
6977 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
6978 instead, I started playing with a
6979 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
6980 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
6981 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
6982 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
6983 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
6984 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
6985 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
6986 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
6987 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
6988 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
6989 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
6990 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
6991 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
6992 every client on the local network.</p>
6993
6994 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
6995 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
6996 and a script
6997 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
6998 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
6999 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
7000 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
7001 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
7002 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
7003 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
7004 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
7005 support.</p>
7006
7007 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
7008 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
7009
7010 <p><pre>
7011 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
7012     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
7013 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
7014 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
7015 %
7016 </pre></p>
7017
7018 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
7019 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
7020 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
7021 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
7022 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
7023 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
7024
7025 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
7026 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
7027 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
7028
7029 <p><table>
7030
7031 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
7032 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
7033 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
7034 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
7035 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
7036 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
7037
7038 </table></p>
7039
7040 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
7041 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
7042 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
7043 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
7044 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
7045 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
7046 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
7047
7048       </div>
7049       <div class="tags">
7050
7051
7052         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7053
7054
7055       </div>
7056     </div>
7057     <div class="padding"></div>
7058
7059     <div class="entry">
7060       <div class="title">
7061         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html">Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github</a>
7062       </div>
7063       <div class="date">
7064         19th October 2013
7065       </div>
7066       <div class="body">
7067         <p>Back in 2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
7068 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee">the Spykee robot</a>
7069 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
7070 web page.  Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
7071 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github.  If
7072 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
7073 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl">the
7074 libspykee-perl github repository</a>.</p>
7075
7076       </div>
7077       <div class="tags">
7078
7079
7080         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
7081
7082
7083       </div>
7084     </div>
7085     <div class="padding"></div>
7086
7087     <div class="entry">
7088       <div class="title">
7089         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
7090       </div>
7091       <div class="date">
7092         15th October 2013
7093       </div>
7094       <div class="body">
7095         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
7096 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
7097 these. :)</p>
7098
7099 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
7100 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
7101 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
7102 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
7103 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
7104 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
7105 hope you will to. :)</p>
7106
7107 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
7108 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
7109 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
7110 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
7111 donated.  Are you next?</p>
7112
7113 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
7114 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
7115 statement under the heading
7116 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
7117 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
7118 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
7119 too.</p>
7120
7121       </div>
7122       <div class="tags">
7123
7124
7125         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
7126
7127
7128       </div>
7129     </div>
7130     <div class="padding"></div>
7131
7132     <div class="entry">
7133       <div class="title">
7134         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania</a>
7135       </div>
7136       <div class="date">
7137         11th October 2013
7138       </div>
7139       <div class="body">
7140         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
7141 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
7142 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
7143 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
7144 successful examples like
7145 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
7146 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
7147 (see
7148 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
7149 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
7150 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
7151 can be seen from their
7152 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
7153 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
7154 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
7155 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
7156 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
7157
7158 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
7159 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
7160 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
7161 my recent involvement in
7162 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
7163 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
7164 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
7165 when possible, given that most communication between people are
7166 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
7167 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
7168 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
7169 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
7170 important over the years.</p>
7171
7172 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
7173 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
7174 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
7175 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
7176 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
7177 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
7178 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
7179 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
7180 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
7181 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
7182 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
7183 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
7184 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
7185 speakers about this talk (from
7186 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
7187
7188 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
7189
7190 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
7191 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
7192 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
7193 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
7194 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
7195 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
7196 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
7197 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
7198 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
7199 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
7200 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
7201 that project (from
7202 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
7203
7204 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
7205
7206 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
7207 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
7208 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
7209 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
7210 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
7211 based community mesh networks.</p>
7212
7213 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
7214 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
7215 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
7216 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
7217 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
7218 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
7219 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
7220 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
7221 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
7222
7223 <p><table>
7224 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
7225 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
7226 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
7227 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
7228 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
7229 </table></p>
7230
7231 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
7232 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
7233 VillageTelco about
7234 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
7235 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
7236 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
7237 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
7238 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
7239 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
7240
7241 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
7242 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
7243 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
7244 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
7245
7246 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
7247 us on IRC, either channel
7248 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
7249 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
7250 irc.freenode.net.</p>
7251
7252 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
7253 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
7254 and Innovation called
7255 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
7256 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
7257 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
7258 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
7259 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
7260 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
7261 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
7262 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
7263
7264 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
7265 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
7266 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
7267 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
7268 mesh system.</p>
7269
7270       </div>
7271       <div class="tags">
7272
7273
7274         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7275
7276
7277       </div>
7278     </div>
7279     <div class="padding"></div>
7280
7281     <div class="entry">
7282       <div class="title">
7283         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu 7.1 install and overview video from Marcelo Salvador</a>
7284       </div>
7285       <div class="date">
7286          8th October 2013
7287       </div>
7288       <div class="body">
7289         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
7290 Salvador had published a
7291 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
7292 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
7293 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
7294 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
7295 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
7296 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
7297 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
7298 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
7299 showing the <a href="http://www.zygotebody.com/">Zygote Body 3D model
7300 of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
7301 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
7302 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
7303 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
7304 computers without hard drives by installing one central
7305 <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP server</a>.</p>
7306
7307 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
7308
7309 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
7310
7311 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
7312 me know. :)</p>
7313
7314       </div>
7315       <div class="tags">
7316
7317
7318         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
7319
7320
7321       </div>
7322     </div>
7323     <div class="padding"></div>
7324
7325     <div class="entry">
7326       <div class="title">
7327         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
7328       </div>
7329       <div class="date">
7330         29th September 2013
7331       </div>
7332       <div class="body">
7333         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
7334 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
7335 complete announcement text can be found at
7336 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
7337 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
7338
7339 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
7340 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
7341 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
7342 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
7343
7344       </div>
7345       <div class="tags">
7346
7347
7348         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7349
7350
7351       </div>
7352     </div>
7353     <div class="padding"></div>
7354
7355     <div class="entry">
7356       <div class="title">
7357         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
7358       </div>
7359       <div class="date">
7360         27th September 2013
7361       </div>
7362       <div class="body">
7363         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
7364 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
7365 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
7366 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
7367
7368 <ul>
7369
7370 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
7371 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
7372
7373 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
7374 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
7375
7376 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
7377 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
7378 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
7379 (Youtube)</li>
7380
7381 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
7382 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
7383
7384 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
7385 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
7386
7387 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
7388 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
7389 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
7390
7391 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
7392 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
7393 (Youtube)</li>
7394
7395 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
7396 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
7397
7398 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
7399 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
7400
7401 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
7402 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
7403 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
7404
7405 </ul>
7406
7407 <p>A larger list is available from
7408 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
7409 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
7410
7411 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
7412 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
7413 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
7414 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
7415 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
7416 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
7417 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
7418 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
7419 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
7420 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
7421 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
7422
7423       </div>
7424       <div class="tags">
7425
7426
7427         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
7428
7429
7430       </div>
7431     </div>
7432     <div class="padding"></div>
7433
7434     <div class="entry">
7435       <div class="title">
7436         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_and_probably_last_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Wheezy.html">Third and probably last beta release of Debian Edu Wheezy</a>
7437       </div>
7438       <div class="date">
7439         16th September 2013
7440       </div>
7441       <div class="body">
7442         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
7443 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
7444
7445 <blockquote>
7446 <p>Hi,</p>
7447
7448 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
7449 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
7450 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
7451
7452 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
7453 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
7454 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
7455 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
7456
7457 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
7458 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
7459
7460 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
7461 compared to beta1:</p>
7462
7463 <ul>
7464
7465 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
7466 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
7467 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
7468 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
7469 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
7470 main server.</li>
7471 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
7472 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
7473 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
7474 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
7475 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
7476
7477 </ul>
7478
7479 <p>Where to get it:</p>
7480
7481 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
7482
7483 <ul>
7484 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
7485 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
7486 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
7487 </ul>
7488
7489 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
7490
7491 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
7492 <ul>
7493 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
7494 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
7495 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
7496 </ul>
7497
7498 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
7499
7500 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
7501 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
7502 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
7503 as the other isos.</p>
7504
7505 <p>How to report bugs</p>
7506
7507 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
7508 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
7509
7510
7511 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
7512
7513 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
7514 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
7515 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
7516 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
7517 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
7518 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
7519 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
7520 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
7521 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
7522 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
7523 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
7524 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
7525 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
7526
7527 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
7528 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
7529 Squeeze release.</p>
7530
7531 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
7532
7533 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
7534 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
7535 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
7536 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
7537 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
7538 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
7539 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
7540 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
7541 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
7542 directory.</p>
7543
7544
7545 <p>cheers,
7546 <br>        Holger</p>
7547 </blockquote>
7548
7549       </div>
7550       <div class="tags">
7551
7552
7553         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7554
7555
7556       </div>
7557     </div>
7558     <div class="padding"></div>
7559
7560     <div class="entry">
7561       <div class="title">
7562         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
7563       </div>
7564       <div class="date">
7565         10th September 2013
7566       </div>
7567       <div class="body">
7568         <p>I was introduced to the
7569 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
7570 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
7571 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
7572 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
7573 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
7574 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
7575 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
7576 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
7577
7578 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
7579 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
7580 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
7581 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
7582 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
7583
7584 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
7585 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
7586 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
7587 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
7588 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
7589 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
7590 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
7591 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
7592 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
7593 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
7594 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
7595 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
7596 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
7597 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
7598 missing in Debian).</p>
7599
7600 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
7601 scripts
7602 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
7603 and a administrative web interface
7604 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
7605 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
7606 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
7607 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
7608 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
7609 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
7610 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
7611 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
7612 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
7613 this is really working yet, see
7614 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
7615 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
7616 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
7617 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
7618 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
7619 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
7620 with lots of half baked features.</p>
7621
7622 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
7623 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
7624 at.</p>
7625
7626 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
7627
7628 <ol>
7629
7630 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
7631 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
7632 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
7633 to the Debian installer:<p>
7634 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
7635
7636 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
7637 install on.</li>
7638
7639 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
7640 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
7641
7642 </ol>
7643
7644 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
7645
7646 <ol>
7647
7648 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
7649 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
7650 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
7651 <pre>
7652 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
7653 </pre></li>
7654 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
7655 <pre>
7656 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
7657    apt-key add -
7658 apt-get update
7659 apt-get install freedombox-setup
7660 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
7661 </pre></li>
7662 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
7663
7664 </ol>
7665
7666 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
7667 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
7668 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
7669 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
7670 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
7671
7672 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
7673 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
7674 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
7675 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
7676
7677 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
7678 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
7679 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
7680 irc.debian.org and the
7681 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
7682 mailing list</a>.</p>
7683
7684 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
7685 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
7686 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
7687 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
7688 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
7689 default password is 'secret'.</p>
7690
7691       </div>
7692       <div class="tags">
7693
7694
7695         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
7696
7697
7698       </div>
7699     </div>
7700     <div class="padding"></div>
7701
7702     <div class="entry">
7703       <div class="title">
7704         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_release__beta_1__of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second beta release (beta 1) of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
7705       </div>
7706       <div class="date">
7707         22nd August 2013
7708       </div>
7709       <div class="body">
7710         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
7711 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
7712 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
7713
7714 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
7715
7716 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7717 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
7718
7719 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
7720
7721 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
7722 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
7723 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
7724 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
7725 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
7726 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
7727 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
7728 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
7729 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
7730 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
7731 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
7732 desktop contains
7733 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
7734 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
7735 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
7736 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
7737
7738 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
7739 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
7740 release.</p>
7741
7742 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
7743 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
7744 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
7745 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
7746 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
7747 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
7748 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
7749 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
7750 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
7751 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
7752 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
7753
7754 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
7755
7756 <ul>
7757
7758 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
7759     work also without a attached tty.</li>
7760 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
7761     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
7762     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
7763     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
7764     required).</li>
7765
7766 </ul>
7767
7768 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
7769
7770 <ul>
7771
7772 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
7773 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
7774 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
7775 stick ISO image.</li>
7776 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
7777 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
7778 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
7779     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
7780     cope with this.</li>
7781 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
7782 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
7783     empty password hashes.</li>
7784 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
7785     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
7786     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
7787
7788 </ul>
7789
7790 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
7791
7792 <ul>
7793
7794 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
7795     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
7796 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
7797     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
7798
7799 </ul>
7800
7801 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
7802
7803 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
7804
7805 <ul>
7806
7807 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
7808
7809 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
7810
7811 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
7812
7813 </ul>
7814
7815 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
7816 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
7817
7818 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
7819
7820 <ul>
7821
7822 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
7823 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
7824 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
7825
7826 </ul>
7827
7828 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
7829 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
7830
7831
7832 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
7833
7834 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
7835
7836       </div>
7837       <div class="tags">
7838
7839
7840         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7841
7842
7843       </div>
7844     </div>
7845     <div class="padding"></div>
7846
7847     <div class="entry">
7848       <div class="title">
7849         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
7850       </div>
7851       <div class="date">
7852         18th August 2013
7853       </div>
7854       <div class="body">
7855         <p>Earlier, I reported about
7856 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
7857 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
7858 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
7859 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
7860 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
7861 currently on the disk.</p>
7862
7863 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
7864 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
7865 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
7866 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
7867 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
7868 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
7869 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
7870 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
7871 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
7872 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
7873 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
7874 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
7875 the broken disks.</p>
7876
7877       </div>
7878       <div class="tags">
7879
7880
7881         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7882
7883
7884       </div>
7885     </div>
7886     <div class="padding"></div>
7887
7888     <div class="entry">
7889       <div class="title">
7890         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/90_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">90 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a>
7891       </div>
7892       <div class="date">
7893          2nd August 2013
7894       </div>
7895       <div class="body">
7896         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
7897 have worked on a Norwegian
7898 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
7899 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
7900 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
7901 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
7902 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
7903 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
7904 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
7905 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
7906 progress of the translation:</p>
7907
7908 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
7909
7910 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
7911 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
7912 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
7913 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
7914 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
7915 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
7916 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
7917 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
7918 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
7919 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
7920 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
7921
7922 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
7923 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
7924 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
7925 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
7926 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
7927 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
7928 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
7929 project files currently available from
7930 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7931
7932 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
7933 the updated
7934 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
7935 and
7936 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
7937 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
7938 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
7939 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
7940
7941       </div>
7942       <div class="tags">
7943
7944
7945         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
7946
7947
7948       </div>
7949     </div>
7950     <div class="padding"></div>
7951
7952     <div class="entry">
7953       <div class="title">
7954         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First beta release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
7955       </div>
7956       <div class="date">
7957         27th July 2013
7958       </div>
7959       <div class="body">
7960         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
7961 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
7962
7963 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
7964 2013-07-27</strong></p>
7965
7966 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7967 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
7968
7969 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
7970
7971 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
7972 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
7973 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
7974 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
7975 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
7976 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
7977 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
7978 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
7979 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
7980 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
7981 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
7982 desktop contains
7983 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
7984 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
7985 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
7986 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
7987
7988 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
7989 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
7990 Squeeze release.</p>
7991
7992 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
7993 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
7994 release.</p>
7995
7996 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
7997
7998 <ul>
7999
8000 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
8001    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
8002 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
8003    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
8004    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
8005    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
8006    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
8007 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
8008 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
8009 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
8010    crash bugs.</li>
8011
8012 </ul>
8013
8014 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
8015
8016 <ul>
8017
8018 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
8019    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
8020 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
8021    netinst CD.</li>
8022 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
8023    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
8024 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
8025    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
8026    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
8027 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
8028    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
8029    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
8030 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
8031    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
8032    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
8033 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
8034    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
8035 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
8036
8037 </ul>
8038
8039 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
8040
8041 <ul>
8042
8043 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
8044 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
8045     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
8046 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
8047
8048 </ul>
8049
8050 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
8051
8052 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
8053
8054 <ul>
8055
8056 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
8057
8058 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
8059
8060 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
8061
8062 </ul>
8063
8064 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
8065 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
8066
8067 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
8068
8069 <ul>
8070
8071 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
8072 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
8073 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
8074
8075 </ul>
8076
8077 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
8078 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
8079
8080
8081 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
8082
8083 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
8084
8085       </div>
8086       <div class="tags">
8087
8088
8089         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8090
8091
8092       </div>
8093     </div>
8094     <div class="padding"></div>
8095
8096     <div class="entry">
8097       <div class="title">
8098         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
8099       </div>
8100       <div class="date">
8101         17th July 2013
8102       </div>
8103       <div class="body">
8104         <p>Today I switched to
8105 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
8106 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
8107 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
8108 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
8109 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
8110 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
8111 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
8112 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
8113 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
8114 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
8115 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
8116 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
8117 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
8118 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
8119 station from now on.</p>
8120
8121 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
8122 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
8123 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
8124 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
8125 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
8126 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
8127 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
8128 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
8129 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
8130 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
8131 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
8132 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
8133
8134 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
8135 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
8136 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
8137 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
8138 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
8139 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
8140 parameters are tuned:</p>
8141
8142 <ul>
8143
8144 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
8145     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
8146
8147 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
8148     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
8149     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
8150
8151 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
8152     systems.</li>
8153
8154 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
8155     /etc/fstab.</li>
8156
8157 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
8158
8159 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
8160     cron.daily).</li>
8161
8162 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
8163     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
8164
8165 </ul>
8166
8167 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
8168 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
8169 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
8170 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
8171 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
8172 from getting the data on the disk (see
8173 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
8174 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
8175 right thing to do.</p>
8176
8177 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
8178 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
8179 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
8180
8181 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
8182 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
8183 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
8184 instead of during my work.</p>
8185
8186 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
8187 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
8188
8189 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
8190 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
8191 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
8192
8193 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
8194 there.</p>
8195
8196 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
8197 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
8198 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
8199 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
8200 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
8201 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
8202 back.</p>
8203
8204       </div>
8205       <div class="tags">
8206
8207
8208         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8209
8210
8211       </div>
8212     </div>
8213     <div class="padding"></div>
8214
8215     <div class="entry">
8216       <div class="title">
8217         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
8218       </div>
8219       <div class="date">
8220         10th July 2013
8221       </div>
8222       <div class="body">
8223         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
8224 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
8225 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
8226 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
8227 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
8228 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
8229 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
8230 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
8231
8232 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
8233 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
8234 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
8235 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
8236 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
8237 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
8238 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
8239 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
8240 lock up when I download a new
8241 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
8242 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
8243 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
8244
8245 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
8246 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
8247 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
8248 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
8249 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
8250 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
8251
8252 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
8253 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
8254 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
8255 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
8256 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
8257 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
8258
8259 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
8260 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
8261 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
8262 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
8263 exist).</p>
8264
8265       </div>
8266       <div class="tags">
8267
8268
8269         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8270
8271
8272       </div>
8273     </div>
8274     <div class="padding"></div>
8275
8276     <div class="entry">
8277       <div class="title">
8278         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
8279       </div>
8280       <div class="date">
8281          9th July 2013
8282       </div>
8283       <div class="body">
8284         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
8285 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
8286 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
8287 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
8288 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
8289 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
8290 Bitraf</a>.</p>
8291
8292 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
8293 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
8294 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
8295 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
8296 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
8297
8298       </div>
8299       <div class="tags">
8300
8301
8302         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8303
8304
8305       </div>
8306     </div>
8307     <div class="padding"></div>
8308
8309     <div class="entry">
8310       <div class="title">
8311         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
8312       </div>
8313       <div class="date">
8314          5th July 2013
8315       </div>
8316       <div class="body">
8317         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
8318 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
8319 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
8320 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
8321 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
8322 ended up picking a
8323 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
8324 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
8325 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
8326 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
8327 on that below.</p>
8328
8329 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
8330 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
8331 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
8332 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
8333 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
8334 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
8335 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
8336 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
8337 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
8338
8339 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
8340 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
8341 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
8342 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
8343 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
8344 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
8345 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
8346
8347 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
8348 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
8349
8350 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
8351 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
8352 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
8353 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
8354 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
8355 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
8356 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
8357 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
8358 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
8359 kernel developers as
8360 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
8361 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
8362 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
8363 Lenovo forums, both for
8364 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
8365 2012-11-10</a> and for
8366 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
8367 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
8368 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
8369 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
8370 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
8371 There is even a
8372 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
8373 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
8374 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
8375
8376 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
8377 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
8378 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
8379 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
8380 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
8381 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
8382 fixed. :)</p>
8383
8384       </div>
8385       <div class="tags">
8386
8387
8388         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8389
8390
8391       </div>
8392     </div>
8393     <div class="padding"></div>
8394
8395     <div class="entry">
8396       <div class="title">
8397         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
8398       </div>
8399       <div class="date">
8400          4th July 2013
8401       </div>
8402       <div class="body">
8403         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
8404 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
8405 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
8406 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
8407 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
8408 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
8409 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
8410 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
8411 with an expencive door stop.</p>
8412
8413 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
8414 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
8415 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
8416 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
8417 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
8418 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
8419 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
8420
8421 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
8422 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
8423 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
8424 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
8425 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
8426 new laptop now. :)</p>
8427
8428 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
8429
8430       </div>
8431       <div class="tags">
8432
8433
8434         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8435
8436
8437       </div>
8438     </div>
8439     <div class="padding"></div>
8440
8441     <div class="entry">
8442       <div class="title">
8443         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fourth_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Fourth alpha release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
8444       </div>
8445       <div class="date">
8446          3rd July 2013
8447       </div>
8448       <div class="body">
8449         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
8450 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
8451
8452 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
8453 2013-07-03</strong></p>
8454
8455 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
8456 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
8457
8458 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
8459
8460 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
8461 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
8462 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
8463 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
8464 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
8465 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
8466 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
8467 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
8468 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
8469 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
8470 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
8471 desktop contains
8472 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
8473 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
8474 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
8475 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
8476
8477 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
8478 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
8479 Squeeze release.</p>
8480
8481 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
8482 <ul>
8483   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
8484   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
8485     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
8486     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
8487   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
8488     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
8489     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
8490   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
8491     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
8492     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
8493     too.</li>
8494   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
8495     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
8496 </ul>
8497 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
8498 <ul>
8499   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
8500   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
8501   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
8502     up for some language options.</li>
8503   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
8504   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
8505   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
8506     d-i is doing it.</li>
8507   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
8508     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
8509   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
8510     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
8511     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
8512   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
8513     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
8514   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
8515   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
8516     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
8517   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
8518     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
8519 </ul>
8520 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
8521 <ul>
8522   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
8523     available yet (698840).</li>
8524   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
8525 </ul>
8526 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
8527
8528 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
8529 <ul>
8530   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
8531   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
8532   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
8533 </ul>
8534
8535 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
8536 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
8537
8538 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
8539 <ul>
8540   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
8541   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
8542   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
8543 </ul>
8544
8545 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
8546 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
8547
8548 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
8549
8550 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
8551
8552       </div>
8553       <div class="tags">
8554
8555
8556         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8557
8558
8559       </div>
8560     </div>
8561     <div class="padding"></div>
8562
8563     <div class="entry">
8564       <div class="title">
8565         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
8566       </div>
8567       <div class="date">
8568         25th June 2013
8569       </div>
8570       <div class="body">
8571         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
8572 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
8573 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
8574 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
8575 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
8576 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
8577 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
8578 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
8579 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
8580 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
8581 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
8582
8583 <p><pre>
8584 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
8585 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
8586 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
8587 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
8588 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
8589 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
8590 firmware-ipw2x00
8591 firmware-ipw2x00
8592 Preconfiguring packages ...
8593 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
8594 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
8595 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
8596 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
8597 #
8598 </pre></p>
8599
8600 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
8601 printed instead:</p>
8602
8603 <p><pre>
8604 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
8605 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
8606 #
8607 </pre></p>
8608
8609 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
8610 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
8611
8612 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
8613 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
8614 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
8615 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
8616 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
8617 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
8618 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
8619 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
8620 machine.</p>
8621
8622 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
8623 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
8624 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
8625 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
8626 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
8627 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
8628
8629       </div>
8630       <div class="tags">
8631
8632
8633         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
8634
8635
8636       </div>
8637     </div>
8638     <div class="padding"></div>
8639
8640     <div class="entry">
8641       <div class="title">
8642         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html">The value of a good distro wide test suite...</a>
8643       </div>
8644       <div class="date">
8645         22nd June 2013
8646       </div>
8647       <div class="body">
8648         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
8649 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
8650 which check that services are running, working, and return the
8651 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
8652 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
8653 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
8654 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
8655 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
8656 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
8657
8658 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
8659 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
8660 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
8661 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
8662 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
8663 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
8664 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
8665 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
8666 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
8667 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
8668 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
8669 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
8670 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
8671 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
8672
8673 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
8674 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
8675 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
8676 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
8677 the problem.</p>
8678
8679 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
8680 please join us on
8681 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
8682 irc.debian.org</a> and the
8683 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
8684 list.</p>
8685
8686       </div>
8687       <div class="tags">
8688
8689
8690         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8691
8692
8693       </div>
8694     </div>
8695     <div class="padding"></div>
8696
8697     <div class="entry">
8698       <div class="title">
8699         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
8700       </div>
8701       <div class="date">
8702         17th June 2013
8703       </div>
8704       <div class="body">
8705         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
8706 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
8707 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
8708 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
8709 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
8710 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
8711 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
8712 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
8713
8714 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8715
8716 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
8717 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
8718 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
8719 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
8720 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
8721 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
8722 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
8723 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
8724 field.</p>
8725
8726 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
8727 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
8728 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
8729 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
8730 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
8731 the only one we have in our country.</p>
8732
8733 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
8734 project?</strong></p>
8735
8736 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
8737 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
8738 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
8739 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
8740 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
8741 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
8742 ways to contribute.</p>
8743
8744 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
8745 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
8746 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
8747 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
8748 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
8749 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
8750 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
8751 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
8752 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
8753 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
8754
8755 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8756 Edu?</strong></p>
8757
8758 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
8759 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
8760 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
8761 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
8762 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
8763 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
8764 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
8765 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
8766
8767 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
8768 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
8769 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
8770 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
8771 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
8772 project.</p>
8773
8774 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
8775 Edu?</strong></p>
8776
8777 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
8778 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
8779 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
8780 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
8781 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
8782 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
8783 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
8784 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
8785 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
8786
8787 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
8788 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
8789 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
8790 on.</p>
8791
8792 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8793
8794 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
8795 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
8796 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
8797 Enlightenment project a lot!),
8798 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
8799 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
8800 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
8801 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
8802 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
8803
8804 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8805 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8806
8807 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
8808 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
8809 that:</p>
8810
8811 <ul>
8812
8813 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
8814
8815 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
8816     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
8817     of teenagers more?</li>
8818
8819 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
8820     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
8821     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
8822     them!)</li>
8823
8824 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
8825     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
8826     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
8827
8828 </ul>
8829
8830 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
8831 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
8832 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
8833 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
8834 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
8835
8836       </div>
8837       <div class="tags">
8838
8839
8840         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
8841
8842
8843       </div>
8844     </div>
8845     <div class="padding"></div>
8846
8847     <div class="entry">
8848       <div class="title">
8849         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
8850       </div>
8851       <div class="date">
8852         12th June 2013
8853       </div>
8854       <div class="body">
8855         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
8856 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
8857 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
8858 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
8859 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
8860 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
8861
8862 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8863
8864 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
8865 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
8866 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
8867
8868 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
8869 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
8870 each other.</p>
8871
8872 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
8873 project?</strong></p>
8874
8875 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
8876 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
8877 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
8878 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
8879 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
8880 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
8881 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
8882 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
8883 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
8884 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
8885 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
8886 we'll get there one day.</p>
8887
8888 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
8889 Edu?</strong></p>
8890
8891 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
8892 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
8893 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
8894 very high quality work.</p>
8895
8896 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
8897 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
8898 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
8899 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
8900 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
8901
8902 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
8903 Edu?</strong></p>
8904
8905 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
8906 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
8907 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
8908
8909 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
8910 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
8911 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
8912 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
8913 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
8914 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
8915 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
8916 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
8917 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
8918 currently.</p>
8919
8920 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
8921 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
8922 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
8923 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
8924 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
8925 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
8926 autonomous.</p>
8927
8928 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8929
8930 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
8931 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
8932 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
8933 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
8934 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
8935
8936 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
8937 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
8938 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
8939 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
8940 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
8941 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
8942 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
8943 X.</p>
8944
8945 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
8946 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
8947 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
8948 it :p)
8949
8950 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8951 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8952
8953 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
8954 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
8955 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
8956 that.</p>
8957
8958 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
8959 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
8960 advantage of that.</p>
8961
8962 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
8963 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
8964 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
8965 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
8966 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
8967 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
8968 best solution for them.</p>
8969
8970 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
8971 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
8972 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
8973
8974       </div>
8975       <div class="tags">
8976
8977
8978         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
8979
8980
8981       </div>
8982     </div>
8983     <div class="padding"></div>
8984
8985     <div class="entry">
8986       <div class="title">
8987         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
8988       </div>
8989       <div class="date">
8990         11th June 2013
8991       </div>
8992       <div class="body">
8993         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
8994 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
8995 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
8996 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
8997 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
8998 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
8999 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
9000 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
9001 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
9002 i915 driver used by the
9003 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
9004 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
9005
9006 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
9007 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
9008 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
9009 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
9010 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
9011
9012 <pre>
9013 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
9014 update-initramfs -u -k all
9015 </pre>
9016
9017 <p>Since March 2012 there is
9018 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
9019 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
9020 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
9021 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
9022 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
9023 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
9024 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
9025 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
9026 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
9027 number.</p>
9028
9029 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
9030 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
9031
9032 <p><pre>
9033 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
9034     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
9035     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
9036  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
9037  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
9038     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
9039  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
9040     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
9041  Latency: 0
9042  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
9043  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
9044  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
9045  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
9046  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
9047  Capabilities: <access denied>
9048  Kernel driver in use: i915
9049 </pre></p>
9050
9051 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
9052
9053 <p><pre>
9054 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
9055        ...
9056         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
9057         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
9058        ...
9059 }
9060 </pre></p>
9061
9062 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
9063 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
9064 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
9065 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
9066 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
9067 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
9068 yet shown up in
9069 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
9070 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
9071 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
9072 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
9073 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
9074 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
9075
9076 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
9077 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
9078 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
9079 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
9080 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
9081 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
9082 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
9083 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
9084 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
9085 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
9086 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
9087 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
9088
9089 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
9090 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
9091 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
9092 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
9093 backlight.</p>
9094
9095       </div>
9096       <div class="tags">
9097
9098
9099         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9100
9101
9102       </div>
9103     </div>
9104     <div class="padding"></div>
9105
9106     <div class="entry">
9107       <div class="title">
9108         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Third alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
9109       </div>
9110       <div class="date">
9111         10th June 2013
9112       </div>
9113       <div class="body">
9114         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
9115 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
9116
9117 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
9118 2013-06-10</strong></p>
9119
9120 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
9121 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
9122
9123 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
9124
9125 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
9126 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
9127 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
9128 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
9129 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
9130 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
9131 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
9132 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
9133 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
9134 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
9135 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
9136 desktop contains
9137 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
9138 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
9139 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
9140 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
9141
9142 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
9143 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
9144 Squeeze release.</p>
9145
9146 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
9147
9148 <ul>
9149
9150 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
9151 <li>Updated libxv (DSA-2674), libxvmc (DSA-2675), libxfixes (DSA-2676), libxrender (DSA-2677), mesa (DSA-2678), xserver-xorg-video-openchrome (DSA-2679), libxt (DSA-2680), libxcursor (DSA-2681), libxext (DSA-2682), libxi (DSA-2683), libxrandr (DSA-2684), libxp (DSA-2685), libxcb (DSA-2686), libfs (DSA-2687), libxres (DSA-2688), libxtst (DSA-2689), libxxf86dga (DSA-2690), libxinerama (DSA-2691), libxxf86vm (DSA-2692), libx11 (DSA-2693), chromium-browser (DSA-2695), gnutls26 (DSA-2697), wireshark (DSA-2700), krb5 (DSA-2701), telepathy-gabble (DSA-2702) and subversion (DSA-2703).
9152 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
9153 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
9154 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
9155
9156 </ul>
9157
9158 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
9159
9160 <ul>
9161
9162 <li>The subnet-change script is now able to change all files needing a change on the main-server when changing the IP network used.
9163 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
9164 <li>New Romanian translation.
9165 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
9166 <li>Fix roaming workstation setup (Closed in libpam-mklocaluser/0.8, libpam-mklocaluser/0.8~deb7u1: #706753: libpam-mklocaluser: Fail to create local user during first login).
9167 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
9168 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
9169 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
9170 <li>More testsuite tests.
9171 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
9172 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
9173
9174 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
9175 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
9176
9177 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
9178 them up with GOsa².</li>
9179
9180 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
9181
9182 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
9183 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
9184 entered password). </li>
9185
9186 </ul>
9187
9188 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
9189
9190 <ul>
9191
9192 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
9193
9194 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
9195 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
9196 missing import feature).</li>
9197
9198 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
9199
9200 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
9201 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
9202 unfixed.</li>
9203
9204 </ul>
9205
9206 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
9207
9208 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
9209
9210 <ul>
9211
9212 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
9213
9214 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
9215
9216 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
9217
9218 </ul>
9219
9220 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
9221 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
9222
9223 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
9224
9225 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
9226
9227       </div>
9228       <div class="tags">
9229
9230
9231         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9232
9233
9234       </div>
9235     </div>
9236     <div class="padding"></div>
9237
9238     <div class="entry">
9239       <div class="title">
9240         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html">Is there a PHP expert in the building?  Debian Edu need help!</a>
9241       </div>
9242       <div class="date">
9243          5th June 2013
9244       </div>
9245       <div class="body">
9246         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
9247 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
9248 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
9249 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
9250 the project:
9251
9252 <ol>
9253
9254 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
9255   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
9256   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
9257   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
9258   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
9259
9260 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
9261   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
9262   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
9263   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
9264   #698840</a>.</li>
9265
9266 </ol>
9267
9268 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
9269 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
9270 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
9271
9272       </div>
9273       <div class="tags">
9274
9275
9276         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9277
9278
9279       </div>
9280     </div>
9281     <div class="padding"></div>
9282
9283     <div class="entry">
9284       <div class="title">
9285         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
9286       </div>
9287       <div class="date">
9288          4th June 2013
9289       </div>
9290       <div class="body">
9291         <p>It has been a while since my last English
9292 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
9293 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
9294 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
9295 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
9296 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
9297
9298 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9299
9300 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
9301 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
9302 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
9303 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
9304
9305 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
9306 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
9307 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
9308
9309 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
9310 project?</strong></p>
9311
9312 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
9313 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
9314 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
9315 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
9316 manual.
9317
9318 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
9319 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
9320 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
9321 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
9322
9323 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
9324 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
9325 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
9326 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
9327 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
9328 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
9329 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
9330 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
9331 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
9332 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
9333
9334 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
9335 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
9336 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
9337 beautiful project.</p>
9338
9339 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
9340 Edu?</strong></p>
9341
9342 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
9343 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
9344 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
9345
9346 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
9347 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
9348 of educational free software.</p>
9349
9350 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
9351 Edu?</strong></p>
9352
9353 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
9354 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
9355 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
9356 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
9357 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
9358
9359 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
9360 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
9361 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
9362 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
9363 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
9364 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
9365 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
9366 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
9367
9368 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9369
9370 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
9371 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
9372 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
9373 also using the mathematical software
9374 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
9375 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
9376 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
9377
9378 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
9379 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
9380 statistics?</strong></p>
9381
9382 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
9383 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
9384 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
9385 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
9386
9387 <ul>
9388
9389 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
9390 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
9391 constructions in planar geometry
9392
9393 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
9394 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
9395 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
9396
9397 </ul>
9398
9399 <p>I like also
9400 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
9401 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
9402 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
9403
9404 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9405 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9406
9407 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
9408
9409 <ul>
9410
9411 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
9412
9413 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
9414     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
9415     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
9416
9417 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
9418
9419 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
9420     system.</li>
9421
9422 </ul>
9423
9424       </div>
9425       <div class="tags">
9426
9427
9428         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
9429
9430
9431       </div>
9432     </div>
9433     <div class="padding"></div>
9434
9435     <div class="entry">
9436       <div class="title">
9437         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">Educational applications included in Debian Edu / Skolelinux (the screenshot collection :-)</a>
9438       </div>
9439       <div class="date">
9440          1st June 2013
9441       </div>
9442       <div class="body">
9443         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
9444 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
9445 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
9446 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
9447 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
9448 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
9449 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
9450 program.</p>
9451
9452 <!-- for f in $(debtags tagcat|grep field::|awk '{print $2}'); do   echo; echo "<p><strong>$f</strong></p>"; echo "<p>";   (     for p in $(debtags search --names "use::learning && interface::x11 && role::program && $f"); do img="<img src='http://screenshots.debian.net/thumbnail/$p' alt='$p'>"; if dpkg -s $p > /dev/null 2>&1; then           echo "<a href='http://packages.qa.debian.org/$p'>$img</a>"; fi;     done;   ) | LANG=C sort; echo "</p>"; done -->
9453
9454 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
9455 <p>
9456 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=audacity'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/audacity.png' alt='audacity'></a>
9457 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
9458 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=denemo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/denemo.png' alt='denemo'></a>
9459 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=freebirth'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/freebirth.png' alt='freebirth'></a>
9460 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
9461 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gimp'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gimp.png' alt='gimp'></a>
9462 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=hydrogen'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/hydrogen.png' alt='hydrogen'></a>
9463 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lilypond'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lilypond.png' alt='lilypond'></a>
9464 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lmms'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lmms.png' alt='lmms'></a>
9465 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rosegarden'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rosegarden.png' alt='rosegarden'></a>
9466 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scribus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scribus.png' alt='scribus'></a>
9467 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=solfege'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/solfege.png' alt='solfege'></a>
9468 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stopmotion'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stopmotion.png' alt='stopmotion'></a>
9469 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxpaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxpaint.png' alt='tuxpaint'></a>
9470 </p>
9471
9472 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
9473 <p>
9474 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=celestia-gnome'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/celestia-gnome.png' alt='celestia-gnome'></a>
9475 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpredict'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gpredict.png' alt='gpredict'></a>
9476 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kstars'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kstars.png' alt='kstars'></a>
9477 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=planets'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/planets.png' alt='planets'></a>
9478 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stellarium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stellarium.png' alt='stellarium'></a>
9479 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
9480 </p>
9481
9482 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
9483 <p>
9484 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
9485 </p>
9486
9487 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
9488 <p>
9489 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=atomix'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/atomix.png' alt='atomix'></a>
9490 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=chemtool'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/chemtool.png' alt='chemtool'></a>
9491 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=easychem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/easychem.png' alt='easychem'></a>
9492 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gchempaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gchempaint.png' alt='gchempaint'></a>
9493 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gdis'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gdis.png' alt='gdis'></a>
9494 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ghemical'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ghemical.png' alt='ghemical'></a>
9495 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gperiodic'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gperiodic.png' alt='gperiodic'></a>
9496 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalzium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalzium.png' alt='kalzium'></a>
9497 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
9498 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
9499 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xdrawchem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xdrawchem.png' alt='xdrawchem'></a>
9500 </p>
9501
9502 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
9503 <p>
9504 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
9505 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
9506 </p>
9507
9508 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
9509 <p>
9510 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kgeography'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kgeography.png' alt='kgeography'></a>
9511 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=marble'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/marble.png' alt='marble'></a>
9512 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
9513 </p>
9514
9515 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
9516 <p>
9517 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
9518 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kanagram'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kanagram.png' alt='kanagram'></a>
9519 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=khangman'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/khangman.png' alt='khangman'></a>
9520 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=klettres'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/klettres.png' alt='klettres'></a>
9521 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=parley'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/parley.png' alt='parley'></a>
9522 </p>
9523
9524 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
9525 <p>
9526 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
9527 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=drgeo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/drgeo.png' alt='drgeo'></a>
9528 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
9529 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geogebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/geogebra.png' alt='geogebra'></a>
9530 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
9531 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=grace'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/grace.png' alt='grace'></a>
9532 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphmonkey'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphmonkey.png' alt='graphmonkey'></a>
9533 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphthing'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphthing.png' alt='graphthing'></a>
9534 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalgebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalgebra.png' alt='kalgebra'></a>
9535 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kbruch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kbruch.png' alt='kbruch'></a>
9536 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kig'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kig.png' alt='kig'></a>
9537 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kmplot'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kmplot.png' alt='kmplot'></a>
9538 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=mathwar'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/mathwar.png' alt='mathwar'></a>
9539 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rocs'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rocs.png' alt='rocs'></a>
9540 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
9541 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxmath'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxmath.png' alt='tuxmath'></a>
9542 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xabacus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xabacus.png' alt='xabacus'></a>
9543 </p>
9544
9545 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
9546 <p>
9547 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
9548 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=step'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/step.png' alt='step'></a>
9549 </p>
9550
9551 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
9552 <p>
9553 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=blinken'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/blinken.png' alt='blinken'></a>
9554 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=cgoban'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/cgoban.png' alt='cgoban'></a>
9555 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
9556 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
9557 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnuchess'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnuchess.png' alt='gnuchess'></a>
9558 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnugo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnugo.png' alt='gnugo'></a>
9559 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gtans'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gtans.png' alt='gtans'></a>
9560 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ktouch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ktouch.png' alt='ktouch'></a>
9561 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=librecad'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/librecad.png' alt='librecad'></a>
9562 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
9563 </p>
9564
9565 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
9566 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
9567 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
9568 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
9569 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
9570 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
9571 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
9572
9573       </div>
9574       <div class="tags">
9575
9576
9577         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9578
9579
9580       </div>
9581     </div>
9582     <div class="padding"></div>
9583
9584     <div class="entry">
9585       <div class="title">
9586         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
9587       </div>
9588       <div class="date">
9589         27th May 2013
9590       </div>
9591       <div class="body">
9592         <p>Two days ago, I asked
9593 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
9594 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
9595 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
9596 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
9597 and Windows 8.</p>
9598
9599 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
9600 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
9601 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
9602 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
9603 enough to tell.</p>
9604
9605 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
9606 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
9607 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
9608 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
9609 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
9610 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
9611 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
9612 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
9613 to follow.</p>
9614
9615 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
9616 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
9617 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
9618 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
9619 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
9620 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
9621 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
9622 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
9623
9624 <p>I've updated the
9625 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
9626 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
9627 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
9628 machine.</p>
9629
9630 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
9631 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
9632
9633       </div>
9634       <div class="tags">
9635
9636
9637         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9638
9639
9640       </div>
9641     </div>
9642     <div class="padding"></div>
9643
9644     <div class="entry">
9645       <div class="title">
9646         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
9647       </div>
9648       <div class="date">
9649         25th May 2013
9650       </div>
9651       <div class="body">
9652         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
9653 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
9654 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
9655 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
9656 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
9657 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
9658
9659 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
9660 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
9661 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
9662 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
9663 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
9664 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
9665 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
9666 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
9667 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
9668 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
9669
9670 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
9671 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
9672 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
9673 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
9674 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
9675 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
9676
9677 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
9678 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
9679 on new Laptops?</p>
9680
9681       </div>
9682       <div class="tags">
9683
9684
9685         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9686
9687
9688       </div>
9689     </div>
9690     <div class="padding"></div>
9691
9692     <div class="entry">
9693       <div class="title">
9694         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
9695       </div>
9696       <div class="date">
9697         17th May 2013
9698       </div>
9699       <div class="body">
9700         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
9701 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
9702 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
9703 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
9704 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
9705 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
9706 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
9707 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
9708 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
9709 donate some money</a>.
9710
9711 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
9712 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
9713 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
9714 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
9715 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
9716
9717 <p>The script,
9718 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
9719 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
9720 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
9721 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
9722
9723 <ol>
9724
9725 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
9726 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
9727 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
9728     our configuration.</li>
9729 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
9730     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
9731     according to the profile specified in the config above,
9732     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
9733 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
9734     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
9735 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
9736
9737 </ol>
9738
9739 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
9740 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
9741 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
9742 the needed packages.</p>
9743
9744 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
9745 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
9746 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
9747 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
9748 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
9749 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
9750
9751 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
9752 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
9753 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
9754
9755 <p><pre>
9756 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
9757 DESKTOP="lxde"
9758 </pre></p>
9759
9760 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
9761 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
9762 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
9763 boot.</p>
9764
9765       </div>
9766       <div class="tags">
9767
9768
9769         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9770
9771
9772       </div>
9773     </div>
9774     <div class="padding"></div>
9775
9776     <div class="entry">
9777       <div class="title">
9778         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
9779       </div>
9780       <div class="date">
9781         14th May 2013
9782       </div>
9783       <div class="body">
9784         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
9785 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
9786 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
9787
9788 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
9789 2013-05-14</strong></p>
9790
9791 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
9792 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
9793 codename "Wheezy".</p>
9794
9795 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
9796
9797 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
9798 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
9799 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
9800 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
9801 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
9802 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
9803 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
9804 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
9805
9806 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
9807 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
9808 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
9809
9810 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
9811 <ul>
9812   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
9813     default.</li>
9814   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
9815   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
9816   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
9817     ibus-anthy.</li>
9818 </ul>
9819
9820 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
9821 <ul>
9822
9823   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
9824     reliability improvements.</li>
9825   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
9826     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
9827   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
9828     problems.</li>
9829   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
9830     direct:// URL.</li>
9831   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
9832   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
9833   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
9834   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
9835     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
9836   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
9837     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
9838 </ul>
9839
9840 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
9841 <ul>
9842
9843   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
9844     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
9845     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
9846   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
9847   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
9848     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
9849   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
9850   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
9851   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
9852     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
9853   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
9854     password submission problem
9855     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
9856
9857 </ul>
9858
9859 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
9860
9861 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
9862 <ul>
9863
9864   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
9865   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
9866   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</li>
9867
9868 </ul>
9869
9870 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
9871
9872 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
9873
9874 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
9875
9876 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
9877
9878       </div>
9879       <div class="tags">
9880
9881
9882         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9883
9884
9885       </div>
9886     </div>
9887     <div class="padding"></div>
9888
9889     <div class="entry">
9890       <div class="title">
9891         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
9892       </div>
9893       <div class="date">
9894         11th May 2013
9895       </div>
9896       <div class="body">
9897         <P>In January,
9898 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
9899 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
9900 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
9901 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
9902 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
9903 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
9904 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
9905 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
9906 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
9907 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
9908 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
9909 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
9910
9911 <p><table>
9912 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
9913 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
9914 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
9915 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
9916 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
9917 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
9918 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
9919 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
9920 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
9921 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
9922 </table></p>
9923
9924 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
9925 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
9926 available in experimental.</p>
9927
9928 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
9929 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
9930 for LEGO designers.</p>
9931
9932       </div>
9933       <div class="tags">
9934
9935
9936         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
9937
9938
9939       </div>
9940     </div>
9941     <div class="padding"></div>
9942
9943     <div class="entry">
9944       <div class="title">
9945         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
9946       </div>
9947       <div class="date">
9948          5th May 2013
9949       </div>
9950       <div class="body">
9951         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
9952 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
9953 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
9954 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
9955 soon.</p>
9956
9957 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
9958 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
9959 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
9960 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
9961 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
9962 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
9963 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
9964 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
9965 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
9966 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
9967 Edu.</a>
9968
9969 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
9970 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
9971 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
9972 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
9973 follow.<p>
9974
9975       </div>
9976       <div class="tags">
9977
9978
9979         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9980
9981
9982       </div>
9983     </div>
9984     <div class="padding"></div>
9985
9986     <div class="entry">
9987       <div class="title">
9988         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
9989       </div>
9990       <div class="date">
9991         26th April 2013
9992       </div>
9993       <div class="body">
9994         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
9995 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
9996 announcement:</p>
9997
9998 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
9999 2013-04-26</strong></p>
10000
10001 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
10002 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
10003
10004 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
10005
10006 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
10007 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
10008 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
10009 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
10010 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
10011 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
10012 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
10013 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
10014 installed via the network.</p>
10015
10016 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
10017 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
10018 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
10019
10020 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
10021
10022 <ul>
10023 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
10024   <ul>
10025      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
10026      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
10027          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
10028          manual.)</li>
10029      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
10030      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
10031      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
10032      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
10033      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
10034      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
10035      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
10036      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
10037      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
10038      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
10039      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
10040      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
10041          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
10042          manual</a> for more details.</li>
10043      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
10044          installation.</li>
10045      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
10046          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/releasenotes">release notes</a> and the <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation manual</a>.</li>
10047   </ul></li>
10048 </ul>
10049
10050 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
10051 <ul>
10052 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
10053     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
10054     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
10055 </ul>
10056
10057 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
10058 <ul>
10059 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
10060     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
10061     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
10062 </ul>
10063
10064 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
10065 <ul>
10066 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
10067     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
10068     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
10069 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
10070     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
10071     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
10072 </ul>
10073
10074 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
10075 <ul>
10076 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
10077     yet.</li>
10078 </ul>
10079
10080 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
10081
10082 <ul>
10083 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
10084     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
10085     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
10086 </ul>
10087
10088 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
10089
10090 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
10091 <ul>
10092 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
10093 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
10094 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
10095 </ul>
10096
10097 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
10098
10099 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
10100
10101 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
10102
10103 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
10104
10105       </div>
10106       <div class="tags">
10107
10108
10109         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10110
10111
10112       </div>
10113     </div>
10114     <div class="padding"></div>
10115
10116     <div class="entry">
10117       <div class="title">
10118         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_developer_gathering_in_2013_take_place_in_Trondheim.html">First Debian Edu / Skolelinux developer gathering in 2013 take place in Trondheim</a>
10119       </div>
10120       <div class="date">
10121         16th April 2013
10122       </div>
10123       <div class="body">
10124         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
10125 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
10126 Details about the gathering can be found
10127 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
10128 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
10129 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
10130 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
10131 weekend.</p>
10132
10133 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
10134 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
10135 Edu release.</p>
10136
10137 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
10138
10139       </div>
10140       <div class="tags">
10141
10142
10143         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10144
10145
10146       </div>
10147     </div>
10148     <div class="padding"></div>
10149
10150     <div class="entry">
10151       <div class="title">
10152         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
10153       </div>
10154       <div class="date">
10155          3rd April 2013
10156       </div>
10157       <div class="body">
10158         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
10159 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
10160 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
10161 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
10162
10163 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
10164 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
10165 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
10166 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
10167 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
10168 BTS. :)</p>
10169
10170       </div>
10171       <div class="tags">
10172
10173
10174         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10175
10176
10177       </div>
10178     </div>
10179     <div class="padding"></div>
10180
10181     <div class="entry">
10182       <div class="title">
10183         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Change_the_font__save_the_world__and_save_some_money_in_the_process_.html">Change the font, save the world (and save some money in the process)</a>
10184       </div>
10185       <div class="date">
10186         26th March 2013
10187       </div>
10188       <div class="body">
10189         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
10190 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
10191 font you use when printing.</p>
10192
10193 <p>Three years ago,
10194 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
10195 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
10196 changed their default front from
10197 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
10198 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
10199 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
10200 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
10201 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
10202 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
10203 prints.</p>
10204
10205 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
10206 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
10207 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
10208 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
10209 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
10210 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
10211 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
10212 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
10213 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
10214 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
10215 depend on the documents printed.</p>
10216
10217 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
10218 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
10219 and save some money in the process.</p>
10220
10221 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
10222 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
10223 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
10224 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
10225 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
10226 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
10227 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
10228 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
10229 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
10230
10231       </div>
10232       <div class="tags">
10233
10234
10235         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10236
10237
10238       </div>
10239     </div>
10240     <div class="padding"></div>
10241
10242     <div class="entry">
10243       <div class="title">
10244         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_a_short_story_using_docbook_for_PDF__HTML_and_EPUB.html">Typesetting a short story using docbook for PDF, HTML and EPUB</a>
10245       </div>
10246       <div class="date">
10247         24th March 2013
10248       </div>
10249       <div class="body">
10250         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
10251 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
10252 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
10253 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
10254 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
10255 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
10256 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
10257 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
10258 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
10259 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
10260 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
10261 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
10262
10263 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
10264 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
10265 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
10266 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
10267 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
10268 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
10269 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
10270 all I had to do was to use the
10271 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
10272 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
10273 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
10274 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
10275 xsltproc/fop (aka
10276 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
10277 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
10278 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
10279 technical detail.</p>
10280
10281 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
10282 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
10283 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
10284 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
10285 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
10286 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
10287
10288 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
10289 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
10290 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
10291 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
10292 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
10293 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
10294 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
10295 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
10296 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
10297
10298 <p><blockquote><pre>
10299 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
10300 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
10301   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
10302     &lt;hr/&gt;
10303   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
10304 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
10305 </pre></blockquote></p>
10306
10307 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
10308
10309 <p><blockquote><pre>
10310 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
10311 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
10312   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
10313     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
10314       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
10315     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
10316   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
10317 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
10318 </pre></blockquote></p>
10319
10320 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
10321 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
10322 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
10323 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
10324 enough.</p>
10325
10326 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
10327 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
10328 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
10329 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
10330 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
10331 look like this:</p>
10332
10333 <p><blockquote><pre>
10334 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
10335 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
10336   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
10337     &lt;br/&gt;
10338   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
10339 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
10340 </pre></blockquote></p>
10341
10342 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
10343
10344 <p><blockquote><pre>
10345 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
10346 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
10347   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
10348   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
10349     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
10350   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
10351 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
10352 </pre></blockquote></p>
10353
10354 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
10355 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
10356 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
10357 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
10358 page.</p>
10359
10360 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
10361 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
10362 github</a>
10363 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
10364 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
10365 days.</p>
10366
10367       </div>
10368       <div class="tags">
10369
10370
10371         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
10372
10373
10374       </div>
10375     </div>
10376     <div class="padding"></div>
10377
10378     <div class="entry">
10379       <div class="title">
10380         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_6_got_a_video_review_from_Pcwizz.html">Skolelinux 6 got a video review from Pcwizz</a>
10381       </div>
10382       <div class="date">
10383         17th March 2013
10384       </div>
10385       <div class="body">
10386         <p>Via
10387 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
10388 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
10389 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
10390 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
10391 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
10392 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
10393 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
10394
10395 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
10396 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
10397
10398 <blockquote>
10399 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
10400 </blockquote>
10401
10402 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
10403
10404 <blockquote>
10405 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
10406 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
10407 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
10408 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
10409 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
10410 </blockquote>
10411
10412 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
10413 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
10414 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
10415 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
10416
10417 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
10418 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
10419
10420 <blockquote>
10421 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
10422 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
10423 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
10424 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
10425 </blockquote>
10426
10427 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
10428 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
10429 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
10430 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
10431 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
10432
10433 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
10434 embedding:</p>
10435
10436 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
10437
10438       </div>
10439       <div class="tags">
10440
10441
10442         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
10443
10444
10445       </div>
10446     </div>
10447     <div class="padding"></div>
10448
10449     <div class="entry">
10450       <div class="title">
10451         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
10452       </div>
10453       <div class="date">
10454          8th March 2013
10455       </div>
10456       <div class="body">
10457         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
10458 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
10459 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
10460 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
10461 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
10462 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
10463 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
10464
10465 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
10466
10467 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
10468 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
10469
10470 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
10471 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
10472 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
10473 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
10474 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
10475 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
10476
10477 <p>Images are available for download at
10478 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
10479
10480 <p>md5sums:
10481 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
10482 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
10483 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
10484
10485 <p>sha1sums:
10486 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
10487 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
10488 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
10489
10490 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
10491
10492 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
10493 2013-03-03:</p>
10494
10495 <ul>
10496   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
10497   <ul>
10498         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
10499         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
10500   </ul></li>
10501   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
10502   <ul>
10503         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
10504         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
10505   </ul></li>
10506   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
10507      <ul>
10508         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
10509         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
10510         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
10511                 Closes: #664596</li>
10512         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
10513                 Closes: #664976</li>
10514         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
10515            <ul>
10516                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
10517                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
10518            </ul></li>
10519         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
10520            <ul>
10521                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
10522                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
10523                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
10524                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
10525                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
10526            </ul></li>
10527         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
10528     </ul>
10529   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
10530     <ul>
10531         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
10532     </ul></li>
10533 </ul>
10534
10535 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
10536 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
10537 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
10538 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
10539
10540 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
10541 mailinglist
10542 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
10543 </p></blockquote>
10544
10545 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
10546
10547       </div>
10548       <div class="tags">
10549
10550
10551         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10552
10553
10554       </div>
10555     </div>
10556     <div class="padding"></div>
10557
10558     <div class="entry">
10559       <div class="title">
10560         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen___Complete_TV_station_organised_using_the_web.html">Frikanalen - Complete TV station organised using the web</a>
10561       </div>
10562       <div class="date">
10563          3rd March 2013
10564       </div>
10565       <div class="body">
10566         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
10567 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
10568 support using
10569 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
10570 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
10571 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
10572 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
10573 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
10574 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
10575 using the GNU LGPL, and
10576 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
10577
10578 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
10579 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
10580 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
10581 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
10582 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
10583 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
10584
10585 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
10586 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
10587 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
10588 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
10589 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
10590 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
10591 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
10592 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
10593 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
10594 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
10595 signal distribution is handled using
10596 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
10597 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
10598 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
10599 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
10600 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
10601 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
10602 them up a bit more first.</p>
10603
10604 <p>The development is coordinated on the
10605 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
10606 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
10607 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
10608 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
10609 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
10610 development.</p>
10611
10612       </div>
10613       <div class="tags">
10614
10615
10616         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
10617
10618
10619       </div>
10620     </div>
10621     <div class="padding"></div>
10622
10623     <div class="entry">
10624       <div class="title">
10625         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dr__Richard_Stallman__founder_of_Free_Software_Foundation__give_a_talk_in_Oslo_March_1st_2013.html">Dr. Richard Stallman, founder of Free Software Foundation, give a talk in Oslo March 1st 2013</a>
10626       </div>
10627       <div class="date">
10628         27th February 2013
10629       </div>
10630       <div class="body">
10631         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
10632 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
10633 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
10634 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
10635 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
10636 (where I am the chair of the board) and
10637 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
10638 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
10639 GNU», with this description:
10640
10641 <p><blockquote>
10642 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
10643 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
10644 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
10645 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
10646 </blockquote></p>
10647
10648 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
10649 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
10650 am really curious how many will show up.  See
10651 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
10652 page</a> for the location details.</p>
10653
10654       </div>
10655       <div class="tags">
10656
10657
10658         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
10659
10660
10661       </div>
10662     </div>
10663     <div class="padding"></div>
10664
10665     <div class="entry">
10666       <div class="title">
10667         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikart___Free_Garmin_maps_for_European_countries_based_on_OpenStreetmap.html">Frikart - Free Garmin maps for European countries based on OpenStreetmap</a>
10668       </div>
10669       <div class="date">
10670         15th February 2013
10671       </div>
10672       <div class="body">
10673         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
10674 now a great source of free maps available from
10675 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
10676 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
10677 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
10678 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
10679 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
10680 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
10681 page for descriptions).</p>
10682
10683 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
10684 map you can just edit the
10685 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
10686 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
10687
10688       </div>
10689       <div class="tags">
10690
10691
10692         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
10693
10694
10695       </div>
10696     </div>
10697     <div class="padding"></div>
10698
10699     <div class="entry">
10700       <div class="title">
10701         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html">"Electronic" paper invoices - using vCard in a QR code</a>
10702       </div>
10703       <div class="date">
10704         12th February 2013
10705       </div>
10706       <div class="body">
10707         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
10708 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
10709 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
10710 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
10711 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
10712 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
10713 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
10714 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
10715 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
10716 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
10717 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
10718 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
10719 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
10720 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
10721 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
10722 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
10723
10724 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
10725 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
10726 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
10727 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
10728 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
10729 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
10730 fields:</p>
10731
10732 <p><pre>
10733 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
10734 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
10735 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
10736 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
10737 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
10738 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
10739 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
10740 </pre></p>
10741
10742 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
10743 answer regarding
10744 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
10745 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
10746 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
10747 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
10748
10749 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
10750
10751 <p><pre>
10752 BEGIN:VCARD
10753 VERSION:2.1
10754 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
10755 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
10756 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
10757 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
10758 REV:20130212T095000Z
10759 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
10760 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
10761 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
10762 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
10763 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
10764 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
10765 END:VCARD
10766 </pre></p>
10767
10768 <p>The resulting QR code created using
10769 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
10770 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
10771 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
10772 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
10773 system.</p>
10774
10775 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
10776
10777 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
10778 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
10779 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
10780 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
10781
10782 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
10783 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
10784
10785       </div>
10786       <div class="tags">
10787
10788
10789         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
10790
10791
10792       </div>
10793     </div>
10794     <div class="padding"></div>
10795
10796     <div class="entry">
10797       <div class="title">
10798         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sleep_until_morning___home_automation_for_the_kids.html">Sleep until morning - home automation for the kids</a>
10799       </div>
10800       <div class="date">
10801         10th February 2013
10802       </div>
10803       <div class="body">
10804         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
10805
10806 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
10807 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
10808 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
10809 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
10810 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
10811 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
10812 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
10813 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
10814 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
10815 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
10816 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
10817
10818 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
10819 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
10820 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
10821 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
10822 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
10823 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
10824 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
10825 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
10826 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
10827 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
10828 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
10829 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
10830 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
10831 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
10832 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
10833 ones own
10834 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
10835 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
10836 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
10837 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
10838 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
10839 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
10840 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
10841 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
10842 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
10843 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
10844 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
10845
10846 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
10847 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
10848 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
10849 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
10850 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
10851 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
10852
10853 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
10854 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
10855 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
10856
10857       </div>
10858       <div class="tags">
10859
10860
10861         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10862
10863
10864       </div>
10865     </div>
10866     <div class="padding"></div>
10867
10868     <div class="entry">
10869       <div class="title">
10870         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
10871       </div>
10872       <div class="date">
10873          2nd February 2013
10874       </div>
10875       <div class="body">
10876         <p>My
10877 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
10878 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
10879 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
10880 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
10881 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
10882 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
10883 version too.</p>
10884
10885 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
10886 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
10887 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
10888 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
10889 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
10890 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
10891 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
10892 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
10893
10894 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
10895 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
10896 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
10897 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
10898 it. :)</p>
10899
10900 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
10901 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
10902 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
10903
10904       </div>
10905       <div class="tags">
10906
10907
10908         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10909
10910
10911       </div>
10912     </div>
10913     <div class="padding"></div>
10914
10915     <div class="entry">
10916       <div class="title">
10917         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
10918       </div>
10919       <div class="date">
10920         22nd January 2013
10921       </div>
10922       <div class="body">
10923         <p>Yesterday, I
10924 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
10925 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
10926 pluggable hardware devices, which I
10927 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
10928 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
10929 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
10930 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
10931 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
10932 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
10933 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
10934 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
10935 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
10936 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
10937
10938 <pre>
10939 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
10940 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
10941 </pre>
10942
10943 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
10944 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
10945 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
10946 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
10947
10948 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
10949 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
10950 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
10951 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
10952 word.</p>
10953
10954 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
10955 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
10956 process.</p>
10957
10958 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
10959 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
10960
10961       </div>
10962       <div class="tags">
10963
10964
10965         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10966
10967
10968       </div>
10969     </div>
10970     <div class="padding"></div>
10971
10972     <div class="entry">
10973       <div class="title">
10974         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
10975       </div>
10976       <div class="date">
10977         21st January 2013
10978       </div>
10979       <div class="body">
10980         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
10981 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
10982 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
10983 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
10984 it, fetch the
10985 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
10986 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
10987 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
10988 autostart script.</p>
10989
10990 <p>The design is simple:</p>
10991
10992 <ul>
10993
10994 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
10995 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
10996
10997 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
10998 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
10999 initially did.</li>
11000
11001 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
11002 the APT database, a database
11003 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
11004 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
11005
11006 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
11007 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
11008 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
11009 package or packages.</li>
11010
11011 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
11012 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
11013
11014 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
11015 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
11016
11017 </ul>
11018
11019 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
11020 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
11021 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
11022 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
11023
11024 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
11025 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
11026 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
11027 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
11028 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
11029
11030 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
11031 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
11032 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
11033 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
11034 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
11035 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
11036 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
11037 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
11038
11039 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
11040 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
11041 '<tt>svn checkout
11042 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
11043 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
11044 devscripts package.</p>
11045
11046 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
11047 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
11048 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
11049 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
11050 instructions</a> for details.</p>
11051
11052       </div>
11053       <div class="tags">
11054
11055
11056         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
11057
11058
11059       </div>
11060     </div>
11061     <div class="padding"></div>
11062
11063     <div class="entry">
11064       <div class="title">
11065         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
11066       </div>
11067       <div class="date">
11068         19th January 2013
11069       </div>
11070       <div class="body">
11071         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
11072 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
11073 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
11074 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
11075 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
11076 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
11077 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
11078 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
11079 not a durable solution.
11080
11081 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
11082 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
11083
11084 <ul>
11085
11086 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
11087   than A4).</li>
11088 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
11089 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
11090 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
11091 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
11092 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
11093 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
11094 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
11095 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
11096 size).</li>
11097 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
11098   X.org packages.</li>
11099 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
11100   the time).
11101
11102 </ul>
11103
11104 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
11105 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
11106 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
11107 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
11108 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
11109 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
11110 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
11111 still be useful.</p>
11112
11113 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
11114 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
11115 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
11116 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
11117 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
11118 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
11119
11120       </div>
11121       <div class="tags">
11122
11123
11124         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11125
11126
11127       </div>
11128     </div>
11129     <div class="padding"></div>
11130
11131     <div class="entry">
11132       <div class="title">
11133         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
11134       </div>
11135       <div class="date">
11136         18th January 2013
11137       </div>
11138       <div class="body">
11139         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
11140 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
11141 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
11142 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
11143 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
11144 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
11145 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
11146
11147 <pre>
11148 #!/usr/bin/python
11149 import sys
11150 import apt
11151 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
11152     cache = apt.Cache()
11153     cache.open(None)
11154     thepkgs = []
11155     for pkg in cache:
11156         version = pkg.candidate
11157         if version is None:
11158             version = pkg.installed
11159         if version is None:
11160             continue
11161         record = version.record
11162         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
11163             continue
11164         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
11165         for t in mime_types:
11166             t = t.rstrip().strip()
11167             if t == mimetype:
11168                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
11169     return thepkgs
11170 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
11171 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
11172     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
11173 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
11174 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
11175     print "  %s" %pkg
11176 </pre>
11177
11178 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
11179
11180 <pre>
11181 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
11182 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
11183   gecko-mediaplayer
11184 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
11185 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
11186   browser-plugin-gnash
11187 %
11188 </pre>
11189
11190 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
11191 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
11192 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
11193 anyone working on adding it?</p>
11194
11195 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
11196 request for icweasel support for this feature is
11197 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
11198 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
11199 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
11200 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
11201
11202       </div>
11203       <div class="tags">
11204
11205
11206         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11207
11208
11209       </div>
11210     </div>
11211     <div class="padding"></div>
11212
11213     <div class="entry">
11214       <div class="title">
11215         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
11216       </div>
11217       <div class="date">
11218         16th January 2013
11219       </div>
11220       <div class="body">
11221         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
11222 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
11223 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
11224 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
11225 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
11226 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
11227 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
11228 downloaded by the browser.</p>
11229
11230 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
11231 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
11232 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
11233 can be found on the
11234 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
11235 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
11236 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
11237 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
11238 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
11239
11240 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
11241
11242 <pre>
11243   count MIME type
11244   ----- -----------------------
11245      32 text/plain
11246      30 audio/mpeg
11247      29 image/png
11248      28 image/jpeg
11249      27 application/ogg
11250      26 audio/x-mp3
11251      25 image/tiff
11252      25 image/gif
11253      22 image/bmp
11254      22 audio/x-wav
11255      20 audio/x-flac
11256      19 audio/x-mpegurl
11257      18 video/x-ms-asf
11258      18 audio/x-musepack
11259      18 audio/x-mpeg
11260      18 application/x-ogg
11261      17 video/mpeg
11262      17 audio/x-scpls
11263      17 audio/ogg
11264      16 video/x-ms-wmv
11265 </pre>
11266
11267 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
11268
11269 <pre>
11270   count MIME type
11271   ----- -----------------------
11272      33 text/plain
11273      32 image/png
11274      32 image/jpeg
11275      29 audio/mpeg
11276      27 image/gif
11277      26 image/tiff
11278      26 application/ogg
11279      25 audio/x-mp3
11280      22 image/bmp
11281      21 audio/x-wav
11282      19 audio/x-mpegurl
11283      19 audio/x-mpeg
11284      18 video/mpeg
11285      18 audio/x-scpls
11286      18 audio/x-flac
11287      18 application/x-ogg
11288      17 video/x-ms-asf
11289      17 text/html
11290      17 audio/x-musepack
11291      16 image/x-xbitmap
11292 </pre>
11293
11294 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
11295
11296 <pre>
11297   count MIME type
11298   ----- -----------------------
11299      31 text/plain
11300      31 image/png
11301      31 image/jpeg
11302      29 audio/mpeg
11303      28 application/ogg
11304      27 image/gif
11305      26 image/tiff
11306      26 audio/x-mp3
11307      23 audio/x-wav
11308      22 image/bmp
11309      21 audio/x-flac
11310      20 audio/x-mpegurl
11311      19 audio/x-mpeg
11312      18 video/x-ms-asf
11313      18 video/mpeg
11314      18 audio/x-scpls
11315      18 application/x-ogg
11316      17 audio/x-musepack
11317      16 video/x-ms-wmv
11318      16 video/x-msvideo
11319 </pre>
11320
11321 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
11322 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
11323 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
11324 issues.</p>
11325
11326 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
11327 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
11328
11329       </div>
11330       <div class="tags">
11331
11332
11333         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11334
11335
11336       </div>
11337     </div>
11338     <div class="padding"></div>
11339
11340     <div class="entry">
11341       <div class="title">
11342         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
11343       </div>
11344       <div class="date">
11345         15th January 2013
11346       </div>
11347       <div class="body">
11348         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
11349 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
11350 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
11351 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
11352 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
11353 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
11354 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
11355 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
11356 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
11357 packages.</p>
11358
11359 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
11360 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
11361 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
11362 modalias.</p>
11363
11364 <p><blockquote>
11365 Package: package-name
11366 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
11367 </blockquote></p>
11368
11369 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
11370 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
11371
11372 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
11373 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
11374
11375 <p><blockquote>
11376 Package: cheese
11377 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
11378 </blockquote></p>
11379
11380 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
11381 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
11382
11383 <p><blockquote>
11384 Package: pcmciautils
11385 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
11386 </blockquote></p>
11387
11388 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
11389 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
11390
11391 <p><blockquote>
11392 Package: colorhug-client
11393 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
11394 </blockquote></p>
11395
11396 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
11397 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
11398 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
11399
11400 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
11401 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
11402 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
11403 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
11404 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
11405 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
11406 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
11407 Raring.</p>
11408
11409 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
11410 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
11411 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
11412 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
11413 try the
11414 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
11415 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
11416 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
11417 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
11418
11419 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
11420 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
11421
11422 <p><blockquote>
11423 % ./hw-support-lookup
11424 <br>yubikey-personalization
11425 <br>%
11426 </blockquote></p>
11427
11428 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
11429 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
11430
11431 <p><blockquote>
11432 % ./hw-support-lookup
11433 <br>pcmciautils
11434 <br>%
11435 </blockquote></p>
11436
11437 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
11438 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
11439 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
11440
11441 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
11442 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
11443 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
11444 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
11445 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
11446 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
11447 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
11448 see if it work.</p>
11449
11450 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
11451 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
11452 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
11453 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
11454
11455       </div>
11456       <div class="tags">
11457
11458
11459         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
11460
11461
11462       </div>
11463     </div>
11464     <div class="padding"></div>
11465
11466     <div class="entry">
11467       <div class="title">
11468         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
11469       </div>
11470       <div class="date">
11471         14th January 2013
11472       </div>
11473       <div class="body">
11474         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
11475 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
11476 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
11477 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
11478 in
11479 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
11480 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
11481
11482 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
11483
11484 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
11485 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
11486 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
11487 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
11488 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
11489 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
11490
11491 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
11492 this shell script:</p>
11493
11494 <pre>
11495 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
11496 </pre>
11497
11498 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
11499 using modinfo:</p>
11500
11501 <pre>
11502 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
11503 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
11504 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
11505 %
11506 </pre>
11507
11508 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
11509
11510 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
11511 Bridge memory controller:</p>
11512
11513 <p><blockquote>
11514 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
11515 </blockquote></p>
11516
11517 <p>This represent these values:</p>
11518
11519 <pre>
11520  v   00008086  (vendor)
11521  d   00002770  (device)
11522  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
11523  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
11524  bc  06        (bus class)
11525  sc  00        (bus subclass)
11526  i   00        (interface)
11527 </pre>
11528
11529 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
11530 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
11531 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
11532 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
11533
11534 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
11535 means.</p>
11536
11537 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
11538
11539 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
11540 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
11541
11542 <p><blockquote>
11543 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
11544 </blockquote></p>
11545
11546 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
11547
11548 <pre>
11549  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
11550  p    0001  (device product)
11551  d    0206  (bcddevice)
11552  dc     09  (device class)
11553  dsc    00  (device subclass)
11554  dp     00  (device protocol)
11555  ic     09  (interface class)
11556  isc    00  (interface subclass)
11557  ip     00  (interface protocol)
11558 </pre>
11559
11560 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
11561 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
11562 these alias entries show up:</p>
11563
11564 <p><blockquote>
11565 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
11566 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
11567 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
11568 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
11569 </blockquote></p>
11570
11571 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
11572 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
11573 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
11574
11575 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
11576
11577 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
11578 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
11579
11580 <p><blockquote>
11581 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
11582 </blockquote></p>
11583
11584 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
11585
11586 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
11587
11588 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
11589 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
11590 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
11591
11592 <p><blockquote>
11593 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
11594 </blockquote></p>
11595
11596 <p>The values present are</p>
11597
11598 <pre>
11599  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
11600  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
11601  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
11602  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
11603  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
11604  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
11605  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
11606  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
11607  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
11608  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
11609  ct   10             (chassis type)
11610  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
11611 </pre>
11612
11613 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
11614 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
11615
11616 <pre>
11617   3 Desktop
11618   4 Low Profile Desktop
11619   5 Pizza Box
11620   6 Mini Tower
11621   7 Tower
11622   8 Portable
11623   9 Laptop
11624  10 Notebook
11625  11 Hand Held
11626  12 Docking Station
11627  13 All In One
11628  14 Sub Notebook
11629  15 Space-saving
11630  16 Lunch Box
11631  17 Main Server Chassis
11632  18 Expansion Chassis
11633  19 Sub Chassis
11634  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
11635  21 Peripheral Chassis
11636  22 RAID Chassis
11637  23 Rack Mount Chassis
11638  24 Sealed-case PC
11639  25 Multi-system
11640  26 CompactPCI
11641  27 AdvancedTCA
11642  28 Blade
11643  29 Blade Enclosing
11644 </pre>
11645
11646 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
11647 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
11648 claim it is a desktop.</p>
11649
11650 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
11651
11652 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
11653 test machine:</p>
11654
11655 <p><blockquote>
11656 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
11657 </blockquote></p>
11658
11659 <p>The values present are</p>
11660
11661 <pre>
11662   ty  01  (type)
11663   pr  00  (prototype)
11664   id  00  (id)
11665   ex  00  (extra)
11666 </pre>
11667
11668 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
11669 the valid values are.</p>
11670
11671 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
11672
11673 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
11674 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
11675 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
11676 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
11677 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
11678 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
11679 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
11680
11681 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
11682
11683 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
11684 one can use the following shell script:</p>
11685
11686 <pre>
11687   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
11688     echo "$id" ; \
11689     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
11690   done
11691 </pre>
11692
11693 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
11694 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
11695
11696 <pre>
11697   acpi:ACPI0003:
11698     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
11699   acpi:device:
11700   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
11701   acpi:IBM0068:
11702     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
11703     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
11704     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
11705     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
11706   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
11707     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
11708     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
11709     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
11710   [...]
11711 </pre>
11712
11713 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
11714 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
11715 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
11716 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
11717
11718 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
11719 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
11720 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
11721
11722       </div>
11723       <div class="tags">
11724
11725
11726         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
11727
11728
11729       </div>
11730     </div>
11731     <div class="padding"></div>
11732
11733     <div class="entry">
11734       <div class="title">
11735         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
11736       </div>
11737       <div class="date">
11738         10th January 2013
11739       </div>
11740       <div class="body">
11741         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
11742 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
11743 Launcher and updated the Debian package
11744 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
11745 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
11746 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
11747 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
11748 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
11749 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
11750 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
11751 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
11752 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
11753 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
11754 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
11755 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
11756 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
11757 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
11758 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
11759
11760       </div>
11761       <div class="tags">
11762
11763
11764         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
11765
11766
11767       </div>
11768     </div>
11769     <div class="padding"></div>
11770
11771     <div class="entry">
11772       <div class="title">
11773         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
11774       </div>
11775       <div class="date">
11776          9th January 2013
11777       </div>
11778       <div class="body">
11779         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
11780 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
11781 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
11782 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
11783 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
11784 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
11785 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
11786 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
11787 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
11788 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
11789 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
11790
11791 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
11792 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
11793 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
11794 simple:
11795
11796 <ul>
11797
11798 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
11799   starting when a user log in.</li>
11800
11801 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
11802   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
11803
11804 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
11805   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
11806   packages.</li>
11807
11808 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
11809   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
11810
11811 </ul>
11812
11813 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
11814 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
11815 discover database to find packages and
11816 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
11817 packages.</p>
11818
11819 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
11820 draft package is now checked into
11821 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
11822 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
11823 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
11824 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
11825 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
11826 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
11827 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
11828 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
11829 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
11830 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
11831 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
11832 because of the freeze).</p>
11833
11834 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
11835 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
11836 inserted):</p>
11837
11838 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
11839
11840 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
11841 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
11842 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
11843
11844 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
11845 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
11846 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
11847 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
11848 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
11849 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
11850 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
11851
11852 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
11853 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
11854 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
11855 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
11856 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
11857 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
11858 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
11859 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
11860 not be installed?</p>
11861
11862 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
11863 please send me an email. :)</p>
11864
11865       </div>
11866       <div class="tags">
11867
11868
11869         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
11870
11871
11872       </div>
11873     </div>
11874     <div class="padding"></div>
11875
11876     <div class="entry">
11877       <div class="title">
11878         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
11879       </div>
11880       <div class="date">
11881          2nd January 2013
11882       </div>
11883       <div class="body">
11884         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
11885 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
11886 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
11887 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
11888 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
11889 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
11890 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
11891 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
11892 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
11893 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
11894
11895 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
11896 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
11897 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
11898
11899       </div>
11900       <div class="tags">
11901
11902
11903         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
11904
11905
11906       </div>
11907     </div>
11908     <div class="padding"></div>
11909
11910     <div class="entry">
11911       <div class="title">
11912         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
11913       </div>
11914       <div class="date">
11915         28th December 2012
11916       </div>
11917       <div class="body">
11918         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
11919 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
11920 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
11921 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
11922 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
11923 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
11924 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
11925 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
11926 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
11927 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
11928 followed by many others. :)</p>
11929
11930 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
11931 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
11932 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
11933 you want to donate to the project.</p>
11934
11935       </div>
11936       <div class="tags">
11937
11938
11939         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11940
11941
11942       </div>
11943     </div>
11944     <div class="padding"></div>
11945
11946     <div class="entry">
11947       <div class="title">
11948         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
11949       </div>
11950       <div class="date">
11951         25th December 2012
11952       </div>
11953       <div class="body">
11954         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
11955 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
11956
11957 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
11958 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
11959 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
11960 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
11961 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
11962 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
11963 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
11964 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
11965 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
11966 name.</p>
11967
11968 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
11969 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
11970 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
11971
11972 <blockquote><pre>
11973 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
11974 cd bitcoin
11975 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
11976 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
11977 </pre></blockquote>
11978
11979 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
11980 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
11981 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
11982 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
11983 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
11984 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
11985 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
11986 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
11987 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
11988
11989 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
11990 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
11991 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
11992
11993       </div>
11994       <div class="tags">
11995
11996
11997         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11998
11999
12000       </div>
12001     </div>
12002     <div class="padding"></div>
12003
12004     <div class="entry">
12005       <div class="title">
12006         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
12007       </div>
12008       <div class="date">
12009         21st December 2012
12010       </div>
12011       <div class="body">
12012         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
12013 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
12014 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
12015 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
12016 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
12017 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
12018 is now maintained by a
12019 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
12020 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
12021 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
12022 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
12023 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
12024 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
12025 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
12026 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
12027 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
12028 Corallo in a
12029 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
12030 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
12031 Debian package.</p>
12032
12033 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
12034 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
12035 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
12036 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
12037 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
12038 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
12039 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
12040 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
12041 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
12042 new version to unstable.
12043
12044 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
12045 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
12046 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
12047 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
12048 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
12049 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
12050 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
12051 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
12052 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
12053 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
12054 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
12055 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
12056 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
12057 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
12058 have not tested them.</p>
12059
12060 <p>My
12061 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
12062 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
12063 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
12064 years ago, as can be
12065 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
12066 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
12067 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
12068 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
12069 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
12070 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
12071 the same address as last time,
12072 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
12073
12074       </div>
12075       <div class="tags">
12076
12077
12078         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12079
12080
12081       </div>
12082     </div>
12083     <div class="padding"></div>
12084
12085     <div class="entry">
12086       <div class="title">
12087         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ledger___double_entry_accounting_using_text_based_storage_format.html">Ledger - double-entry accounting using text based storage format</a>
12088       </div>
12089       <div class="date">
12090         18th December 2012
12091       </div>
12092       <div class="body">
12093         <p>A few days ago I came across
12094 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
12095 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
12096 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
12097 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
12098 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
12099 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
12100 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
12101 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
12102 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
12103
12104 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
12105 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
12106 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
12107 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
12108
12109 <blockquote><pre>
12110 2004-05-27 Book Store
12111       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
12112       Liabilities:Visa
12113 </pre></blockquote>
12114
12115 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
12116 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
12117 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
12118 Spang</a>,
12119 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
12120 Keen</a>,
12121 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
12122 Cantino</a> and
12123 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
12124 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
12125 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
12126 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
12127 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
12128
12129 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
12130 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
12131 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
12132 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
12133 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
12134
12135 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
12136 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
12137 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
12138 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
12139 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
12140 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
12141 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
12142 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
12143 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
12144
12145       </div>
12146       <div class="tags">
12147
12148
12149         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
12150
12151
12152       </div>
12153     </div>
12154     <div class="padding"></div>
12155
12156     <div class="entry">
12157       <div class="title">
12158         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Scripting_the_Cerebrum_bofhd_user_administration_system_using_XML_RPC.html">Scripting the Cerebrum/bofhd user administration system using XML-RPC</a>
12159       </div>
12160       <div class="date">
12161          6th December 2012
12162       </div>
12163       <div class="body">
12164         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
12165 Oslo</a>, we use the
12166 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
12167 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
12168 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
12169 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
12170 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
12171 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
12172 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
12173 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
12174 Python.</p>
12175
12176 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
12177 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
12178 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
12179 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
12180 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
12181 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
12182
12183 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
12184 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
12185 user currently logged in:</p>
12186
12187 <blockquote><pre>
12188 #!/usr/bin/env python
12189 import getpass
12190 import xmlrpclib
12191 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
12192 username = getpass.getuser()
12193 password = getpass.getpass()
12194 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
12195 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
12196 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
12197 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
12198 result = server.logout(sessionid)
12199 print result
12200 </pre></blockquote>
12201
12202 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
12203 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
12204
12205       </div>
12206       <div class="tags">
12207
12208
12209         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
12210
12211
12212       </div>
12213     </div>
12214     <div class="padding"></div>
12215
12216     <div class="entry">
12217       <div class="title">
12218         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_the_value_of_copyright_taxed_.html">Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?</a>
12219       </div>
12220       <div class="date">
12221         17th November 2012
12222       </div>
12223       <div class="body">
12224         <p>While working on a
12225 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
12226 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
12227 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
12228 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
12229 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
12230 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
12231
12232 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
12233 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
12234 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
12235 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
12236 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
12237 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
12238 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
12239 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
12240 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
12241 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
12242 arguments.</p>
12243
12244 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
12245 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
12246 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
12247 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
12248 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
12249 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
12250 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
12251 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
12252
12253 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
12254 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
12255 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
12256 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
12257 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
12258 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
12259 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
12260 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
12261 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
12262 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
12263 correct right holder.</p>
12264
12265 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
12266 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
12267 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
12268 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
12269 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
12270 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
12271 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
12272 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
12273 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
12274 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
12275 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
12276 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
12277 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
12278 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
12279
12280 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
12281 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
12282 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
12283
12284 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
12285 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
12286
12287       </div>
12288       <div class="tags">
12289
12290
12291         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
12292
12293
12294       </div>
12295     </div>
12296     <div class="padding"></div>
12297
12298     <div class="entry">
12299       <div class="title">
12300         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
12301       </div>
12302       <div class="date">
12303         14th November 2012
12304       </div>
12305       <div class="body">
12306         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
12307 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
12308 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
12309 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
12310 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
12311 the people behind the German
12312 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
12313 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
12314 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
12315
12316 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12317
12318 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
12319 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
12320 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
12321
12322 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
12323 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
12324 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
12325 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
12326 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
12327 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
12328
12329 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
12330 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
12331 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
12332 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
12333 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
12334 relationship management and the communication processes in the
12335 project.</p>
12336
12337 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
12338 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
12339 and a yoga teacher.</p>
12340
12341 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
12342 project?</strong></p>
12343
12344 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
12345
12346 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
12347 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
12348 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
12349 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
12350 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
12351 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
12352 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
12353 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
12354 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
12355 parents.</p>
12356
12357 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
12358 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
12359 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
12360 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
12361 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
12362 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
12363 Germany.</p>
12364
12365 <p>For information about our school project you can read
12366 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
12367 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
12368
12369 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
12370 Edu?</strong></p>
12371
12372 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
12373 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
12374
12375 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
12376 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
12377 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
12378 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
12379 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
12380 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
12381 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
12382 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
12383 teachers, parents...</p>
12384
12385 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
12386 Edu?</strong></p>
12387
12388 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
12389 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
12390
12391 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
12392 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
12393 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
12394 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
12395 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
12396
12397 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
12398 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
12399 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
12400 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
12401 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
12402 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
12403 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
12404
12405 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12406
12407 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
12408 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
12409 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
12410 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
12411
12412 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12413 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12414
12415 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
12416 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
12417 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
12418 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
12419 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
12420
12421 <ul>
12422
12423 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
12424 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
12425 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
12426
12427 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
12428 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
12429 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
12430 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
12431 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
12432 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
12433 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
12434
12435 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
12436 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
12437 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
12438 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
12439
12440 </ul>
12441
12442       </div>
12443       <div class="tags">
12444
12445
12446         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
12447
12448
12449       </div>
12450     </div>
12451     <div class="padding"></div>
12452
12453     <div class="entry">
12454       <div class="title">
12455         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_European_Central_Bank__ECB__take_a_look_at_bitcoin.html">The European Central Bank (ECB) take a look at bitcoin</a>
12456       </div>
12457       <div class="date">
12458          4th November 2012
12459       </div>
12460       <div class="body">
12461         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
12462 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
12463 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
12464 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
12465 see how a member of the bitcoin community
12466 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
12467 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
12468 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
12469 competition.  My thoughts go to the
12470 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
12471 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
12472 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
12473 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
12474 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
12475
12476 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
12477 that the community already seem to have
12478 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
12479 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
12480 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
12481 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
12482 wealth is available.</p>
12483
12484       </div>
12485       <div class="tags">
12486
12487
12488         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
12489
12490
12491       </div>
12492     </div>
12493     <div class="padding"></div>
12494
12495     <div class="entry">
12496       <div class="title">
12497         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html">12 years of outages - summarised by Stuart Kendrick</a>
12498       </div>
12499       <div class="date">
12500         26th October 2012
12501       </div>
12502       <div class="body">
12503         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
12504 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
12505 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
12506 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
12507 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
12508 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
12509 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
12510 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
12511 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
12512 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
12513 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
12514 it every time.</p>
12515
12516 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
12517 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
12518 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
12519 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
12520 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
12521 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
12522 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
12523 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
12524 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
12525 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
12526 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
12527 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
12528
12529 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
12530 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
12531 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
12532 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
12533 article: First the unplanned outage:
12534
12535 <blockquote><pre>
12536 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
12537 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
12538 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
12539 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
12540 Duration:    40 minutes
12541 Scope:       Exchange 2003
12542 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
12543              a cluster failover.
12544
12545 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
12546              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
12547 Technician:  [xxx]
12548 </pre></blockquote>
12549
12550 Next the planned outage:
12551
12552 <blockquote><pre>
12553 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
12554 Severity:    Major (Planned)
12555 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
12556 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
12557 Duration:    10 hours
12558 Scope:       H2 Transport
12559 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
12560              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
12561              4510s.
12562 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
12563              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
12564              connectivity.
12565 Technician:  [xxx]
12566 </pre></blockquote>
12567
12568 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
12569 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
12570 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
12571 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
12572 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
12573 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
12574 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
12575
12576 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
12577 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
12578 university too.  We do register
12579 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
12580 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
12581 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
12582 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
12583 for other sites to consider too?</p>
12584
12585       </div>
12586       <div class="tags">
12587
12588
12589         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix</a>.
12590
12591
12592       </div>
12593     </div>
12594     <div class="padding"></div>
12595
12596     <div class="entry">
12597       <div class="title">
12598         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html">Amazon steal books from customer and throw out her out without any explanation</a>
12599       </div>
12600       <div class="date">
12601         22nd October 2012
12602       </div>
12603       <div class="body">
12604         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
12605 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
12606 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
12607 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
12608 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
12609 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
12610 background information is available in Norwegian from
12611 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
12612 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
12613 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
12614 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
12615 willing to
12616 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
12617 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
12618 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
12619 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
12620 sounded like
12621 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
12622 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
12623 later.</p>
12624
12625 <p>And thought this action is
12626 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
12627 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
12628 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
12629 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
12630 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
12631 rights.</p>
12632
12633 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
12634 unacceptable terms.  For example
12635 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
12636 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
12637 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
12638 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
12639 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
12640
12641 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
12642 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
12643 restored the account of the user, as reported by
12644 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
12645 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
12646 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
12647 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
12648 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
12649 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
12650 reading two opinions from
12651 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
12652 Phipps</a> and
12653 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
12654 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
12655 details about the original story.</p>
12656
12657       </div>
12658       <div class="tags">
12659
12660
12661         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
12662
12663
12664       </div>
12665     </div>
12666     <div class="padding"></div>
12667
12668     <div class="entry">
12669       <div class="title">
12670         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
12671       </div>
12672       <div class="date">
12673         18th October 2012
12674       </div>
12675       <div class="body">
12676         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
12677 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
12678 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
12679 across a marvellous drawing by
12680 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
12681 visualising some of what is going on.
12682
12683 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
12684 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
12685
12686 <blockquote>
12687 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
12688 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
12689 </blockquote>
12690
12691 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
12692 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
12693 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
12694 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
12695 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
12696 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
12697
12698       </div>
12699       <div class="tags">
12700
12701
12702         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
12703
12704
12705       </div>
12706     </div>
12707     <div class="padding"></div>
12708
12709     <div class="entry">
12710       <div class="title">
12711         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
12712       </div>
12713       <div class="date">
12714         12th October 2012
12715       </div>
12716       <div class="body">
12717         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
12718 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
12719 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
12720 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
12721 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
12722 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
12723 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
12724 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
12725 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
12726 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
12727 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
12728 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
12729 matter".</p>
12730
12731 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
12732 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
12733 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
12734 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
12735 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
12736 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
12737 to argue its side.</p>
12738
12739 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
12740 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
12741 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
12742 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
12743
12744 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
12745 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
12746 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
12747
12748       </div>
12749       <div class="tags">
12750
12751
12752         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis</a>.
12753
12754
12755       </div>
12756     </div>
12757     <div class="padding"></div>
12758
12759     <div class="entry">
12760       <div class="title">
12761         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_is_your_local_library_collecting_the__wrong__computer_books_.html">Why is your local library collecting the "wrong" computer books?</a>
12762       </div>
12763       <div class="date">
12764          3rd October 2012
12765       </div>
12766       <div class="body">
12767         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
12768 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
12769 the computer science book collection available in his local
12770 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
12771 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
12772 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
12773 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
12774 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
12775 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
12776 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
12777 recently published books.</p>
12778
12779 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
12780 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
12781 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
12782 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
12783 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
12784 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
12785 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
12786 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
12787 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
12788 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
12789 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
12790 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
12791 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
12792 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
12793 for the library that evening.</p>
12794
12795 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
12796 going to know that for example
12797 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
12798 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
12799 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
12800 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
12801 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
12802 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
12803 book right away.</p>
12804
12805       </div>
12806       <div class="tags">
12807
12808
12809         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12810
12811
12812       </div>
12813     </div>
12814     <div class="padding"></div>
12815
12816     <div class="entry">
12817       <div class="title">
12818         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Seventy_percent_done_with_Norwegian_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Seventy percent done with Norwegian docbook version of Free Culture</a>
12819       </div>
12820       <div class="date">
12821         23rd September 2012
12822       </div>
12823       <div class="body">
12824         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
12825 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
12826 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
12827 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
12828 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
12829 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
12830
12831 When I started, I
12832 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
12833 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
12834 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
12835 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
12836 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
12837 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
12838 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
12839
12840 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
12841
12842 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
12843 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
12844 the project files currently available from
12845 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
12846
12847 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
12848 the updated
12849 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
12850 and
12851 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
12852 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
12853 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
12854 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
12855
12856       </div>
12857       <div class="tags">
12858
12859
12860         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
12861
12862
12863       </div>
12864     </div>
12865     <div class="padding"></div>
12866
12867     <div class="entry">
12868       <div class="title">
12869         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
12870       </div>
12871       <div class="date">
12872         17th September 2012
12873       </div>
12874       <div class="body">
12875         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
12876 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
12877 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
12878 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
12879 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
12880 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
12881 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
12882
12883 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12884
12885 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
12886 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
12887 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
12888 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
12889 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
12890 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
12891 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
12892 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
12893 training is anyway very important</p>
12894
12895 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
12896 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
12897 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
12898 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
12899 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
12900
12901 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12902 project?</strong></p>
12903
12904 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
12905 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
12906 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
12907 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
12908 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
12909 hole.</p>
12910
12911 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12912 Edu?</strong></p>
12913
12914 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
12915 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
12916 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
12917 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
12918 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
12919 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
12920 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
12921 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
12922 hassle.</p>
12923
12924 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12925 Edu?</strong></p>
12926
12927 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
12928 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
12929 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
12930 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
12931 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
12932 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
12933 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
12934 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
12935
12936 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12937
12938 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
12939 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
12940 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
12941 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
12942 has the same...</p>
12943
12944 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
12945 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
12946 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
12947 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
12948
12949 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12950 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12951
12952 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
12953 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
12954 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
12955
12956 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
12957 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
12958 don't.</p>
12959
12960 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
12961 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
12962 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
12963 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
12964 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
12965 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
12966 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
12967
12968       </div>
12969       <div class="tags">
12970
12971
12972         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
12973
12974
12975       </div>
12976     </div>
12977     <div class="padding"></div>
12978
12979     <div class="entry">
12980       <div class="title">
12981         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
12982       </div>
12983       <div class="date">
12984         15th September 2012
12985       </div>
12986       <div class="body">
12987         <p>After the
12988 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
12989 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
12990 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
12991 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
12992 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
12993 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
12994 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
12995 was
12996 <a href="http://ietf.10.n7.nabble.com/New-Non-WG-Mailing-List-video-codec-Video-codec-BoF-discussion-list-td119548.html">created 2012-08-20</a>.  It is intended to discuss the topic and if a
12997 formal working group should be formed.</p>
12998
12999 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
13000 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
13001 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
13002 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
13003 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
13004 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
13005 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
13006 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
13007
13008 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
13009 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
13010 IETF.</p>
13011
13012       </div>
13013       <div class="tags">
13014
13015
13016         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
13017
13018
13019       </div>
13020     </div>
13021     <div class="padding"></div>
13022
13023     <div class="entry">
13024       <div class="title">
13025         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
13026       </div>
13027       <div class="date">
13028         12th September 2012
13029       </div>
13030       <div class="body">
13031         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
13032 publication of of
13033 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
13034 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
13035 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
13036 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
13037 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
13038 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
13039 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
13040 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
13041 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
13042 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
13043
13044 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
13045 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
13046 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
13047 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
13048
13049 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
13050 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
13051
13052       </div>
13053       <div class="tags">
13054
13055
13056         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
13057
13058
13059       </div>
13060     </div>
13061     <div class="padding"></div>
13062
13063     <div class="entry">
13064       <div class="title">
13065         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
13066       </div>
13067       <div class="date">
13068          7th September 2012
13069       </div>
13070       <div class="body">
13071         <p>As I
13072 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
13073 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
13074 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
13075 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
13076 repository for the project</a>.</p>
13077
13078 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
13079 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
13080 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
13081 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
13082
13083 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
13084 PostScript formats at
13085 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
13086 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
13087
13088       </div>
13089       <div class="tags">
13090
13091
13092         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
13093
13094
13095       </div>
13096     </div>
13097     <div class="padding"></div>
13098
13099     <div class="entry">
13100       <div class="title">
13101         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_forced_Microsoft_to_open_Office__and_don_t_forget_Officeshots_.html">Free software forced Microsoft to open Office (and don't forget Officeshots)</a>
13102       </div>
13103       <div class="date">
13104         23rd August 2012
13105       </div>
13106       <div class="body">
13107         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
13108 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
13109 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
13110 revisit the great site
13111 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
13112 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
13113 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
13114
13115       </div>
13116       <div class="tags">
13117
13118
13119         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
13120
13121
13122       </div>
13123     </div>
13124     <div class="padding"></div>
13125
13126     <div class="entry">
13127       <div class="title">
13128         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_way_there_with_translated_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Half way there with translated docbook version of Free Culture</a>
13129       </div>
13130       <div class="date">
13131         17th August 2012
13132       </div>
13133       <div class="body">
13134         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
13135 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
13136 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
13137 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
13138 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
13139 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
13140 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
13141 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
13142 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
13143 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
13144 summer I
13145 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
13146 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
13147 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
13148
13149 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
13150 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
13151 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
13152 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
13153 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
13154 progress:</p>
13155
13156 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
13157
13158 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
13159 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
13160 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
13161 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
13162 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
13163 english version of the docbook source.</p>
13164
13165 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
13166 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
13167 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
13168 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
13169 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
13170 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
13171 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
13172 project files currently available from <a
13173 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
13174
13175 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
13176 the updated
13177 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
13178 and
13179 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
13180 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
13181 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
13182 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
13183
13184       </div>
13185       <div class="tags">
13186
13187
13188         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
13189
13190
13191       </div>
13192     </div>
13193     <div class="padding"></div>
13194
13195     <div class="entry">
13196       <div class="title">
13197         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Notes_on_language_codes_for_Norwegian_docbook_processing___.html">Notes on language codes for Norwegian docbook processing...</a>
13198       </div>
13199       <div class="date">
13200         10th August 2012
13201       </div>
13202       <div class="body">
13203         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
13204 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
13205 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
13206 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
13207 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
13208 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
13209 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
13210 case for the language
13211 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
13212 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
13213
13214 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
13215 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
13216 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
13217 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
13218 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
13219
13220 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
13221 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
13222 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
13223 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
13224 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
13225 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
13226 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
13227 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
13228 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
13229 alias for 'nb'.</p>
13230
13231 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
13232 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
13233 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
13234 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
13235 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
13236 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
13237 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
13238 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
13239 at the same time. :(</p>
13240
13241 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
13242 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
13243 processors. :(</p>
13244
13245 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
13246
13247       </div>
13248       <div class="tags">
13249
13250
13251         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
13252
13253
13254       </div>
13255     </div>
13256     <div class="padding"></div>
13257
13258     <div class="entry">
13259       <div class="title">
13260         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
13261       </div>
13262       <div class="date">
13263         31st July 2012
13264       </div>
13265       <div class="body">
13266         <p>I tried to send this text to the
13267 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
13268 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
13269 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
13270 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
13271 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
13272 out.</p>
13273
13274 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
13275 learning curve at the moment.</p>
13276
13277 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
13278 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
13279 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
13280 available from
13281 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
13282 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
13283 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
13284 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
13285 Squeeze.</p>
13286
13287 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
13288 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
13289 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
13290 problems.</p>
13291
13292 <ul>
13293
13294 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
13295    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
13296    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
13297    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
13298    index references spanning several pages (See
13299    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
13300    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
13301    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
13302
13303 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
13304    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
13305    #683163</a>).</li>
13306
13307 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
13308    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
13309    footnote and text body, see
13310    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
13311    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
13312    refs listed are not right).</li>
13313
13314 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
13315
13316 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
13317    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
13318
13319 </ul>
13320
13321 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
13322 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
13323 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
13324
13325 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
13326
13327       </div>
13328       <div class="tags">
13329
13330
13331         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
13332
13333
13334       </div>
13335     </div>
13336     <div class="padding"></div>
13337
13338     <div class="entry">
13339       <div class="title">
13340         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">Free Culture in Norwegian - 5 chapters done, 74 percent left to do</a>
13341       </div>
13342       <div class="date">
13343         21st July 2012
13344       </div>
13345       <div class="body">
13346         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
13347 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
13348 norwegian version</a> of the book
13349 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
13350 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
13351 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
13352 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
13353 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
13354
13355 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
13356 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
13357 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
13358 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
13359 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
13360 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
13361 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
13362 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
13363 print. :)</p>
13364
13365 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
13366 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
13367 language.</p>
13368
13369       </div>
13370       <div class="tags">
13371
13372
13373         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
13374
13375
13376       </div>
13377     </div>
13378     <div class="padding"></div>
13379
13380     <div class="entry">
13381       <div class="title">
13382         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Call_for_help_from_docbook_expert_to_tag_Free_Culture_by_Lawrence_Lessig.html">Call for help from docbook expert to tag Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a>
13383       </div>
13384       <div class="date">
13385         16th July 2012
13386       </div>
13387       <div class="body">
13388         <p>I am currently working on a
13389 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
13390 to translate</a> the book
13391 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
13392 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
13393 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
13394 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
13395 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
13396 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
13397 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
13398
13399 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
13400 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
13401 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
13402 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
13403 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
13404 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
13405 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
13406 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
13407 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
13408
13409       </div>
13410       <div class="tags">
13411
13412
13413         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
13414
13415
13416       </div>
13417     </div>
13418     <div class="padding"></div>
13419
13420     <div class="entry">
13421       <div class="title">
13422         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
13423       </div>
13424       <div class="date">
13425          9th July 2012
13426       </div>
13427       <div class="body">
13428         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
13429 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
13430 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
13431 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
13432 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
13433 to adjust and scale the just released
13434 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
13435 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
13436 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
13437
13438 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
13439
13440 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
13441 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
13442 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
13443 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
13444 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
13445 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
13446 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
13447 perspective when working with IT.</p>
13448
13449 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
13450 project?</strong></p>
13451
13452 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
13453 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
13454 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
13455 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
13456 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
13457 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
13458
13459 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13460 Edu?</strong></p>
13461
13462 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
13463 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
13464 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
13465 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
13466 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
13467 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
13468 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
13469 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
13470 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
13471 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
13472 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
13473 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
13474 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
13475 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
13476 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
13477 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
13478 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
13479 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
13480 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
13481 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
13482 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
13483 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
13484 quicker to update.
13485
13486 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13487 Edu?</strong></p>
13488
13489 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
13490 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
13491 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
13492 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
13493 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
13494 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
13495
13496 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
13497 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
13498 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
13499 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
13500 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
13501 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
13502 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
13503 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
13504 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
13505 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
13506 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
13507 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
13508 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
13509 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
13510 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
13511
13512 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
13513 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
13514 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
13515 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
13516 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
13517 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
13518 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
13519 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
13520
13521 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
13522 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
13523 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
13524 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
13525 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
13526 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
13527 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
13528 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
13529 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
13530 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
13531 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
13532 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
13533 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
13534 sound file.</p>
13535
13536 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
13537 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
13538 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
13539 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
13540 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
13541 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
13542 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
13543 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
13544 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
13545
13546 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
13547
13548 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
13549 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
13550 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
13551 )</p>
13552
13553 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
13554 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
13555
13556 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
13557 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
13558 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
13559 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
13560 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
13561 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
13562 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
13563 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
13564 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
13565 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
13566 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
13567 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
13568 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
13569 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
13570 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
13571
13572 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
13573 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
13574 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
13575 management with Airtime</a>,
13576 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
13577 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
13578 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
13579 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
13580 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
13581
13582       </div>
13583       <div class="tags">
13584
13585
13586         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
13587
13588
13589       </div>
13590     </div>
13591     <div class="padding"></div>
13592
13593     <div class="entry">
13594       <div class="title">
13595         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
13596       </div>
13597       <div class="date">
13598          8th July 2012
13599       </div>
13600       <div class="body">
13601         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
13602 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
13603 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
13604 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
13605 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
13606 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
13607 Steinberg in his blog post
13608 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
13609 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
13610 spending of your tax money.</p>
13611
13612 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
13613 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
13614 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
13615 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
13616 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
13617 purchases.</p>
13618
13619       </div>
13620       <div class="tags">
13621
13622
13623         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13624
13625
13626       </div>
13627     </div>
13628     <div class="padding"></div>
13629
13630     <div class="entry">
13631       <div class="title">
13632         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
13633       </div>
13634       <div class="date">
13635          7th July 2012
13636       </div>
13637       <div class="body">
13638         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
13639 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
13640 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
13641 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
13642 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
13643 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
13644 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
13645 receive.  The software is
13646
13647 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
13648 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
13649 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
13650 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
13651 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
13652 Windows</a>.</p>
13653
13654 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
13655 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
13656
13657 <p><ul>
13658
13659   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
13660     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
13661
13662   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
13663     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
13664     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
13665     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
13666     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
13667     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
13668     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
13669     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
13670     </li>
13671
13672   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
13673     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
13674
13675   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
13676     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
13677
13678   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
13679     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
13680
13681   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
13682
13683   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
13684     formats </li>
13685
13686   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
13687     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
13688     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
13689     (as separate sets)</li>
13690
13691   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
13692     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
13693     percentage)</li>
13694
13695   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
13696     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
13697     memory):
13698     <ul>
13699       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
13700       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
13701       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
13702       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
13703       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
13704       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
13705       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
13706       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
13707       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
13708       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
13709           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
13710           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
13711           activity)</li>
13712       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
13713       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
13714     </ul></li>
13715
13716   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
13717     <ul>
13718       <li>Break periods</li>
13719       <li>For teacher(s):
13720         <ul>
13721           <li>Not available periods</li>
13722           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
13723           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
13724           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
13725           <li>Min hours daily</li>
13726           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
13727
13728           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
13729             days per week</li>
13730         </ul></li>
13731       <li>For students (sets):
13732         <ul>
13733           <li>Not available periods</li>
13734           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
13735           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
13736           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
13737           <li>Min hours daily</li>
13738           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
13739
13740           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
13741             days per week</li>
13742         </ul></li>
13743       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
13744         <ul>
13745           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
13746           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
13747           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
13748           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
13749           <li>End(s) students day</li>
13750           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
13751           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
13752             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
13753           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
13754           <li>Not overlapping</li>
13755           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
13756           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
13757         </ul></li>
13758     </ul></li>
13759
13760   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
13761     <ul>
13762       <li>Room not available periods</li>
13763       <li>For teacher(s):
13764         <ul>
13765           <li>Home room(s)</li>
13766           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
13767           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
13768         </ul>
13769       </li>
13770
13771       <li>For students (sets):
13772         <ul>
13773           <li>Home room(s)</li>
13774           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
13775           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
13776         </ul>
13777       </li>
13778       <li>Preferred room(s):
13779         <ul>
13780           <li>For a subject</li>
13781           <li>For an activity tag</li>
13782           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
13783           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
13784         </ul>
13785       </li>
13786
13787       <li>For a set of activities:
13788         <ul>
13789           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
13790         </ul>
13791       </li>
13792     </ul>
13793   </li>
13794 </ul></p>
13795
13796 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
13797 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
13798 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
13799 manually, check it out.
13800
13801 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
13802 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
13803 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
13804 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
13805 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
13806 section</a>.</p>
13807
13808       </div>
13809       <div class="tags">
13810
13811
13812         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
13813
13814
13815       </div>
13816     </div>
13817     <div class="padding"></div>
13818
13819     <div class="entry">
13820       <div class="title">
13821         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Can_Zimbra_be_told_to_send_autoreplies_to_the_From__address_.html">Can Zimbra be told to send autoreplies to the From: address?</a>
13822       </div>
13823       <div class="date">
13824          3rd July 2012
13825       </div>
13826       <div class="body">
13827         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
13828 project (Norwegian version of
13829 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
13830 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
13831 a problem with the municipalities using
13832 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
13833 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
13834 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
13835 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
13836 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
13837 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
13838 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
13839 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
13840 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
13841 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
13842 the From: header.</p>
13843
13844 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
13845 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
13846 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
13847 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
13848 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
13849 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
13850 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
13851 behaviour.</p>
13852
13853 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
13854 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
13855 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
13856 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
13857 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
13858 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
13859 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
13860
13861       </div>
13862       <div class="tags">
13863
13864
13865         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13866
13867
13868       </div>
13869     </div>
13870     <div class="padding"></div>
13871
13872     <div class="entry">
13873       <div class="title">
13874         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jos__Luis_Redrejo_Rodr_guez.html">Debian Edu interview: José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez</a>
13875       </div>
13876       <div class="date">
13877         26th June 2012
13878       </div>
13879       <div class="body">
13880         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
13881 another interview with the people behind
13882 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
13883 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
13884 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
13885 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
13886 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
13887 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
13888 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
13889
13890 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
13891
13892 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
13893 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
13894 ICT in schools</p>
13895
13896 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
13897 project?</strong></p>
13898
13899 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
13900 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
13901 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
13902 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
13903
13904 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13905 Edu?</strong></p>
13906
13907 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
13908 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
13909 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
13910 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
13911
13912 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13913 Edu?</strong></p>
13914
13915 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
13916 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
13917 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
13918 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
13919 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
13920 technologies in school.</p>
13921
13922 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
13923
13924 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
13925 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
13926 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
13927
13928 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
13929 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
13930
13931 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
13932 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
13933 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
13934 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
13935
13936 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
13937 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
13938 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
13939
13940 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
13941 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
13942 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
13943 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
13944 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
13945 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
13946 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
13947 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
13948 working there.</p>
13949
13950       </div>
13951       <div class="tags">
13952
13953
13954         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
13955
13956
13957       </div>
13958     </div>
13959     <div class="padding"></div>
13960
13961     <div class="entry">
13962       <div class="title">
13963         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
13964       </div>
13965       <div class="date">
13966         24th June 2012
13967       </div>
13968       <div class="body">
13969         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
13970 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
13971 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
13972 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
13973 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
13974 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
13975 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
13976 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
13977 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
13978 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
13979 missing in my book.</p>
13980
13981 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
13982 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
13983 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
13984 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
13985 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
13986 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
13987 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
13988
13989       </div>
13990       <div class="tags">
13991
13992
13993         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
13994
13995
13996       </div>
13997     </div>
13998     <div class="padding"></div>
13999
14000     <div class="entry">
14001       <div class="title">
14002         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html">Debian Edu - some ideas for the future versions</a>
14003       </div>
14004       <div class="date">
14005         11th June 2012
14006       </div>
14007       <div class="body">
14008         <p>During my work on
14009 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
14010 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
14011 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
14012 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
14013 explanation.</p>
14014
14015 <p><ul>
14016
14017 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
14018 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
14019 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
14020 system depend on tasksel tasks in
14021 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
14022 installation.</li>
14023
14024 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
14025 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
14026 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
14027 at least try to enable it for these services:
14028 <ul>
14029
14030   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
14031     quotas.</li>
14032   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
14033   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
14034   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
14035   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
14036   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
14037
14038 </ul></li>
14039
14040 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
14041 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
14042 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
14043 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
14044
14045 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
14046 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
14047 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
14048
14049 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
14050 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
14051 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
14052 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
14053 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
14054 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
14055
14056 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
14057 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
14058 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
14059 in Wheezy.
14060
14061 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
14062 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
14063 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
14064
14065 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
14066 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
14067 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
14068 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
14069
14070 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
14071 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
14072 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
14073 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
14074
14075 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
14076 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
14077 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
14078
14079 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
14080 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
14081 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
14082
14083 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
14084 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
14085 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
14086 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
14087 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
14088
14089 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
14090 <ul>
14091
14092 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
14093 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
14094 <li>and probably more?</li>
14095 </ul></li>
14096
14097 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
14098 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
14099 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
14100 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
14101 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
14102 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
14103 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
14104 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
14105
14106
14107 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
14108 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
14109 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
14110 use.</li>
14111
14112 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
14113 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
14114 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
14115 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
14116 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
14117
14118 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
14119 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
14120 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
14121 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
14122 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
14123 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
14124
14125 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
14126 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
14127 There are at least three implementations,
14128 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
14129 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
14130 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
14131 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
14132 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
14133 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
14134 given room.</li>
14135
14136 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
14137 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
14138 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
14139 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
14140 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
14141 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
14142 investigated.</li>
14143
14144 </ul></p>
14145
14146 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
14147 version.</p>
14148
14149       </div>
14150       <div class="tags">
14151
14152
14153         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14154
14155
14156       </div>
14157     </div>
14158     <div class="padding"></div>
14159
14160     <div class="entry">
14161       <div class="title">
14162         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html">TV with face recognition, for improved viewer experience</a>
14163       </div>
14164       <div class="date">
14165          9th June 2012
14166       </div>
14167       <div class="body">
14168         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
14169 <a href="http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/06/09/0012247/intel-to-launch-tv-service-with-facial-recognition-by-end-of-the-year">TV
14170 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
14171 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
14172 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
14173 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
14174 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
14175 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
14176 be willing to pay for.</p>
14177
14178 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
14179 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
14180 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
14181 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
14182 Orwell</a>.</p>
14183
14184       </div>
14185       <div class="tags">
14186
14187
14188         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
14189
14190
14191       </div>
14192     </div>
14193     <div class="padding"></div>
14194
14195     <div class="entry">
14196       <div class="title">
14197         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html">Web service to look up HP and Dell computer hardware support status</a>
14198       </div>
14199       <div class="date">
14200          6th June 2012
14201       </div>
14202       <div class="body">
14203         <p>A few days ago
14204 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
14205 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
14206 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
14207 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
14208 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
14209 code for HP, Dell and IBM
14210 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
14211 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
14212 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
14213 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
14214 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
14215
14216 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
14217 output:
14218
14219 <blockquote><pre>
14220 % GET <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/?format=json&vendor=Dell&servicetag=2v1xwn1">https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/?format=json&vendor=Dell&servicetag=2v1xwn1</a>
14221 supportstatus({"servicetag": "2v1xwn1", "warrantyend": "2013-11-24", "shipped": "2010-11-24", "scrapestamputc": "2012-06-06T20:26:56.965847", "scrapedurl": "http://143.166.84.118/services/assetservice.asmx?WSDL", "vendor": "Dell", "productid": ""})
14222 %
14223 </pre></blockquote>
14224
14225 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
14226 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
14227 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
14228
14229       </div>
14230       <div class="tags">
14231
14232
14233         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14234
14235
14236       </div>
14237     </div>
14238     <div class="padding"></div>
14239
14240     <div class="entry">
14241       <div class="title">
14242         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
14243       </div>
14244       <div class="date">
14245          2nd June 2012
14246       </div>
14247       <div class="body">
14248         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
14249 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
14250 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
14251 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
14252 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
14253 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
14254
14255 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
14256
14257 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
14258 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
14259 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
14260 by Angela).</p>
14261
14262 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
14263 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
14264 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
14265 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
14266 becoming an osteopath.</p>
14267
14268 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
14269 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
14270 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
14271 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
14272 skills with communication skills.</p>
14273
14274 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
14275 project?</strong></p>
14276
14277 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
14278 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
14279 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
14280 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
14281 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
14282
14283 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
14284 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
14285 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
14286 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
14287 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
14288 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
14289 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
14290 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
14291 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
14292
14293 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
14294 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
14295 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
14296
14297 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
14298
14299 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
14300 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
14301 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
14302 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
14303 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
14304 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
14305 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
14306 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
14307 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
14308 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
14309 point.</p>
14310
14311 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
14312 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
14313 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
14314 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
14315 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
14316 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
14317
14318 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
14319 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
14320 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
14321 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
14322 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
14323 spare time.</p>
14324
14325 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
14326 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
14327 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
14328 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
14329 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
14330
14331 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
14332 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
14333 avoidance do exist.</p>
14334
14335 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
14336 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
14337 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
14338 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
14339 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
14340 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
14341 and probably a gain for all.</p>
14342
14343 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
14344 Edu?</strong></p>
14345
14346 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
14347 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
14348 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
14349 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
14350 project communication, honest communication within the group of
14351 developers, etc.</p>
14352
14353 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
14354 Edu?</strong></p>
14355
14356 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
14357
14358 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
14359 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
14360 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
14361 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
14362 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
14363 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
14364 contribute).</p>
14365
14366 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
14367 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
14368 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
14369 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
14370 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
14371 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
14372 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
14373 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
14374 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
14375 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
14376
14377 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
14378
14379 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
14380
14381 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
14382 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
14383 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
14384
14385 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
14386 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
14387 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
14388 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
14389
14390 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
14391 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
14392 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
14393 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
14394 whiteboard.</p>
14395
14396 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
14397
14398 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
14399 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
14400
14401 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
14402 enrol people.</p>
14403
14404       </div>
14405       <div class="tags">
14406
14407
14408         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
14409
14410
14411       </div>
14412     </div>
14413     <div class="padding"></div>
14414
14415     <div class="entry">
14416       <div class="title">
14417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">SOAP based webservice from Dell to check server support status</a>
14418       </div>
14419       <div class="date">
14420          1st June 2012
14421       </div>
14422       <div class="body">
14423         <p>A few years ago I wrote
14424 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
14425 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
14426 I have learned from colleges here at the
14427 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
14428 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
14429 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
14430 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
14431 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
14432
14433 <p><pre>
14434 use strict;
14435 use warnings;
14436 use SOAP::Lite;
14437 use Data::Dumper;
14438 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
14439 my $App = 'test';
14440 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
14441 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
14442 my $s = SOAP::Lite
14443     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
14444     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
14445     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
14446     ;
14447 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
14448     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
14449     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
14450     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
14451 );
14452 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
14453 </pre></p>
14454
14455 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
14456
14457 <p><pre>
14458 $VAR1 = {
14459           'Asset' => {
14460                      'Entitlements' => {
14461                                        'EntitlementData' => [
14462                                                             {
14463                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
14464                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
14465                                                               'Provider' => '',
14466                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
14467                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
14468                                                             },
14469                                                             {
14470                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
14471                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
14472                                                               'Provider' => '',
14473                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
14474                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
14475                                                             },
14476                                                             {
14477                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
14478                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
14479                                                               'Provider' => '',
14480                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
14481                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
14482                                                             }
14483                                                           ]
14484                                      },
14485                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
14486                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
14487                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
14488                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
14489                                           'Buid' => '2323',
14490                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
14491                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
14492                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
14493                                         }
14494                    }
14495         };
14496 </pre></p>
14497
14498 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
14499 service outside the
14500 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
14501 documentation</a>, and according to
14502 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
14503 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
14504 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
14505
14506 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
14507 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
14508
14509       </div>
14510       <div class="tags">
14511
14512
14513         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14514
14515
14516       </div>
14517     </div>
14518     <div class="padding"></div>
14519
14520     <div class="entry">
14521       <div class="title">
14522         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
14523       </div>
14524       <div class="date">
14525         31st May 2012
14526       </div>
14527       <div class="body">
14528         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
14529 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
14530 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
14531 running Debian Squeeze, where
14532 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
14533 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
14534 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
14535 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
14536 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
14537 another day.</p>
14538
14539 <p>After calibration, I get a
14540 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
14541 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
14542 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
14543 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
14544 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
14545 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
14546 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
14547 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
14548 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
14549 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
14550 and a simple</p>
14551
14552 <p><pre>
14553 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
14554 </pre></p>
14555
14556 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
14557 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
14558 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
14559 enough for now.</p>
14560
14561       </div>
14562       <div class="tags">
14563
14564
14565         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14566
14567
14568       </div>
14569     </div>
14570     <div class="padding"></div>
14571
14572     <div class="entry">
14573       <div class="title">
14574         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
14575       </div>
14576       <div class="date">
14577         27th May 2012
14578       </div>
14579       <div class="body">
14580         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
14581 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
14582 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
14583 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
14584 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
14585 since then, helping to make sure the
14586 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
14587 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
14588
14589 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
14590
14591 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
14592 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
14593 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
14594 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
14595 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
14596 our computer network.</p>
14597
14598 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
14599 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
14600 (4 months).</p>
14601
14602 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
14603 project?</strong></p>
14604
14605 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
14606 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
14607 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
14608 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
14609 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
14610 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
14611 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
14612 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
14613 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
14614 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
14615 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
14616 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
14617 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
14618 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
14619
14620 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
14621 Edu?</strong></p>
14622
14623 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
14624 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
14625 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
14626 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
14627 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
14628 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
14629 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
14630 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
14631
14632 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
14633 Edu?</strong></p>
14634
14635 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
14636 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
14637 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
14638 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
14639 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
14640 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
14641 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
14642 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
14643 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
14644 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
14645 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
14646 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
14647
14648 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
14649
14650 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
14651 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
14652 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
14653
14654 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
14655 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
14656
14657 <p><ol>
14658
14659 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
14660 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
14661 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
14662 developing.</li>
14663
14664 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
14665 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
14666 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
14667 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
14668 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
14669
14670 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
14671 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
14672 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
14673
14674 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
14675 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
14676 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
14677 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
14678
14679 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
14680 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
14681 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
14682
14683 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
14684
14685 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
14686 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
14687 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
14688 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
14689
14690 </ol></p>
14691
14692       </div>
14693       <div class="tags">
14694
14695
14696         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
14697
14698
14699       </div>
14700     </div>
14701     <div class="padding"></div>
14702
14703     <div class="entry">
14704       <div class="title">
14705         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
14706       </div>
14707       <div class="date">
14708         26th May 2012
14709       </div>
14710       <div class="body">
14711         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
14712 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
14713 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
14714 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
14715 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
14716
14717 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
14718 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/does-microsoft-office-lock-in-cost-the-uk-government-500-million/index.htm">http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/does-microsoft-office-lock-in-cost-the-uk-government-500-million/index.htm</a>
14719 comment:</p>
14720
14721 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
14722 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
14723 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
14724 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
14725 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
14726 </blockquote></p>
14727
14728 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
14729 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
14730 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
14731 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
14732 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
14733 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
14734 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
14735 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
14736 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
14737 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
14738 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
14739 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
14740 of wasted effort.</p>
14741
14742 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
14743 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
14744 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
14745
14746 <p>See
14747 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
14748 and
14749 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
14750 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
14751 </blockquote></p>
14752
14753       </div>
14754       <div class="tags">
14755
14756
14757         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
14758
14759
14760       </div>
14761     </div>
14762     <div class="padding"></div>
14763
14764     <div class="entry">
14765       <div class="title">
14766         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColorHug___USB_and_free_software_based_screen_color_calibration.html">ColorHug - USB and free software based screen color calibration</a>
14767       </div>
14768       <div class="date">
14769         18th May 2012
14770       </div>
14771       <div class="body">
14772         <p>In january, I
14773 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
14774 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
14775 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
14776 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
14777 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
14778 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
14779 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
14780 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
14781 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
14782 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
14783
14784 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
14785 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
14786 drivers. :)</p>
14787
14788       </div>
14789       <div class="tags">
14790
14791
14792         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14793
14794
14795       </div>
14796     </div>
14797     <div class="padding"></div>
14798
14799     <div class="entry">
14800       <div class="title">
14801         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
14802       </div>
14803       <div class="date">
14804         13th May 2012
14805       </div>
14806       <div class="body">
14807         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
14808 publish another interview with the people behind
14809 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
14810 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
14811 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
14812 details get right before release.
14813
14814 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
14815
14816 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
14817 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
14818 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
14819 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
14820 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
14821 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
14822 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
14823 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
14824
14825 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
14826 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
14827 home since 2006.</p>
14828
14829 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
14830 project?</strong></p>
14831
14832 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
14833 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
14834 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
14835 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
14836 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
14837 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
14838
14839 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
14840 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
14841 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
14842 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
14843 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
14844 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
14845 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
14846 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
14847 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
14848 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
14849 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
14850 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
14851 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
14852 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
14853 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
14854 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
14855
14856 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
14857 Edu?</strong></p>
14858
14859 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
14860 for me as today.</p>
14861
14862 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
14863
14864 <p><ul>
14865
14866 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
14867 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
14868
14869 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
14870 cost.</li>
14871
14872 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
14873 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
14874 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
14875 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
14876 server</li>
14877
14878 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
14879 school.</li>
14880
14881 </ul></p>
14882
14883 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
14884 came up in this way:</p>
14885
14886 <p><ul>
14887
14888 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
14889 now.</li>
14890
14891 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
14892 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
14893 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
14894
14895 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
14896 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
14897 interfaces used in the past.</li>
14898
14899 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
14900 different needs.</li>
14901
14902 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
14903
14904 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
14905 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
14906 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
14907
14908 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
14909 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
14910
14911 </ul></p>
14912
14913 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
14914 Edu?</strong></p>
14915
14916 <p><ul>
14917
14918 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
14919 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
14920 whole municipality areas.</li>
14921
14922 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
14923 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
14924 politicians.</li>
14925
14926 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
14927
14928 </ul></p>
14929
14930 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
14931
14932 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
14933 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
14934 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
14935 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
14936 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
14937 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
14938
14939 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
14940 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
14941 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
14942 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
14943 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
14944
14945 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
14946 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
14947
14948 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
14949 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
14950 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
14951
14952       </div>
14953       <div class="tags">
14954
14955
14956         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
14957
14958
14959       </div>
14960     </div>
14961     <div class="padding"></div>
14962
14963     <div class="entry">
14964       <div class="title">
14965         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cutting_it_short___and_picking_the_right_tool_for_the_job.html">Cutting it short - and picking the right tool for the job</a>
14966       </div>
14967       <div class="date">
14968         30th April 2012
14969       </div>
14970       <div class="body">
14971         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
14972 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
14973
14974 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
14975 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
14976 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
14977 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
14978 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
14979 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
14980 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
14981 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
14982 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
14983 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
14984 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
14985 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
14986 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
14987 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
14988 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
14989 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
14990
14991 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
14992 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
14993 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
14994 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
14995 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
14996 finally found a Danish supplier
14997 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
14998 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
14999 days ago.</p>
15000
15001 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
15002 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
15003 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
15004 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
15005 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
15006 toys.</p>
15007
15008       </div>
15009       <div class="tags">
15010
15011
15012         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15013
15014
15015       </div>
15016     </div>
15017     <div class="padding"></div>
15018
15019     <div class="entry">
15020       <div class="title">
15021         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/HTC_One_X___Your_video___What_do_you_mean_.html">HTC One X - Your video?  What do you mean?</a>
15022       </div>
15023       <div class="date">
15024         26th April 2012
15025       </div>
15026       <div class="body">
15027         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
15028 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
15029 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
15030 that the video editor application included with
15031 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
15032 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
15033 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
15034
15035 <p><blockquote>
15036 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
15037 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
15038 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
15039 </blockquote></p>
15040
15041 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
15042
15043 <p><blockquote>
15044 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
15045 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
15046 </blockquote></p>
15047
15048 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
15049 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
15050 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
15051 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
15052 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
15053 video.  AMR is
15054 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
15055 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
15056 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
15057 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
15058 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
15059 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
15060 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
15061
15062 <p>I know why I prefer
15063 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
15064 standards</a> also for video.</p>
15065
15066       </div>
15067       <div class="tags">
15068
15069
15070         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
15071
15072
15073       </div>
15074     </div>
15075     <div class="padding"></div>
15076
15077     <div class="entry">
15078       <div class="title">
15079         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
15080       </div>
15081       <div class="date">
15082         19th April 2012
15083       </div>
15084       <div class="body">
15085         <p>Here in Norway, the
15086 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
15087 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
15088 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
15089 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
15090 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
15091 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
15092 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
15093 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
15094 on the same level.</p>
15095
15096 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
15097 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
15098 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
15099 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
15100 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
15101 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
15102 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
15103 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
15104 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
15105 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
15106 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
15107 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
15108 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
15109 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
15110 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
15111 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
15112 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
15113 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
15114
15115 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
15116 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
15117 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
15118 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
15119 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
15120 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
15121 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
15122 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
15123
15124 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
15125 from Simon Phipps
15126 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
15127 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
15128
15129 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
15130 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
15131 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
15132 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
15133 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
15134 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
15135 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
15136 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
15137 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
15138
15139       </div>
15140       <div class="tags">
15141
15142
15143         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
15144
15145
15146       </div>
15147     </div>
15148     <div class="padding"></div>
15149
15150     <div class="entry">
15151       <div class="title">
15152         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
15153       </div>
15154       <div class="date">
15155         15th April 2012
15156       </div>
15157       <div class="body">
15158         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
15159 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
15160 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
15161 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
15162 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
15163 up in the recently released
15164 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
15165 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
15166
15167 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
15168
15169 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
15170 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
15171 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
15172 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
15173 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
15174 information technology and science/technology.</p>
15175
15176 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
15177 project?</strong></p>
15178
15179 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
15180 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
15181 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
15182 contributing.</p>
15183
15184 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
15185 Edu?</strong></p>
15186
15187 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
15188 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
15189 Debian Project!</p>
15190
15191 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
15192 Edu?</strong></p>
15193
15194 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
15195 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
15196 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
15197 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
15198 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
15199 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
15200 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
15201
15202 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
15203 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
15204
15205 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
15206
15207 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
15208 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
15209 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
15210 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
15211
15212 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
15213 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
15214
15215 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
15216 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
15217 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
15218 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
15219 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
15220 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
15221 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
15222
15223 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
15224 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
15225 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
15226 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
15227 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
15228 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
15229 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
15230 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
15231
15232       </div>
15233       <div class="tags">
15234
15235
15236         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
15237
15238
15239       </div>
15240     </div>
15241     <div class="padding"></div>
15242
15243     <div class="entry">
15244       <div class="title">
15245         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
15246       </div>
15247       <div class="date">
15248          8th April 2012
15249       </div>
15250       <div class="body">
15251         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
15252 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
15253 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
15254 contributor to the
15255 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
15256 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
15257
15258 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
15259
15260 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
15261 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
15262
15263 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
15264 project?</strong></p>
15265
15266 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
15267 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
15268 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
15269 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
15270 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
15271 "localisation".</p>
15272
15273 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
15274 Edu?</strong></p>
15275
15276 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
15277 Edu?</strong></p>
15278
15279 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
15280 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
15281 education system.</p>
15282
15283 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
15284 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
15285 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
15286 money on the latest hardware.</p>
15287
15288 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
15289
15290 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
15291 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
15292 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
15293
15294 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
15295 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
15296
15297 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
15298 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
15299 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
15300
15301       </div>
15302       <div class="tags">
15303
15304
15305         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
15306
15307
15308       </div>
15309     </div>
15310     <div class="padding"></div>
15311
15312     <div class="entry">
15313       <div class="title">
15314         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_the_KDE_menu_is_slow_when__usr__is_NFS_mounted___and_a_workaround.html">Why the KDE menu is slow when /usr/ is NFS mounted - and a workaround</a>
15315       </div>
15316       <div class="date">
15317          6th April 2012
15318       </div>
15319       <div class="body">
15320         <p>Recently I have spent time with
15321 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
15322 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
15323 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
15324 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
15325 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
15326 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
15327 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
15328 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
15329
15330 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
15331 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
15332 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
15333 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
15334 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
15335 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
15336 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
15337 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
15338
15339 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
15340 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
15341 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
15342 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
15343 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
15344 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
15345 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
15346 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
15347
15348 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
15349 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
15350 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
15351 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
15352 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
15353 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
15354 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
15355 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
15356 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
15357 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
15358
15359 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
15360 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
15361 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
15362 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
15363
15364 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
15365 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
15366
15367 <p>Update 2015-08-04: The
15368 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/debian-edu/upstream/kde-icon-cache.git/">source
15369 of the scripts and associated Debian package</a> is available from the
15370 Debian Edu github repository.</p>
15371
15372       </div>
15373       <div class="tags">
15374
15375
15376         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15377
15378
15379       </div>
15380     </div>
15381     <div class="padding"></div>
15382
15383     <div class="entry">
15384       <div class="title">
15385         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
15386       </div>
15387       <div class="date">
15388          5th April 2012
15389       </div>
15390       <div class="body">
15391         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
15392 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
15393 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
15394 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
15395 for schools.  Check out his article
15396 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
15397 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
15398
15399       </div>
15400       <div class="tags">
15401
15402
15403         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15404
15405
15406       </div>
15407     </div>
15408     <div class="padding"></div>
15409
15410     <div class="entry">
15411       <div class="title">
15412         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
15413       </div>
15414       <div class="date">
15415          1st April 2012
15416       </div>
15417       <div class="body">
15418         <p>Germany is a core area for the
15419 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
15420 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
15421 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
15422
15423 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
15424
15425 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
15426 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
15427 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
15428 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
15429 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
15430 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
15431 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
15432 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
15433
15434 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
15435 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
15436 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
15437 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
15438 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
15439 the end of April this year.</p>
15440
15441 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
15442 project?</strong></p>
15443
15444 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
15445 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
15446 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
15447 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
15448 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
15449 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
15450 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
15451 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
15452 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
15453 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
15454 Skolelinux.</p>
15455
15456 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
15457 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
15458 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
15459 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
15460 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
15461 the admin teachers.</p>
15462
15463 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
15464 Edu?</strong></p>
15465
15466 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
15467 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
15468 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
15469
15470 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
15471 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
15472 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
15473 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
15474 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
15475
15476 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
15477 Edu?</strong></p>
15478
15479 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
15480
15481 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
15482
15483 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
15484 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
15485 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
15486 LibreOffice.</p>
15487
15488 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
15489 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
15490
15491 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
15492 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
15493 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
15494
15495       </div>
15496       <div class="tags">
15497
15498
15499         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
15500
15501
15502       </div>
15503     </div>
15504     <div class="padding"></div>
15505
15506     <div class="entry">
15507       <div class="title">
15508         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Checking_email_with_kmail_using_Kerberos_authentication.html">Debian Edu screencast: Checking email with kmail using Kerberos authentication</a>
15509       </div>
15510       <div class="date">
15511         25th March 2012
15512       </div>
15513       <div class="body">
15514         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
15515
15516 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
15517 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
15518 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
15519 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
15520 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
15521 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
15522 and download as a
15523 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
15524 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
15525
15526 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
15527   <source src="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv" type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"' />
15528     <p>Download video as
15529       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
15530 </video></p>
15531
15532       </div>
15533       <div class="tags">
15534
15535
15536         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15537
15538
15539       </div>
15540     </div>
15541     <div class="padding"></div>
15542
15543     <div class="entry">
15544       <div class="title">
15545         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
15546       </div>
15547       <div class="date">
15548         19th March 2012
15549       </div>
15550       <div class="body">
15551         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
15552 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
15553 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
15554 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
15555 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
15556
15557 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
15558
15559 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
15560 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
15561 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
15562 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
15563 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
15564 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
15565 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
15566 installations.</p>
15567
15568 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
15569 project?</strong></p>
15570
15571 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
15572 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
15573 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
15574 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
15575 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
15576 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
15577 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
15578 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
15579 these things we decided to try it.</p>
15580
15581 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
15582 Edu?</strong></p>
15583
15584 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
15585 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
15586 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
15587 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
15588 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
15589 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
15590 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
15591 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
15592
15593 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
15594 Edu?</strong></p>
15595
15596 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
15597 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
15598 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
15599 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
15600 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
15601
15602 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
15603
15604 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
15605 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
15606 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
15607 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
15608 that counts...)</p>
15609
15610 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
15611 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
15612
15613 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
15614 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
15615 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
15616 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
15617 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
15618 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
15619 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
15620 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
15621 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
15622 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
15623 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
15624
15625 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
15626 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
15627 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
15628
15629       </div>
15630       <div class="tags">
15631
15632
15633         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
15634
15635
15636       </div>
15637     </div>
15638     <div class="padding"></div>
15639
15640     <div class="entry">
15641       <div class="title">
15642         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
15643       </div>
15644       <div class="date">
15645         16th March 2012
15646       </div>
15647       <div class="body">
15648         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
15649 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
15650 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
15651 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
15652
15653 <ol>
15654
15655 <li>The documentation is written in a
15656 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
15657 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
15658 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
15659 docbook XML.</li>
15660
15661 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
15662 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
15663 with the translated text.</li>
15664
15665 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
15666 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
15667 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
15668 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
15669 images.</li>
15670
15671 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
15672 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
15673
15674 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
15675 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
15676
15677 </ol>
15678
15679 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
15680 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
15681 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
15682 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
15683 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
15684
15685 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
15686 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
15687 package</a>.</p>
15688
15689       </div>
15690       <div class="tags">
15691
15692
15693         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15694
15695
15696       </div>
15697     </div>
15698     <div class="padding"></div>
15699
15700     <div class="entry">
15701       <div class="title">
15702         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
15703       </div>
15704       <div class="date">
15705         11th March 2012
15706       </div>
15707       <div class="body">
15708         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
15709 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
15710 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
15711 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
15712 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
15713 you have not done so already.</p>
15714
15715 <p>I plan to present the new version at
15716 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
15717 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
15718 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
15719
15720       </div>
15721       <div class="tags">
15722
15723
15724         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15725
15726
15727       </div>
15728     </div>
15729     <div class="padding"></div>
15730
15731     <div class="entry">
15732       <div class="title">
15733         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
15734       </div>
15735       <div class="date">
15736          9th March 2012
15737       </div>
15738       <div class="body">
15739         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
15740 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
15741 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
15742 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
15743 more international audience.</p>
15744
15745 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
15746 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
15747 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
15748 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
15749 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
15750 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
15751 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
15752
15753
15754 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
15755
15756 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
15757 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
15758 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
15759 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
15760 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
15761 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
15762 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
15763 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
15764 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
15765 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
15766 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
15767
15768 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
15769 project?</strong></p>
15770
15771 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
15772 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
15773 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
15774 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
15775 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
15776 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
15777 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
15778 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
15779 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
15780 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
15781 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
15782 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
15783 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
15784
15785 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
15786 Edu?</strong></p>
15787
15788 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
15789 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
15790 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
15791 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
15792 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
15793 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
15794 Japan.</p>
15795
15796 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
15797 Edu?</strong></p>
15798
15799 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
15800 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
15801 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
15802 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
15803 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
15804 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
15805 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
15806 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
15807 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
15808 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
15809 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
15810 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
15811 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
15812 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
15813 help.</p>
15814
15815 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
15816
15817 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
15818 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
15819 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
15820 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
15821 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
15822 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
15823 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
15824 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
15825 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
15826 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
15827 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
15828
15829 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
15830 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
15831
15832 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
15833 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
15834 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
15835 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
15836 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
15837 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
15838 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
15839 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
15840 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
15841 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
15842 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
15843 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
15844
15845       </div>
15846       <div class="tags">
15847
15848
15849         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
15850
15851
15852       </div>
15853     </div>
15854     <div class="padding"></div>
15855
15856     <div class="entry">
15857       <div class="title">
15858         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Mass_creation_of_user_accounts_in_Squeeze.html">Debian Edu screencast: Mass creation of user accounts in Squeeze</a>
15859       </div>
15860       <div class="date">
15861          7th March 2012
15862       </div>
15863       <div class="body">
15864         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
15865
15866 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
15867 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
15868 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
15869 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
15870 download as a
15871 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
15872 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
15873
15874 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
15875   <source src="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv" type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"' />
15876     <p>Download video as
15877       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
15878 </video></p>
15879
15880       </div>
15881       <div class="tags">
15882
15883
15884         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15885
15886
15887       </div>
15888     </div>
15889     <div class="padding"></div>
15890
15891     <div class="entry">
15892       <div class="title">
15893         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Third release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
15894       </div>
15895       <div class="date">
15896          4th March 2012
15897       </div>
15898       <div class="body">
15899         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
15900 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
15901 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
15902 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
15903 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
15904 need a software solution for your school.</p>
15905
15906       </div>
15907       <div class="tags">
15908
15909
15910         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15911
15912
15913       </div>
15914     </div>
15915     <div class="padding"></div>
15916
15917     <div class="entry">
15918       <div class="title">
15919         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Stopmotion_for_making_stop_motion_animations_on_Linux___reloaded.html">Stopmotion for making stop motion animations on Linux - reloaded</a>
15920       </div>
15921       <div class="date">
15922          3rd March 2012
15923       </div>
15924       <div class="body">
15925         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
15926 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
15927 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
15928 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
15929 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
15930 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
15931 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
15932 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
15933 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
15934 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
15935 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
15936 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
15937 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
15938 year...</p>
15939
15940 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
15941 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
15942 name,
15943 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
15944 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
15945 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
15946 mean). I've been following
15947 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
15948 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
15949 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
15950 Check it out. :)</p>
15951
15952       </div>
15953       <div class="tags">
15954
15955
15956         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
15957
15958
15959       </div>
15960     </div>
15961     <div class="padding"></div>
15962
15963     <div class="entry">
15964       <div class="title">
15965         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Second release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
15966       </div>
15967       <div class="date">
15968         27th February 2012
15969       </div>
15970       <div class="body">
15971         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
15972 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
15973 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
15974 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
15975 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
15976 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
15977 need a software solution for your school.</p>
15978
15979       </div>
15980       <div class="tags">
15981
15982
15983         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15984
15985
15986       </div>
15987     </div>
15988     <div class="padding"></div>
15989
15990     <div class="entry">
15991       <div class="title">
15992         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">First release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
15993       </div>
15994       <div class="date">
15995         19th February 2012
15996       </div>
15997       <div class="body">
15998         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
15999 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
16000 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
16001 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
16002 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
16003 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
16004 solution for your school.</p>
16005
16006       </div>
16007       <div class="tags">
16008
16009
16010         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16011
16012
16013       </div>
16014     </div>
16015     <div class="padding"></div>
16016
16017     <div class="entry">
16018       <div class="title">
16019         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_figure_out_which_RAID_disk_to_replace_when_it_fail.html">How to figure out which RAID disk to replace when it fail</a>
16020       </div>
16021       <div class="date">
16022         14th February 2012
16023       </div>
16024       <div class="body">
16025         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
16026 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
16027 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
16028 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
16029 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
16030 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
16031 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
16032 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
16033 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
16034
16035 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
16036 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
16037 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
16038 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
16039 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
16040
16041 <blockquote><pre>
16042 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
16043 do
16044     printf "Failed disk $d: "
16045     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
16046 done
16047 </blockquote></pre>
16048
16049 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
16050 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
16051
16052 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
16053
16054 <blockquote><pre>
16055 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
16056 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
16057 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
16058 </blockquote></pre>
16059
16060 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
16061 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
16062 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
16063 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
16064 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
16065 mounted inside my box.</p>
16066
16067 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
16068 Software RAID in the
16069 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
16070 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
16071 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
16072 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
16073 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
16074 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
16075
16076       </div>
16077       <div class="tags">
16078
16079
16080         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid</a>.
16081
16082
16083       </div>
16084     </div>
16085     <div class="padding"></div>
16086
16087     <div class="entry">
16088       <div class="title">
16089         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
16090       </div>
16091       <div class="date">
16092         13th February 2012
16093       </div>
16094       <div class="body">
16095         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
16096 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
16097 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
16098 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
16099 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
16100 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
16101 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
16102 change the global proxy setting by editing
16103 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
16104 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
16105
16106 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
16107 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
16108 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
16109
16110 <blockquote><pre>
16111 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
16112 {
16113    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
16114        isPlainHostName(host) ||
16115        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
16116       return "DIRECT";
16117    else
16118       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
16119 }
16120 </pre></blockquote>
16121
16122 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
16123
16124 <blockquote><pre>
16125 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
16126 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
16127 </pre></blockquote>
16128
16129 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
16130 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
16131 would be used for
16132 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
16133 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
16134 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
16135 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
16136 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
16137 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
16138 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
16139 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
16140 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
16141 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
16142
16143 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
16144 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
16145 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
16146 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
16147 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
16148 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
16149
16150 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
16151 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
16152 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
16153 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
16154 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
16155 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
16156 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
16157 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
16158 the network setup changes.</p>
16159
16160 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
16161 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
16162 draft</a> and a
16163 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
16164 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
16165
16166       </div>
16167       <div class="tags">
16168
16169
16170         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16171
16172
16173       </div>
16174     </div>
16175     <div class="padding"></div>
16176
16177     <div class="entry">
16178       <div class="title">
16179         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Saving_power_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_using_shutdown_at_night.html">Saving power with Debian Edu / Skolelinux using shutdown-at-night</a>
16180       </div>
16181       <div class="date">
16182          5th February 2012
16183       </div>
16184       <div class="body">
16185         <p>Since the Lenny version of
16186 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
16187 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
16188 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
16189 in the morning.  This is done using the
16190 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
16191
16192 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
16193 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
16194 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
16195 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
16196 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
16197 the
16198 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
16199 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
16200 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
16201 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
16202 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
16203
16204 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
16205 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
16206 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
16207 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
16208 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
16209 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
16210 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
16211
16212 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
16213 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
16214 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
16215 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
16216 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
16217
16218       </div>
16219       <div class="tags">
16220
16221
16222         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16223
16224
16225       </div>
16226     </div>
16227     <div class="padding"></div>
16228
16229     <div class="entry">
16230       <div class="title">
16231         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Third beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
16232       </div>
16233       <div class="date">
16234          4th February 2012
16235       </div>
16236       <div class="body">
16237         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
16238 publish the third beta version of
16239 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
16240 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
16241 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
16242 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
16243 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
16244 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
16245 on the project announcement list.</p>
16246
16247 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
16248 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
16249
16250 <ul>
16251
16252 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
16253   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
16254   the installation.</li>
16255
16256 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
16257   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
16258
16259 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
16260   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
16261   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
16262
16263 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
16264   for the local system administrator is created during installation
16265   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
16266   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
16267   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
16268   up to date on the system.</li>
16269
16270 </ul>
16271
16272 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
16273 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
16274 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
16275 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
16276
16277 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
16278 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
16279 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
16280 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
16281 will see you there?</p>
16282
16283       </div>
16284       <div class="tags">
16285
16286
16287         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16288
16289
16290       </div>
16291     </div>
16292     <div class="padding"></div>
16293
16294     <div class="entry">
16295       <div class="title">
16296         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Handling_non_free_firmware_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Handling non-free firmware in Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
16297       </div>
16298       <div class="date">
16299         27th January 2012
16300       </div>
16301       <div class="body">
16302         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
16303 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
16304 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
16305 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
16306 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
16307 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
16308 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
16309
16310 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
16311 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
16312 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
16313 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
16314 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
16315 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
16316 not taken care of by this.</p>
16317
16318 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
16319 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
16320 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
16321 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
16322 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
16323 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
16324 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
16325 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
16326 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
16327 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
16328 firmware packages.</p>
16329
16330 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
16331 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
16332 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
16333 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
16334 initrd with extra firmware, the
16335 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
16336 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
16337 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
16338
16339 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
16340 network cards working.  For this,
16341 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
16342 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
16343 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
16344
16345 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
16346 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
16347 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
16348
16349 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
16350 try.</p>
16351
16352       </div>
16353       <div class="tags">
16354
16355
16356         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16357
16358
16359       </div>
16360     </div>
16361     <div class="padding"></div>
16362
16363     <div class="entry">
16364       <div class="title">
16365         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Setting_up_a_new_school_with_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Setting up a new school with Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
16366       </div>
16367       <div class="date">
16368         25th January 2012
16369       </div>
16370       <div class="body">
16371         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
16372 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
16373 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
16374 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
16375 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
16376
16377 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
16378 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
16379 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
16380 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
16381 this is done, log on to the central server and run
16382 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
16383 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
16384 will look similar to this:</p>
16385
16386 <p><blockquote><pre>
16387 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
16388 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
16389 info: Create GOsa machine for auto-mac-00-01-02-03-04-06 [10.0.16.20] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:06.
16390
16391 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
16392
16393 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16394 enter password: *******
16395 %
16396 </pre></blockquote></p>
16397
16398 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
16399 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
16400 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
16401 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
16402 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
16403 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
16404 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
16405 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
16406 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
16407 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
16408 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
16409 automatically.</p>
16410
16411 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
16412 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
16413
16414 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
16415 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
16416 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
16417
16418       </div>
16419       <div class="tags">
16420
16421
16422         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
16423
16424
16425       </div>
16426     </div>
16427     <div class="padding"></div>
16428
16429     <div class="entry">
16430       <div class="title">
16431         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Changing_the_default_Iceweasel_start_page_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Changing the default Iceweasel start page in Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
16432       </div>
16433       <div class="date">
16434         10th January 2012
16435       </div>
16436       <div class="body">
16437         <p>In the Squeeze version of
16438 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
16439 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
16440 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
16441 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
16442 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
16443 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
16444 first time.</p>
16445
16446 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
16447 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
16448 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
16449 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
16450
16451 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
16452 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
16453 new setting.</p>
16454
16455 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
16456 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
16457 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
16458
16459       </div>
16460       <div class="tags">
16461
16462
16463         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
16464
16465
16466       </div>
16467     </div>
16468     <div class="padding"></div>
16469
16470     <div class="entry">
16471       <div class="title">
16472         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Second beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
16473       </div>
16474       <div class="date">
16475          7th January 2012
16476       </div>
16477       <div class="body">
16478         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
16479 the second beta version of
16480 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
16481 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
16482 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
16483 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
16484 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
16485 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
16486 on the project announcement list.</p>
16487
16488       </div>
16489       <div class="tags">
16490
16491
16492         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16493
16494
16495       </div>
16496     </div>
16497     <div class="padding"></div>
16498
16499     <div class="entry">
16500       <div class="title">
16501         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_an_hanging_debian_installer_for_Debian_Edu.html">Fixing an hanging debian installer for Debian Edu</a>
16502       </div>
16503       <div class="date">
16504          3rd January 2012
16505       </div>
16506       <div class="body">
16507         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
16508 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
16509 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
16510 interesting.</p>
16511
16512 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
16513 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
16514 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
16515 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
16516 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
16517 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
16518 wrap up its tasks.</p>
16519
16520 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
16521 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
16522 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
16523 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
16524 because I was typing.</P>
16525
16526 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
16527 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
16528 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
16529 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
16530 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
16531 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
16532 generate entropy.</p>
16533
16534 <p>The fix is in
16535 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
16536 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
16537 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
16538 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
16539
16540       </div>
16541       <div class="tags">
16542
16543
16544         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16545
16546
16547       </div>
16548     </div>
16549     <div class="padding"></div>
16550
16551     <div class="entry">
16552       <div class="title">
16553         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
16554       </div>
16555       <div class="date">
16556         21st November 2011
16557       </div>
16558       <div class="body">
16559         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
16560 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
16561 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
16562 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
16563 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
16564 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
16565 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
16566 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
16567 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
16568 the tools to do so.</p>
16569
16570 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
16571 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
16572 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
16573 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
16574
16575 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
16576 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
16577 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
16578 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
16579 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
16580 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
16581 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
16582 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
16583
16584 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
16585 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
16586 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
16587
16588 <p><pre>
16589 #!/usr/bin/perl
16590 use strict;
16591 use warnings;
16592 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
16593 BEGIN {
16594     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
16595     my %rhelmodules = (
16596         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
16597         );
16598     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
16599         eval "use $module;";
16600         if ($@) {
16601             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
16602             system("yum install -y $pkg");
16603             eval "use $module;";
16604         }
16605     }
16606 }
16607 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
16608
16609 upgrade_dell();
16610
16611 exit 0;
16612
16613 sub run_firmware_script {
16614     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
16615     unless ($script) {
16616         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
16617         exit 1
16618     }
16619     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
16620
16621     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
16622         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
16623     } else {
16624         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
16625     }
16626 }
16627
16628 sub run_firmware_scripts {
16629     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
16630     # Run firmware packages
16631     for my $dir (@dirs) {
16632         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
16633         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
16634         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
16635             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
16636             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
16637         }
16638         closedir $dh;
16639     }
16640 }
16641
16642 sub download {
16643     my $url = shift;
16644     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
16645     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
16646 }
16647
16648 sub upgrade_dell {
16649     my @dirs;
16650     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
16651     chomp $product;
16652
16653     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
16654
16655         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
16656         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
16657
16658         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
16659             CLEANUP => 1
16660             );
16661         chdir($tmpdir);
16662         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
16663         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
16664         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
16665         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
16666         my $fwopts = "-q";
16667         if (@paths) {
16668             for my $url (@paths) {
16669                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
16670             }
16671             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
16672         } else {
16673             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
16674             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
16675         }
16676         chdir('/');
16677     } else {
16678         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
16679         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
16680     }
16681 }
16682
16683 sub fetch_dell_fw {
16684     my $path = shift;
16685     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
16686     download($url);
16687 }
16688
16689 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
16690 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
16691 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
16692 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
16693     my $filename = shift;
16694
16695     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
16696     chomp $product;
16697     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
16698
16699     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
16700
16701     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
16702     my @paths;
16703     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
16704         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
16705         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
16706         my $oscode;
16707         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
16708             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
16709         } else {
16710             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
16711         }
16712         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
16713         {
16714             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
16715         }
16716     }
16717     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
16718         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
16719
16720         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
16721         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
16722
16723         my $cpath = $component->{path};
16724         for my $path (@paths) {
16725             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
16726                 push(@paths, $cpath);
16727             }
16728         }
16729     }
16730     return @paths;
16731 }
16732 </pre>
16733
16734 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
16735 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
16736 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
16737 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
16738 outdated.</p>
16739
16740       </div>
16741       <div class="tags">
16742
16743
16744         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16745
16746
16747       </div>
16748     </div>
16749     <div class="padding"></div>
16750
16751     <div class="entry">
16752       <div class="title">
16753         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_e_book_kiosk_for_the_public_libraries_.html">Free e-book kiosk for the public libraries?</a>
16754       </div>
16755       <div class="date">
16756          7th October 2011
16757       </div>
16758       <div class="body">
16759         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
16760 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
16761 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
16762 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
16763 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
16764 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
16765 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
16766 models.</p>
16767
16768 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
16769 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
16770 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
16771 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
16772
16773 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
16774 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
16775 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
16776 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
16777 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
16778 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
16779 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
16780 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
16781 distributed.</p>
16782
16783 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
16784
16785 <ul>
16786
16787 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
16788   other relevant equipment.</li>
16789
16790 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
16791
16792 </ul>
16793
16794 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
16795 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
16796 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
16797 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
16798 books available.</p>
16799
16800 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
16801 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
16802 libraries. :)</p>
16803
16804       </div>
16805       <div class="tags">
16806
16807
16808         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
16809
16810
16811       </div>
16812     </div>
16813     <div class="padding"></div>
16814
16815     <div class="entry">
16816       <div class="title">
16817         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
16818       </div>
16819       <div class="date">
16820         17th September 2011
16821       </div>
16822       <div class="body">
16823         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
16824 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
16825 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
16826 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
16827 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
16828 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
16829 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
16830 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
16831
16832 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
16833
16834 <blockquote><pre>
16835 #!/bin/sh
16836 # apt-get install lsdvd
16837 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
16838 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
16839 </pre></blockquote>
16840
16841 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
16842 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
16843 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
16844 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
16845
16846 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
16847 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
16848 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
16849 back as an ISO.
16850
16851 <blockquote><pre>
16852 #!/bin/sh
16853 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
16854 set -e
16855 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
16856 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
16857 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
16858 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
16859 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
16860 </pre></blockquote>
16861
16862 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
16863
16864 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
16865 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
16866 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
16867 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
16868 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
16869
16870 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
16871 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
16872 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
16873 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
16874 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
16875 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
16876
16877       </div>
16878       <div class="tags">
16879
16880
16881         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
16882
16883
16884       </div>
16885     </div>
16886     <div class="padding"></div>
16887
16888     <div class="entry">
16889       <div class="title">
16890         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
16891       </div>
16892       <div class="date">
16893          4th August 2011
16894       </div>
16895       <div class="body">
16896         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
16897 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
16898 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
16899 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
16900 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
16901 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
16902 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
16903 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
16904 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
16905
16906 <p><blockquote>
16907 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
16908 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
16909 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
16910 </blockquote></p>
16911
16912 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
16913 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
16914 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
16915 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
16916 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
16917 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
16918 hard to explain.</p>
16919
16920 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
16921 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
16922 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
16923 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
16924 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
16925 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
16926 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
16927 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
16928 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
16929 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
16930 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
16931 mode).</p>
16932
16933 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
16934 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
16935 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
16936 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
16937 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
16938 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
16939 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
16940 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
16941 after visiting single user mode.</p>
16942
16943 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
16944 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
16945 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
16946 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
16947 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
16948 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
16949 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
16950 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
16951
16952 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
16953 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
16954 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
16955
16956       </div>
16957       <div class="tags">
16958
16959
16960         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16961
16962
16963       </div>
16964     </div>
16965     <div class="padding"></div>
16966
16967     <div class="entry">
16968       <div class="title">
16969         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
16970       </div>
16971       <div class="date">
16972         30th July 2011
16973       </div>
16974       <div class="body">
16975         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
16976 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
16977 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
16978 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
16979 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
16980 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
16981 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
16982 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
16983 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
16984 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
16985 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
16986 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
16987 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
16988
16989 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
16990 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
16991 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
16992 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
16993 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
16994 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
16995 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
16996 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
16997 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
16998
16999 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
17000 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
17001 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
17002 is presented.</p>
17003
17004 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
17005 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
17006 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
17007 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
17008 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
17009 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
17010 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
17011 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
17012 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
17013 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
17014 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
17015 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
17016 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
17017 find time to push this forward.</p>
17018
17019       </div>
17020       <div class="tags">
17021
17022
17023         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
17024
17025
17026       </div>
17027     </div>
17028     <div class="padding"></div>
17029
17030     <div class="entry">
17031       <div class="title">
17032         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</a>
17033       </div>
17034       <div class="date">
17035         29th July 2011
17036       </div>
17037       <div class="body">
17038         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
17039 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
17040 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
17041 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
17042 issues.</p>
17043
17044 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
17045 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
17046 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
17047
17048 <ol>
17049
17050 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
17051 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
17052 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
17053 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
17054 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
17055 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
17056 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
17057 Debian.</li>
17058
17059 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
17060 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
17061 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
17062 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
17063 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
17064 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
17065 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
17066 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
17067 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
17068 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
17069 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
17070 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
17071 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
17072
17073 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
17074 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
17075 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
17076 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
17077 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
17078 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
17079 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
17080 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
17081 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
17082 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
17083
17084 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
17085 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
17086 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
17087 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
17088 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
17089 latter behaviour.</li>
17090
17091 </ol>
17092
17093 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
17094 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
17095 it do not matter much.</p>
17096
17097 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
17098 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
17099 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
17100
17101       </div>
17102       <div class="tags">
17103
17104
17105         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
17106
17107
17108       </div>
17109     </div>
17110     <div class="padding"></div>
17111
17112     <div class="entry">
17113       <div class="title">
17114         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
17115       </div>
17116       <div class="date">
17117         26th July 2011
17118       </div>
17119       <div class="body">
17120         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
17121 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
17122 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
17123 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
17124 security support for a few years.</p>
17125
17126 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
17127 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
17128 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
17129 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
17130 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
17131 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
17132 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
17133 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
17134 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
17135 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
17136 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
17137 easier in the future.</p>
17138
17139 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
17140 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
17141 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
17142 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
17143 do not have time for.</p>
17144
17145       </div>
17146       <div class="tags">
17147
17148
17149         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
17150
17151
17152       </div>
17153     </div>
17154     <div class="padding"></div>
17155
17156     <div class="entry">
17157       <div class="title">
17158         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
17159       </div>
17160       <div class="date">
17161         20th June 2011
17162       </div>
17163       <div class="body">
17164         <p>Reading
17165 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
17166 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
17167 parts of the
17168 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
17169 and
17170 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
17171 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
17172 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
17173 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
17174
17175       </div>
17176       <div class="tags">
17177
17178
17179         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
17180
17181
17182       </div>
17183     </div>
17184     <div class="padding"></div>
17185
17186     <div class="entry">
17187       <div class="title">
17188         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experimental_Open311_API_for_the_mySociety_fixmystreet_system.html">Experimental Open311 API for the mySociety fixmystreet system</a>
17189       </div>
17190       <div class="date">
17191         30th April 2011
17192       </div>
17193       <div class="body">
17194         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
17195 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
17196 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
17197 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
17198 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
17199 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
17200 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
17201 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
17202 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
17203 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
17204
17205 <p>Where is it?  Visit
17206 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
17207 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
17208 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
17209 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
17210
17211       </div>
17212       <div class="tags">
17213
17214
17215         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311</a>.
17216
17217
17218       </div>
17219     </div>
17220     <div class="padding"></div>
17221
17222     <div class="entry">
17223       <div class="title">
17224         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Initial_notes_on_adding_Open311_server_API_on_FixMyStreet.html">Initial notes on adding Open311 server API on FixMyStreet</a>
17225       </div>
17226       <div class="date">
17227         29th April 2011
17228       </div>
17229       <div class="body">
17230         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
17231 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
17232 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
17233 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
17234 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
17235 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
17236 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
17237 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
17238 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
17239 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
17240 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
17241 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
17242 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
17243
17244 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
17245 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
17246 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
17247 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
17248 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
17249 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
17250 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
17251 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
17252 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
17253 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
17254 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
17255 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
17256 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
17257
17258 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
17259 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
17260 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
17261 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
17262 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
17263 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
17264 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
17265 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
17266 it.</p>
17267
17268 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
17269 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
17270 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
17271 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
17272 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
17273 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
17274 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
17275
17276 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
17277 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
17278 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
17279 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
17280 and range= options.</p>
17281
17282 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
17283 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
17284 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
17285 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
17286 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
17287 to best handle this.  I've noticed
17288 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
17289 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
17290 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
17291 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
17292
17293 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
17294 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
17295 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
17296 discussions instead of only
17297 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
17298 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
17299 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
17300 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
17301 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
17302 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
17303
17304       </div>
17305       <div class="tags">
17306
17307
17308         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311</a>.
17309
17310
17311       </div>
17312     </div>
17313     <div class="padding"></div>
17314
17315     <div class="entry">
17316       <div class="title">
17317         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
17318       </div>
17319       <div class="date">
17320          6th April 2011
17321       </div>
17322       <div class="body">
17323         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
17324 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
17325 A few days ago the project
17326 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
17327 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
17328 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
17329 into Gnash.</p>
17330
17331       </div>
17332       <div class="tags">
17333
17334
17335         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
17336
17337
17338       </div>
17339     </div>
17340     <div class="padding"></div>
17341
17342     <div class="entry">
17343       <div class="title">
17344         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
17345       </div>
17346       <div class="date">
17347          3rd April 2011
17348       </div>
17349       <div class="body">
17350         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
17351 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
17352 update in English.</p>
17353
17354 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
17355 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
17356 of the British service
17357 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
17358 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
17359 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
17360 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
17361 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
17362 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
17363 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
17364 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
17365 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
17366 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
17367 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
17368 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
17369 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
17370
17371 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
17372 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
17373 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
17374 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
17375 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
17376 public infrastructure.</p>
17377
17378 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
17379 such service?</p>
17380
17381       </div>
17382       <div class="tags">
17383
17384
17385         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
17386
17387
17388       </div>
17389     </div>
17390     <div class="padding"></div>
17391
17392     <div class="entry">
17393       <div class="title">
17394         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
17395       </div>
17396       <div class="date">
17397         28th January 2011
17398       </div>
17399       <div class="body">
17400         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
17401 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
17402 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
17403 available on the Internet, and check our locally
17404 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
17405 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
17406 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
17407 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
17408 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
17409 out which security holes were present in our free software
17410 collection.</p>
17411
17412 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
17413 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
17414 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
17415 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
17416 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
17417 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
17418 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
17419 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
17420 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
17421 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
17422 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
17423 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
17424 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
17425 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
17426 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
17427 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
17428
17429 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
17430 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
17431 check out, one could look up
17432 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search?cpe=cpe%3A%2Fa%3Agnu%3Agzip:1.3.3">cpe:/a:gnu:gzip:1.3.3
17433 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
17434 The most recent one is
17435 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
17436 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
17437 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
17438
17439 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
17440 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
17441 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
17442 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
17443 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
17444 security issues out.</p>
17445
17446 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
17447 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
17448 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
17449 RHEL is providing
17450 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
17451 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
17452 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
17453
17454 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
17455 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
17456 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
17457 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
17458 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
17459 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
17460 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
17461 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
17462 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
17463 established soon.</p>
17464
17465 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
17466 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
17467 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
17468 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
17469 for their packages.</p>
17470
17471       </div>
17472       <div class="tags">
17473
17474
17475         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
17476
17477
17478       </div>
17479     </div>
17480     <div class="padding"></div>
17481
17482     <div class="entry">
17483       <div class="title">
17484         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
17485       </div>
17486       <div class="date">
17487         23rd January 2011
17488       </div>
17489       <div class="body">
17490         <p>In the
17491 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
17492 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
17493 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
17494 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
17495 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
17496 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
17497 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
17498 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
17499 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
17500 one of my machines like this:</p>
17501
17502 <pre>
17503 loaded modules:
17504 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
17505 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
17506 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
17507 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
17508 10de:03ec pata_amd
17509 10de:03f6 sata_nv
17510 1022:1103 k8temp
17511 109e:036e bttv
17512 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
17513 11ab:4364 sky2
17514 </pre>
17515
17516 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
17517 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
17518
17519 <pre>
17520 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
17521     echo loaded pci modules:
17522     (
17523         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
17524         for address in * ; do
17525             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
17526                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
17527                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
17528                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
17529                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
17530                     echo "$id $module"
17531                 fi
17532             fi
17533         done
17534     )
17535     echo
17536 fi
17537 </pre>
17538
17539 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
17540 mappings:</p>
17541
17542 <pre>
17543 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
17544     echo loaded usb modules:
17545     (
17546         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
17547         for address in * ; do
17548             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
17549                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
17550                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
17551                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
17552                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
17553                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
17554                         echo "$id $module"
17555                     fi
17556                 fi
17557             fi
17558         done
17559     )
17560     echo
17561 fi
17562 </pre>
17563
17564 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
17565 well.</p>
17566
17567       </div>
17568       <div class="tags">
17569
17570
17571         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
17572
17573
17574       </div>
17575     </div>
17576     <div class="padding"></div>
17577
17578     <div class="entry">
17579       <div class="title">
17580         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_video_format_most_supported_in_web_browsers_.html">The video format most supported in web browsers?</a>
17581       </div>
17582       <div class="date">
17583         16th January 2011
17584       </div>
17585       <div class="body">
17586         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
17587 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
17588 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
17589 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
17590 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
17591 the Wikipedia article on
17592 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
17593 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
17594 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
17595 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
17596 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
17597 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
17598 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
17599 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
17600 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
17601 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
17602 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
17603 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
17604
17605 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
17606 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
17607 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
17608 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
17609 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
17610 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
17611 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
17612 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
17613 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
17614 from last week</a>.</p>
17615
17616 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
17617 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
17618 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
17619 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
17620 was without royalties and license terms, check out
17621 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
17622 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
17623
17624 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
17625 available from
17626 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
17627 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
17628 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
17629
17630 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
17631 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
17632 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
17633 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
17634
17635       </div>
17636       <div class="tags">
17637
17638
17639         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
17640
17641
17642       </div>
17643     </div>
17644     <div class="padding"></div>
17645
17646     <div class="entry">
17647       <div class="title">
17648         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html">Chrome plan to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt;</a>
17649       </div>
17650       <div class="date">
17651         12th January 2011
17652       </div>
17653       <div class="body">
17654         <p>Today I discovered
17655 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
17656 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
17657 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
17658 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
17659 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
17660 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
17661 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
17662 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
17663 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
17664 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
17665 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
17666 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
17667 on the Google announcement is available from
17668 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
17669 A good read. :)</p>
17670
17671 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
17672 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
17673 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
17674 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
17675 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
17676 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
17677 browsers support H.264, and others support
17678 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
17679 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
17680 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
17681 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
17682 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
17683 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
17684 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
17685 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
17686
17687 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
17688 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
17689 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
17690 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
17691 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
17692 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
17693 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
17694
17695 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
17696 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
17697 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
17698 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
17699 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
17700 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
17701 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
17702
17703 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
17704 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
17705 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
17706 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
17707 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
17708 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
17709 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
17710
17711 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
17712 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
17713 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
17714 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
17715 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
17716 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
17717 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
17718 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
17719 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
17720 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
17721 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
17722 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
17723 I guess time will tell.</p>
17724
17725 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
17726 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
17727 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
17728
17729       </div>
17730       <div class="tags">
17731
17732
17733         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
17734
17735
17736       </div>
17737     </div>
17738     <div class="padding"></div>
17739
17740     <div class="entry">
17741       <div class="title">
17742         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_standards_are_Free_and_Open_as_defined_by_Digistan_.html">What standards are Free and Open as defined by Digistan?</a>
17743       </div>
17744       <div class="date">
17745         30th December 2010
17746       </div>
17747       <div class="body">
17748         <p>After trying to
17749 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
17750 Ogg Theora</a> to
17751 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
17752 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
17753 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
17754 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
17755 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
17756 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
17757 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
17758
17759 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
17760 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
17761 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
17762 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
17763 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
17764 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
17765 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
17766
17767 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
17768 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
17769
17770       </div>
17771       <div class="tags">
17772
17773
17774         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
17775
17776
17777       </div>
17778     </div>
17779     <div class="padding"></div>
17780
17781     <div class="entry">
17782       <div class="title">
17783         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
17784       </div>
17785       <div class="date">
17786         27th December 2010
17787       </div>
17788       <div class="body">
17789         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
17790 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
17791 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
17792 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
17793 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
17794 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
17795 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
17796 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
17797
17798 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
17799 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
17800 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
17801 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
17802 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
17803 page</a>.</p>
17804
17805 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
17806 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
17807 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
17808 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
17809 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
17810 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
17811 specification on equal terms.</p>
17812
17813 <blockquote>
17814
17815 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
17816 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
17817 open standard:</p>
17818
17819 <ul>
17820
17821 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
17822 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
17823 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
17824 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
17825
17826 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
17827 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
17828 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
17829 nominal fee.</li>
17830
17831 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
17832 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
17833 free basis.</li>
17834
17835 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
17836
17837 </ul>
17838 </blockquote>
17839
17840 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
17841 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
17842 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
17843 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
17844 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
17845 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
17846 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
17847
17848 <blockquote>
17849
17850 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
17851
17852 <ol>
17853
17854 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
17855 tilgængelig.</li>
17856
17857 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
17858 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
17859
17860 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
17861 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
17862
17863 </ol>
17864
17865 </blockquote>
17866
17867 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
17868 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
17869
17870 <blockquote>
17871
17872 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
17873
17874 <ol>
17875
17876 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
17877 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
17878
17879 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
17880 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
17881 Standard themselves;</li>
17882
17883 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
17884 any party or in any business model;</li>
17885
17886 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
17887 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
17888 parties;</li>
17889
17890 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
17891 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
17892 parties.</li>
17893
17894 </ol>
17895
17896 </blockquote>
17897
17898 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
17899 its
17900 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
17901 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
17902
17903 <blockquote>
17904 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
17905
17906 <ul>
17907
17908 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
17909   democratic:
17910
17911          <ul>
17912
17913          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
17914             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
17915             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
17916             and managed.</li>
17917
17918          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
17919             method, can be changed through input from all
17920             participants.</li>
17921
17922          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
17923             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
17924
17925          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
17926             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
17927
17928          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
17929             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
17930             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
17931
17932          </ul>
17933
17934 </li>
17935
17936 </ul>
17937
17938 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
17939 <ul>
17940
17941 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
17942   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
17943   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
17944   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
17945   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
17946
17947 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
17948   a technical or economic barriers</li>
17949
17950 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
17951   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
17952   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
17953   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
17954   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
17955   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
17956   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
17957   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
17958   intended to function.</li>
17959
17960 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
17961   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
17962   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
17963
17964 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
17965   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
17966   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
17967   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
17968   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
17969   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
17970   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
17971   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
17972
17973       <ul>
17974
17975       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
17976         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
17977         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
17978
17979       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
17980         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
17981         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
17982         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
17983
17984       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
17985         licensor</li>
17986
17987       </ul>
17988 </li>
17989
17990 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
17991   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
17992   or restricted licensing terms</li>
17993
17994 </ul>
17995
17996 </blockquote>
17997
17998 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
17999 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
18000 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
18001 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
18002 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
18003 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
18004 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
18005 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
18006 Standards.</p>
18007
18008       </div>
18009       <div class="tags">
18010
18011
18012         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
18013
18014
18015       </div>
18016     </div>
18017     <div class="padding"></div>
18018
18019     <div class="entry">
18020       <div class="title">
18021         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">Is Ogg Theora a free and open standard?</a>
18022       </div>
18023       <div class="date">
18024         25th December 2010
18025       </div>
18026       <div class="body">
18027         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
18028 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
18029
18030 <blockquote>
18031
18032 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
18033 as follows:</p>
18034
18035 <ol>
18036
18037 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
18038 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
18039 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
18040
18041 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
18042 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
18043 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
18044 parties.</li>
18045
18046 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
18047 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
18048 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
18049
18050 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
18051 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
18052
18053 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
18054
18055 </ol>
18056
18057 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
18058 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
18059 products based on the standard.</p>
18060 </blockquote>
18061
18062 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
18063 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
18064 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
18065 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
18066 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
18067 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
18068 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
18069 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
18070
18071 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
18072
18073 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
18074 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
18075 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
18076 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
18077 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
18078 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
18079 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
18080 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
18081 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
18082 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
18083 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
18084 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
18085 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
18086 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
18087
18088 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
18089
18090 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
18091 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
18092 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
18093 documentation indicating this.</p>
18094
18095 <p>According to
18096 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
18097 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
18098 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
18099 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
18100 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
18101 report is correct.</p>
18102
18103 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
18104
18105 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
18106 container format</a> and both the
18107 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
18108 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
18109 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
18110
18111 <blockquote>
18112
18113 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
18114 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
18115 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
18116 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
18117 specification compliance.
18118
18119 </blockquote>
18120
18121 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
18122 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
18123 this is the term:<p>
18124
18125 <blockquote>
18126
18127 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
18128 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
18129 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
18130 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
18131 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
18132 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
18133 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
18134 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
18135 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
18136 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
18137 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
18138 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
18139
18140 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
18141 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
18142 </blockquote>
18143
18144 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
18145 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
18146 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
18147 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
18148 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
18149
18150 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
18151
18152 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
18153 Theora format.
18154 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
18155 and
18156 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
18157 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
18158 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
18159 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
18160 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
18161 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
18162 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
18163 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
18164
18165 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
18166
18167 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
18168
18169 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
18170
18171 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
18172 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
18173 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
18174 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
18175 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
18176 this.</p>
18177
18178 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
18179 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
18180
18181       </div>
18182       <div class="tags">
18183
18184
18185         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
18186
18187
18188       </div>
18189     </div>
18190     <div class="padding"></div>
18191
18192     <div class="entry">
18193       <div class="title">
18194         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_reply_from_Edgar_Villanueva_to_Microsoft_in_Peru.html">The reply from Edgar Villanueva to Microsoft in Peru</a>
18195       </div>
18196       <div class="date">
18197         25th December 2010
18198       </div>
18199       <div class="body">
18200         <p>A few days ago
18201 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
18202 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
18203 2.0 of
18204 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
18205 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
18206 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
18207 Nothing very surprising there, given
18208 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
18209 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
18210 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
18211 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
18212 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
18213 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
18214 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
18215 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
18216 standard definition from its content.</p>
18217
18218 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
18219 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
18220 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
18221 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
18222 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
18223 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
18224 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
18225 background information about that story is available in
18226 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
18227 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
18228
18229 <blockquote>
18230 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
18231 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
18232 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
18233
18234 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
18235
18236 <p>First of all, I thank you for your letter of March 25, 2002 in which you state the official position of Microsoft relative to Bill Number 1609, Free Software in Public Administration, which is indubitably inspired by the desire for Peru to find a suitable place in the global technological context. In the same spirit, and convinced that we will find the best solutions through an exchange of clear and open ideas, I will take this opportunity to reply to the commentaries included in your letter.</p>
18237
18238 <p>While acknowledging that opinions such as yours constitute a significant contribution, it would have been even more worthwhile for me if, rather than formulating objections of a general nature (which we will analyze in detail later) you had gathered solid arguments for the advantages that proprietary software could bring to the Peruvian State, and to its citizens in general, since this would have allowed a more enlightening exchange in respect of each of our positions.</p>
18239
18240 <p>With the aim of creating an orderly debate, we will assume that what you call "open source software" is what the Bill defines as "free software", since there exists software for which the source code is distributed together with the program, but which does not fall within the definition established by the Bill; and that what you call "commercial software" is what the Bill defines as "proprietary" or "unfree", given that there exists free software which is sold in the market for a price like any other good or service.</p>
18241
18242 <p>It is also necessary to make it clear that the aim of the Bill we are discussing is not directly related to the amount of direct savings that can by made by using free software in state institutions. That is in any case a marginal aggregate value, but in no way is it the chief focus of the Bill. The basic principles which inspire the Bill are linked to the basic guarantees of a state of law, such as:</p>
18243
18244 <p>
18245 <ul>
18246 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
18247 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
18248 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
18249 </ul>
18250 </p>
18251
18252 <p>To guarantee the free access of citizens to public information, it is indispensable that the encoding of data is not tied to a single provider. The use of standard and open formats gives a guarantee of this free access, if necessary through the creation of compatible free software.</p>
18253
18254 <p>To guarantee the permanence of public data, it is necessary that the usability and maintenance of the software does not depend on the goodwill of the suppliers, or on the monopoly conditions imposed by them. For this reason the State needs systems the development of which can be guaranteed due to the availability of the source code.</p>
18255
18256 <p>To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with *spy code*. </p>
18257
18258 <p>In the same way, our proposal strengthens the security of the citizens, both in their role as legitimate owners of information managed by the state, and in their role as consumers. In this second case, by allowing the growth of a widespread availability of free software not containing *spy code* able to put at risk privacy and individual freedoms.</p>
18259
18260 <p>In this sense, the Bill is limited to establishing the conditions under which the state bodies will obtain software in the future, that is, in a way compatible with these basic principles.</p>
18261
18262
18263 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
18264 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
18265 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
18266 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
18267 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
18268 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
18269
18270 </p>
18271
18272 <p>What the Bill does express clearly, is that, for software to be acceptable for the state it is not enough that it is technically capable of fulfilling a task, but that further the contractual conditions must satisfy a series of requirements regarding the license, without which the State cannot guarantee the citizen adequate processing of his data, watching over its integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility throughout time, as these are very critical aspects for its normal functioning.</p>
18273
18274 <p>We agree, Mr. Gonzalez, that information and communication technology have a significant impact on the quality of life of the citizens (whether it be positive or negative). We surely also agree that the basic values I have pointed out above are fundamental in a democratic state like Peru. So we are very interested to know of any other way of guaranteeing these principles, other than through the use of free software in the terms defined by the Bill.</p>
18275
18276 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
18277
18278 <p>Firstly, you point out that: "1. The bill makes it compulsory for all public bodies to use only free software, that is to say open source software, which breaches the principles of equality before the law, that of non-discrimination and the right of free private enterprise, freedom of industry and of contract, protected by the constitution."</p>
18279
18280 <p>This understanding is in error. The Bill in no way affects the rights you list; it limits itself entirely to establishing conditions for the use of software on the part of state institutions, without in any way meddling in private sector transactions. It is a well established principle that the State does not enjoy the wide spectrum of contractual freedom of the private sector, as it is limited in its actions precisely by the requirement for transparency of public acts; and in this sense, the preservation of the greater common interest must prevail when legislating on the matter.</p>
18281
18282 <p>The Bill protects equality under the law, since no natural or legal person is excluded from the right of offering these goods to the State under the conditions defined in the Bill and without more limitations than those established by the Law of State Contracts and Purchasing (T.U.O. by Supreme Decree No. 012-2001-PCM).</p>
18283
18284 <p>The Bill does not introduce any discrimination whatever, since it only establishes *how* the goods have to be provided (which is a state power) and not *who* has to provide them (which would effectively be discriminatory, if restrictions based on national origin, race religion, ideology, sexual preference etc. were imposed). On the contrary, the Bill is decidedly antidiscriminatory. This is so because by defining with no room for doubt the conditions for the provision of software, it prevents state bodies from using software which has a license including discriminatory conditions.</p>
18285
18286 <p>It should be obvious from the preceding two paragraphs that the Bill does not harm free private enterprise, since the latter can always choose under what conditions it will produce software; some of these will be acceptable to the State, and others will not be since they contradict the guarantee of the basic principles listed above. This free initiative is of course compatible with the freedom of industry and freedom of contract (in the limited form in which the State can exercise the latter). Any private subject can produce software under the conditions which the State requires, or can refrain from doing so. Nobody is forced to adopt a model of production, but if they wish to provide software to the State, they must provide the mechanisms which guarantee the basic principles, and which are those described in the Bill.</p>
18287
18288 <p>By way of an example: nothing in the text of the Bill would prevent your company offering the State bodies an office "suite", under the conditions defined in the Bill and setting the price that you consider satisfactory. If you did not, it would not be due to restrictions imposed by the law, but to business decisions relative to the method of commercializing your products, decisions with which the State is not involved.</p>
18289
18290 <p>To continue; you note that:" 2. The bill, by making the use of open source software compulsory, would establish discriminatory and non competitive practices in the contracting and purchasing by public bodies..."</p>
18291
18292 <p>This statement is just a reiteration of the previous one, and so the response can be found above. However, let us concern ourselves for a moment with your comment regarding "non-competitive ... practices."</p>
18293
18294 <p>Of course, in defining any kind of purchase, the buyer sets conditions which relate to the proposed use of the good or service. From the start, this excludes certain manufacturers from the possibility of competing, but does not exclude them "a priori", but rather based on a series of principles determined by the autonomous will of the purchaser, and so the process takes place in conformance with the law. And in the Bill it is established that *no one* is excluded from competing as far as he guarantees the fulfillment of the basic principles.</p>
18295
18296 <p>Furthermore, the Bill *stimulates* competition, since it tends to generate a supply of software with better conditions of usability, and to better existing work, in a model of continuous improvement.</p>
18297
18298 <p>On the other hand, the central aspect of competivity is the chance to provide better choices to the consumer. Now, it is impossible to ignore the fact that marketing does not play a neutral role when the product is offered on the market (since accepting the opposite would lead one to suppose that firms' expenses in marketing lack any sense), and that therefore a significant expense under this heading can influence the decisions of the purchaser. This influence of marketing is in large measure reduced by the bill that we are backing, since the choice within the framework proposed is based on the *technical merits* of the product and not on the effort put into commercialization by the producer; in this sense, competitiveness is increased, since the smallest software producer can compete on equal terms with the most powerful corporations.</p>
18299
18300 <p>It is necessary to stress that there is no position more anti-competitive than that of the big software producers, which frequently abuse their dominant position, since in innumerable cases they propose as a solution to problems raised by users: "update your software to the new version" (at the user's expense, naturally); furthermore, it is common to find arbitrary cessation of technical help for products, which, in the provider's judgment alone, are "old"; and so, to receive any kind of technical assistance, the user finds himself forced to migrate to new versions (with non-trivial costs, especially as changes in hardware platform are often involved). And as the whole infrastructure is based on proprietary data formats, the user stays "trapped" in the need to continue using products from the same supplier, or to make the huge effort to change to another environment (probably also proprietary).</p>
18301
18302 <p>You add: "3. So, by compelling the State to favor a business model based entirely on open source, the bill would only discourage the local and international manufacturing companies, which are the ones which really undertake important expenditures, create a significant number of direct and indirect jobs, as well as contributing to the GNP, as opposed to a model of open source software which tends to have an ever weaker economic impact, since it mainly creates jobs in the service sector."</p>
18303
18304 <p>I do not agree with your statement. Partly because of what you yourself point out in paragraph 6 of your letter, regarding the relative weight of services in the context of software use. This contradiction alone would invalidate your position. The service model, adopted by a large number of companies in the software industry, is much larger in economic terms, and with a tendency to increase, than the licensing of programs.</p>
18305
18306 <p>On the other hand, the private sector of the economy has the widest possible freedom to choose the economic model which best suits its interests, even if this freedom of choice is often obscured subliminally by the disproportionate expenditure on marketing by the producers of proprietary software.</p>
18307
18308 <p>In addition, a reading of your opinion would lead to the conclusion that the State market is crucial and essential for the proprietary software industry, to such a point that the choice made by the State in this bill would completely eliminate the market for these firms. If that is true, we can deduce that the State must be subsidizing the proprietary software industry. In the unlikely event that this were true, the State would have the right to apply the subsidies in the area it considered of greatest social value; it is undeniable, in this improbable hypothesis, that if the State decided to subsidize software, it would have to do so choosing the free over the proprietary, considering its social effect and the rational use of taxpayers money.</p>
18309
18310 <p>In respect of the jobs generated by proprietary software in countries like ours, these mainly concern technical tasks of little aggregate value; at the local level, the technicians who provide support for proprietary software produced by transnational companies do not have the possibility of fixing bugs, not necessarily for lack of technical capability or of talent, but because they do not have access to the source code to fix it. With free software one creates more technically qualified employment and a framework of free competence where success is only tied to the ability to offer good technical support and quality of service, one stimulates the market, and one increases the shared fund of knowledge, opening up alternatives to generate services of greater total value and a higher quality level, to the benefit of all involved: producers, service organizations, and consumers.</p>
18311
18312 <p>It is a common phenomenon in developing countries that local software industries obtain the majority of their takings in the service sector, or in the creation of "ad hoc" software. Therefore, any negative impact that the application of the Bill might have in this sector will be more than compensated by a growth in demand for services (as long as these are carried out to high quality standards). If the transnational software companies decide not to compete under these new rules of the game, it is likely that they will undergo some decrease in takings in terms of payment for licenses; however, considering that these firms continue to allege that much of the software used by the State has been illegally copied, one can see that the impact will not be very serious. Certainly, in any case their fortune will be determined by market laws, changes in which cannot be avoided; many firms traditionally associated with proprietary software have already set out on the road (supported by copious expense) of providing services associated with free software, which shows that the models are not mutually exclusive.</p>
18313
18314 <p>With this bill the State is deciding that it needs to preserve certain fundamental values. And it is deciding this based on its sovereign power, without affecting any of the constitutional guarantees. If these values could be guaranteed without having to choose a particular economic model, the effects of the law would be even more beneficial. In any case, it should be clear that the State does not choose an economic model; if it happens that there only exists one economic model capable of providing software which provides the basic guarantee of these principles, this is because of historical circumstances, not because of an arbitrary choice of a given model.</p>
18315
18316 <p>Your letter continues: "4. The bill imposes the use of open source software without considering the dangers that this can bring from the point of view of security, guarantee, and possible violation of the intellectual property rights of third parties."</p>
18317
18318 <p>Alluding in an abstract way to "the dangers this can bring", without specifically mentioning a single one of these supposed dangers, shows at the least some lack of knowledge of the topic. So, allow me to enlighten you on these points.</p>
18319
18320 <p>On security:</p>
18321
18322 <p>National security has already been mentioned in general terms in the initial discussion of the basic principles of the bill. In more specific terms, relative to the security of the software itself, it is well known that all software (whether proprietary or free) contains errors or "bugs" (in programmers' slang). But it is also well known that the bugs in free software are fewer, and are fixed much more quickly, than in proprietary software. It is not in vain that numerous public bodies responsible for the IT security of state systems in developed countries require the use of free software for the same conditions of security and efficiency.</p>
18323
18324 <p>What is impossible to prove is that proprietary software is more secure than free, without the public and open inspection of the scientific community and users in general. This demonstration is impossible because the model of proprietary software itself prevents this analysis, so that any guarantee of security is based only on promises of good intentions (biased, by any reckoning) made by the producer itself, or its contractors.</p>
18325
18326 <p>It should be remembered that in many cases, the licensing conditions include Non-Disclosure clauses which prevent the user from publicly revealing security flaws found in the licensed proprietary product.</p>
18327
18328 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
18329
18330 <p>As you know perfectly well, or could find out by reading the "End User License Agreement" of the products you license, in the great majority of cases the guarantees are limited to replacement of the storage medium in case of defects, but in no case is compensation given for direct or indirect damages, loss of profits, etc... If as a result of a security bug in one of your products, not fixed in time by yourselves, an attacker managed to compromise crucial State systems, what guarantees, reparations and compensation would your company make in accordance with your licensing conditions? The guarantees of proprietary software, inasmuch as programs are delivered ``AS IS'', that is, in the state in which they are, with no additional responsibility of the provider in respect of function, in no way differ from those normal with free software.</p>
18331
18332 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
18333
18334 <p>Questions of intellectual property fall outside the scope of this bill, since they are covered by specific other laws. The model of free software in no way implies ignorance of these laws, and in fact the great majority of free software is covered by copyright. In reality, the inclusion of this question in your observations shows your confusion in respect of the legal framework in which free software is developed. The inclusion of the intellectual property of others in works claimed as one's own is not a practice that has been noted in the free software community; whereas, unfortunately, it has been in the area of proprietary software. As an example, the condemnation by the Commercial Court of Nanterre, France, on 27th September 2001 of Microsoft Corp. to a penalty of 3 million francs in damages and interest, for violation of intellectual property (piracy, to use the unfortunate term that your firm commonly uses in its publicity).</p>
18335
18336 <p>You go on to say that: "The bill uses the concept of open source software incorrectly, since it does not necessarily imply that the software is free or of zero cost, and so arrives at mistaken conclusions regarding State savings, with no cost-benefit analysis to validate its position."</p>
18337
18338 <p>This observation is wrong; in principle, freedom and lack of cost are orthogonal concepts: there is software which is proprietary and charged for (for example, MS Office), software which is proprietary and free of charge (MS Internet Explorer), software which is free and charged for (Red Hat, SuSE etc GNU/Linux distributions), software which is free and not charged for (Apache, Open Office, Mozilla), and even software which can be licensed in a range of combinations (MySQL).</p>
18339
18340 <p>Certainly free software is not necessarily free of charge. And the text of the bill does not state that it has to be so, as you will have noted after reading it. The definitions included in the Bill state clearly *what* should be considered free software, at no point referring to freedom from charges. Although the possibility of savings in payments for proprietary software licenses are mentioned, the foundations of the bill clearly refer to the fundamental guarantees to be preserved and to the stimulus to local technological development. Given that a democratic State must support these principles, it has no other choice than to use software with publicly available source code, and to exchange information only in standard formats.</p>
18341
18342 <p>If the State does not use software with these characteristics, it will be weakening basic republican principles. Luckily, free software also implies lower total costs; however, even given the hypothesis (easily disproved) that it was more expensive than proprietary software, the simple existence of an effective free software tool for a particular IT function would oblige the State to use it; not by command of this Bill, but because of the basic principles we enumerated at the start, and which arise from the very essence of the lawful democratic State.</p>
18343
18344 <p>You continue: "6. It is wrong to think that Open Source Software is free of charge. Research by the Gartner Group (an important investigator of the technological market recognized at world level) has shown that the cost of purchase of software (operating system and applications) is only 8% of the total cost which firms and institutions take on for a rational and truly beneficial use of the technology. The other 92% consists of: installation costs, enabling, support, maintenance, administration, and down-time."</p>
18345
18346 <p>This argument repeats that already given in paragraph 5 and partly contradicts paragraph 3. For the sake of brevity we refer to the comments on those paragraphs. However, allow me to point out that your conclusion is logically false: even if according to Gartner Group the cost of software is on average only 8% of the total cost of use, this does not in any way deny the existence of software which is free of charge, that is, with a licensing cost of zero.</p>
18347
18348 <p>In addition, in this paragraph you correctly point out that the service components and losses due to down-time make up the largest part of the total cost of software use, which, as you will note, contradicts your statement regarding the small value of services suggested in paragraph 3. Now the use of free software contributes significantly to reduce the remaining life-cycle costs. This reduction in the costs of installation, support etc. can be noted in several areas: in the first place, the competitive service model of free software, support and maintenance for which can be freely contracted out to a range of suppliers competing on the grounds of quality and low cost. This is true for installation, enabling, and support, and in large part for maintenance. In the second place, due to the reproductive characteristics of the model, maintenance carried out for an application is easily replicable, without incurring large costs (that is, without paying more than once for the same thing) since modifications, if one wishes, can be incorporated in the common fund of knowledge. Thirdly, the huge costs caused by non-functioning software ("blue screens of death", malicious code such as virus, worms, and trojans, exceptions, general protection faults and other well-known problems) are reduced considerably by using more stable software; and it is well known that one of the most notable virtues of free software is its stability.</p>
18349
18350 <p>You further state that: "7. One of the arguments behind the bill is the supposed freedom from costs of open-source software, compared with the costs of commercial software, without taking into account the fact that there exist types of volume licensing which can be highly advantageous for the State, as has happened in other countries."</p>
18351
18352 <p>I have already pointed out that what is in question is not the cost of the software but the principles of freedom of information, accessibility, and security. These arguments have been covered extensively in the preceding paragraphs to which I would refer you.</p>
18353
18354 <p>On the other hand, there certainly exist types of volume licensing (although unfortunately proprietary software does not satisfy the basic principles). But as you correctly pointed out in the immediately preceding paragraph of your letter, they only manage to reduce the impact of a component which makes up no more than 8% of the total.</p>
18355
18356 <p>You continue: "8. In addition, the alternative adopted by the bill (I) is clearly more expensive, due to the high costs of software migration, and (II) puts at risk compatibility and interoperability of the IT platforms within the State, and between the State and the private sector, given the hundreds of versions of open source software on the market."</p>
18357
18358 <p>Let us analyze your statement in two parts. Your first argument, that migration implies high costs, is in reality an argument in favor of the Bill. Because the more time goes by, the more difficult migration to another technology will become; and at the same time, the security risks associated with proprietary software will continue to increase. In this way, the use of proprietary systems and formats will make the State ever more dependent on specific suppliers. Once a policy of using free software has been established (which certainly, does imply some cost) then on the contrary migration from one system to another becomes very simple, since all data is stored in open formats. On the other hand, migration to an open software context implies no more costs than migration between two different proprietary software contexts, which invalidates your argument completely.</p>
18359
18360 <p>The second argument refers to "problems in interoperability of the IT platforms within the State, and between the State and the private sector" This statement implies a certain lack of knowledge of the way in which free software is built, which does not maximize the dependence of the user on a particular platform, as normally happens in the realm of proprietary software. Even when there are multiple free software distributions, and numerous programs which can be used for the same function, interoperability is guaranteed as much by the use of standard formats, as required by the bill, as by the possibility of creating interoperable software given the availability of the source code.</p>
18361
18362 <p>You then say that: "9. The majority of open source code does not offer adequate levels of service nor the guarantee from recognized manufacturers of high productivity on the part of the users, which has led various public organizations to retract their decision to go with an open source software solution and to use commercial software in its place."</p>
18363
18364 <p>This observation is without foundation. In respect of the guarantee, your argument was rebutted in the response to paragraph 4. In respect of support services, it is possible to use free software without them (just as also happens with proprietary software), but anyone who does need them can obtain support separately, whether from local firms or from international corporations, again just as in the case of proprietary software.</p>
18365
18366 <p>On the other hand, it would contribute greatly to our analysis if you could inform us about free software projects *established* in public bodies which have already been abandoned in favor of proprietary software. We know of a good number of cases where the opposite has taken place, but not know of any where what you describe has taken place.</p>
18367
18368 <p>You continue by observing that: "10. The bill discourages the creativity of the Peruvian software industry, which invoices 40 million US$/year, exports 4 million US$ (10th in ranking among non-traditional exports, more than handicrafts) and is a source of highly qualified employment. With a law that encourages the use of open source, software programmers lose their intellectual property rights and their main source of payment."</p>
18369
18370 <p>It is clear enough that nobody is forced to commercialize their code as free software. The only thing to take into account is that if it is not free software, it cannot be sold to the public sector. This is not in any case the main market for the national software industry. We covered some questions referring to the influence of the Bill on the generation of employment which would be both highly technically qualified and in better conditions for competition above, so it seems unnecessary to insist on this point.</p>
18371
18372 <p>What follows in your statement is incorrect. On the one hand, no author of free software loses his intellectual property rights, unless he expressly wishes to place his work in the public domain. The free software movement has always been very respectful of intellectual property, and has generated widespread public recognition of its authors. Names like those of Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Larry Wall, Miguel de Icaza, Andrew Tridgell, Theo de Raadt, Andrea Arcangeli, Bruce Perens, Darren Reed, Alan Cox, Eric Raymond, and many others, are recognized world-wide for their contributions to the development of software that is used today by millions of people throughout the world. On the other hand, to say that the rewards for authors rights make up the main source of payment of Peruvian programmers is in any case a guess, in particular since there is no proof to this effect, nor a demonstration of how the use of free software by the State would influence these payments.</p>
18373
18374 <p>You go on to say that: "11. Open source software, since it can be distributed without charge, does not allow the generation of income for its developers through exports. In this way, the multiplier effect of the sale of software to other countries is weakened, and so in turn is the growth of the industry, while Government rules ought on the contrary to stimulate local industry."</p>
18375
18376 <p>This statement shows once again complete ignorance of the mechanisms of and market for free software. It tries to claim that the market of sale of non- exclusive rights for use (sale of licenses) is the only possible one for the software industry, when you yourself pointed out several paragraphs above that it is not even the most important one. The incentives that the bill offers for the growth of a supply of better qualified professionals, together with the increase in experience that working on a large scale with free software within the State will bring for Peruvian technicians, will place them in a highly competitive position to offer their services abroad.</p>
18377
18378 <p>You then state that: "12. In the Forum, the use of open source software in education was discussed, without mentioning the complete collapse of this initiative in a country like Mexico, where precisely the State employees who founded the project now state that open source software did not make it possible to offer a learning experience to pupils in the schools, did not take into account the capability at a national level to give adequate support to the platform, and that the software did not and does not allow for the levels of platform integration that now exist in schools."</p>
18379
18380 <p>In fact Mexico has gone into reverse with the Red Escolar (Schools Network) project. This is due precisely to the fact that the driving forces behind the Mexican project used license costs as their main argument, instead of the other reasons specified in our project, which are far more essential. Because of this conceptual mistake, and as a result of the lack of effective support from the SEP (Secretary of State for Public Education), the assumption was made that to implant free software in schools it would be enough to drop their software budget and send them a CD ROM with Gnu/Linux instead. Of course this failed, and it couldn't have been otherwise, just as school laboratories fail when they use proprietary software and have no budget for implementation and maintenance. That's exactly why our bill is not limited to making the use of free software mandatory, but recognizes the need to create a viable migration plan, in which the State undertakes the technical transition in an orderly way in order to then enjoy the advantages of free software.</p>
18381
18382 <p>You end with a rhetorical question: "13. If open source software satisfies all the requirements of State bodies, why do you need a law to adopt it? Shouldn't it be the market which decides freely which products give most benefits or value?"</p>
18383
18384 <p>We agree that in the private sector of the economy, it must be the market that decides which products to use, and no state interference is permissible there. However, in the case of the public sector, the reasoning is not the same: as we have already established, the state archives, handles, and transmits information which does not belong to it, but which is entrusted to it by citizens, who have no alternative under the rule of law. As a counterpart to this legal requirement, the State must take extreme measures to safeguard the integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility of this information. The use of proprietary software raises serious doubts as to whether these requirements can be fulfilled, lacks conclusive evidence in this respect, and so is not suitable for use in the public sector.</p>
18385
18386 <p>The need for a law is based, firstly, on the realization of the fundamental principles listed above in the specific area of software; secondly, on the fact that the State is not an ideal homogeneous entity, but made up of multiple bodies with varying degrees of autonomy in decision making. Given that it is inappropriate to use proprietary software, the fact of establishing these rules in law will prevent the personal discretion of any state employee from putting at risk the information which belongs to citizens. And above all, because it constitutes an up-to-date reaffirmation in relation to the means of management and communication of information used today, it is based on the republican principle of openness to the public.</p>
18387
18388 <p>In conformance with this universally accepted principle, the citizen has the right to know all information held by the State and not covered by well- founded declarations of secrecy based on law. Now, software deals with information and is itself information. Information in a special form, capable of being interpreted by a machine in order to execute actions, but crucial information all the same because the citizen has a legitimate right to know, for example, how his vote is computed or his taxes calculated. And for that he must have free access to the source code and be able to prove to his satisfaction the programs used for electoral computations or calculation of his taxes.</p>
18389
18390 <p>I wish you the greatest respect, and would like to repeat that my office will always be open for you to expound your point of view to whatever level of detail you consider suitable.</p>
18391
18392 <p>Cordially,<br>
18393 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
18394 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
18395 </blockquote>
18396
18397       </div>
18398       <div class="tags">
18399
18400
18401         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
18402
18403
18404       </div>
18405     </div>
18406     <div class="padding"></div>
18407
18408     <div class="entry">
18409       <div class="title">
18410         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
18411       </div>
18412       <div class="date">
18413         25th December 2010
18414       </div>
18415       <div class="body">
18416         <p>Half a year ago I
18417 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
18418 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
18419 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
18420 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
18421
18422 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
18423 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
18424 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
18425 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
18426 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
18427 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
18428 got such a great test tool available.</p>
18429
18430       </div>
18431       <div class="tags">
18432
18433
18434         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
18435
18436
18437       </div>
18438     </div>
18439     <div class="padding"></div>
18440
18441     <div class="entry">
18442       <div class="title">
18443         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a>
18444       </div>
18445       <div class="date">
18446         22nd December 2010
18447       </div>
18448       <div class="body">
18449         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
18450 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
18451 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
18452 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
18453 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
18454 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
18455 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
18456 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
18457 university.</p>
18458
18459 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
18460 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
18461 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
18462 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
18463 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
18464 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
18465 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
18466 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
18467
18468 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
18469 I perform on a new model.</p>
18470
18471 <ul>
18472
18473 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
18474 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
18475 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
18476
18477 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
18478 installation, X.org is working.</li>
18479
18480 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
18481 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
18482 reported by the program.</li>
18483
18484 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
18485 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
18486 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
18487 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
18488 normally test this by playing
18489 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
18490 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
18491
18492 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
18493 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
18494
18495 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
18496 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
18497
18498 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
18499 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
18500
18501 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
18502 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
18503 few.</li>
18504
18505 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
18506 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
18507 notice this.</li>
18508
18509 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
18510 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
18511 resume.</li>
18512
18513 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
18514 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
18515 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
18516 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
18517 not.</li>
18518
18519 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
18520 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
18521 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
18522 existence.</li>
18523
18524 </ul>
18525
18526 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
18527 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
18528 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
18529 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
18530 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
18531 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
18532 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
18533 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
18534
18535       </div>
18536       <div class="tags">
18537
18538
18539         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
18540
18541
18542       </div>
18543     </div>
18544     <div class="padding"></div>
18545
18546     <div class="entry">
18547       <div class="title">
18548         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
18549       </div>
18550       <div class="date">
18551         11th December 2010
18552       </div>
18553       <div class="body">
18554         <p>As I continue to explore
18555 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
18556 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
18557 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
18558
18559 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
18560 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
18561 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
18562 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
18563 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
18564 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
18565 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
18566 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
18567 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
18568 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
18569 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
18570 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
18571 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
18572 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
18573 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
18574 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
18575 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
18576 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
18577 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
18578 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
18579
18580 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
18581 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
18582 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
18583 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
18584 If the Skolelinux foundation
18585 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
18586 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
18587 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
18588 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
18589 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
18590 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
18591 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
18592 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
18593
18594 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
18595 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
18596 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
18597 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
18598 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
18599 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
18600 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
18601 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
18602 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
18603 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
18604 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
18605 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
18606 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
18607 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
18608 currencies.</p>
18609
18610 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
18611 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
18612 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
18613 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
18614 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
18615 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
18616 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
18617 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
18618 BitCoins.  Check out
18619 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
18620 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
18621 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
18622 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
18623 yet.</p>
18624
18625 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
18626 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
18627 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
18628 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
18629 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
18630
18631       </div>
18632       <div class="tags">
18633
18634
18635         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
18636
18637
18638       </div>
18639     </div>
18640     <div class="padding"></div>
18641
18642     <div class="entry">
18643       <div class="title">
18644         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
18645       </div>
18646       <div class="date">
18647         10th December 2010
18648       </div>
18649       <div class="body">
18650         <p>With this weeks lawless
18651 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
18652 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
18653 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
18654 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
18655 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
18656 A blog post from
18657 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
18658 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
18659 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
18660 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
18661 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
18662 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
18663 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
18664
18665 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
18666 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
18667 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
18668 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
18669 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
18670 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
18671 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
18672 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
18673 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
18674 Debian</a> soon.</p>
18675
18676 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
18677 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
18678 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
18679 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
18680 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
18681 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
18682 you can even get
18683 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
18684 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
18685 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
18686 on the current exchange rates.</p>
18687
18688 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
18689 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
18690 donations to the address
18691 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
18692
18693       </div>
18694       <div class="tags">
18695
18696
18697         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
18698
18699
18700       </div>
18701     </div>
18702     <div class="padding"></div>
18703
18704     <div class="entry">
18705       <div class="title">
18706         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Student_group_continue_the_work_on_my_Reprap_3D_printer.html">Student group continue the work on my Reprap 3D printer</a>
18707       </div>
18708       <div class="date">
18709          9th December 2010
18710       </div>
18711       <div class="body">
18712         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
18713 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
18714 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
18715 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
18716 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
18717 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
18718 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
18719 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
18720 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
18721 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
18722 operational.</p>
18723
18724 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
18725 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
18726 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
18727 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
18728 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
18729 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
18730 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
18731
18732       </div>
18733       <div class="tags">
18734
18735
18736         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap</a>.
18737
18738
18739       </div>
18740     </div>
18741     <div class="padding"></div>
18742
18743     <div class="entry">
18744       <div class="title">
18745         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_development_gathering_and_General_Assembly_for_FRiSK.html">Debian Edu development gathering and General Assembly for FRiSK</a>
18746       </div>
18747       <div class="date">
18748         29th November 2010
18749       </div>
18750       <div class="body">
18751         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
18752 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
18753 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
18754 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
18755 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
18756 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
18757
18758 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
18759 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
18760 will hold its
18761 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
18762 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
18763 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
18764 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
18765 vote this year.</p>
18766
18767       </div>
18768       <div class="tags">
18769
18770
18771         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
18772
18773
18774       </div>
18775     </div>
18776     <div class="padding"></div>
18777
18778     <div class="entry">
18779       <div class="title">
18780         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
18781       </div>
18782       <div class="date">
18783         27th November 2010
18784       </div>
18785       <div class="body">
18786         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
18787 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
18788 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
18789 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
18790 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
18791 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
18792 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
18793 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
18794
18795 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
18796 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
18797 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
18798 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
18799 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
18800 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
18801 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
18802 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
18803 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
18804 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
18805 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
18806
18807 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
18808 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
18809 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
18810 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
18811 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
18812 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
18813 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
18814 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
18815 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
18816 what is going on.</p>
18817
18818       </div>
18819       <div class="tags">
18820
18821
18822         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
18823
18824
18825       </div>
18826     </div>
18827     <div class="padding"></div>
18828
18829     <div class="entry">
18830       <div class="title">
18831         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</a>
18832       </div>
18833       <div class="date">
18834         22nd November 2010
18835       </div>
18836       <div class="body">
18837         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
18838 upgrade testing of the
18839 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
18840 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
18841 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
18842 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
18843
18844 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
18845
18846 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
18847
18848 <blockquote><p>
18849   apache2.2-bin
18850   aptdaemon
18851   baobab
18852   binfmt-support
18853   browser-plugin-gnash
18854   cheese-common
18855   cli-common
18856   cups-pk-helper
18857   dmz-cursor-theme
18858   empathy
18859   empathy-common
18860   freedesktop-sound-theme
18861   freeglut3
18862   gconf-defaults-service
18863   gdm-themes
18864   gedit-plugins
18865   geoclue
18866   geoclue-hostip
18867   geoclue-localnet
18868   geoclue-manual
18869   geoclue-yahoo
18870   gnash
18871   gnash-common
18872   gnome
18873   gnome-backgrounds
18874   gnome-cards-data
18875   gnome-codec-install
18876   gnome-core
18877   gnome-desktop-environment
18878   gnome-disk-utility
18879   gnome-screenshot
18880   gnome-search-tool
18881   gnome-session-canberra
18882   gnome-system-log
18883   gnome-themes-extras
18884   gnome-themes-more
18885   gnome-user-share
18886   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
18887   gstreamer0.10-tools
18888   gtk2-engines
18889   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
18890   gtk2-engines-smooth
18891   hamster-applet
18892   libapache2-mod-dnssd
18893   libapr1
18894   libaprutil1
18895   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
18896   libaprutil1-ldap
18897   libart2.0-cil
18898   libboost-date-time1.42.0
18899   libboost-python1.42.0
18900   libboost-thread1.42.0
18901   libchamplain-0.4-0
18902   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
18903   libcheese-gtk18
18904   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
18905   libcryptui0
18906   libdiscid0
18907   libelf1
18908   libepc-1.0-2
18909   libepc-common
18910   libepc-ui-1.0-2
18911   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
18912   libfreerdp0
18913   libgconf2.0-cil
18914   libgdata-common
18915   libgdata7
18916   libgdu-gtk0
18917   libgee2
18918   libgeoclue0
18919   libgexiv2-0
18920   libgif4
18921   libglade2.0-cil
18922   libglib2.0-cil
18923   libgmime2.4-cil
18924   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
18925   libgnome2.24-cil
18926   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
18927   libgpod-common
18928   libgpod4
18929   libgtk2.0-cil
18930   libgtkglext1
18931   libgtksourceview2.0-common
18932   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
18933   libmono-addins0.2-cil
18934   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
18935   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
18936   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
18937   libmono-posix2.0-cil
18938   libmono-security2.0-cil
18939   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
18940   libmono-system2.0-cil
18941   libmtp8
18942   libmusicbrainz3-6
18943   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
18944   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
18945   libopal3.6.8
18946   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
18947   libpt2.6.7
18948   libpython2.6
18949   librpm1
18950   librpmio1
18951   libsdl1.2debian
18952   libsrtp0
18953   libssh-4
18954   libtelepathy-farsight0
18955   libtelepathy-glib0
18956   libtidy-0.99-0
18957   media-player-info
18958   mesa-utils
18959   mono-2.0-gac
18960   mono-gac
18961   mono-runtime
18962   nautilus-sendto
18963   nautilus-sendto-empathy
18964   p7zip-full
18965   pkg-config
18966   python-aptdaemon
18967   python-aptdaemon-gtk
18968   python-axiom
18969   python-beautifulsoup
18970   python-bugbuddy
18971   python-clientform
18972   python-coherence
18973   python-configobj
18974   python-crypto
18975   python-cupshelpers
18976   python-elementtree
18977   python-epsilon
18978   python-evolution
18979   python-feedparser
18980   python-gdata
18981   python-gdbm
18982   python-gst0.10
18983   python-gtkglext1
18984   python-gtksourceview2
18985   python-httplib2
18986   python-louie
18987   python-mako
18988   python-markupsafe
18989   python-mechanize
18990   python-nevow
18991   python-notify
18992   python-opengl
18993   python-openssl
18994   python-pam
18995   python-pkg-resources
18996   python-pyasn1
18997   python-pysqlite2
18998   python-rdflib
18999   python-serial
19000   python-tagpy
19001   python-twisted-bin
19002   python-twisted-conch
19003   python-twisted-core
19004   python-twisted-web
19005   python-utidylib
19006   python-webkit
19007   python-xdg
19008   python-zope.interface
19009   remmina
19010   remmina-plugin-data
19011   remmina-plugin-rdp
19012   remmina-plugin-vnc
19013   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
19014   rhythmbox-plugins
19015   rpm-common
19016   rpm2cpio
19017   seahorse-plugins
19018   shotwell
19019   software-center
19020   system-config-printer-udev
19021   telepathy-gabble
19022   telepathy-mission-control-5
19023   telepathy-salut
19024   tomboy
19025   totem
19026   totem-coherence
19027   totem-mozilla
19028   totem-plugins
19029   transmission-common
19030   xdg-user-dirs
19031   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
19032   xserver-xephyr
19033 </p></blockquote>
19034
19035 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
19036
19037 <blockquote><p>
19038   cheese
19039   ekiga
19040   eog
19041   epiphany-extensions
19042   evolution-exchange
19043   fast-user-switch-applet
19044   file-roller
19045   gcalctool
19046   gconf-editor
19047   gdm
19048   gedit
19049   gedit-common
19050   gnome-games
19051   gnome-games-data
19052   gnome-nettool
19053   gnome-system-tools
19054   gnome-themes
19055   gnuchess
19056   gucharmap
19057   guile-1.8-libs
19058   libavahi-ui0
19059   libdmx1
19060   libgalago3
19061   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
19062   libgtksourceview2.0-0
19063   liblircclient0
19064   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
19065   libspeexdsp1
19066   libsvga1
19067   rhythmbox
19068   seahorse
19069   sound-juicer
19070   system-config-printer
19071   totem-common
19072   transmission-gtk
19073   vinagre
19074   vino
19075 </p></blockquote>
19076
19077 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
19078
19079 <blockquote><p>
19080   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
19081 </p></blockquote>
19082
19083 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
19084
19085 <blockquote><p>
19086 [nothing]
19087 </p></blockquote>
19088
19089 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
19090
19091 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
19092
19093 <blockquote><p>
19094   ksmserver
19095 </p></blockquote>
19096
19097 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
19098
19099 <blockquote><p>
19100   kwin
19101   network-manager-kde
19102 </p></blockquote>
19103
19104 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
19105
19106 <blockquote><p>
19107   arts
19108   dolphin
19109   freespacenotifier
19110   google-gadgets-gst
19111   google-gadgets-xul
19112   kappfinder
19113   kcalc
19114   kcharselect
19115   kde-core
19116   kde-plasma-desktop
19117   kde-standard
19118   kde-window-manager
19119   kdeartwork
19120   kdeartwork-emoticons
19121   kdeartwork-style
19122   kdeartwork-theme-icon
19123   kdebase
19124   kdebase-apps
19125   kdebase-workspace
19126   kdebase-workspace-bin
19127   kdebase-workspace-data
19128   kdeeject
19129   kdelibs
19130   kdeplasma-addons
19131   kdeutils
19132   kdewallpapers
19133   kdf
19134   kfloppy
19135   kgpg
19136   khelpcenter4
19137   kinfocenter
19138   konq-plugins-l10n
19139   konqueror-nsplugins
19140   kscreensaver
19141   kscreensaver-xsavers
19142   ktimer
19143   kwrite
19144   libgle3
19145   libkde4-ruby1.8
19146   libkonq5
19147   libkonq5-templates
19148   libnetpbm10
19149   libplasma-ruby
19150   libplasma-ruby1.8
19151   libqt4-ruby1.8
19152   marble-data
19153   marble-plugins
19154   netpbm
19155   nuvola-icon-theme
19156   plasma-dataengines-workspace
19157   plasma-desktop
19158   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
19159   plasma-runners-addons
19160   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
19161   plasma-scriptengine-python
19162   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
19163   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
19164   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
19165   plasma-scriptengines
19166   plasma-wallpapers-addons
19167   plasma-widget-folderview
19168   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
19169   ruby
19170   sweeper
19171   update-notifier-kde
19172   xscreensaver-data-extra
19173   xscreensaver-gl
19174   xscreensaver-gl-extra
19175   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
19176 </p></blockquote>
19177
19178 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
19179
19180 <blockquote><p>
19181   ark
19182   google-gadgets-common
19183   google-gadgets-qt
19184   htdig
19185   kate
19186   kdebase-bin
19187   kdebase-data
19188   kdepasswd
19189   kfind
19190   klipper
19191   konq-plugins
19192   konqueror
19193   ksysguard
19194   ksysguardd
19195   libarchive1
19196   libcln6
19197   libeet1
19198   libeina-svn-06
19199   libggadget-1.0-0b
19200   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
19201   libgps19
19202   libkdecorations4
19203   libkephal4
19204   libkonq4
19205   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
19206   libkscreensaver5
19207   libksgrd4
19208   libksignalplotter4
19209   libkunitconversion4
19210   libkwineffects1a
19211   libmarblewidget4
19212   libntrack-qt4-1
19213   libntrack0
19214   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
19215   libplasmaclock4a
19216   libplasmagenericshell4
19217   libprocesscore4a
19218   libprocessui4a
19219   libqalculate5
19220   libqedje0a
19221   libqtruby4shared2
19222   libqzion0a
19223   libruby1.8
19224   libscim8c2a
19225   libsmokekdecore4-3
19226   libsmokekdeui4-3
19227   libsmokekfile3
19228   libsmokekhtml3
19229   libsmokekio3
19230   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
19231   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
19232   libsmokekparts3
19233   libsmokektexteditor3
19234   libsmokekutils3
19235   libsmokenepomuk3
19236   libsmokephonon3
19237   libsmokeplasma3
19238   libsmokeqtcore4-3
19239   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
19240   libsmokeqtgui4-3
19241   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
19242   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
19243   libsmokeqtscript4-3
19244   libsmokeqtsql4-3
19245   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
19246   libsmokeqttest4-3
19247   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
19248   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
19249   libsmokeqtxml4-3
19250   libsmokesolid3
19251   libsmokesoprano3
19252   libtaskmanager4a
19253   libtidy-0.99-0
19254   libweather-ion4a
19255   libxklavier16
19256   libxxf86misc1
19257   okteta
19258   oxygencursors
19259   plasma-dataengines-addons
19260   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
19261   plasma-widget-lancelot
19262   plasma-widgets-addons
19263   plasma-widgets-workspace
19264   polkit-kde-1
19265   ruby1.8
19266   systemsettings
19267   update-notifier-common
19268 </p></blockquote>
19269
19270 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
19271 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
19272 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
19273 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
19274
19275       </div>
19276       <div class="tags">
19277
19278
19279         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
19280
19281
19282       </div>
19283     </div>
19284     <div class="padding"></div>
19285
19286     <div class="entry">
19287       <div class="title">
19288         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
19289       </div>
19290       <div class="date">
19291         22nd November 2010
19292       </div>
19293       <div class="body">
19294         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
19295 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
19296 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
19297 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
19298 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
19299 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
19300 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
19301 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
19302 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
19303
19304 <p>I found
19305 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
19306 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
19307 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
19308 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
19309 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
19310 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
19311
19312 <pre>
19313 #!/bin/sh
19314
19315 # Based on
19316 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
19317
19318 set -e
19319 set -x
19320
19321 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
19322     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
19323     exit 1
19324 else
19325     host="$1"
19326 fi
19327
19328 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
19329     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
19330     exit 1
19331 fi
19332
19333 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
19334 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
19335 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
19336 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
19337
19338 img=$host.img
19339 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
19340 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
19341
19342 parted $img mklabel msdos
19343 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
19344 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
19345 parted $img set 1 boot on
19346
19347 modprobe dm-mod
19348 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
19349 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
19350
19351 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
19352 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
19353 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
19354
19355 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
19356 losetup -d /dev/loop0
19357 </pre>
19358
19359 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
19360 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
19361
19362 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
19363 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
19364 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
19365 seem to work just fine.</p>
19366
19367       </div>
19368       <div class="tags">
19369
19370
19371         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
19372
19373
19374       </div>
19375     </div>
19376     <div class="padding"></div>
19377
19378     <div class="entry">
19379       <div class="title">
19380         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</a>
19381       </div>
19382       <div class="date">
19383         20th November 2010
19384       </div>
19385       <div class="body">
19386         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
19387 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
19388 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
19389 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
19390
19391 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
19392 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
19393 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
19394
19395 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
19396
19397 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
19398
19399 <blockquote><p>
19400   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
19401   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
19402   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
19403   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
19404   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
19405   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
19406   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
19407   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
19408   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
19409   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
19410   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
19411   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
19412   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
19413   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
19414   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
19415   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
19416   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
19417   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
19418   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
19419   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
19420   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
19421   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
19422   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
19423   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
19424   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
19425   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
19426   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
19427   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
19428   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
19429   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
19430   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
19431   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
19432   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
19433   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
19434   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
19435   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
19436   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
19437   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
19438   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
19439   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
19440   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
19441   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
19442   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
19443   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
19444   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
19445   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
19446   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
19447   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
19448   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
19449   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
19450   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
19451   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
19452   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
19453   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
19454   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
19455   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
19456   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
19457   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
19458   zip
19459 </p></blockquote>
19460
19461 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
19462
19463 <blockquote><p>
19464   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
19465   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
19466   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
19467   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
19468   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
19469   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
19470   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
19471   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
19472   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
19473   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
19474   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
19475   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
19476   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
19477   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
19478   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
19479   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
19480   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
19481   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
19482   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
19483   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
19484   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
19485   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
19486   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
19487   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
19488   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
19489   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
19490   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
19491   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
19492   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
19493 </p></blockquote>
19494
19495 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
19496
19497 <blockquote><p>
19498   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
19499 </p></blockquote>
19500
19501 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
19502
19503 <blockquote><p>
19504 [nothing]
19505 </p></blockquote>
19506
19507 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
19508
19509 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
19510
19511 <blockquote><p>
19512   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
19513   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
19514   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
19515   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
19516   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
19517   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
19518   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
19519   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
19520   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
19521   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
19522   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
19523   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
19524   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
19525   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
19526   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
19527   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
19528   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
19529   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
19530   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
19531   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
19532   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
19533   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
19534   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
19535   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
19536   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
19537   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
19538   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
19539   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
19540   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
19541   ttf-sazanami-gothic
19542 </p></blockquote>
19543
19544 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
19545
19546 <blockquote><p>
19547   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
19548   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
19549   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
19550   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
19551   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
19552   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
19553   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
19554   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
19555   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
19556   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
19557   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
19558   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
19559   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
19560   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
19561   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
19562   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
19563   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
19564   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
19565   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
19566   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
19567   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
19568   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
19569   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
19570   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
19571   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
19572   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
19573   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
19574   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
19575   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
19576   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
19577   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
19578   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
19579   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
19580 </p></blockquote>
19581
19582 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
19583
19584 <blockquote><p>
19585   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
19586   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
19587   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
19588   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
19589   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
19590   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
19591   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
19592 </p></blockquote>
19593
19594 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
19595
19596 <blockquote><p>
19597   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
19598 </p></blockquote>
19599
19600       </div>
19601       <div class="tags">
19602
19603
19604         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
19605
19606
19607       </div>
19608     </div>
19609     <div class="padding"></div>
19610
19611     <div class="entry">
19612       <div class="title">
19613         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
19614       </div>
19615       <div class="date">
19616         20th November 2010
19617       </div>
19618       <div class="body">
19619         <p>Answering
19620 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
19621 call from the Gnash project</a> for
19622 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
19623 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
19624 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
19625 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
19626 releases out more often.</p>
19627
19628 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
19629 I have considered setting up a <a
19630 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
19631 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
19632 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
19633 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
19634 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
19635 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
19636 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
19637 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
19638 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
19639 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
19640 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
19641 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
19642
19643       </div>
19644       <div class="tags">
19645
19646
19647         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19648
19649
19650       </div>
19651     </div>
19652     <div class="padding"></div>
19653
19654     <div class="entry">
19655       <div class="title">
19656         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
19657       </div>
19658       <div class="date">
19659          9th November 2010
19660       </div>
19661       <div class="body">
19662         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
19663
19664 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
19665 3D linked in from
19666 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
19667 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
19668
19669       </div>
19670       <div class="tags">
19671
19672
19673         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
19674
19675
19676       </div>
19677     </div>
19678     <div class="padding"></div>
19679
19680     <div class="entry">
19681       <div class="title">
19682         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_room_on_the_Debian_Edu_Sqeeze_DVD.html">Making room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD</a>
19683       </div>
19684       <div class="date">
19685          7th November 2010
19686       </div>
19687       <div class="body">
19688         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
19689 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
19690 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
19691 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
19692 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
19693 working using this DVD.</p>
19694
19695 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
19696 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
19697 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
19698 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
19699 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
19700 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
19701 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
19702
19703 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
19704 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
19705 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
19706 Debian archive.</p>
19707
19708 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
19709 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
19710 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
19711 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
19712 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
19713 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
19714 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
19715 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
19716 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
19717 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
19718 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
19719 free X driver should work.</p>
19720
19721 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
19722 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
19723 DVD more useful again.</p>
19724
19725       </div>
19726       <div class="tags">
19727
19728
19729         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19730
19731
19732       </div>
19733     </div>
19734     <div class="padding"></div>
19735
19736     <div class="entry">
19737       <div class="title">
19738         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
19739       </div>
19740       <div class="date">
19741         24th October 2010
19742       </div>
19743       <div class="body">
19744         <p>Some updates.</p>
19745
19746 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
19747 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
19748 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
19749 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
19750 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
19751 :)</p>
19752
19753 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
19754 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
19755 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
19756 It is called
19757 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
19758 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
19759 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
19760 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
19761 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
19762 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
19763
19764 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
19765 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
19766 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
19767 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
19768 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
19769 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
19770 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
19771 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
19772 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
19773 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
19774
19775       </div>
19776       <div class="tags">
19777
19778
19779         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
19780
19781
19782       </div>
19783     </div>
19784     <div class="padding"></div>
19785
19786     <div class="entry">
19787       <div class="title">
19788         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pledge_for_funding_to_the_Gnash_project_to_get_AVM2_support.html">Pledge for funding to the Gnash project to get AVM2 support</a>
19789       </div>
19790       <div class="date">
19791         19th October 2010
19792       </div>
19793       <div class="body">
19794         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
19795 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
19796 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
19797 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
19798 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
19799 AVM2 flash files.</p>
19800
19801 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
19802 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
19803 following text:</P>
19804
19805 <p><blockquote>
19806
19807   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
19808   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
19809
19810   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
19811
19812   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
19813
19814   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
19815   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
19816   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
19817   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
19818   days. The project web page is available from
19819   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
19820   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
19821   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
19822
19823   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
19824   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
19825   to get this to happen.</p>
19826
19827   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
19828   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
19829
19830 </blockquote></p>
19831
19832 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
19833 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
19834 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
19835 :)</p>
19836
19837       </div>
19838       <div class="tags">
19839
19840
19841         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
19842
19843
19844       </div>
19845     </div>
19846     <div class="padding"></div>
19847
19848     <div class="entry">
19849       <div class="title">
19850         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_version_of_a_Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot.html">First version of a Perl library to control the Spykee robot</a>
19851       </div>
19852       <div class="date">
19853          9th October 2010
19854       </div>
19855       <div class="body">
19856         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
19857 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
19858 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
19859 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
19860 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
19861 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
19862 robots.</p>
19863
19864 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
19865 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
19866 a few less important features too.</p>
19867
19868 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
19869 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
19870 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
19871 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
19872
19873 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
19874 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
19875 source or binary package:</p>
19876
19877 <p><ul>
19878 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.tar.gz">libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.tar.gz</a></li>
19879 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.dsc">libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.dsc</a></li>
19880 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1_all.deb">libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1_all.deb</a></li>
19881 </ul></p>
19882
19883 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
19884 please let me know.</p>
19885
19886       </div>
19887       <div class="tags">
19888
19889
19890         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
19891
19892
19893       </div>
19894     </div>
19895     <div class="padding"></div>
19896
19897     <div class="entry">
19898       <div class="title">
19899         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
19900       </div>
19901       <div class="date">
19902          3rd October 2010
19903       </div>
19904       <div class="body">
19905         <p><ul>
19906
19907 <li><a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/09/there-is-no-plan-b-why-the-ipv4-to-ipv6-transition-will-be-ugly.ars">There
19908 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
19909
19910 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
19911 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
19912 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
19913
19914 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
19915 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
19916 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
19917 simple setup.
19918
19919 </ul></p>
19920
19921       </div>
19922       <div class="tags">
19923
19924
19925         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19926
19927
19928       </div>
19929     </div>
19930     <div class="padding"></div>
19931
19932     <div class="entry">
19933       <div class="title">
19934         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">Terms of use for video produced by a Canon IXUS 130 digital camera</a>
19935       </div>
19936       <div class="date">
19937          9th September 2010
19938       </div>
19939       <div class="body">
19940         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
19941 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
19942 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
19943 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
19944 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
19945 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
19946 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
19947 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
19948 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
19949
19950 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
19951 written:</p>
19952
19953 <blockquote>
19954 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
19955 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
19956 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
19957 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
19958 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
19959
19960 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
19961 standard.</p>
19962 </blockquote>
19963
19964 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
19965 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
19966 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
19967 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
19968
19969 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
19970 read
19971 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
19972 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
19973 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
19974 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
19975 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
19976 the issue.  The solution is to support the
19977 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
19978 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
19979 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
19980
19981       </div>
19982       <div class="tags">
19983
19984
19985         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
19986
19987
19988       </div>
19989     </div>
19990     <div class="padding"></div>
19991
19992     <div class="entry">
19993       <div class="title">
19994         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
19995       </div>
19996       <div class="date">
19997          4th September 2010
19998       </div>
19999       <div class="body">
20000         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
20001 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
20002 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
20003 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
20004 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
20005 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
20006 installed.</p>
20007
20008 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
20009 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
20010 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
20011 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
20012 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
20013 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
20014 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
20015 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
20016 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
20017
20018 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
20019 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
20020 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
20021 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
20022 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
20023 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
20024 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
20025 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
20026 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
20027 pages they want to visit.</p>
20028
20029 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
20030 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
20031 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
20032 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
20033 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
20034 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
20035 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
20036 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
20037 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
20038 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
20039 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
20040
20041       </div>
20042       <div class="tags">
20043
20044
20045         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
20046
20047
20048       </div>
20049     </div>
20050     <div class="padding"></div>
20051
20052     <div class="entry">
20053       <div class="title">
20054         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_first_perl_GUI_application___controlling_a_Spykee_robot.html">My first perl GUI application - controlling a Spykee robot</a>
20055       </div>
20056       <div class="date">
20057          1st September 2010
20058       </div>
20059       <div class="body">
20060         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
20061 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
20062 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
20063 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
20064 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
20065 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
20066 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
20067 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
20068 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
20069 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
20070 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
20071 drive around.</p>
20072
20073 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
20074 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
20075
20076 <p><pre>
20077 use Spykee;
20078 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
20079 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
20080 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
20081 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
20082 $spykee->left();
20083 sleep 2;
20084 $spykee->right();
20085 sleep 2;
20086 $spykee->forward();
20087 sleep 2;
20088 $spykee->back();
20089 sleep 2;
20090 $spykee->stop();
20091 </pre></p>
20092
20093 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
20094 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
20095 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
20096 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
20097 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
20098 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
20099 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
20100 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
20101 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
20102 going. :).</p>
20103
20104 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
20105 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
20106 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
20107 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
20108
20109       </div>
20110       <div class="tags">
20111
20112
20113         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
20114
20115
20116       </div>
20117     </div>
20118     <div class="padding"></div>
20119
20120     <div class="entry">
20121       <div class="title">
20122         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
20123       </div>
20124       <div class="date">
20125         30th August 2010
20126       </div>
20127       <div class="body">
20128         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
20129 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
20130 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
20131 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
20132 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
20133 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
20134 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
20135
20136 <pre>
20137 % ln foo bar
20138 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
20139 %
20140 </pre>
20141
20142 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
20143 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
20144 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
20145 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
20146 nevertheless. :)</p>
20147
20148 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
20149 git from
20150 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
20151
20152       </div>
20153       <div class="tags">
20154
20155
20156         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20157
20158
20159       </div>
20160     </div>
20161     <div class="padding"></div>
20162
20163     <div class="entry">
20164       <div class="title">
20165         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
20166       </div>
20167       <div class="date">
20168         26th August 2010
20169       </div>
20170       <div class="body">
20171         <p>My file system sematics program
20172 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
20173 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
20174 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
20175 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
20176 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
20177 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
20178 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
20179 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
20180 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
20181 script:</p>
20182
20183 <pre>
20184 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
20185   mode_t retval = 0;
20186   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
20187   if (-1 != fd) {
20188     unlink(name);
20189     struct stat statbuf;
20190     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
20191       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
20192     }
20193     close(fd);
20194   }
20195   return retval;
20196 }
20197
20198 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
20199 int test_umask(void) {
20200   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
20201
20202   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
20203   mode_t newmode;
20204   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
20205     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
20206            newmode);
20207   }
20208   umask(007);
20209   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
20210     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
20211            newmode);
20212   }
20213
20214   umask (orig_umask);
20215   return 0;
20216 }
20217
20218 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
20219   [...]
20220   test_umask();
20221   return 0;
20222 }
20223 </pre>
20224
20225 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
20226
20227 <pre>
20228 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
20229 info: testing symlink creation
20230 info: testing subdirectory creation
20231 info: testing fcntl locking
20232   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
20233   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
20234   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
20235   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
20236   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
20237   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
20238 info: testing umask effect on file creation
20239 </pre>
20240
20241 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
20242 result:</p>
20243
20244 <pre>
20245 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
20246 info: testing symlink creation
20247 info: testing subdirectory creation
20248 info: testing fcntl locking
20249   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
20250   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
20251   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
20252   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
20253   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
20254   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
20255 info: testing umask effect on file creation
20256   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
20257   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
20258 </pre>
20259
20260 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
20261 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
20262 directory.</p>
20263
20264 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
20265 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
20266
20267 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
20268 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
20269 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
20270
20271       </div>
20272       <div class="tags">
20273
20274
20275         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20276
20277
20278       </div>
20279     </div>
20280     <div class="padding"></div>
20281
20282     <div class="entry">
20283       <div class="title">
20284         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
20285       </div>
20286       <div class="date">
20287         15th August 2010
20288       </div>
20289       <div class="body">
20290         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
20291 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
20292 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
20293 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
20294 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
20295 long time.</p>
20296
20297       </div>
20298       <div class="tags">
20299
20300
20301         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
20302
20303
20304       </div>
20305     </div>
20306     <div class="padding"></div>
20307
20308     <div class="entry">
20309       <div class="title">
20310         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
20311       </div>
20312       <div class="date">
20313          9th August 2010
20314       </div>
20315       <div class="body">
20316         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
20317 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
20318 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
20319 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
20320 generated configuration.</p>
20321
20322 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
20323 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
20324 without any manual configuration.</p>
20325
20326 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
20327 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
20328 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
20329 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
20330 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
20331 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
20332 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
20333 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
20334 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
20335 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
20336 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
20337 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
20338 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
20339 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
20340 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
20341 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
20342 use.</p>
20343
20344 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
20345 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
20346 working properly out of the box:</p>
20347
20348 <ul>
20349 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
20350 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
20351 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
20352 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
20353 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
20354 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
20355 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
20356 </ul>
20357
20358 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
20359
20360 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
20361 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
20362 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
20363 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
20364 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
20365
20366 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
20367 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
20368 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
20369 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
20370 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
20371 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
20372 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
20373 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
20374
20375 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
20376 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
20377 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
20378 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
20379 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
20380 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
20381 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
20382 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
20383 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
20384 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
20385 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
20386 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
20387 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
20388 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
20389 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
20390 current DNS domain is used.</p>
20391
20392 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
20393 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
20394 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
20395 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
20396 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
20397 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
20398 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
20399 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
20400 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
20401 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
20402 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
20403 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
20404 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
20405
20406 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
20407 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
20408 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
20409 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
20410 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
20411 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
20412 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
20413 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
20414 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
20415 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
20416 do for now. :)</p>
20417
20418 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
20419 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
20420 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
20421 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
20422 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
20423 yet.</p>
20424
20425 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
20426 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
20427
20428 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
20429 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
20430 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
20431 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
20432
20433       </div>
20434       <div class="tags">
20435
20436
20437         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20438
20439
20440       </div>
20441     </div>
20442     <div class="padding"></div>
20443
20444     <div class="entry">
20445       <div class="title">
20446         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">Testing if a file system can be used for home directories...</a>
20447       </div>
20448       <div class="date">
20449          8th August 2010
20450       </div>
20451       <div class="body">
20452         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
20453 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
20454 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
20455 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
20456 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
20457 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
20458 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
20459
20460 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
20461 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
20462 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
20463 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
20464 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
20465 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
20466 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
20467
20468 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
20469 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
20470 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
20471 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
20472 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
20473
20474 <pre>
20475 /*
20476  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
20477  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
20478  * directory.
20479  * License: GPL v2 or later
20480  *
20481  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
20482  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
20483 */
20484
20485 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
20486 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
20487 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
20488
20489 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
20490
20491 #include &lt;errno.h>
20492 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
20493 #include &lt;stdio.h>
20494 #include &lt;string.h>
20495 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
20496 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
20497 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
20498 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
20499 #include &lt;unistd.h>
20500
20501 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
20502 /*
20503  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
20504  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
20505  * below.
20506  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
20507  */
20508 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
20509 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
20510   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
20511 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
20512   char *zErrMsg;
20513   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
20514   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
20515   unlink(name);
20516   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
20517   if( rc ){
20518     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
20519     sqlite3_close(db);
20520     return -1;
20521   }
20522
20523   /* create tables */
20524   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
20525   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
20526     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
20527     sqlite3_close(db);
20528     return -1;
20529   }
20530   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
20531   sqlite3_close(db);
20532   return 0;
20533 }
20534 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
20535
20536 /*
20537  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
20538  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
20539  * done in the sqlite3 library.
20540  * See also
20541  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
20542  * POSIX specification
20543  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
20544  */
20545 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
20546   struct flock fl;
20547   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
20548   unlink(name);
20549   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
20550   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
20551
20552   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
20553   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
20554   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
20555   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
20556   fl.l_len    = 1;
20557   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
20558   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
20559
20560   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
20561   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
20562   fl.l_len    = 510;
20563   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
20564   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
20565
20566   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
20567   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
20568   fl.l_len    = 1;
20569   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
20570   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
20571
20572   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
20573   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
20574   fl.l_len    = 1;
20575   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
20576   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
20577
20578   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
20579   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
20580   fl.l_len    = 510;
20581   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
20582
20583   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
20584   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
20585   fl.l_len    = 2;
20586   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
20587   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
20588
20589   close(fd);
20590   return 0;
20591 }
20592
20593 /*
20594  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
20595  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
20596  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
20597  * slowing down file operations.
20598  */
20599 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
20600 #define LEVELS 5
20601   char *path = strdup("test");
20602   char *dirs[LEVELS];
20603   int level;
20604   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
20605   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
20606     char *newpath = NULL;
20607     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
20608       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
20609              path, strerror(errno));
20610       break;
20611     }
20612     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
20613     free(path);
20614     path = newpath;
20615   }
20616   return 0;
20617 }
20618
20619 /*
20620  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
20621  * KDE.
20622  */
20623 int test_symlinks(void) {
20624   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
20625   unlink("symlink");
20626   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
20627     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
20628   return 0;
20629 }
20630
20631 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
20632   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
20633   test_symlinks();
20634   test_subdirectory_creation();
20635 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
20636   test_sqlite_open();
20637 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
20638   test_gcompris_locking();
20639   return 0;
20640 }
20641 </pre>
20642
20643 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
20644 this:</p>
20645
20646 <pre>
20647 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
20648 info: testing symlink creation
20649 info: testing subdirectory creation
20650 info: sqlite worked
20651 info: testing fcntl locking
20652   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
20653   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
20654   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
20655   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
20656   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
20657   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
20658 </pre>
20659
20660 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
20661 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
20662 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
20663 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
20664 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
20665 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
20666 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
20667 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
20668
20669 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
20670 it. :)</p>
20671
20672 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
20673 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
20674 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
20675
20676       </div>
20677       <div class="tags">
20678
20679
20680         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20681
20682
20683       </div>
20684     </div>
20685     <div class="padding"></div>
20686
20687     <div class="entry">
20688       <div class="title">
20689         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Autodetecting_Client_setup_for_roaming_workstations_in_Debian_Edu.html">Autodetecting Client setup for roaming workstations in Debian Edu</a>
20690       </div>
20691       <div class="date">
20692          7th August 2010
20693       </div>
20694       <div class="body">
20695         <p>A few days ago, I
20696 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
20697 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
20698 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
20699 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
20700 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
20701 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
20702 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
20703 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
20704 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
20705
20706 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
20707 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
20708 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
20709 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
20710 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
20711 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
20712 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
20713 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
20714 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
20715 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
20716 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
20717 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
20718 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
20719 gave it a IP address.</p>
20720
20721 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
20722 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
20723 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
20724 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
20725 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
20726 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
20727 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
20728 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
20729
20730 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
20731 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
20732 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
20733 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
20734 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
20735 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
20736
20737 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
20738 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
20739 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
20740 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
20741 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
20742 with UID and GID values.</p>
20743
20744 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
20745 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
20746
20747       </div>
20748       <div class="tags">
20749
20750
20751         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20752
20753
20754       </div>
20755     </div>
20756     <div class="padding"></div>
20757
20758     <div class="entry">
20759       <div class="title">
20760         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">Debian Edu roaming workstation - at the university of Oslo</a>
20761       </div>
20762       <div class="date">
20763          3rd August 2010
20764       </div>
20765       <div class="body">
20766         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
20767 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
20768 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
20769 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
20770 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
20771 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
20772 servers.</p>
20773
20774 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
20775 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
20776 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
20777 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
20778 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
20779 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
20780 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
20781 .uio.no.</p>
20782
20783 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
20784 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
20785 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
20786 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
20787 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
20788 university servers.</p>
20789
20790 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
20791 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
20792 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
20793 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
20794 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
20795 uses.</p>
20796
20797       </div>
20798       <div class="tags">
20799
20800
20801         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20802
20803
20804       </div>
20805     </div>
20806     <div class="padding"></div>
20807
20808     <div class="entry">
20809       <div class="title">
20810         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
20811       </div>
20812       <div class="date">
20813         27th July 2010
20814       </div>
20815       <div class="body">
20816         <p>I discovered this while doing
20817 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
20818 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
20819 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
20820 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
20821 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
20822
20823 <p>An example is from todays
20824 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
20825 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
20826 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
20827 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
20828 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
20829 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
20830 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
20831
20832 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
20833
20834 <blockquote><pre>
20835 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
20836  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
20837   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
20838 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
20839  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
20840 </pre></blockquote>
20841
20842 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
20843 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
20844 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
20845 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
20846 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
20847 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
20848 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
20849 of dependency loops.</p>
20850
20851 <p>Thanks to
20852 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
20853 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
20854 dependencies
20855 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
20856 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
20857
20858 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
20859 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
20860 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
20861 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
20862 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
20863 it.</p>
20864
20865       </div>
20866       <div class="tags">
20867
20868
20869         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20870
20871
20872       </div>
20873     </div>
20874     <div class="padding"></div>
20875
20876     <div class="entry">
20877       <div class="title">
20878         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu_test_release__alpha0__based_on_Squeeze_is_released.html">First Debian Edu test release (alpha0) based on Squeeze is released</a>
20879       </div>
20880       <div class="date">
20881         27th July 2010
20882       </div>
20883       <div class="body">
20884         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
20885 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
20886 completed.</p>
20887
20888 <blockquote>
20889 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
20890 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
20891 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
20892 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
20893 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
20894 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
20895 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
20896 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
20897
20898 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
20899 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
20900 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
20901
20902 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
20903 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
20904 much.</p>
20905
20906 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
20907
20908 <ul>
20909 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
20910 <ul>
20911   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
20912          combination with some new artwork
20913   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
20914   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
20915   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
20916   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
20917   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
20918   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
20919   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
20920   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
20921   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
20922 </ul></li>
20923 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
20924     Enabled for:
20925 <ul>
20926   <li>PAM
20927   <li>LDAP
20928   <li>IMAP
20929   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
20930 </ul>
20931 </li>
20932 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
20933 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
20934     fetched from LDAP.</li>
20935 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
20936 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
20937 </ul>
20938 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
20939
20940 <ul>
20941 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
20942     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
20943     for testing.</li>
20944 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
20945     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
20946     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
20947 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
20948 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
20949 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
20950 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
20951     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
20952 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
20953     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
20954     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
20955 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
20956     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
20957     and help out with translations.</li>
20958 </ul>
20959
20960 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
20961
20962 <ul>
20963 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</a></li>
20964 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</a></li>
20965 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
20966 </ul>
20967 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
20968
20969 <ul>
20970 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</a></li>
20971 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</a></li>
20972 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
20973 </ul>
20974
20975 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
20976 get closer to the final release.</p>
20977
20978 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
20979
20980 <ul>
20981 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
20982 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
20983 </ul>
20984
20985 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
20986 <ul>
20987 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
20988 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
20989 </ul>
20990 <p>How to report bugs:
20991 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
20992
20993 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
20994 </blockquote>
20995
20996       </div>
20997       <div class="tags">
20998
20999
21000         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21001
21002
21003       </div>
21004     </div>
21005     <div class="padding"></div>
21006
21007     <div class="entry">
21008       <div class="title">
21009         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_step_closer_to_single_signon_in_Debian_Edu.html">One step closer to single signon in Debian Edu</a>
21010       </div>
21011       <div class="date">
21012         25th July 2010
21013       </div>
21014       <div class="body">
21015         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
21016 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
21017 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
21018 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
21019 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
21020
21021 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
21022 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
21023 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
21024 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
21025 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
21026 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
21027 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
21028
21029 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
21030 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
21031 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
21032 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
21033 up. :)</p>
21034
21035 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
21036 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
21037 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
21038
21039 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
21040 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
21041 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
21042 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
21043 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
21044 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
21045 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
21046 release another day.</p>
21047
21048 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
21049 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
21050
21051       </div>
21052       <div class="tags">
21053
21054
21055         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
21056
21057
21058       </div>
21059     </div>
21060     <div class="padding"></div>
21061
21062     <div class="entry">
21063       <div class="title">
21064         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenStreetmap_one_step_closer_to_having_routing_on_its_front_page.html">OpenStreetmap one step closer to having routing on its front page</a>
21065       </div>
21066       <div class="date">
21067         18th July 2010
21068       </div>
21069       <div class="body">
21070         <p>Thanks to
21071 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
21072 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
21073 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
21074 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
21075 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
21076 only available from the development server, until more experience is
21077 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
21078
21079 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
21080 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
21081 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
21082 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
21083 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
21084 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
21085 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
21086
21087       </div>
21088       <div class="tags">
21089
21090
21091         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
21092
21093
21094       </div>
21095     </div>
21096     <div class="padding"></div>
21097
21098     <div class="entry">
21099       <div class="title">
21100         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
21101       </div>
21102       <div class="date">
21103         17th July 2010
21104       </div>
21105       <div class="body">
21106         <p>This is a
21107 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
21108 on my
21109 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">previous
21110 work</a> on
21111 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
21112 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
21113
21114 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
21115 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
21116 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
21117 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
21118
21119 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
21120 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
21121 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
21122
21123 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
21124
21125 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
21126 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
21127 the web.
21128
21129 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
21130 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
21131 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
21132 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
21133 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
21134 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
21135
21136 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
21137 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
21138 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
21139 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
21140 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
21141 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
21142 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
21143 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
21144 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
21145 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
21146 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
21147 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
21148 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
21149 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
21150 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
21151 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
21152
21153 <blockquote><pre>
21154 ldapsearch -h ldap \
21155   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
21156   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
21157   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
21158   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
21159   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
21160   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
21161
21162 ldapsearch -h ldap \
21163   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
21164   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
21165   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
21166   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
21167   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
21168 </pre></blockquote>
21169
21170 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
21171 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
21172 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
21173 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
21174 also exist.</p>
21175
21176 <blockquote><pre>
21177 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
21178 objectclass: top
21179 objectclass: dnsdomain
21180 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
21181 dc: tjener
21182 arecord: 10.0.2.2
21183 associateddomain: tjener.intern
21184
21185 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
21186 objectclass: top
21187 objectclass: dnsdomain2
21188 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
21189 dc: 2
21190 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
21191 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
21192 </pre></blockquote>
21193
21194 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
21195 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
21196 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
21197 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
21198 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
21199 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
21200 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
21201 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
21202 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
21203 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
21204 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
21205 instead.</p>
21206
21207 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
21208 like this:</p>
21209
21210 <blockquote><pre>
21211 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
21212   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
21213   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
21214   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
21215   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
21216   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
21217
21218 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
21219   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
21220 </pre></blockquote>
21221
21222 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
21223 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
21224 reverse lookups.</p>
21225
21226 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
21227 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
21228 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
21229 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
21230
21231 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
21232 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
21233 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
21234
21235 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
21236 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
21237 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
21238 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
21239 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
21240
21241 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
21242 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
21243 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
21244 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
21245 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
21246
21247 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
21248 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
21249 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
21250 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
21251 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
21252 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
21253
21254 <blockquote><pre>
21255 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
21256     SUP top
21257     AUXILIARY
21258     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
21259           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
21260           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
21261           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
21262           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
21263     ))
21264 </pre></blockquote>
21265
21266 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
21267 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
21268 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
21269 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
21270 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
21271 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
21272
21273 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
21274
21275 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
21276 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
21277 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
21278 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
21279 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
21280
21281 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
21282 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
21283 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
21284 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
21285
21286 <blockquote><pre>
21287 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
21288 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
21289 </pre></blockquote>
21290
21291 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
21292 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
21293 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
21294 search result is this entry:</p>
21295
21296 <blockquote><pre>
21297 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
21298 cn: dhcp
21299 objectClass: top
21300 objectClass: dhcpServer
21301 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
21302 </pre></blockquote>
21303
21304 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
21305 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
21306 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
21307 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
21308 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
21309 The search result is this entry:</p>
21310
21311 <blockquote><pre>
21312 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
21313 cn: DHCP Config
21314 objectClass: top
21315 objectClass: dhcpService
21316 objectClass: dhcpOptions
21317 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
21318 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
21319 dhcpStatements: authoritative
21320 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
21321 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
21322 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
21323 </pre></blockquote>
21324
21325 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
21326 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
21327 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
21328 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
21329 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
21330 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
21331 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
21332 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
21333 related computer objects.</p>
21334
21335 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
21336 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
21337 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
21338 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
21339 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
21340 like:</p>
21341
21342 <blockquote><pre>
21343 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
21344 cn: hostname
21345 objectClass: top
21346 objectClass: dhcpHost
21347 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
21348 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
21349 </pre></blockquote>
21350
21351 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
21352 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
21353 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
21354 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
21355 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
21356 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
21357 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
21358 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
21359 structural object class.
21360
21361 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
21362
21363 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
21364 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
21365 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
21366 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
21367 in the configuration.</p>
21368
21369 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
21370 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
21371 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
21372 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
21373 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
21374 structure.</p>
21375
21376 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
21377 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
21378
21379 <blockquote><pre>
21380 ou=services
21381   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
21382     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
21383     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
21384       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
21385         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
21386     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
21387       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
21388         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
21389     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
21390       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
21391 </pre></blockquote>
21392
21393 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
21394 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
21395 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
21396 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
21397
21398 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
21399 like this:</p>
21400
21401 <blockquote><pre>
21402 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
21403 dc: hostname
21404 objectClass: top
21405 objectClass: dhcpHost
21406 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
21407 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
21408 associateddomain: hostname.intern
21409 arecord: 10.11.12.13
21410 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
21411 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
21412 </pre></blockquote>
21413
21414 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
21415 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
21416 auxiliary object class.</p>
21417
21418       </div>
21419       <div class="tags">
21420
21421
21422         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21423
21424
21425       </div>
21426     </div>
21427     <div class="padding"></div>
21428
21429     <div class="entry">
21430       <div class="title">
21431         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
21432       </div>
21433       <div class="date">
21434         14th July 2010
21435       </div>
21436       <div class="body">
21437         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
21438 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
21439 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
21440 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
21441 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
21442
21443 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
21444 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
21445
21446 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
21447 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
21448 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
21449 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
21450 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
21451 to a slave DNS server.</p>
21452
21453 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
21454 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
21455 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
21456 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
21457 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
21458 seem to work.</p>
21459
21460 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
21461 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
21462 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
21463 this:</p>
21464
21465 <blockquote><pre>
21466   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
21467   cn: hostname
21468   objectClass: dhcphost
21469   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
21470   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
21471   associateddomain: hostname.intern
21472   arecord: 10.11.12.13
21473   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
21474   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
21475   ldapconfigsound: Y
21476 </pre></blockquote>
21477
21478 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
21479 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
21480 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
21481 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
21482
21483 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
21484 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
21485 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
21486 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
21487 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
21488 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
21489 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
21490 might be a good place to put it.</p>
21491
21492 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
21493 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
21494
21495       </div>
21496       <div class="tags">
21497
21498
21499         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21500
21501
21502       </div>
21503     </div>
21504     <div class="padding"></div>
21505
21506     <div class="entry">
21507       <div class="title">
21508         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
21509       </div>
21510       <div class="date">
21511         11th July 2010
21512       </div>
21513       <div class="body">
21514         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
21515 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
21516 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
21517 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
21518
21519 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
21520 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
21521 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
21522 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
21523 LTSP clients.</p>
21524
21525 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
21526 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
21527 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
21528
21529 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
21530 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
21531 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
21532
21533 <blockquote><pre>
21534 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
21535 #
21536 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
21537 #
21538 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
21539 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
21540 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
21541 #
21542 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
21543 # existence of attribute names.
21544 #
21545 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
21546 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
21547 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
21548 #
21549 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
21550 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
21551 #
21552 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
21553 #     SUP top
21554 #     AUXILIARY
21555 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
21556
21557 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
21558 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
21559     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
21560     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
21561         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
21562         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
21563             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
21564             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
21565             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
21566             # bass value on to clients
21567             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
21568         done
21569     done
21570 fi
21571 </pre></blockquote>
21572
21573 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
21574 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
21575 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
21576 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
21577 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
21578
21579 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
21580 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
21581
21582 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
21583 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
21584 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
21585 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
21586 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
21587 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
21588
21589       </div>
21590       <div class="tags">
21591
21592
21593         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21594
21595
21596       </div>
21597     </div>
21598     <div class="padding"></div>
21599
21600     <div class="entry">
21601       <div class="title">
21602         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
21603       </div>
21604       <div class="date">
21605          9th July 2010
21606       </div>
21607       <div class="body">
21608         <p>Since
21609 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
21610 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
21611 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
21612 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
21613 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
21614 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
21615 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
21616 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
21617 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
21618 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
21619 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
21620 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
21621 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
21622
21623       </div>
21624       <div class="tags">
21625
21626
21627         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21628
21629
21630       </div>
21631     </div>
21632     <div class="padding"></div>
21633
21634     <div class="entry">
21635       <div class="title">
21636         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</a>
21637       </div>
21638       <div class="date">
21639          3rd July 2010
21640       </div>
21641       <div class="body">
21642         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
21643 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
21644 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
21645 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
21646 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
21647 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
21648 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
21649 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
21650
21651 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
21652 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
21653 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
21654 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
21655 publish the difference.</p>
21656
21657 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
21658
21659 <blockquote><p>
21660   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
21661   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
21662   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
21663   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
21664   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
21665   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
21666   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
21667   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
21668 </p></blockquote>
21669
21670 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
21671
21672 <blockquote><p>
21673   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
21674   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
21675   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
21676   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
21677   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
21678   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
21679   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
21680   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
21681   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
21682   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
21683   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
21684   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
21685   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
21686   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
21687   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
21688   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
21689   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
21690   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
21691   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
21692   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
21693 </p></blockquote>
21694
21695 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
21696
21697 <blockquote><p>
21698   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
21699   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
21700   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
21701   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
21702   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
21703   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
21704   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
21705   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
21706   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
21707   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
21708   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
21709   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
21710   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
21711   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
21712   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
21713   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
21714   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
21715   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
21716   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
21717   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
21718   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
21719 </p></blockquote>
21720
21721 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
21722
21723 <blockquote><p>
21724   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
21725   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
21726   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
21727 </p></blockquote>
21728
21729 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
21730 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
21731 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
21732 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
21733 the difference somewhat.
21734
21735       </div>
21736       <div class="tags">
21737
21738
21739         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
21740
21741
21742       </div>
21743     </div>
21744     <div class="padding"></div>
21745
21746     <div class="entry">
21747       <div class="title">
21748         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Caching_password__user_and_group_on_a_roaming_Debian_laptop.html">Caching password, user and group on a roaming Debian laptop</a>
21749       </div>
21750       <div class="date">
21751          1st July 2010
21752       </div>
21753       <div class="body">
21754         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
21755 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
21756 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
21757 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
21758 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
21759 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
21760 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
21761 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
21762 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
21763
21764 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
21765
21766 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
21767 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
21768 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
21769 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
21770 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
21771 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
21772 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
21773 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
21774 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
21775 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
21776 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
21777 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
21778 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
21779 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
21780 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
21781
21782 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
21783
21784 <blockquote><pre>
21785 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
21786 </pre></blockquote>
21787
21788 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
21789 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
21790 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
21791 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
21792 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
21793 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
21794 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
21795 on how to get this working.</p>
21796
21797 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
21798 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
21799 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
21800 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
21801 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
21802 instructions I found in the
21803 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
21804 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
21805
21806 <blockquote><pre>
21807         debug-level             0
21808         reload-count            unlimited
21809         paranoia                no
21810
21811         enable-cache            passwd          yes
21812         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
21813         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
21814         suggested-size          passwd          211
21815         check-files             passwd          yes
21816         persistent              passwd          yes
21817         shared                  passwd          yes
21818         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
21819         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
21820
21821         enable-cache            group           yes
21822         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
21823         negative-time-to-live   group           20
21824         suggested-size          group           211
21825         check-files             group           yes
21826         persistent              group           yes
21827         shared                  group           yes
21828         max-db-size             group           33554432
21829         auto-propagate          group           yes
21830
21831         enable-cache            hosts           no
21832         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
21833         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
21834         suggested-size          hosts           211
21835         check-files             hosts           yes
21836         persistent              hosts           yes
21837         shared                  hosts           yes
21838         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
21839
21840         enable-cache            services        yes
21841         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
21842         negative-time-to-live   services        20
21843         suggested-size          services        211
21844         check-files             services        yes
21845         persistent              services        yes
21846         shared                  services        yes
21847         max-db-size             services        33554432
21848 </pre></blockquote>
21849
21850 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
21851 automatically like the one provided in
21852 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
21853 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
21854 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
21855 look like this:</p>
21856
21857 <blockquote><pre>
21858 passwd:         files ldap
21859 group:          files ldap
21860 shadow:         files ldap
21861 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
21862 networks:       files
21863 protocols:      files
21864 services:       files
21865 ethers:         files
21866 rpc:            files
21867 netgroup:       files ldap
21868 </pre></blockquote>
21869
21870 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
21871 shadow and netgroup.</p>
21872
21873 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
21874 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
21875 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
21876 attributes cached.
21877
21878 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
21879   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
21880
21881 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
21882 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
21883 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
21884 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
21885 discovered sssd.</p>
21886
21887 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
21888
21889 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
21890 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
21891 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
21892 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
21893 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
21894 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
21895 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
21896 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
21897 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
21898 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
21899 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
21900 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
21901 version 1.2 is now in testing.
21902
21903 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
21904 roaming setup I want</p>
21905
21906 <blockquote><pre>
21907 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
21908 </pre></blockquote>
21909
21910 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
21911 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
21912
21913 <blockquote><pre>
21914 [sssd]
21915 config_file_version = 2
21916 reconnection_retries = 3
21917 sbus_timeout = 30
21918 services = nss, pam
21919 domains = INTERN
21920
21921 [nss]
21922 filter_groups = root
21923 filter_users = root
21924 reconnection_retries = 3
21925
21926 [pam]
21927 reconnection_retries = 3
21928
21929 [domain/INTERN]
21930 enumerate = false
21931 cache_credentials = true
21932
21933 id_provider = ldap
21934 auth_provider = ldap
21935 chpass_provider = ldap
21936
21937 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
21938 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
21939 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
21940 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
21941 </pre></blockquote>
21942
21943 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
21944 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
21945
21946 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
21947 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
21948 modify it manually.</p>
21949
21950 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
21951 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
21952
21953       </div>
21954       <div class="tags">
21955
21956
21957         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21958
21959
21960       </div>
21961     </div>
21962     <div class="padding"></div>
21963
21964     <div class="entry">
21965       <div class="title">
21966         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
21967       </div>
21968       <div class="date">
21969         28th June 2010
21970       </div>
21971       <div class="body">
21972         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
21973 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
21974 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
21975 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
21976 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
21977 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
21978 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
21979 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
21980 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
21981 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
21982
21983 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
21984 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
21985 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
21986 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
21987 released.</p>
21988
21989 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
21990 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
21991 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
21992 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
21993
21994 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
21995 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
21996
21997 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
21998 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
21999 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
22000 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
22001 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
22002
22003       </div>
22004       <div class="tags">
22005
22006
22007         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
22008
22009
22010       </div>
22011     </div>
22012     <div class="padding"></div>
22013
22014     <div class="entry">
22015       <div class="title">
22016         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</a>
22017       </div>
22018       <div class="date">
22019         24th June 2010
22020       </div>
22021       <div class="body">
22022         <p>A while back, I
22023 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
22024 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
22025 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
22026 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
22027
22028 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
22029 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
22030 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
22031 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
22032
22033 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
22034 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
22035 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
22036 Debian Edu.</p>
22037
22038 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
22039 the
22040 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
22041 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
22042 available today from IETF.</p>
22043
22044 <pre>
22045 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
22046 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
22047 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
22048  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
22049         NAME 'dhcpHost'
22050         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
22051 -       SUP top
22052 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
22053         MUST cn
22054         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
22055         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
22056 </pre>
22057
22058 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
22059 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
22060 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
22061
22062 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
22063 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
22064
22065       </div>
22066       <div class="tags">
22067
22068
22069         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
22070
22071
22072       </div>
22073     </div>
22074     <div class="padding"></div>
22075
22076     <div class="entry">
22077       <div class="title">
22078         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
22079       </div>
22080       <div class="date">
22081         16th June 2010
22082       </div>
22083       <div class="body">
22084         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
22085 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
22086 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
22087 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
22088 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
22089 this:
22090
22091 <blockquote><pre>
22092 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
22093 tasksel --new-install
22094 </pre></blockquote>
22095
22096 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
22097 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
22098 any output what so ever.
22099
22100 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
22101 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
22102 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
22103 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
22104 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
22105 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
22106 code like this:
22107
22108 <blockquote><pre>
22109 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
22110 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
22111 $cmd
22112 </pre></blockquote>
22113
22114 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
22115 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
22116 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
22117 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
22118 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
22119 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
22120 installation.</p>
22121
22122 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
22123 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
22124 like this.</p>
22125
22126       </div>
22127       <div class="tags">
22128
22129
22130         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
22131
22132
22133       </div>
22134     </div>
22135     <div class="padding"></div>
22136
22137     <div class="entry">
22138       <div class="title">
22139         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
22140       </div>
22141       <div class="date">
22142         13th June 2010
22143       </div>
22144       <div class="body">
22145         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
22146 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
22147 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
22148 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
22149 pages.</p>
22150
22151 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
22152 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
22153 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
22154 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
22155 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
22156 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
22157 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
22158 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
22159 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
22160 see how the project is doing.</p>
22161
22162 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
22163 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
22164 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
22165 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
22166 Windows.  This is great.</p>
22167
22168       </div>
22169       <div class="tags">
22170
22171
22172         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
22173
22174
22175       </div>
22176     </div>
22177     <div class="padding"></div>
22178
22179     <div class="entry">
22180       <div class="title">
22181         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
22182       </div>
22183       <div class="date">
22184         13th June 2010
22185       </div>
22186       <div class="body">
22187         <p>My
22188 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
22189 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
22190 finally made the upgrade logs available from
22191 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
22192 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
22193 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
22194 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
22195
22196 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
22197 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
22198 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
22199 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
22200 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
22201 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
22202 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
22203 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
22204
22205 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
22206 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
22207 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
22208 too surprising.</p>
22209
22210 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
22211 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
22212 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
22213 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
22214 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
22215 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
22216 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
22217 continue.</p>
22218
22219 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
22220 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
22221   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
22222   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
22223   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
22224   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
22225   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
22226   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
22227   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
22228   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
22229   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
22230   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
22231   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
22232   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
22233   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
22234   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
22235   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
22236   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
22237   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
22238   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
22239   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
22240   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
22241   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
22242   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
22243   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
22244   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
22245   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
22246   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
22247   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
22248   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
22249
22250 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
22251
22252 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
22253   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
22254   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
22255   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
22256   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
22257   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
22258   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
22259   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
22260   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
22261   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
22262   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
22263   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
22264   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
22265   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
22266   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
22267   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
22268   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
22269   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
22270   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
22271   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
22272   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
22273   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
22274   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
22275   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
22276   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
22277   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
22278   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
22279   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
22280   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
22281   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
22282   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
22283   zip</p>
22284
22285 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
22286
22287 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
22288   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
22289   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
22290   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
22291   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
22292   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
22293   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
22294   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
22295   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
22296   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
22297   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
22298   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
22299   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
22300   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
22301   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
22302   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
22303   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
22304   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
22305   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
22306   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
22307   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
22308   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
22309   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
22310   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
22311   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
22312   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
22313   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
22314   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
22315
22316 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
22317 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
22318   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
22319   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
22320   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
22321   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
22322   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
22323   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
22324   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
22325   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
22326   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
22327   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
22328   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
22329   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
22330   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
22331   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
22332   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
22333   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
22334   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
22335   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
22336   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
22337   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
22338   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
22339   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
22340   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
22341   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
22342   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
22343   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
22344   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
22345   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
22346   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
22347   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
22348   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
22349   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
22350   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
22351   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
22352   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
22353   xulrunner-1.9</p>
22354
22355
22356       </div>
22357       <div class="tags">
22358
22359
22360         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
22361
22362
22363       </div>
22364     </div>
22365     <div class="padding"></div>
22366
22367     <div class="entry">
22368       <div class="title">
22369         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
22370       </div>
22371       <div class="date">
22372         11th June 2010
22373       </div>
22374       <div class="body">
22375         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
22376 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
22377 have been discovered and reported in the process
22378 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
22379 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
22380 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
22381 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
22382 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
22383
22384 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
22385 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
22386 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
22387 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
22388 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
22389 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
22390
22391 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
22392 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
22393 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
22394 is created.  The bug report
22395 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
22396 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
22397 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
22398 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
22399 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
22400 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
22401 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
22402 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
22403 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
22404 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
22405 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
22406 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
22407 Debian Squeeze.</p>
22408
22409 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
22410 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
22411 trick:</p>
22412
22413 <blockquote><pre>
22414 #!/bin/sh
22415 set -ex
22416
22417 if [ "$1" ] ; then
22418     desktop=$1
22419 else
22420     desktop=gnome
22421 fi
22422
22423 from=lenny
22424 to=squeeze
22425
22426 exec &lt; /dev/null
22427 unset LANG
22428 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
22429 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
22430 fuser -mv .
22431 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
22432 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
22433 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
22434 #!/bin/sh
22435 exit 101
22436 EOF
22437 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
22438 exit_cleanup() {
22439     umount $tmpdir/proc
22440 }
22441 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
22442 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
22443 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
22444
22445 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
22446
22447 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
22448 # to return the correct answers.
22449 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
22450     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
22451
22452 # Include the desktop and laptop task
22453 for test in desktop laptop ; do
22454     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
22455 #!/bin/sh
22456 exit 2
22457 EOF
22458     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
22459 done
22460
22461 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
22462 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
22463 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
22464 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
22465
22466 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
22467 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
22468 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
22469 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
22470 fuser -mv
22471 </pre></blockquote>
22472
22473 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
22474 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
22475 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
22476 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
22477 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
22478 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
22479
22480 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
22481 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
22482 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
22483 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
22484 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
22485 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
22486 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
22487
22488 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
22489 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
22490 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
22491 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
22492 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
22493 packages.</p>
22494
22495       </div>
22496       <div class="tags">
22497
22498
22499         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
22500
22501
22502       </div>
22503     </div>
22504     <div class="padding"></div>
22505
22506     <div class="entry">
22507       <div class="title">
22508         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a>
22509       </div>
22510       <div class="date">
22511          6th June 2010
22512       </div>
22513       <div class="body">
22514         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
22515 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
22516 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
22517 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
22518 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
22519 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
22520 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
22521
22522 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
22523 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
22524 COLUMNS):</p>
22525
22526 <blockquote><pre>
22527 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
22528 previous=N
22529 PREVLEVEL=
22530 RUNLEVEL=
22531 runlevel=S
22532 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
22533 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
22534 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
22535 </pre></blockquote>
22536
22537 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
22538 script.</p>
22539
22540 <blockquote><pre>
22541 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
22542 previous=N
22543 PREVLEVEL=N
22544 RUNLEVEL=S
22545 runlevel=S
22546 </pre></blockquote>
22547
22548 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
22549 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
22550 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
22551
22552 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
22553 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
22554 choice.</p>
22555
22556       </div>
22557       <div class="tags">
22558
22559
22560         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
22561
22562
22563       </div>
22564     </div>
22565     <div class="padding"></div>
22566
22567     <div class="entry">
22568       <div class="title">
22569         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
22570       </div>
22571       <div class="date">
22572          6th June 2010
22573       </div>
22574       <div class="body">
22575         <p>Via the
22576 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
22577 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
22578 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
22579 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
22580 following the standards wars of today.</p>
22581
22582       </div>
22583       <div class="tags">
22584
22585
22586         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
22587
22588
22589       </div>
22590     </div>
22591     <div class="padding"></div>
22592
22593     <div class="entry">
22594       <div class="title">
22595         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a>
22596       </div>
22597       <div class="date">
22598          3rd June 2010
22599       </div>
22600       <div class="body">
22601         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
22602 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
22603 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
22604 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
22605 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
22606
22607 <blockquote><pre>
22608 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
22609   vendor                    count
22610   Dell Computer Corporation     1
22611     PowerEdge 1750              1
22612   IBM                           1
22613     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
22614   Intel                         2
22615   [no-dmi-info]                 3
22616 maintainer:~#
22617 </pre></blockquote>
22618
22619 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
22620 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
22621 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
22622 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
22623 option to list the individual machines.</p>
22624
22625 <p>A larger list is
22626 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
22627 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
22628 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
22629 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
22630 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
22631 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
22632 collector.</p>
22633
22634       </div>
22635       <div class="tags">
22636
22637
22638         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
22639
22640
22641       </div>
22642     </div>
22643     <div class="padding"></div>
22644
22645     <div class="entry">
22646       <div class="title">
22647         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</a>
22648       </div>
22649       <div class="date">
22650          1st June 2010
22651       </div>
22652       <div class="body">
22653         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
22654 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
22655 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
22656 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
22657 wait.</p>
22658
22659 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
22660 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
22661 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
22662 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
22663 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
22664 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
22665
22666 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
22667 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
22668 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
22669 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
22670 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
22671 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
22672 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
22673 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
22674
22675 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
22676
22677       </div>
22678       <div class="tags">
22679
22680
22681         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
22682
22683
22684       </div>
22685     </div>
22686     <div class="padding"></div>
22687
22688     <div class="entry">
22689       <div class="title">
22690         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
22691       </div>
22692       <div class="date">
22693         27th May 2010
22694       </div>
22695       <div class="body">
22696         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
22697 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
22698 issues are known and should be solved:
22699
22700 <p><ul>
22701
22702 <li>The wicd package seen to
22703 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
22704 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
22705 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
22706 seem to be on the case.</li>
22707
22708 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
22709 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
22710 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
22711 maintainer is on the case.</li>
22712
22713 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
22714 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
22715 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
22716 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
22717 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
22718 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
22719 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
22720 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
22721
22722 </ul></p>
22723
22724 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
22725 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
22726 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
22727 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
22728
22729 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
22730 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
22731 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
22732 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
22733
22734 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
22735
22736       </div>
22737       <div class="tags">
22738
22739
22740         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
22741
22742
22743       </div>
22744     </div>
22745     <div class="padding"></div>
22746
22747     <div class="entry">
22748       <div class="title">
22749         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
22750       </div>
22751       <div class="date">
22752         22nd May 2010
22753       </div>
22754       <div class="body">
22755         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
22756 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
22757 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
22758 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
22759
22760 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
22761 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
22762 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
22763 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
22764 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
22765 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
22766 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
22767 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
22768 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
22769 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
22770 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
22771 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
22772 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
22773 going to work.</p>
22774
22775 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
22776 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
22777 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
22778 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
22779 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
22780 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
22781 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
22782 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
22783 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
22784 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
22785 Edu.</p>
22786
22787 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
22788 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
22789 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
22790 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
22791 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
22792 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
22793
22794 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
22795 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
22796
22797       </div>
22798       <div class="tags">
22799
22800
22801         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
22802
22803
22804       </div>
22805     </div>
22806     <div class="padding"></div>
22807
22808     <div class="entry">
22809       <div class="title">
22810         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pieces_of_the_roaming_laptop_puzzle_in_Debian.html">Pieces of the roaming laptop puzzle in Debian</a>
22811       </div>
22812       <div class="date">
22813         19th May 2010
22814       </div>
22815       <div class="body">
22816         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
22817 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
22818 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
22819 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
22820 into unstable.  The
22821 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
22822 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
22823 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
22824 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
22825 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
22826 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
22827 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
22828
22829 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
22830 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
22831 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
22832 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
22833 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
22834 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
22835 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
22836 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
22837
22838 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
22839 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
22840 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
22841 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
22842 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
22843 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
22844 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
22845
22846 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
22847 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
22848 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
22849 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
22850 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
22851 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
22852 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
22853 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
22854 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
22855 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
22856 on the home directory servers.</p>
22857
22858 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
22859 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
22860 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
22861 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
22862 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
22863 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
22864
22865 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
22866 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
22867
22868       </div>
22869       <div class="tags">
22870
22871
22872         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
22873
22874
22875       </div>
22876     </div>
22877     <div class="padding"></div>
22878
22879     <div class="entry">
22880       <div class="title">
22881         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html">Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</a>
22882       </div>
22883       <div class="date">
22884         14th May 2010
22885       </div>
22886       <div class="body">
22887         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
22888 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
22889 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
22890 expected, if I am to believe the
22891 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
22892 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
22893 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
22894 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
22895 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
22896 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
22897 version.</p>
22898
22899 More information about
22900 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
22901 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
22902 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
22903 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
22904
22905 <blockquote><pre>
22906 CONCURRENCY=none
22907 </pre></blockquote>
22908
22909 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
22910 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
22911 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
22912 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
22913
22914       </div>
22915       <div class="tags">
22916
22917
22918         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
22919
22920
22921       </div>
22922     </div>
22923     <div class="padding"></div>
22924
22925     <div class="entry">
22926       <div class="title">
22927         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
22928       </div>
22929       <div class="date">
22930         14th May 2010
22931       </div>
22932       <div class="body">
22933         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
22934 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
22935 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
22936 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
22937 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
22938 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
22939 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
22940 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
22941
22942 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
22943 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
22944 this on the collector host:</p>
22945
22946 <blockquote><pre>
22947 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
22948 </pre></blockquote>
22949
22950 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
22951 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
22952
22953 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
22954 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
22955 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
22956 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
22957 written yet.</p>
22958
22959       </div>
22960       <div class="tags">
22961
22962
22963         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
22964
22965
22966       </div>
22967     </div>
22968     <div class="padding"></div>
22969
22970     <div class="entry">
22971       <div class="title">
22972         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
22973       </div>
22974       <div class="date">
22975         13th May 2010
22976       </div>
22977       <div class="body">
22978         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
22979 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
22980 has been
22981 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
22982
22983 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
22984 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
22985 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
22986 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
22987 based boot system.  Tollef is
22988 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
22989 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
22990 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
22991 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
22992 at the moment do not.</p>
22993
22994 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
22995 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
22996 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
22997 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
22998 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
22999 way forward.</p>
23000
23001 <p>In the mean time, based on the
23002 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
23003 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
23004 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
23005 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
23006 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
23007 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
23008 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
23009 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
23010
23011       </div>
23012       <div class="tags">
23013
23014
23015         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
23016
23017
23018       </div>
23019     </div>
23020     <div class="padding"></div>
23021
23022     <div class="entry">
23023       <div class="title">
23024         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</a>
23025       </div>
23026       <div class="date">
23027          6th May 2010
23028       </div>
23029       <div class="body">
23030         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
23031 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
23032 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
23033 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
23034 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
23035 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
23036 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
23037
23038 <blockquote><pre>
23039 CONCURRENCY=makefile
23040 </pre></blockquote>
23041
23042 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
23043 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
23044 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
23045 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
23046 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
23047 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
23048 make this happen.</p>
23049
23050 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
23051 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
23052 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
23053 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
23054 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
23055
23056 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
23057 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
23058 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
23059 fix the remaining issues.</p>
23060
23061 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
23062 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
23063 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
23064 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
23065
23066       </div>
23067       <div class="tags">
23068
23069
23070         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
23071
23072
23073       </div>
23074     </div>
23075     <div class="padding"></div>
23076
23077     <div class="entry">
23078       <div class="title">
23079         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Forcing_new_users_to_change_their_password_on_first_login.html">Forcing new users to change their password on first login</a>
23080       </div>
23081       <div class="date">
23082          2nd May 2010
23083       </div>
23084       <div class="body">
23085         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
23086 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
23087 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
23088
23089 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
23090 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
23091 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
23092 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
23093 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
23094
23095 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
23096 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
23097
23098 <blockquote><pre>
23099 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
23100 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
23101 Password expires                                        : never
23102 Password inactive                                       : never
23103 Account expires                                         : never
23104 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
23105 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
23106 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
23107 root@tjener:~#
23108 </pre></blockquote>
23109
23110 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
23111 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
23112 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
23113 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
23114 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
23115 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
23116
23117 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
23118 intended:</p>
23119
23120 <blockquote><pre>
23121 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
23122 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
23123 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
23124 Password expires                                        : never
23125 Password inactive                                       : never
23126 Account expires                                         : never
23127 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
23128 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
23129 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
23130 root@tjener:~#
23131 </pre></blockquote>
23132
23133 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
23134 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
23135 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
23136
23137 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
23138 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
23139
23140 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
23141 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
23142
23143 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
23144 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
23145 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
23146 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
23147 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
23148 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
23149 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
23150
23151 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
23152 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
23153 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
23154 change.</p>
23155
23156       </div>
23157       <div class="tags">
23158
23159
23160         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
23161
23162
23163       </div>
23164     </div>
23165     <div class="padding"></div>
23166
23167     <div class="entry">
23168       <div class="title">
23169         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thoughts_on_roaming_laptop_setup_for_Debian_Edu.html">Thoughts on roaming laptop setup for Debian Edu</a>
23170       </div>
23171       <div class="date">
23172         28th April 2010
23173       </div>
23174       <div class="body">
23175         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
23176 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
23177 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
23178 and go.</p>
23179
23180 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
23181 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
23182 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
23183 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
23184
23185 <ul>
23186
23187  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
23188    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
23189    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
23190    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
23191    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
23192    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
23193    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
23194    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
23195    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
23196    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
23197    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
23198    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
23199
23200  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
23201    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
23202    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
23203    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
23204    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
23205    or the Fedora developed
23206    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
23207    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
23208
23209  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
23210    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
23211    directory, using unison.</li>
23212
23213  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
23214    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
23215    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
23216    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
23217    implemented.</li>
23218
23219  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
23220    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
23221
23222  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
23223    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
23224    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
23225
23226 </ul>
23227
23228 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
23229 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
23230 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
23231 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
23232 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
23233 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
23234 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
23235 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
23236 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
23237
23238 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
23239 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
23240
23241       </div>
23242       <div class="tags">
23243
23244
23245         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
23246
23247
23248       </div>
23249     </div>
23250     <div class="padding"></div>
23251
23252     <div class="entry">
23253       <div class="title">
23254         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Great_book___Content__Selected_Essays_on_Technology__Creativity__Copyright__and_the_Future_of_the_Future_.html">Great book: "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future"</a>
23255       </div>
23256       <div class="date">
23257         19th April 2010
23258       </div>
23259       <div class="body">
23260         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
23261 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
23262 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
23263 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
23264 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
23265 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
23266 restrictions on the web, for example from
23267 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
23268 epub-version from
23269 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
23270 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
23271 strongly recommend this book.</p>
23272
23273       </div>
23274       <div class="tags">
23275
23276
23277         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
23278
23279
23280       </div>
23281     </div>
23282     <div class="padding"></div>
23283
23284     <div class="entry">
23285       <div class="title">
23286         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
23287       </div>
23288       <div class="date">
23289         14th April 2010
23290       </div>
23291       <div class="body">
23292         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
23293 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
23294 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
23295 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
23296 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
23297 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
23298 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
23299 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
23300 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
23301
23302 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
23303 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
23304 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
23305 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
23306 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
23307
23308 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
23309 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
23310
23311 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
23312 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
23313 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
23314 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
23315 to work properly.</p>
23316
23317 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
23318 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
23319 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
23320 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
23321 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
23322 time.</p>
23323
23324 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
23325 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
23326 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
23327 up in a few days.</p>
23328
23329       </div>
23330       <div class="tags">
23331
23332
23333         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
23334
23335
23336       </div>
23337     </div>
23338     <div class="padding"></div>
23339
23340     <div class="entry">
23341       <div class="title">
23342         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/After_6_years_of_waiting__the_Xreset_d_feature_is_implemented.html">After 6 years of waiting, the Xreset.d feature is implemented</a>
23343       </div>
23344       <div class="date">
23345          6th March 2010
23346       </div>
23347       <div class="body">
23348         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
23349 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
23350 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
23351 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
23352 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
23353 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
23354
23355 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
23356 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
23357 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
23358 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
23359
23360 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
23361 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
23362 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
23363 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
23364 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
23365 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
23366
23367       </div>
23368       <div class="tags">
23369
23370
23371         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
23372
23373
23374       </div>
23375     </div>
23376     <div class="padding"></div>
23377
23378     <div class="entry">
23379       <div class="title">
23380         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Lenny_released__work_continues.html">Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Lenny released, work continues</a>
23381       </div>
23382       <div class="date">
23383         11th February 2010
23384       </div>
23385       <div class="body">
23386         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
23387 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
23388 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
23389 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
23390 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
23391 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
23392 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
23393
23394 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
23395
23396 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
23397 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
23398 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
23399 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
23400
23401       </div>
23402       <div class="tags">
23403
23404
23405         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
23406
23407
23408       </div>
23409     </div>
23410     <div class="padding"></div>
23411
23412     <div class="entry">
23413       <div class="title">
23414         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
23415       </div>
23416       <div class="date">
23417         27th January 2010
23418       </div>
23419       <div class="body">
23420         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
23421 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
23422 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
23423 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
23424 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
23425 further.</p>
23426
23427 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
23428 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
23429 configured to be a server for the
23430 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
23431 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
23432 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
23433 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
23434 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
23435 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
23436 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
23437 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
23438 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
23439 and Nagios configuration.</p>
23440
23441 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
23442 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
23443 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
23444 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
23445
23446 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
23447 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
23448 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
23449 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
23450 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
23451 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
23452 the machine.</p>
23453
23454 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
23455 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
23456 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
23457 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
23458
23459 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
23460 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
23461 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
23462 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
23463 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
23464 everything is taken care of.</p>
23465
23466       </div>
23467       <div class="tags">
23468
23469
23470         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
23471
23472
23473       </div>
23474     </div>
23475     <div class="padding"></div>
23476
23477     <div class="entry">
23478       <div class="title">
23479         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Relative_popularity_of_document_formats__MS_Office_vs__ODF_.html">Relative popularity of document formats (MS Office vs. ODF)</a>
23480       </div>
23481       <div class="date">
23482         12th August 2009
23483       </div>
23484       <div class="body">
23485         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
23486 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
23487 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
23488 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
23489
23490 <table>
23491 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
23492 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
23493 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
23494 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
23495 </table>
23496
23497 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
23498 got these numbers:</p>
23499
23500 <table>
23501 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
23502 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
23503 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
23504 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
23505 </table>
23506
23507 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
23508
23509 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
23510 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
23511 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
23512 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
23513 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
23514
23515
23516 <table>
23517 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
23518 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
23519 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
23520 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
23521 </table>
23522
23523 <p>And with 'site:no':
23524
23525 <table>
23526 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
23527 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
23528 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
23529 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
23530 </table>
23531
23532 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
23533 numbers.</p>
23534
23535       </div>
23536       <div class="tags">
23537
23538
23539         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
23540
23541
23542       </div>
23543     </div>
23544     <div class="padding"></div>
23545
23546     <div class="entry">
23547       <div class="title">
23548         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
23549       </div>
23550       <div class="date">
23551          8th August 2009
23552       </div>
23553       <div class="body">
23554         <p>According to <a
23555 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
23556 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
23557 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
23558 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
23559 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
23560 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
23561 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
23562 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
23563 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
23564 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
23565
23566 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
23567 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
23568 seminar this autumn.</p>
23569
23570       </div>
23571       <div class="tags">
23572
23573
23574         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
23575
23576
23577       </div>
23578     </div>
23579     <div class="padding"></div>
23580
23581     <div class="entry">
23582       <div class="title">
23583         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
23584       </div>
23585       <div class="date">
23586         27th July 2009
23587       </div>
23588       <div class="body">
23589         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
23590 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
23591 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
23592 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
23593 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
23594 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
23595 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
23596
23597 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
23598 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
23599 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
23600
23601       </div>
23602       <div class="tags">
23603
23604
23605         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
23606
23607
23608       </div>
23609     </div>
23610     <div class="padding"></div>
23611
23612     <div class="entry">
23613       <div class="title">
23614         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
23615       </div>
23616       <div class="date">
23617         22nd July 2009
23618       </div>
23619       <div class="body">
23620         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
23621 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
23622 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
23623 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
23624 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
23625 the package up to date.</p>
23626
23627 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
23628 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
23629 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
23630 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
23631 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
23632 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
23633 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
23634 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
23635 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
23636 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
23637 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
23638 working on the future release.</p>
23639
23640 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
23641 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
23642
23643       </div>
23644       <div class="tags">
23645
23646
23647         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
23648
23649
23650       </div>
23651     </div>
23652     <div class="padding"></div>
23653
23654     <div class="entry">
23655       <div class="title">
23656         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
23657       </div>
23658       <div class="date">
23659         24th June 2009
23660       </div>
23661       <div class="body">
23662         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
23663 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
23664 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
23665 funded
23666 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
23667 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
23668 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
23669 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
23670 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
23671 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
23672
23673 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
23674 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
23675 boot:</p>
23676
23677 <ul>
23678
23679 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
23680
23681 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
23682    clock is in UTC.</li>
23683
23684 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
23685    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
23686    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
23687
23688 </ul>
23689
23690 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
23691 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
23692 Villegas</a>.
23693
23694 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
23695 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
23696 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
23697 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
23698 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
23699 using this.</p>
23700
23701 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
23702 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
23703 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
23704 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
23705 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
23706 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
23707 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
23708
23709       </div>
23710       <div class="tags">
23711
23712
23713         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
23714
23715
23716       </div>
23717     </div>
23718     <div class="padding"></div>
23719
23720     <div class="entry">
23721       <div class="title">
23722         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html">Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</a>
23723       </div>
23724       <div class="date">
23725          2nd May 2009
23726       </div>
23727       <div class="body">
23728         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
23729 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
23730 do not yet know them.</p>
23731
23732 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
23733 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
23734 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
23735 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
23736 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
23737 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
23738 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
23739 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
23740 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
23741 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
23742 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
23743
23744 <p>The second one is
23745 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
23746 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
23747 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
23748 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
23749 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
23750 and the company behind it is running
23751 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
23752 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
23753 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
23754 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
23755 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
23756 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
23757 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
23758 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
23759
23760 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
23761 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
23762 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
23763 surrounded by today.</p>
23764
23765       </div>
23766       <div class="tags">
23767
23768
23769         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
23770
23771
23772       </div>
23773     </div>
23774     <div class="padding"></div>
23775
23776     <div class="entry">
23777       <div class="title">
23778         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
23779       </div>
23780       <div class="date">
23781         28th April 2009
23782       </div>
23783       <div class="body">
23784         <p>Julien Blache
23785 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
23786 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
23787 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
23788 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
23789 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
23790 properties.</p>
23791
23792       </div>
23793       <div class="tags">
23794
23795
23796         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
23797
23798
23799       </div>
23800     </div>
23801     <div class="padding"></div>
23802
23803     <div class="entry">
23804       <div class="title">
23805         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
23806       </div>
23807       <div class="date">
23808          5th April 2009
23809       </div>
23810       <div class="body">
23811         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
23812 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
23813 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
23814 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
23815 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
23816 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
23817 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
23818 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
23819
23820 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
23821 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
23822 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
23823   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
23824   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
23825
23826 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
23827 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
23828 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
23829 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
23830
23831 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
23832 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
23833 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
23834 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
23835
23836 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
23837 set -e
23838 URL="$1"
23839 SAVEFILE="$2"
23840 DURATION="$3"
23841 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
23842   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
23843   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
23844 pid=$!
23845 sleep $DURATION
23846 kill $pid
23847 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
23848
23849       </div>
23850       <div class="tags">
23851
23852
23853         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
23854
23855
23856       </div>
23857     </div>
23858     <div class="padding"></div>
23859
23860     <div class="entry">
23861       <div class="title">
23862         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</a>
23863       </div>
23864       <div class="date">
23865         30th March 2009
23866       </div>
23867       <div class="body">
23868         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
23869 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
23870 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
23871 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
23872 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
23873 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
23874 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
23875 application.</p>
23876
23877 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
23878 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
23879 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
23880 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
23881 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
23882 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
23883 blocked from doing so.</p>
23884
23885 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
23886 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
23887 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
23888 requirements change.</p>
23889
23890 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
23891 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
23892 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
23893
23894       </div>
23895       <div class="tags">
23896
23897
23898         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
23899
23900
23901       </div>
23902     </div>
23903     <div class="padding"></div>
23904
23905     <div class="entry">
23906       <div class="title">
23907         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
23908       </div>
23909       <div class="date">
23910         29th March 2009
23911       </div>
23912       <div class="body">
23913         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
23914 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
23915 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
23916 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
23917 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
23918 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
23919 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
23920 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
23921 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
23922 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
23923 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
23924 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
23925 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
23926 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
23927 now. :)</p>
23928
23929       </div>
23930       <div class="tags">
23931
23932
23933         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
23934
23935
23936       </div>
23937     </div>
23938     <div class="padding"></div>
23939
23940     <div class="entry">
23941       <div class="title">
23942         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
23943       </div>
23944       <div class="date">
23945         29th March 2009
23946       </div>
23947       <div class="body">
23948         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
23949 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
23950 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
23951 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
23952 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
23953 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
23954
23955 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
23956 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
23957 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
23958 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
23959 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
23960 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
23961 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
23962 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
23963 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
23964 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
23965 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
23966 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
23967 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
23968
23969 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
23970 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
23971 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
23972 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
23973
23974 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
23975 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
23976
23977 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
23978 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
23979 new IETF work group?</p>
23980
23981       </div>
23982       <div class="tags">
23983
23984
23985         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
23986
23987
23988       </div>
23989     </div>
23990     <div class="padding"></div>
23991
23992     <div class="entry">
23993       <div class="title">
23994         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">Checking server hardware support status for Dell, HP and IBM servers</a>
23995       </div>
23996       <div class="date">
23997         28th February 2009
23998       </div>
23999       <div class="body">
24000         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
24001 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
24002 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
24003 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
24004 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
24005 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
24006 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
24007 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
24008 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
24009 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
24010 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
24011 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
24012 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
24013 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
24014 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
24015 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
24016 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
24017 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
24018 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
24019 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
24020 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
24021 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
24022 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
24023 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
24024 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
24025 machine.</p>
24026
24027 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
24028 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
24029 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
24030 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
24031 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
24032 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
24033 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
24034
24035 <pre>
24036 use LWP::Simple;
24037 use POSIX;
24038 use WWW::Mechanize;
24039 use Date::Parse;
24040 [...]
24041 sub get_support_info {
24042     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
24043     my $str;
24044
24045     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
24046         # fetch website from Dell support
24047         my $url = "http://support.euro.dell.com/support/topics/topic.aspx/emea/shared/support/my_systems_info/no/details?c=no&amp;cs=nodhs1&amp;l=no&amp;s=dhs&amp;ServiceTag=$serial";
24048         my $webpage = get($url);
24049         return undef unless ($webpage);
24050
24051         my $daysleft = -1;
24052         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
24053         foreach my $line (@lines) {
24054             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
24055             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
24056             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
24057
24058             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
24059             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
24060             my $lastend = "";
24061             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
24062                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
24063
24064                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
24065                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
24066                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
24067                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
24068                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
24069                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
24070                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
24071             }
24072             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
24073             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
24074                 if ($lastend lt $today);
24075         }
24076     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
24077         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
24078         my $url =
24079             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
24080         $mech->get($url);
24081         my $fields = {
24082             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
24083             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
24084             'country' => 'NO',
24085             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
24086             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
24087         };
24088         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
24089                             fields      => $fields );
24090         # Next step is screen scraping
24091         my $content = $mech->content();
24092
24093         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
24094         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
24095         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
24096         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
24097
24098         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
24099
24100         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
24101             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
24102                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
24103             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
24104             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
24105                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
24106             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
24107                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
24108
24109             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
24110
24111             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
24112                 if ($end lt $today);
24113         }
24114     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
24115         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
24116         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
24117         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
24118             my $content =
24119                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
24120             if ($content) {
24121                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
24122                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
24123                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
24124                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
24125
24126                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
24127                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
24128
24129                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
24130
24131                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
24132                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
24133                     if ($end lt $today);
24134             }
24135         }
24136     }
24137     return $str;
24138 }
24139 </pre>
24140
24141 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
24142 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
24143 from dmidecode.</p>
24144
24145 <pre>
24146 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
24147                        "447707-B21");
24148 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
24149 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
24150                        "1234567");
24151 </pre>
24152
24153 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
24154 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
24155
24156 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
24157 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
24158 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
24159 do so.</p>
24160
24161       </div>
24162       <div class="tags">
24163
24164
24165         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
24166
24167
24168       </div>
24169     </div>
24170     <div class="padding"></div>
24171
24172     <div class="entry">
24173       <div class="title">
24174         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
24175       </div>
24176       <div class="date">
24177         20th February 2009
24178       </div>
24179       <div class="body">
24180         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
24181 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
24182 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
24183 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
24184 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
24185 the "missing" computer.</p>
24186
24187 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
24188 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
24189 code blocks as defined in the
24190 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
24191 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
24192 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
24193 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
24194 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
24195 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
24196 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
24197 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
24198 codes.</p>
24199
24200 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
24201 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
24202 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
24203 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
24204 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
24205 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
24206
24207 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
24208 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
24209 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
24210 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
24211 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
24212 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
24213 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
24214 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
24215 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
24216 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
24217
24218 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
24219 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
24220 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
24221
24222       </div>
24223       <div class="tags">
24224
24225
24226         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
24227
24228
24229       </div>
24230     </div>
24231     <div class="padding"></div>
24232
24233     <div class="entry">
24234       <div class="title">
24235         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html">When web browser developers make a video player...</a>
24236       </div>
24237       <div class="date">
24238         17th January 2009
24239       </div>
24240       <div class="body">
24241         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
24242 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
24243 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
24244 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
24245 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
24246 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
24247 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
24248 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
24249 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
24250 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
24251 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
24252 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
24253 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
24254 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
24255
24256 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
24257 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
24258 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
24259 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
24260 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
24261 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
24262 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
24263 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
24264 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
24265 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
24266 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
24267 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
24268 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
24269 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
24270 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
24271 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
24272 playing when the download is done.</p>
24273
24274 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
24275 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
24276 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
24277 too.</p>
24278
24279 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
24280 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
24281 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
24282 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
24283
24284       </div>
24285       <div class="tags">
24286
24287
24288         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
24289
24290
24291       </div>
24292     </div>
24293     <div class="padding"></div>
24294
24295     <div class="entry">
24296       <div class="title">
24297         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
24298       </div>
24299       <div class="date">
24300         28th December 2008
24301       </div>
24302       <div class="body">
24303         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
24304 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
24305 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
24306 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
24307 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
24308 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
24309 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
24310 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
24311 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
24312 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
24313 source, sink and mixer applications and
24314 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
24315 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
24316 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
24317 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
24318 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
24319 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
24320 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
24321 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
24322 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
24323
24324 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
24325 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
24326 larger stick as well.</p>
24327
24328       </div>
24329       <div class="tags">
24330
24331
24332         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
24333
24334
24335       </div>
24336     </div>
24337     <div class="padding"></div>
24338
24339     <div class="entry">
24340       <div class="title">
24341         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html">Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</a>
24342       </div>
24343       <div class="date">
24344          7th December 2008
24345       </div>
24346       <div class="body">
24347         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
24348 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
24349 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
24350 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
24351 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
24352 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
24353 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
24354 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
24355
24356 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
24357 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
24358 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
24359 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
24360 of these cards.</p>
24361
24362       </div>
24363       <div class="tags">
24364
24365
24366         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
24367
24368
24369       </div>
24370     </div>
24371     <div class="padding"></div>
24372
24373     <div class="entry">
24374       <div class="title">
24375         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</a>
24376       </div>
24377       <div class="date">
24378         25th November 2008
24379       </div>
24380       <div class="body">
24381         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
24382 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
24383 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
24384 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
24385 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
24386 notes are available on
24387 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
24388 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
24389 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
24390 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
24391 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
24392 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
24393 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
24394 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
24395 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
24396
24397 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
24398 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
24399
24400       </div>
24401       <div class="tags">
24402
24403
24404         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
24405
24406
24407       </div>
24408     </div>
24409     <div class="padding"></div>
24410
24411     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="english.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
24412     <div id="sidebar">
24413
24414
24415
24416 <h2>Archive</h2>
24417 <ul>
24418
24419 <li>2016
24420 <ul>
24421
24422 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (2)</a></li>
24423
24424 </ul></li>
24425
24426 <li>2015
24427 <ul>
24428
24429 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
24430
24431 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
24432
24433 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
24434
24435 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
24436
24437 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
24438
24439 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
24440
24441 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
24442
24443 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
24444
24445 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
24446
24447 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
24448
24449 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
24450
24451 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
24452
24453 </ul></li>
24454
24455 <li>2014
24456 <ul>
24457
24458 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
24459
24460 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
24461
24462 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
24463
24464 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
24465
24466 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
24467
24468 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
24469
24470 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
24471
24472 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
24473
24474 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
24475
24476 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
24477
24478 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
24479
24480 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
24481
24482 </ul></li>
24483
24484 <li>2013
24485 <ul>
24486
24487 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
24488
24489 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
24490
24491 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
24492
24493 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
24494
24495 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
24496
24497 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
24498
24499 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
24500
24501 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
24502
24503 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
24504
24505 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
24506
24507 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
24508
24509 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
24510
24511 </ul></li>
24512
24513 <li>2012
24514 <ul>
24515
24516 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
24517
24518 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
24519
24520 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
24521
24522 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
24523
24524 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
24525
24526 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
24527
24528 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
24529
24530 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
24531
24532 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
24533
24534 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
24535
24536 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
24537
24538 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
24539
24540 </ul></li>
24541
24542 <li>2011
24543 <ul>
24544
24545 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
24546
24547 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
24548
24549 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
24550
24551 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
24552
24553 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
24554
24555 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
24556
24557 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
24558
24559 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
24560
24561 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
24562
24563 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
24564
24565 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
24566
24567 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
24568
24569 </ul></li>
24570
24571 <li>2010
24572 <ul>
24573
24574 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
24575
24576 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
24577
24578 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
24579
24580 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
24581
24582 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
24583
24584 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
24585
24586 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
24587
24588 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
24589
24590 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
24591
24592 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
24593
24594 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
24595
24596 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
24597
24598 </ul></li>
24599
24600 <li>2009
24601 <ul>
24602
24603 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
24604
24605 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
24606
24607 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
24608
24609 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
24610
24611 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
24612
24613 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
24614
24615 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
24616
24617 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
24618
24619 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
24620
24621 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
24622
24623 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
24624
24625 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
24626
24627 </ul></li>
24628
24629 <li>2008
24630 <ul>
24631
24632 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
24633
24634 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
24635
24636 </ul></li>
24637
24638 </ul>
24639
24640
24641
24642 <h2>Tags</h2>
24643 <ul>
24644
24645  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
24646
24647  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
24648
24649  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
24650
24651  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
24652
24653  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (9)</a></li>
24654
24655  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
24656
24657  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
24658
24659  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
24660
24661  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (117)</a></li>
24662
24663  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (154)</a></li>
24664
24665  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
24666
24667  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
24668
24669  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (20)</a></li>
24670
24671  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
24672
24673  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (299)</a></li>
24674
24675  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
24676
24677  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
24678
24679  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (25)</a></li>
24680
24681  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
24682
24683  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (16)</a></li>
24684
24685  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
24686
24687  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
24688
24689  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (11)</a></li>
24690
24691  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
24692
24693  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
24694
24695  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
24696
24697  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
24698
24699  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
24700
24701  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
24702
24703  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (37)</a></li>
24704
24705  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (6)</a></li>
24706
24707  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (273)</a></li>
24708
24709  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (177)</a></li>
24710
24711  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (22)</a></li>
24712
24713  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
24714
24715  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (58)</a></li>
24716
24717  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (92)</a></li>
24718
24719  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
24720
24721  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
24722
24723  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
24724
24725  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
24726
24727  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
24728
24729  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
24730
24731  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
24732
24733  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
24734
24735  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (45)</a></li>
24736
24737  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
24738
24739  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
24740
24741  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (48)</a></li>
24742
24743  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
24744
24745  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (10)</a></li>
24746
24747  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (36)</a></li>
24748
24749  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
24750
24751  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
24752
24753  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
24754
24755  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (55)</a></li>
24756
24757  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
24758
24759  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (38)</a></li>
24760
24761 </ul>
24762
24763
24764     </div>
24765     <p style="text-align: right">
24766  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
24767 </p>
24768
24769   </body>
24770 </html>