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  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/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          4th October 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
  32 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo, the grub menu of Ubuntu with
  33 Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck on a
  34 screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
  35
  36 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
  37
  38 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
  39 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
  40 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
  41
  42       </div>
  43       <div class="tags">
  44
  45
  46         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>.
  47
  48
  49       </div>
  50     </div>
  51     <div class="padding"></div>
  52
  53     <div class="entry">
  54       <div class="title">
  55         <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>
  56       </div>
  57       <div class="date">
  58          4th October 2014
  59       </div>
  60       <div class="body">
  61         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
  62 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
  63 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
  64 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
  65 Dibb.</p>
  66
  67 <p>I just wrapped up
  68 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
  69 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
  70 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
  71 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
  72 0.17.</p>
  73
  74 <ul>
  75
  76  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
  77  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
  78    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
  79  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
  80  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
  81  <li>Fix include orders</li>
  82  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
  83  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
  84  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
  85    the palette size is the same.</li>
  86  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
  87  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
  88  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
  89  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
  90    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
  91
  92 </ul>
  93
  94 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
  95 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
  96 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
  97
  98       </div>
  99       <div class="tags">
 100
 101
 102         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>.
 103
 104
 105       </div>
 106     </div>
 107     <div class="padding"></div>
 108
 109     <div class="entry">
 110       <div class="title">
 111         <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>
 112       </div>
 113       <div class="date">
 114         26th September 2014
 115       </div>
 116       <div class="body">
 117         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 118 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
 119 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
 120 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
 121 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
 122 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
 123 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
 124 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
 125 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
 126 future.  The
 127 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
 128 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
 129 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 130 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 131 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 132
 133 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 134 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 135 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 136 or rsync (use
 137 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 138 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 139 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 140 install with some tweaking.</p>
 141
 142 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 143 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 144
 145 <p><blockquote><pre>
 146 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 147 </pre></blockquote></p>
 148
 149 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 150 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 151 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 152 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 153
 154 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 155 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 156 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 157 your need.</p>
 158
 159 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 160 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 161 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 162 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 163 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 164 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 165 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 166 days.</p>
 167
 168 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 169 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 170 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 171 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
 172 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
 173 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
 174 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
 175 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
 176 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
 177
 178 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
 179 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
 180 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
 181
 182       </div>
 183       <div class="tags">
 184
 185
 186         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>.
 187
 188
 189       </div>
 190     </div>
 191     <div class="padding"></div>
 192
 193     <div class="entry">
 194       <div class="title">
 195         <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>
 196       </div>
 197       <div class="date">
 198         25th September 2014
 199       </div>
 200       <div class="body">
 201         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
 202 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
 203 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
 204 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
 205 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
 206 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
 207 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
 208 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
 209 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
 210 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
 211 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
 212 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
 213 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
 214
 215 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
 216 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
 217 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
 218 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
 219 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
 220 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
 221 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
 222 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
 223 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
 224 list</a>. :)</p>
 225
 226       </div>
 227       <div class="tags">
 228
 229
 230         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>.
 231
 232
 233       </div>
 234     </div>
 235     <div class="padding"></div>
 236
 237     <div class="entry">
 238       <div class="title">
 239         <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>
 240       </div>
 241       <div class="date">
 242         16th September 2014
 243       </div>
 244       <div class="body">
 245         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
 246 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
 247 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
 248 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
 249 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
 250 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
 251 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
 252 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
 253 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
 254 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
 255 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
 256 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
 257 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
 258 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
 259
 260 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
 261 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
 262 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
 263 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
 264 depend on the small and clever package
 265 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
 266 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
 267 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
 268 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
 269 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
 270 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
 271 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
 272 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
 273 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
 274 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
 275 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
 276
 277 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
 278 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
 279 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
 280 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
 281 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
 282 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
 283 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
 284 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
 285 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
 286 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
 287 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
 288 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
 289 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
 290 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
 291 dialog.</p>
 292
 293 <p><table>
 294
 295 <tr>
 296 <th>Machine/setup</th>
 297 <th>Original tasksel</th>
 298 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
 299 <th>Reduction</th>
 300 </tr>
 301
 302 <tr>
 303 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
 304 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
 305 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
 306 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
 307 </tr>
 308
 309 <tr>
 310 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
 311 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
 312 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
 313 <td>23 min 40%</td>
 314 </tr>
 315
 316 <tr>
 317 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
 318 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
 319 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
 320 <td>11 min 50%</td>
 321 </tr>
 322
 323 <tr>
 324 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
 325 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
 326 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
 327 <td>2 min 33%</td>
 328 </tr>
 329
 330 <tr>
 331 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
 332 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
 333 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
 334 <td>4 min 21%</td>
 335 </tr>
 336
 337 </table></p>
 338
 339 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
 340 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
 341 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
 342 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
 343 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
 344 installed.</p>
 345
 346 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
 347 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
 348 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
 349 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
 350 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
 351 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
 352 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
 353 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
 354 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
 355 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
 356 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
 357 for the entire installation.</p>
 358
 359 <p>I've implemented this in the
 360 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
 361 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
 362 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
 363 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
 364 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
 365
 366 <p><blockquote><pre>
 367 #!/bin/sh
 368 set -e
 369 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 370 info() {
 371     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
 372 }
 373 error() {
 374     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
 375 }
 376 override_install() {
 377     apt-install eatmydata || true
 378     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
 379         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 380             file=/usr/bin/$bin
 381             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
 382             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
 383                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
 384                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
 385                     > /target$file.edu
 386                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
 387                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 388                     --rename --quiet --add $file
 389                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
 390             else
 391                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
 392             fi
 393         done
 394     else
 395         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
 396     fi
 397 }
 398
 399 override_install
 400 </pre></blockquote></p>
 401
 402 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
 403 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
 404
 405 <p><blockquote><pre>
 406 #! /bin/sh -e
 407 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 408 error() {
 409     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
 410 }
 411 remove_install_override() {
 412     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 413         file=/usr/bin/$bin
 414         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
 415             rm /target$file
 416             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 417                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
 418             rm /target$file.edu
 419         else
 420             error "Missing divert for $file."
 421         fi
 422     done
 423     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
 424 }
 425
 426 remove_install_override
 427 </pre></blockquote></p>
 428
 429 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
 430 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
 431 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
 432
 433 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
 434 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
 435 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
 436 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
 437 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
 438 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
 439 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
 440 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
 441 everyone.</p>
 442
 443 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
 444 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
 445 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711.  An updated
 446 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
 447
 448       </div>
 449       <div class="tags">
 450
 451
 452         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>.
 453
 454
 455       </div>
 456     </div>
 457     <div class="padding"></div>
 458
 459     <div class="entry">
 460       <div class="title">
 461         <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>
 462       </div>
 463       <div class="date">
 464         10th September 2014
 465       </div>
 466       <div class="body">
 467         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
 468 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
 469 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
 470 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
 471 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
 472 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
 473 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
 474 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
 475 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
 476 those problems are gone now.</p>
 477
 478 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
 479 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
 480 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
 481 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
 482 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
 483
 484 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
 485 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
 486 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
 487
 488 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
 489 line:</p>
 490
 491 <p><blockquote><pre>
 492 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
 493 </pre></blockquote></p>
 494
 495 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
 496 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
 497 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
 498 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
 499
 500 <p><blockquote><pre>
 501 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
 502 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
 503 %
 504 </pre></blockquote></p>
 505
 506 <p>Now if only
 507 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
 508 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
 509 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
 510 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
 511 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
 512 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
 513 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
 514 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
 515 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
 516
 517       </div>
 518       <div class="tags">
 519
 520
 521         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>.
 522
 523
 524       </div>
 525     </div>
 526     <div class="padding"></div>
 527
 528     <div class="entry">
 529       <div class="title">
 530         <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>
 531       </div>
 532       <div class="date">
 533         25th August 2014
 534       </div>
 535       <div class="body">
 536         <p>Two years later, I am still not sure if it is legal here in Norway
 537 to use or publish a video in H.264 or MPEG4 format edited by the
 538 commercially licensed video editors, without limiting the use to
 539 create "personal" or "non-commercial" videos or get a license
 540 agreement with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com">MPEG LA</a>.  If one
 541 want to publish and broadcast video in a non-personal or commercial
 542 setting, it might be that those tools can not be used, or that video
 543 format can not be used, without breaking their copyright license.  I
 544 am not sure.
 545 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html">Back
 546 then</a>, I found that the copyright license terms for Adobe Premiere
 547 and Apple Final Cut Pro both specified that one could not use the
 548 program to produce anything else without a patent license from MPEG
 549 LA.  The issue is not limited to those two products, though.  Other
 550 much used products like those from Avid and Sorenson Media have terms
 551 of use are similar to those from Adobe and Apple.  The complicating
 552 factor making me unsure if those terms have effect in Norway or not is
 553 that the patents in question are not valid in Norway, but copyright
 554 licenses are.</p>
 555
 556 <p>These are the terms for Avid Artist Suite, according to their
 557 <a href="http://www.avid.com/US/about-avid/legal-notices/legal-enduserlicense2">published
 558 end user</a>
 559 <a href="http://www.avid.com/static/resources/common/documents/corporate/LICENSE.pdf">license
 560 text</a> (converted to lower case text for easier reading):</p>
 561
 562 <p><blockquote>
 563 <p>18.2. MPEG-4. MPEG-4 technology may be included with the
 564 software. MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice: </p>
 565
 566 <p>This product is licensed under the MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio
 567 license for the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer for (i)
 568 encoding video in compliance with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4
 569 video”) and/or (ii) decoding MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a
 570 consumer engaged in a personal and non-commercial activity and/or was
 571 obtained from a video provider licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4
 572 video.  No license is granted or shall be implied for any other
 573 use. Additional information including that relating to promotional,
 574 internal and commercial uses and licensing may be obtained from MPEG
 575 LA, LLC.  See http://www.mpegla.com. This product is licensed under
 576 the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license for encoding in compliance
 577 with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except that an additional license
 578 and payment of royalties are necessary for encoding in connection with
 579 (i) data stored or replicated in physical media which is paid for on a
 580 title by title basis and/or (ii) data which is paid for on a title by
 581 title basis and is transmitted to an end user for permanent storage
 582 and/or use, such additional license may be obtained from MPEG LA,
 583 LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for additional details.</p>
 584
 585 <p>18.3. H.264/AVC. H.264/AVC technology may be included with the
 586 software.  MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice:</p>
 587
 588 <p>This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
 589 the personal use of a consumer or other uses in which it does not
 590 receive remuneration to (i) encode video in compliance with the AVC
 591 standard (“AVC video”) and/or (ii) decode AVC video that was encoded
 592 by a consumer engaged in a personal activity and/or was obtained from
 593 a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No license is granted
 594 or shall be implied for any other use. Additional information may be
 595 obtained from MPEG LA, L.L.C. See http://www.mpegla.com.</p>
 596 </blockquote></p>
 597
 598 <p>Note the requirement that the videos created can only be used for
 599 personal or non-commercial purposes.</p>
 600
 601 <p>The Sorenson Media software have
 602 <a href="http://www.sorensonmedia.com/terms/">similar terms</a>:</p>
 603
 604 <p><blockquote>
 605
 606 <p>With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4 Video
 607 Decoders and/or Encoders: Any such product is licensed under the
 608 MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio license for the personal and
 609 non-commercial use of a consumer for (i) encoding video in compliance
 610 with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4 video”) and/or (ii) decoding
 611 MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a personal and
 612 non-commercial activity and/or was obtained from a video provider
 613 licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4 video. No license is granted or
 614 shall be implied for any other use. Additional information including
 615 that relating to promotional, internal and commercial uses and
 616 licensing may be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See
 617 http://www.mpegla.com.</p>
 618
 619 <p>With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4
 620 Consumer Recorded Data Encoder, MPEG-4 Systems Internet Data Encoder,
 621 MPEG-4 Mobile Data Encoder, and/or MPEG-4 Unique Use Encoder: Any such
 622 product is licensed under the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license
 623 for encoding in compliance with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except
 624 that an additional license and payment of royalties are necessary for
 625 encoding in connection with (i) data stored or replicated in physical
 626 media which is paid for on a title by title basis and/or (ii) data
 627 which is paid for on a title by title basis and is transmitted to an
 628 end user for permanent storage and/or use. Such additional license may
 629 be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for
 630 additional details.</p>
 631
 632 </blockquote></p>
 633
 634 <p>Some free software like
 635 <a href="https://handbrake.fr/">Handbrake</A> and
 636 <a href="http://ffmpeg.org/">FFMPEG</a> uses GPL/LGPL licenses and do
 637 not have any such terms included, so for those, there is no
 638 requirement to limit the use to personal and non-commercial.</p>
 639
 640       </div>
 641       <div class="tags">
 642
 643
 644         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/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>.
 645
 646
 647       </div>
 648     </div>
 649     <div class="padding"></div>
 650
 651     <div class="entry">
 652       <div class="title">
 653         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Bernd_Zeitzen.html">Debian Edu interview: Bernd Zeitzen</a>
 654       </div>
 655       <div class="date">
 656         31st July 2014
 657       </div>
 658       <div class="body">
 659         <p>The complete and free “out of the box” software solution for
 660 schools, <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
 661 Skolelinux</a>, is used quite a lot in Germany, and one of the people
 662 involved is Bernd Zeitzen, who show up on the project mailing lists
 663 from time to time with interesting questions and tips on how to adjust
 664 the setup.  I managed to interview him this summer.</p>
 665
 666 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 667
 668 <p>My name is Bernd Zeitzen and I'm married with Hedda, a self
 669 employed physiotherapist.  My former profession is tool maker, but I
 670 haven't worked for 30 years in this job.  30 years ago I started to
 671 support my wife and become her officeworker and a few years later the
 672 administrator for a small computer network, today based on Ubuntu
 673 Server (Samba, OpenVPN). For her daily work she has to use Windows
 674 Desktops because the software she needs to organize her business only
 675 works with Windows . :-(</p>
 676
 677 <p>In 1988 we started with one PC and DOS, then I learned to use
 678 Windows 98, 2000, XP, …, 8, Ubuntu, MacOSX.  Today we are running a
 679 Linux server with 6 Windows clients and 10 persons (teacher of
 680 children with special needs, speech therapist, occupational therapist,
 681 psychologist and officeworkers) using our Samba shares via OpenVPN to
 682 work with the documentations of our patients.</p>
 683
 684 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
 685 project?</strong></p>
 686
 687 <p>Two years ago a friend of mine asked me, if I want to get a job in
 688 his school (<a href="http://www.gymnasium-harsewinkel.de/">Gymnasium
 689 Harsewinkel</a>).  They started with Skolelinux / Debian Edu and they
 690 were looking for people to give support to the teachers using the
 691 software and the network and teaching the pupils increasing their
 692 computer skills in optional lessons.  I'm spending 4-6 hours a week
 693 with this job.</p>
 694
 695 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 696 Edu?</strong></p>
 697
 698 <p>The independence.</p>
 699
 700 <p>First: Every person is allowed to use, share and develop the
 701 software. Even if you are poor, you are allowed to use the software
 702 included in Skolelinux/Debian Edu and all the other Free Software.</p>
 703
 704 <p>Second: The software runs on old machines and this gives us the
 705 possibility to recycle computers, weeded out from offices.  The
 706 servers and desktops are running for more than two years and they are
 707 working reliable. </p>
 708
 709 <p>We have two servers (one tjener and one terminal server), 45
 710 workstations in three classrooms and seven laptops as a mobile
 711 solution for all classrooms.  These machines are all booting from the
 712 terminal server.  In the moment we are installing 30 laptops as mobile
 713 workstations.  Then the pupils have the possibility to work with these
 714 machines in their classrooms.  Internet access is realized by a WLAN
 715 router, connected to the schools network. This is all done without a
 716 dedicated system administrator or a computer science teacher.</p>
 717
 718 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 719 Edu?</strong></p>
 720
 721 <p>Teachers and pupils are Windows users.  &lt;Irony on&gt; And Linux
 722 isn't cool. It's software for freaks using the command line. &lt;Irony
 723 off&gt; They don't realize the stability of the system. </p>
 724
 725 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 726
 727 <p>Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Ubuntu Server 12.04 (Samba,
 728 Apache, MySQL, Joomla!, … and Skolelinux / Debian Edu)</p>
 729
 730 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 731 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 732
 733 <p>In Germany we have the situation: every school is free to decide
 734 which software they want to use. This decision is influenced by
 735 teachers who learned to use Windows and MS Office. They buy a PC with
 736 Windows preinstalled and an additional testing version of MS
 737 Office. They don't know about the possibility to use Free Software
 738 instead.  Another problem are the publisher of school books.  They
 739 develop their software, added to the school books, for Windows.</p>
 740
 741       </div>
 742       <div class="tags">
 743
 744
 745         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>.
 746
 747
 748       </div>
 749     </div>
 750     <div class="padding"></div>
 751
 752     <div class="entry">
 753       <div class="title">
 754         <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>
 755       </div>
 756       <div class="date">
 757         23rd July 2014
 758       </div>
 759       <div class="body">
 760         <p>This summer I finally had time to continue working on the Norwegian
 761 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
 762 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
 763 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with todays copyright
 764 law.  Yesterday, I finally completed translated the book text.  There
 765 are still some foot/end notes left to translate, the colophon page
 766 need to be rewritten, and a few words and phrases still need to be
 767 translated, but the Norwegian text is ready for the first proof
 768 reading. :) More spell checking is needed, and several illustrations
 769 need to be cleaned up.  The work stopped up because I had to give
 770 priority to other projects the last year, and the progress graph of
 771 the translation show this very well:</p>
 772
 773 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
 774
 775 <p>If you want to read the result, check out the
 776 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
 777 project pages and the
 778 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>,
 779 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
 780 and HTML version available in the
 781 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/tree/master/archive">archive
 782 directory</a>.</p>
 783
 784 <p>Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if
 785 you find any.</p>
 786
 787       </div>
 788       <div class="tags">
 789
 790
 791         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>.
 792
 793
 794       </div>
 795     </div>
 796     <div class="padding"></div>
 797
 798     <div class="entry">
 799       <div class="title">
 800         <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>
 801       </div>
 802       <div class="date">
 803         17th June 2014
 804       </div>
 805       <div class="body">
 806         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 807 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
 808 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
 809 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
 810 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
 811
 812 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
 813 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
 814 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
 815 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
 816 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
 817 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
 818 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
 819 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
 820 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
 821 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
 822 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
 823 goals.</p>
 824
 825 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
 826 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
 827 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
 828 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
 829 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
 830 chapters together into one large web page (aka
 831 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
 832 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
 833 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
 834 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
 835 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
 836 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
 837 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
 838 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
 839 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
 840 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
 841 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
 842 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
 843 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
 844 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
 845 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
 846 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
 847 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
 848 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
 849
 850 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
 851 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
 852 track the English original.  For this we use the
 853 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
 854 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
 855 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
 856 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
 857 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
 858 files), which the translations update with the native language
 859 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
 860 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
 861 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
 862 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
 863 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
 864 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
 865 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
 866 of the documentation.</p>
 867
 868 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
 869 recommend using
 870 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
 871 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
 872 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
 873 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
 874 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
 875 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
 876 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
 877 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
 878
 879 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
 880 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
 881 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
 882 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
 883 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
 884 translated images by storing translated versions in
 885 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
 886 package maintainers know more.</p>
 887
 888 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
 889 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
 890 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
 891 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
 892 PDF version</a> or the
 893 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
 894 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
 895 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
 896
 897 <p>To learn more, check out
 898 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
 899 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
 900 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
 901 manual on the wiki</a> and
 902 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
 903 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
 904
 905       </div>
 906       <div class="tags">
 907
 908
 909         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>.
 910
 911
 912       </div>
 913     </div>
 914     <div class="padding"></div>
 915
 916     <div class="entry">
 917       <div class="title">
 918         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_car_computer_solution_.html">Free software car computer solution?</a>
 919       </div>
 920       <div class="date">
 921         29th May 2014
 922       </div>
 923       <div class="body">
 924         <p>Dear lazyweb.  I'm planning to set up a small Raspberry Pi computer
 925 in my car, connected to
 926 <a href="http://www.dx.com/p/400a-4-0-tft-lcd-digital-monitor-for-vehicle-parking-reverse-camera-1440x272-12v-dc-57776">a
 927 small screen</a> next to the rear mirror.  I plan to hook it up with a
 928 GPS and a USB wifi card too.  The idea is to get my own
 929 "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carputer">Carputer</a>".  But I
 930 wonder if someone already created a good free software solution for
 931 such car computer.</p>
 932
 933 <p>This is my current wish list for such system:</p>
 934
 935 <ul>
 936
 937  <li>Work on Raspberry Pi.</li>
 938
 939  <li>Show current speed limit based on location, and warn if going too
 940    fast (for example using color codes yellow and red on the screen,
 941    or make a sound).  This could be done either using either data from
 942    <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">Openstreetmap</a> or OCR
 943    info gathered from a dashboard camera.</li>
 944
 945  <li>Track automatic toll road passes and their cost, show total spent
 946    and make it possible to calculate toll costs for planned
 947    route.</li>
 948
 949  <li>Collect GPX tracks for use with OpenStreetMap.</li>
 950
 951  <li>Automatically detect and use any wireless connection to connect
 952    to home server.  Try IP over DNS
 953    (<a href="http://dev.kryo.se/iodine/">iodine</a>) or ICMP
 954    (<a href="http://code.gerade.org/hans/">Hans</a>) if direct
 955    connection do not work.</li>
 956
 957  <li>Set up mesh network to talk to other cars with the same system,
 958    or some standard car mesh protocol.</li>
 959
 960  <li>Warn when approaching speed cameras and speed camera ranges
 961    (speed calculated between two cameras).</li>
 962
 963  <li>Suport dashboard/front facing camera to discover speed limits and
 964    run OCR to track registration number of passing cars.</li>
 965
 966 </ul>
 967
 968 <p>If you know of any free software car computer system supporting
 969 some or all of these features, please let me know.</p>
 970
 971       </div>
 972       <div class="tags">
 973
 974
 975         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 976
 977
 978       </div>
 979     </div>
 980     <div class="padding"></div>
 981
 982     <div class="entry">
 983       <div class="title">
 984         <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>
 985       </div>
 986       <div class="date">
 987         29th April 2014
 988       </div>
 989       <div class="body">
 990         <p>I've been following <a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">the Gnash
 991 project</a> for quite a while now.  It is a free software
 992 implementation of Adobe Flash, both a standalone player and a browser
 993 plugin.  Gnash implement support for the AVM1 format (and not the
 994 newer AVM2 format - see
 995 <a href="http://lightspark.github.io/">Lightspark</a> for that one),
 996 allowing several flash based sites to work.  Thanks to the friendly
 997 developers at Youtube, it also work with Youtube videos, because the
 998 Javascript code at Youtube detect Gnash and serve a AVM1 player to
 999 those users. :) Would be great if someone found time to implement AVM2
1000 support, but it has not happened yet.  If you install both Lightspark
1001 and Gnash, Lightspark will invoke Gnash if it find a AVM1 flash file,
1002 so you can get both handled as free software.  Unfortunately,
1003 Lightspark so far only implement a small subset of AVM2, and many
1004 sites do not work yet.</p>
1005
1006 <p>A few months ago, I started looking at
1007 <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/">Coverity</a>, the static source
1008 checker used to find heaps and heaps of bugs in free software (thanks
1009 to the donation of a scanning service to free software projects by the
1010 company developing this non-free code checker), and Gnash was one of
1011 the projects I decided to check out.  Coverity is able to find lock
1012 errors, memory errors, dead code and more.  A few days ago they even
1013 extended it to also be able to find the heartbleed bug in OpenSSL.
1014 There are heaps of checks being done on the instrumented code, and the
1015 amount of bogus warnings is quite low compared to the other static
1016 code checkers I have tested over the years.</p>
1017
1018 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I've been working with the other Gnash
1019 developers squashing bugs discovered by Coverity.  I was quite happy
1020 today when I checked the current status and saw that of the 777 issues
1021 detected so far, 374 are marked as fixed.  This make me confident that
1022 the next Gnash release will be more stable and more dependable than
1023 the previous one.  Most of the reported issues were and are in the
1024 test suite, but it also found a few in the rest of the code.</p>
1025
1026 <p>If you want to help out, you find us on
1027 <a href="https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash-dev">the
1028 gnash-dev mailing list</a> and on
1029 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#gnash">the #gnash channel on
1030 irc.freenode.net IRC server</a>.</p>
1031
1032       </div>
1033       <div class="tags">
1034
1035
1036         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>.
1037
1038
1039       </div>
1040     </div>
1041     <div class="padding"></div>
1042
1043     <div class="entry">
1044       <div class="title">
1045         <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>
1046       </div>
1047       <div class="date">
1048         23rd April 2014
1049       </div>
1050       <div class="body">
1051         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
1052 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
1053 So I implemented one, using
1054 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
1055 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
1056 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
1057 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
1058 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
1059 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
1060
1061 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
1062 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
1063 packages to install.  The first part is in
1064 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
1065 this:</p>
1066
1067 <p><blockquote><pre>
1068 Task: isenkram
1069 Section: hardware
1070 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1071  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1072  proposed.
1073 Test-new-install: mark show
1074 Relevance: 8
1075 Packages: for-current-hardware
1076 </pre></blockquote></p>
1077
1078 <p>The second part is in
1079 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
1080 this:</p>
1081
1082 <p><blockquote><pre>
1083 #!/bin/sh
1084 #
1085 (
1086     isenkram-lookup
1087     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1088 ) | sort -u
1089 </pre></blockquote></p>
1090
1091 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
1092 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
1093 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
1094 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
1095 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
1096 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
1097
1098 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
1099 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
1100 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
1101 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
1102 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
1103 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
1104 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
1105 the python-apt code (bug
1106 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
1107 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
1108 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
1109 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
1110 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
1111 unstable today.</p>
1112
1113 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
1114 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
1115 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
1116 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
1117 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
1118 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
1119 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
1120 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
1121 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
1122
1123 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
1124 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
1125 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
1126 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
1127 package.  See also
1128 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
1129 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
1130 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
1131 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
1132
1133       </div>
1134       <div class="tags">
1135
1136
1137         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>.
1138
1139
1140       </div>
1141     </div>
1142     <div class="padding"></div>
1143
1144     <div class="entry">
1145       <div class="title">
1146         <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>
1147       </div>
1148       <div class="date">
1149         15th April 2014
1150       </div>
1151       <div class="body">
1152         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1153 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
1154 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
1155 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
1156 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
1157 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
1158
1159 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
1160 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
1161 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
1162 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
1163 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
1164 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
1165 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
1166
1167 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1168 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
1169 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
1170 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
1171 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
1172 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
1173 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
1174 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
1175 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
1176 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
1177 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
1178 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
1179
1180 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1181 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1182 become root:</p>
1183
1184 <p><pre>
1185 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1186   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1187   u-boot-tools
1188 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1189   freedom-maker
1190 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1191 </pre></p>
1192
1193 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1194 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1195 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
1196 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1197 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1198 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
1199 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1200 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
1201
1202 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1203 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1204 the preseed values:</p>
1205
1206 <p><pre>
1207 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1208 </pre></p>
1209
1210 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1211 it still work.</p>
1212
1213 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1214 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
1215 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
1216 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1217 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
1218 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1219 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
1220
1221 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1222 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1223 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1224 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1225 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1226 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1227
1228       </div>
1229       <div class="tags">
1230
1231
1232         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>.
1233
1234
1235       </div>
1236     </div>
1237     <div class="padding"></div>
1238
1239     <div class="entry">
1240       <div class="title">
1241         <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>
1242       </div>
1243       <div class="date">
1244          9th April 2014
1245       </div>
1246       <div class="body">
1247         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1248 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
1249 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1250 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1251 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1252 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1253 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1254 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
1255 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1256 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
1257 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
1258 have looked at a system called
1259 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
1260 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
1261
1262 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1263 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1264 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
1265 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1266 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
1267 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1268 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1269 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1270 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
1271 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
1272 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1273 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1274 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
1275
1276 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1277 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
1278 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
1279 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1280 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
1281 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
1282 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1283 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1284 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
1285 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
1286 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1287 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1288 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
1289 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1290 account.</p>
1291
1292 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1293 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
1294 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1295 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1296 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
1297 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
1298 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1299
1300 <p><blockquote><pre>
1301 [s3c]
1302 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1303 backend-login: API-login
1304 backend-password: API-password
1305 fs-passphrase: local-password
1306 </pre></blockquote></p>
1307
1308 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
1309 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1310 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1311 details and password to create it:</p>
1312
1313 <p><blockquote><pre>
1314 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1315 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1316   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1317 Enter backend login:
1318 Enter backend password:
1319 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
1320 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
1321 Enter encryption password:
1322 Confirm encryption password:
1323 Generating random encryption key...
1324 Creating metadata tables...
1325 Dumping metadata...
1326 ..objects..
1327 ..blocks..
1328 ..inodes..
1329 ..inode_blocks..
1330 ..symlink_targets..
1331 ..names..
1332 ..contents..
1333 ..ext_attributes..
1334 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1335 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1336 # </pre></blockquote></p>
1337
1338 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1339
1340 <p><blockquote><pre>
1341 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1342   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1343 Using 4 upload threads.
1344 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1345 Reading metadata...
1346 ..objects..
1347 ..blocks..
1348 ..inodes..
1349 ..inode_blocks..
1350 ..symlink_targets..
1351 ..names..
1352 ..contents..
1353 ..ext_attributes..
1354 Mounting filesystem...
1355 # df -h /s3ql
1356 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1357 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
1358 #
1359 </pre></blockquote></p>
1360
1361 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
1362 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1363 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1364 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1365 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1366 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1367
1368 <p><blockquote><pre>
1369 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1370 #
1371 </pre></blockquote></p>
1372
1373 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1374 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
1375 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
1376 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
1377 file system:</p>
1378
1379 <p><blockquote><pre>
1380 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1381 Using cached metadata.
1382 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1383 Checking DB integrity...
1384 Creating temporary extra indices...
1385 Checking lost+found...
1386 Checking cached objects...
1387 Checking names (refcounts)...
1388 Checking contents (names)...
1389 Checking contents (inodes)...
1390 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1391 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1392 Checking objects (backend)...
1393 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1394 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1395 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1396 Checking objects (sizes)...
1397 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1398 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1399 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1400 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1401 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1402 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1403 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1404 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1405 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1406 Checking directory reachability...
1407 Checking unix conventions...
1408 Checking referential integrity...
1409 Dropping temporary indices...
1410 Backing up old metadata...
1411 Dumping metadata...
1412 ..objects..
1413 ..blocks..
1414 ..inodes..
1415 ..inode_blocks..
1416 ..symlink_targets..
1417 ..names..
1418 ..contents..
1419 ..ext_attributes..
1420 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1421 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1422 #
1423 </pre></blockquote></p>
1424
1425 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1426 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1427 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1428 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1429 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1430 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1431 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1432 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1433 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1434 working set.</p>
1435
1436 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1437 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1438 busy:</p>
1439
1440 <p><blockquote><pre>
1441 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1442   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1443 Using 8 upload threads.
1444 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1445 #
1446 </pre></blockquote></p>
1447
1448 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1449 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
1450 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1451 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1452 s3qlctrl:
1453
1454 <p><blockquote><pre>
1455 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1456 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1457 #
1458 </pre></blockquote></p>
1459
1460 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1461 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1462 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1463 a report:</p>
1464
1465 <p><blockquote><pre>
1466 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1467 Directory entries:    9141
1468 Inodes:               9143
1469 Data blocks:          8851
1470 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
1471 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1472 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1473 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1474 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1475 #
1476 </pre></blockquote></p>
1477
1478 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1479 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1480 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
1481 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
1482 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
1483 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
1484 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
1485 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
1486 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1487 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1488 best.</p>
1489
1490 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1491 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
1492 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1493 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
1494 poster is titled
1495 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
1496 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1497 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
1498 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1499 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
1500
1501 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1502 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1503 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1504 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
1505 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
1506 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
1507 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
1508 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
1509
1510 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1511 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1512 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
1513 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
1514 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1515 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1516 only read from it.</p>
1517
1518 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1519 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1520 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1521
1522       </div>
1523       <div class="tags">
1524
1525
1526         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>.
1527
1528
1529       </div>
1530     </div>
1531     <div class="padding"></div>
1532
1533     <div class="entry">
1534       <div class="title">
1535         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ReactOS_Windows_clone___nice_free_software.html">ReactOS Windows clone - nice free software</a>
1536       </div>
1537       <div class="date">
1538          1st April 2014
1539       </div>
1540       <div class="body">
1541         <p>Microsoft have announced that Windows XP reaches its end of life
1542 2014-04-08, in 7 days.  But there are heaps of machines still running
1543 Windows XP, and depending on Windows XP to run their applications, and
1544 upgrading will be expensive, both when it comes to money and when it
1545 comes to the amount of effort needed to migrate from Windows XP to a
1546 new operating system.  Some obvious options (buy new a Windows
1547 machine, buy a MacOSX machine, install Linux on the existing machine)
1548 are already well known and covered elsewhere.  Most of them involve
1549 leaving the user applications installed on Windows XP behind and
1550 trying out replacements or updated versions. In this blog post I want
1551 to mention one strange bird that allow people to keep the hardware and
1552 the existing Windows XP applications and run them on a free software
1553 operating system that is Windows XP compatible.</p>
1554
1555 <p><a href="http://www.reactos.org/">ReactOS</a> is a free software
1556 operating system (GNU GPL licensed) working on providing a operating
1557 system that is binary compatible with Windows, able to run windows
1558 programs directly and to use Windows drivers for hardware directly.
1559 The project goal is for Windows user to keep their existing machines,
1560 drivers and software, and gain the advantages from user a operating
1561 system without usage limitations caused by non-free licensing.  It is
1562 a Windows clone running directly on the hardware, so quite different
1563 from the approach taken by <a href="http://www.winehq.org/">the Wine
1564 project</a>, which make it possible to run Windows binaries on
1565 Linux.</p>
1566
1567 <p>The ReactOS project share code with the Wine project, so most
1568 shared libraries available on Windows are already implemented already.
1569 There is also a software manager like the one we are used to on Linux,
1570 allowing the user to install free software applications with a simple
1571 click directly from the Internet.  Check out the
1572 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/screenshots">screen shots on the
1573 project web site</a> for an idea what it look like (it looks just like
1574 Windows before metro).</p>
1575
1576 <p>I do not use ReactOS myself, preferring Linux and Unix like
1577 operating systems.  I've tested it, and it work fine in a virt-manager
1578 virtual machine.  The browser, minesweeper, notepad etc is working
1579 fine as far as I can tell.  Unfortunately, my main test application
1580 is the software included on a CD with the Lego Mindstorms NXT, which
1581 seem to install just fine from CD but fail to leave any binaries on
1582 the disk after the installation.  So no luck with that test software.
1583 No idea why, but hope someone else figure out and fix the problem.
1584 I've tried the ReactOS Live ISO on a physical machine, and it seemed
1585 to work just fine.  If you like Windows and want to keep running your
1586 old Windows binaries, check it out by
1587 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/download">downloading</a> the
1588 installation CD, the live CD or the preinstalled virtual machine
1589 image.</p>
1590
1591       </div>
1592       <div class="tags">
1593
1594
1595         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos</a>.
1596
1597
1598       </div>
1599     </div>
1600     <div class="padding"></div>
1601
1602     <div class="entry">
1603       <div class="title">
1604         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html">Debian Edu interview: Roger Marsal</a>
1605       </div>
1606       <div class="date">
1607         30th March 2014
1608       </div>
1609       <div class="body">
1610         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
1611 keep gaining new users.  Some weeks ago, a person showed up on IRC,
1612 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>, with a
1613 wish to contribute, and I managed to get a interview with this great
1614 contributor Roger Marsal to learn more about his background.</p>
1615
1616 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1617
1618 <p>My name is Roger Marsal, I'm 27 years old (1986 generation) and I
1619 live in Barcelona, Spain. I've got a strong business background and I
1620 work as a patrimony manager and as a real estate agent.  Additionally,
1621 I've co-founded a British based tech company that is nowadays on the
1622 last development phase of a new social networking concept.</p>
1623
1624 <p>I'm a Linux enthusiast that started its journey with Ubuntu four years
1625 ago and have recently switched to Debian seeking rock solid stability
1626 and as a necessary step to gain expertise.</p>
1627
1628 <p>In a nutshell, I spend my days working and learning as much as I
1629 can to face both my job, entrepreneur project and feed my Linux
1630 hunger.</p>
1631
1632 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1633 project?</strong></p>
1634
1635 <p>I discovered the <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP</a> advantages
1636 with "Ubuntu 12.04 alternate install" and after a year of use I
1637 started looking for an alternative.  Even though I highly value and
1638 respect the Ubuntu project, I thought it was necessary for me to
1639 change to a more robust and stable alternative.  As far as I was using
1640 Debian on my personal laptop I thought it would be fine to install
1641 Debian and configure an LTSP server myself.  Surprised, I discovered
1642 that the Debian project also supported a kind of Edubuntu equivalent,
1643 and after having some pain I obtained a Debian Edu network up and
1644 running.  I just loved it.</p>
1645
1646 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1647 Edu?</strong></p>
1648
1649 <p>I found a main advantage in that, once you know "the tips and
1650 tricks", a new installation just works out of the box. It's the most
1651 complete alternative I've found to create an LTSP network. All the
1652 other distributions seems to be made of plastic, Debian Edu seems to
1653 be made of steel.</p>
1654
1655 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1656 Edu?</strong></p>
1657
1658 <p>I found two main disadvantages.</p>
1659
1660 <p>I'm not an expert but I've got notions and I had to spent a considerable
1661 amount of time trying to bring up a standard network topology. I'm quite
1662 stubborn and I just worked until I did but I'm sure many people with few
1663 resources (not big schools, but academies for example) would have switched
1664 or dropped.</p>
1665
1666 <p>It's amazing how such a complex system like Debian Edu has achieved
1667 this out-of-the-box state. Even though tweaking without breaking gets
1668 more difficult, as more factors have to be considered. This can
1669 discourage many people too.</p>
1670
1671 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1672
1673 <p>I use Debian, Firefox, Okular, Inkscape, LibreOffice and
1674 Virtualbox.</p>
1675
1676
1677 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1678 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1679
1680 <p>I don't think there is a need for a particular strategy. The free
1681 attribute in both "freedom" and "no price" meanings is what will
1682 really bring free software to schools. In my experience I can think of
1683 the <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">"R" statistical language</a>; a
1684 few years a ago was an extremely nerd tool for university people.
1685 Today it's being increasingly used to teach statistics at many
1686 different level of studies.  I believe free and open software will
1687 increasingly gain popularity, but I'm sure schools will be one of the
1688 first scenarios where this will happen.</p>
1689
1690       </div>
1691       <div class="tags">
1692
1693
1694         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>.
1695
1696
1697       </div>
1698     </div>
1699     <div class="padding"></div>
1700
1701     <div class="entry">
1702       <div class="title">
1703         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Public_Trusted_Timestamping_services_for_everyone.html">Public Trusted Timestamping services for everyone</a>
1704       </div>
1705       <div class="date">
1706         25th March 2014
1707       </div>
1708       <div class="body">
1709         <p>Did you ever need to store logs or other files in a way that would
1710 allow it to be used as evidence in court, and needed a way to
1711 demonstrate without reasonable doubt that the file had not been
1712 changed since it was created?  Or, did you ever need to document that
1713 a given document was received at some point in time, like some
1714 archived document or the answer to an exam, and not changed after it
1715 was received?  The problem in these settings is to remove the need to
1716 trust yourself and your computers, while still being able to prove
1717 that a file is the same as it was at some given time in the past.</p>
1718
1719 <p>A solution to these problems is to have a trusted third party
1720 "stamp" the document and verify that at some given time the document
1721 looked a given way.  Such
1722 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notarius">notarius</a> service
1723 have been around for thousands of years, and its digital equivalent is
1724 called a
1725 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping">trusted
1726 timestamping service</a>.  <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">The Internet
1727 Engineering Task Force</a> standardised how such service could work a
1728 few years ago as <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3161">RFC
1729 3161</a>.  The mechanism is simple.  Create a hash of the file in
1730 question, send it to a trusted third party which add a time stamp to
1731 the hash and sign the result with its private key, and send back the
1732 signed hash + timestamp.  Both email, FTP and HTTP can be used to
1733 request such signature, depending on what is provided by the service
1734 used. Anyone with the document and the signature can then verify that
1735 the document matches the signature by creating their own hash and
1736 checking the signature using the trusted third party public key.
1737 There are several commercial services around providing such
1738 timestamping.  A quick search for
1739 "<a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rfc+3161+service">rfc 3161
1740 service</a>" pointed me to at least
1741 <a href="https://www.digistamp.com/technical/how-a-digital-time-stamp-works/">DigiStamp</a>,
1742 <a href="http://www.quovadisglobal.co.uk/CertificateServices/SigningServices/TimeStamp.aspx">Quo
1743 Vadis</a>,
1744 <a href="https://www.globalsign.com/timestamp-service/">Global Sign</a>
1745 and <a href="http://www.globaltrustfinder.com/TSADefault.aspx">Global
1746 Trust Finder</a>.  The system work as long as the private key of the
1747 trusted third party is not compromised.</p>
1748
1749 <p>But as far as I can tell, there are very few public trusted
1750 timestamp services available for everyone.  I've been looking for one
1751 for a while now. But yesterday I found one over at
1752 <a href="https://www.pki.dfn.de/zeitstempeldienst/">Deutches
1753 Forschungsnetz</a> mentioned in
1754 <a href="http://www.d-mueller.de/blog/dealing-with-trusted-timestamps-in-php-rfc-3161/">a
1755 blog by David Müller</a>.  I then found
1756 <a href="http://www.rz.uni-greifswald.de/support/dfn-pki-zertifikate/zeitstempeldienst.html">a
1757 good recipe on how to use the service</a> over at the University of
1758 Greifswald.</p>
1759
1760 <p><a href="http://www.openssl.org/">The OpenSSL library</a> contain
1761 both server and tools to use and set up your own signing service.  See
1762 the ts(1SSL), tsget(1SSL) manual pages for more details.  The
1763 following shell script demonstrate how to extract a signed timestamp
1764 for any file on the disk in a Debian environment:</p>
1765
1766 <p><blockquote><pre>
1767 #!/bin/sh
1768 set -e
1769 url="http://zeitstempel.dfn.de"
1770 caurl="https://pki.pca.dfn.de/global-services-ca/pub/cacert/chain.txt"
1771 reqfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsq)
1772 resfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsr)
1773 cafile=chain.txt
1774 if [ ! -f $cafile ] ; then
1775     wget -O $cafile "$caurl"
1776 fi
1777 openssl ts -query -data "$1" -cert | tee "$reqfile" \
1778     | /usr/lib/ssl/misc/tsget -h "$url" -o "$resfile"
1779 openssl ts -reply -in "$resfile" -text 1>&2
1780 openssl ts -verify -data "$1" -in "$resfile" -CAfile "$cafile" 1>&2
1781 base64 < "$resfile"
1782 rm "$reqfile" "$resfile"
1783 </pre></blockquote></p>
1784
1785 <p>The argument to the script is the file to timestamp, and the output
1786 is a base64 encoded version of the signature to STDOUT and details
1787 about the signature to STDERR.  Note that due to
1788 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=742553">a bug
1789 in the tsget script</a>, you might need to modify the included script
1790 and remove the last line.  Or just write your own HTTP uploader using
1791 curl. :) Now you too can prove and verify that files have not been
1792 changed.</p>
1793
1794 <p>But the Internet need more public trusted timestamp services.
1795 Perhaps something for <a href="http://www.uninett.no/">Uninett</a> or
1796 my work place the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
1797 to set up?</p>
1798
1799       </div>
1800       <div class="tags">
1801
1802
1803         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>.
1804
1805
1806       </div>
1807     </div>
1808     <div class="padding"></div>
1809
1810     <div class="entry">
1811       <div class="title">
1812         <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>
1813       </div>
1814       <div class="date">
1815         21st March 2014
1816       </div>
1817       <div class="body">
1818         <p>Keeping your DVD collection safe from scratches and curious
1819 children fingers while still having it available when you want to see a
1820 movie is not straight forward.  My preferred method at the moment is
1821 to store a full copy of the ISO on a hard drive, and use VLC, Popcorn
1822 Hour or other useful players to view the resulting file.  This way the
1823 subtitles and bonus material are still available and using the ISO is
1824 just like inserting the original DVD record in the DVD player.</p>
1825
1826 <p>Earlier I used dd for taking security copies, but it do not handle
1827 DVDs giving read errors (which are quite a few of them).  I've also
1828 tried using
1829 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">dvdbackup
1830 and genisoimage</a>, but these days I use the marvellous python library
1831 and program
1832 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">python-dvdvideo</a>
1833 written by Bastian Blank.  It is
1834 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/python-dvdvideo.html">in Debian
1835 already</a> and the binary package name is python3-dvdvideo. Instead
1836 of trying to read every block from the DVD, it parses the file
1837 structure and figure out which block on the DVD is actually in used,
1838 and only read those blocks from the DVD.  This work surprisingly well,
1839 and I have been able to almost backup my entire DVD collection using
1840 this method.</p>
1841
1842 <p>So far, python-dvdvideo have failed on between 10 and
1843 20 DVDs, which is a small fraction of my collection.  The most common
1844 problem is
1845 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720831">DVDs
1846 using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8 characters</a>, which according to
1847 Bastian is against the DVD specification (and seem to cause some
1848 players to fail too).  A rarer problem is what seem to be inconsistent
1849 DVD structures, as the python library
1850 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=723079">claim
1851 there is a overlap between objects</a>.  An equally rare problem claim
1852 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=741878">some
1853 value is out of range</a>.  No idea what is going on there.  I wish I
1854 knew enough about the DVD format to fix these, to ensure my movie
1855 collection will stay with me in the future.</p>
1856
1857 <p>So, if you need to keep your DVDs safe, back them up using
1858 python-dvdvideo. :)</p>
1859
1860       </div>
1861       <div class="tags">
1862
1863
1864         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/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
1865
1866
1867       </div>
1868     </div>
1869     <div class="padding"></div>
1870
1871     <div class="entry">
1872       <div class="title">
1873         <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>
1874       </div>
1875       <div class="date">
1876         14th March 2014
1877       </div>
1878       <div class="body">
1879         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1880 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1881 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1882 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1883 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
1884 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1885 release (0.2).</p>
1886
1887 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1888 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
1889 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1890 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1891 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1892 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1893 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1894 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1895 and build using
1896 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
1897 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1898
1899 <pre>
1900 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1901   freedom-maker
1902 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1903   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1904   u-boot-tools
1905 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1906 </pre>
1907
1908 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1909 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1910 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1911 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1912 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1913 kpartx call.</p>
1914
1915 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1916 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1917 the preseed values:</p>
1918
1919 <pre>
1920 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1921 </pre>
1922
1923 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1924 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1925 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1926 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1927 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1928 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1929
1930 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1931 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1932 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1933 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1934 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1935 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1936
1937       </div>
1938       <div class="tags">
1939
1940
1941         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>.
1942
1943
1944       </div>
1945     </div>
1946     <div class="padding"></div>
1947
1948     <div class="entry">
1949       <div class="title">
1950         <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>
1951       </div>
1952       <div class="date">
1953         12th March 2014
1954       </div>
1955       <div class="body">
1956         <p>On larger sites, it is useful to use a dedicated storage server for
1957 storing user home directories and data.  The design for handling this
1958 in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, is
1959 to update the automount rules in LDAP and let the automount daemon on
1960 the clients take care of the rest.  I was reminded about the need to
1961 document this better when one of the customers of
1962 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a>, where I am
1963 on the board of directors, asked about how to do this.  The steps to
1964 get this working are the following:</p>
1965
1966 <p><ol>
1967
1968 <li>Add new storage server in DNS.  I use nas-server.intern as the
1969 example host here.</li>
1970
1971 <li>Add automoun LDAP information about this server in LDAP, to allow
1972 all clients to automatically mount it on reqeust.</li>
1973
1974 <li>Add the relevant entries in tjener.intern:/etc/fstab, because
1975 tjener.intern do not use automount to avoid mounting loops.</li>
1976
1977 </ol></p>
1978
1979 <p>DNS entries are added in GOsa², and not described here.  Follow the
1980 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/GettingStarted">instructions
1981 in the manual</a> (Machine Management with GOsa² in section Getting
1982 started).</p>
1983
1984 <p>Ensure that the NFS export points on the server are exported to the
1985 relevant subnets or machines:</p>
1986
1987 <p><blockquote><pre>
1988 root@tjener:~# showmount -e nas-server
1989 Export list for nas-server:
1990 /storage         10.0.0.0/8
1991 root@tjener:~#
1992 </pre></blockquote></p>
1993
1994 <p>Here everything on the backbone network is granted access to the
1995 /storage export.  With NFSv3 it is slightly better to limit it to
1996 netgroup membership or single IP addresses to have some limits on the
1997 NFS access.</p>
1998
1999 <p>The next step is to update LDAP.  This can not be done using GOsa²,
2000 because it lack a module for automount.  Instead, use ldapvi and add
2001 the required LDAP objects using an editor.</p>
2002
2003 <p><blockquote><pre>
2004 ldapvi --ldap-conf -ZD '(cn=admin)' -b ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2005 </pre></blockquote></p>
2006
2007 <p>When the editor show up, add the following LDAP objects at the
2008 bottom of the document.  The "/&" part in the last LDAP object is a
2009 wild card matching everything the nas-server exports, removing the
2010 need to list individual mount points in LDAP.</p>
2011
2012 <p><blockquote><pre>
2013 add cn=nas-server,ou=auto.skole,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2014 objectClass: automount
2015 cn: nas-server
2016 automountInformation: -fstype=autofs --timeout=60 ldap:ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2017
2018 add ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2019 objectClass: top
2020 objectClass: automountMap
2021 ou: auto.nas-server
2022
2023 add cn=/,ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2024 objectClass: automount
2025 cn: /
2026 automountInformation: -fstype=nfs,tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,intr,hard,nodev,nosuid,noatime nas-server.intern:/&
2027 </pre></blockquote></p>
2028
2029 <p>The last step to remember is to mount the relevant mount points in
2030 tjener.intern by adding them to /etc/fstab, creating the mount
2031 directories using mkdir and running "mount -a" to mount them.</p>
2032
2033 <p>When this is done, your users should be able to access the files on
2034 the storage server directly by just visiting the
2035 /tjener/nas-server/storage/ directory using any application on any
2036 workstation, LTSP client or LTSP server.</p>
2037
2038       </div>
2039       <div class="tags">
2040
2041
2042         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>.
2043
2044
2045       </div>
2046     </div>
2047     <div class="padding"></div>
2048
2049     <div class="entry">
2050       <div class="title">
2051         <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>
2052       </div>
2053       <div class="date">
2054         22nd February 2014
2055       </div>
2056       <div class="body">
2057         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
2058 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
2059 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
2060 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
2061 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
2062 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
2063 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
2064 proper home since then.</p>
2065
2066 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
2067 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
2068 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
2069 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
2070 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
2071
2072 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
2073 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
2074 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
2075 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
2076 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
2077 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
2078 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
2079 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
2080 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
2081
2082       </div>
2083       <div class="tags">
2084
2085
2086         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>.
2087
2088
2089       </div>
2090     </div>
2091     <div class="padding"></div>
2092
2093     <div class="entry">
2094       <div class="title">
2095         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
2096       </div>
2097       <div class="date">
2098          3rd February 2014
2099       </div>
2100       <div class="body">
2101         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
2102 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
2103 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
2104 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
2105 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
2106 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
2107 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
2108 <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>,
2109 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
2110
2111 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
2112 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
2113 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
2114 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
2115 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
2116 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
2117
2118 <p><blockquote><pre>
2119 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
2120 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
2121 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
2122 dhclient /dev/eth0
2123 </pre></blockquote></p>
2124
2125 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
2126 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
2127 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
2128
2129 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
2130 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
2131 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
2132 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
2133 side.</p>
2134
2135 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
2136 stuff:</p>
2137
2138 <p><blockquote><pre>
2139 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
2140 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
2141 EOF
2142 apt-get update
2143 apt-get dist-upgrade
2144 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
2145     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
2146 update-alternatives --config runsystem
2147 </pre></blockquote></p>
2148
2149 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
2150 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
2151 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
2152 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
2153 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
2154 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
2155 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
2156 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
2157 ssh instead.
2158
2159 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
2160 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
2161 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
2162 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
2163 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
2164 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
2165
2166 <p><blockquote><pre>
2167 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
2168 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
2169 EOF
2170 </pre></blockquote></p>
2171
2172 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
2173 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
2174 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
2175 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
2176
2177 <p><blockquote><pre>
2178 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
2179 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
2180 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
2181 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
2182 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
2183 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
2184 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
2185 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
2186 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
2187 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
2188 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
2189 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
2190 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
2191 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
2192 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
2193 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
2194 #
2195 </pre></blockquote></p>
2196
2197 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
2198 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
2199 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
2200 command line stuff.<p>
2201
2202       </div>
2203       <div class="tags">
2204
2205
2206         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>.
2207
2208
2209       </div>
2210     </div>
2211     <div class="padding"></div>
2212
2213     <div class="entry">
2214       <div class="title">
2215         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_fist_full_of_non_anonymous_Bitcoins.html">A fist full of non-anonymous Bitcoins</a>
2216       </div>
2217       <div class="date">
2218         29th January 2014
2219       </div>
2220       <div class="body">
2221         <p>Bitcoin is a incredible use of peer to peer communication and
2222 encryption, allowing direct and immediate money transfer without any
2223 central control.  It is sometimes claimed to be ideal for illegal
2224 activity, which I believe is quite a long way from the truth.  At least
2225 I would not conduct illegal money transfers using a system where the
2226 details of every transaction are kept forever.  This point is
2227 investigated in
2228 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">USENIX ;login:</a>
2229 from December 2013, in the article
2230 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/03_meiklejohn-online.pdf">A
2231 Fistful of Bitcoins - Characterizing Payments Among Men with No
2232 Names</a>" by Sarah Meiklejohn, Marjori Pomarole,Grant Jordan, Kirill
2233 Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker, and Stefan Savage.  They
2234 analyse the transaction log in the Bitcoin system, using it to find
2235 addresses belong to individuals and organisations and follow the flow
2236 of money from both Bitcoin theft and trades on Silk Road to where the
2237 money end up.  This is how they wrap up their article:</p>
2238
2239 <p><blockquote>
2240 <p>"To demonstrate the usefulness of this type of analysis, we turned
2241 our attention to criminal activity. In the Bitcoin economy, criminal
2242 activity can appear in a number of forms, such as dealing drugs on
2243 Silk Road or simply stealing someone else’s bitcoins. We followed the
2244 flow of bitcoins out of Silk Road (in particular, from one notorious
2245 address) and from a number of highly publicized thefts to see whether
2246 we could track the bitcoins to known services. Although some of the
2247 thieves attempted to use sophisticated mixing techniques (or possibly
2248 mix services) to obscure the flow of bitcoins, for the most part
2249 tracking the bitcoins was quite straightforward, and we ultimately saw
2250 large quantities of bitcoins flow to a variety of exchanges directly
2251 from the point of theft (or the withdrawal from Silk Road).</p>
2252
2253 <p>As acknowledged above, following stolen bitcoins to the point at
2254 which they are deposited into an exchange does not in itself identify
2255 the thief; however, it does enable further de-anonymization in the
2256 case in which certain agencies can determine (through, for example,
2257 subpoena power) the real-world owner of the account into which the
2258 stolen bitcoins were deposited.  Because such exchanges seem to serve
2259 as chokepoints into and out of the Bitcoin economy (i.e., there are
2260 few alternative ways to cash out), we conclude that using Bitcoin for
2261 money laundering or other illicit purposes does not (at least at
2262 present) seem to be particularly attractive."</p>
2263 </blockquote><p>
2264
2265 <p>These researches are not the first to analyse the Bitcoin
2266 transaction log.  The 2011 paper
2267 "<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4524">An Analysis of Anonymity in
2268 the Bitcoin System</A>" by Fergal Reid and Martin Harrigan is
2269 summarized like this:</p>
2270
2271 <p><blockquote>
2272 "Anonymity in Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic currency system, is a
2273 complicated issue. Within the system, users are identified by
2274 public-keys only. An attacker wishing to de-anonymize its users will
2275 attempt to construct the one-to-many mapping between users and
2276 public-keys and associate information external to the system with the
2277 users. Bitcoin tries to prevent this attack by storing the mapping of
2278 a user to his or her public-keys on that user's node only and by
2279 allowing each user to generate as many public-keys as required. In
2280 this chapter we consider the topological structure of two networks
2281 derived from Bitcoin's public transaction history. We show that the
2282 two networks have a non-trivial topological structure, provide
2283 complementary views of the Bitcoin system and have implications for
2284 anonymity. We combine these structures with external information and
2285 techniques such as context discovery and flow analysis to investigate
2286 an alleged theft of Bitcoins, which, at the time of the theft, had a
2287 market value of approximately half a million U.S. dollars."
2288 </blockquote></p>
2289
2290 <p>I hope these references can help kill the urban myth that Bitcoin
2291 is anonymous.  It isn't really a good fit for illegal activites.  Use
2292 cash if you need to stay anonymous, at least until regular DNA
2293 sampling of notes and coins become the norm. :)</p>
2294
2295 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2296 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2297 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2298
2299       </div>
2300       <div class="tags">
2301
2302
2303         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>.
2304
2305
2306       </div>
2307     </div>
2308     <div class="padding"></div>
2309
2310     <div class="entry">
2311       <div class="title">
2312         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
2313       </div>
2314       <div class="date">
2315         14th January 2014
2316       </div>
2317       <div class="body">
2318         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
2319 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
2320 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
2321 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
2322 the source.  The company behind it provide
2323 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
2324 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
2325 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
2326 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
2327 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
2328 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
2329 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
2330 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
2331 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
2332 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
2333 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
2334 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
2335 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
2336 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
2337 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
2338 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
2339 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
2340 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
2341 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
2342
2343 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
2344
2345 <ul>
2346
2347   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
2348   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
2349   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
2350
2351 </ul>
2352
2353 <p>You can
2354 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2355 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2356 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2357 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2358 include a test suite check.</p>
2359
2360       </div>
2361       <div class="tags">
2362
2363
2364         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>.
2365
2366
2367       </div>
2368     </div>
2369     <div class="padding"></div>
2370
2371     <div class="entry">
2372       <div class="title">
2373         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html">Debian Edu interview: Dominik George</a>
2374       </div>
2375       <div class="date">
2376         25th December 2013
2377       </div>
2378       <div class="body">
2379         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2380 project</a> consist of both newcomers and old timers, and this time I
2381 was able to get an interview with a newcomer in the project who showed
2382 up on the IRC channel a few weeks ago to let us know about his
2383 successful installation of Debian Edu Wheezy in his School.  Say hello
2384 to <a href="https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/Natureshadow">Dominik
2385 George</a>.</p>
2386
2387 <!-- http://www.dominik-george.de/images/foto.jpg -->
2388
2389 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2390
2391 <p>I am a 23 year-old student from Germany who has spent half of his
2392 life with open source. In "real life", I am, as already mentioned, a
2393 student in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
2394 Information Technologies and Anglistics. Due to my (only partially
2395 voluntary) huge engagement in the open source world, these things are
2396 a bit vacant right now however.</p>
2397
2398 <p>I also have been working as a project teacher at a Gymasnium
2399 (public school) for various years now. I took up that work some time
2400 around 2005 when still attending that school myself and have continued
2401 it until today. I also had been running the (kind of very advanced)
2402 network of that school together with a team of very interested and
2403 talented students in the age of 11 to 15 years, who took the chance to
2404 learn a lot about open source and networking before I left the school
2405 to help building another school's informational education concept from
2406 scratch.</p>
2407
2408 <p>That said, one might see me as a kind of "glue" between school kids
2409 and the elderly of teachers as well as between the open source
2410 ecosystem and the (even more complex) educational ecosystem.</p>
2411
2412 <p>When I am not busy with open source or education, I like Geocaching
2413 and cycling.</p>
2414
2415 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
2416 project?</strong></p>
2417
2418 <p>I think that happened some time around 2009 when I first attended
2419 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">FrOSCon</a> and visited the project
2420 booth. I think I wasn't too interested back then because I used to
2421 have an attitude of disliking software that does too much stuff on its
2422 own. Maybe I was too inexperienced to realise the upsides of an
2423 "out-of-the-box" solution ;).</p>
2424
2425 <p>The first time I actively talked to Skolelinux people was at
2426 <a href="http://www.openrheinruhr.de">OpenRheinRuhr</a> 2011 when the
2427 BiscuIT project, a home-grewn software used by my school for various
2428 really cool things from timetables and class contact lists to lunch
2429 ordering, student ID card printing and project elections first got to
2430 a stage where it could have been published. I asked the Skolelinux
2431 guys running the booth if the project were interested in it and gave a
2432 small demonstration, but there wasn't any real feedback and the guys
2433 seemed rather uninterested.</p>
2434
2435 <p>After I left the school where I developed the software, it got
2436 mostly lost, but I am now reimplementing it for my new school. I have
2437 reusability and compatibility in mind, and I hop there will be a new
2438 basis for contributing it to the Skolelinux project ;)!</p>
2439
2440 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2441 Edu?</strong></p>
2442
2443 <p>The most important advantage seems to be that it "just
2444 works". After overcoming some minor (but still very annoying) glitches
2445 in the installer, I got a fully functional, working school network,
2446 without the month-long hassle I experienced when setting all that up
2447 from scratch in earlier years. And above that, it rocked - I didn't
2448 have any real hardware at hand, because the school was just founded
2449 and has no money whatsoever, so I installed a combined server (main
2450 server, terminal services and workstation) in a VM on my personal
2451 notebook, bridging the LTSP network interface to the ethernet port,
2452 and then PXE-booted the Windows notebooks that were lying around from
2453 it. I could use 8 clients without any performance issues, by using a
2454 tiny little VM on a tiny little notebook. I think that's enough to say
2455 that it rocks!</p>
2456
2457 <p>Secondly, there are marketing reasons. Life's bad, and so no
2458 politician will ever permit a setup described as "Debian, an universal
2459 operating system, with some really cool educational tools" while they
2460 will be jsut fine with "Skolelinux, a single-purpose solution for your
2461 school network", even if both turn out to be the very same thing (yes,
2462 this is unfair towards the Skolelinux project, and must not be taken
2463 too seriously - you get the idea, anyway).</p>
2464
2465 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2466 Edu?</strong></p>
2467
2468 <p>I have not been involved with Skolelinux long enough to really
2469 answer this question in a fair way. Thus, please allow me to put it in
2470 other words: "What do you expect from Skolelinux to keep liking it?" I
2471 can list a few points about that:</p>
2472
2473 <ul>
2474
2475  <li>always strive to get all things integrated into Debian upstream
2476  <li>be open to discussion about changes and the like, even with newcomers
2477  <li>be helpful at being helpful ;)
2478
2479 </ul>
2480
2481 <p>I'm really sorry I cannot say much more about that :(!</p>
2482
2483 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2484
2485 <p>First of all, all software I use is free and open. I have abandoned
2486 all non-free software (except for firmware on my darned phone) this
2487 year.</p>
2488
2489 <p>I run Debian GNU/Linux on all PC systems I use. On that, I mostly
2490 run text tools. I use
2491 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm">mksh</a> as shell,
2492 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm">jupp</a> as very advanced
2493 text editor (I even got the developer to help me write a script/macro
2494 based full-featured student management software with the two),
2495 <a href="http://mcabber.com/">mcabber</a> for XMPP and
2496 <a href="http://www.irssi.org/">irssi</a> for IRC. For that overly
2497 coloured world called the WWW, I use
2498 <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Iceweasel
2499 (Firefox)</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a> for
2500 e-mail.</p>
2501
2502 <p>However, while I am personally aware of the fact that text tools
2503 are more efficient and powerful than anything else, I also use (or at
2504 least operate) some tools that are suitable to bring open source to
2505 kids. One of these things is <a href="http://jappix.org/">Jappix</a>,
2506 which I already introduced to some kids even before they got aware of
2507 Facebook, making them see for themselves that they do not need
2508 Facebook now ;).</p>
2509
2510 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2511 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2512
2513 <p>Well, that's a two-sided thing. One side is what I believe, and one
2514 side is what I have experienced.</p>
2515
2516 <p>I believe that the right strategy is showing them the benefits. But
2517 that won't work out as long as the acceptance of free alternatives
2518 grows globally. What I mean is that if all the kids are almost forced
2519 to use Windows, Facebook, Skype, you name it at home, they will not
2520 see why they would want to use alternatives at school. I have seen
2521 students take seat in front of a fully-functional, modern Debian
2522 desktop that could do anything their Windows at home could do, and
2523 they jsut refused to use it because "Linux sucks". It is something
2524 that makes the council of our city spend around 600000 € to buy
2525 software - not including hardware, mind you - for operating school
2526 networks, and for installing a system that, as has been proved, does
2527 not work. For those of you readers who are good at maths, have you
2528 already found out how many lives could have been saved with that money
2529 if we had instead used it to bring education to parts of the world
2530 that need it? I have, and found it to be nothing less dramatic than
2531 plain criminal.</p>
2532
2533 <p>That said, the only feasible way appears to be the bottom up
2534 method. We have to bring free software to kids and parents. I have
2535 founded an association named
2536 <a href="https://www.teckids.org">Teckids</a> here in Germany that does
2537 just that. We organise several events for kids and adolescents in the
2538 area of free and open source software, for example the
2539 <a href="http://kids.froscon.org">FrogLabs</a>, which share staff with
2540 Teckids and are the youth programme of
2541 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">the Free and Open Source Software
2542 Conference (FrOSCon)</a>. We do a lot more than most other conferences
2543 - this year, we first offered the FrogLabs as a holiday camp for kids
2544 aged 10 to 16. It was a huge success, with approx. 30 kids taking part
2545 and learning with and about free software through a whole weekend. All
2546 of us had a lot of fun, and the results were really exciting.</p>
2547
2548 <p>Apart from that, we are preparing a campaign that is supposed to bring
2549 the message of free alternatives to stuff kids use every day to them and
2550 their parents, e.g. the use of Jabber / Jappix instead of Facebook and
2551 Skype. To make that possible, we are planning to get together a team of
2552 clever kids who understand very well what their peers need and can bring
2553 it across to them. So we will have a peer-driven network of adolescents
2554 who teach each other and collect feedback from the community of minors.
2555 We then take that feedback and our own experience to work closely with
2556 open source projects, such as Skolelinux or Jappix, at improving their
2557 software in a way that makes it more and more attractive for the target
2558 group. At least I hope that we will have good cooperation with
2559 Skolelinux in the future ;)!</p>
2560
2561 <p>So in conclusion, what I believe is that, if it weren't for the world
2562 being so bad, it should be very clear to the political decision makers
2563 that the only way to go nowadays is free software for various reasons,
2564 but I have learnt that the only way that seems to work is bottom up.</p>
2565
2566 <!--
2567
2568 >  * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
2569
2570 That's probably the hardest question of them all, as I do not know the
2571 community. However, I would be willing to do the following:
2572
2573  <li>Run an interview with a German headteacher who is very open to
2574    free software, and also prefers it, but cannot really use it because
2575    of the decision makers above;
2576  <li>Run interviews with some kids, both with and without previous
2577    knowledge about free software
2578
2579 If that is wanted, just let me know ;).
2580
2581 -->
2582
2583       </div>
2584       <div class="tags">
2585
2586
2587         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>.
2588
2589
2590       </div>
2591     </div>
2592     <div class="padding"></div>
2593
2594     <div class="entry">
2595       <div class="title">
2596         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html">Debian Edu interview: Klaus Knopper</a>
2597       </div>
2598       <div class="date">
2599          6th December 2013
2600       </div>
2601       <div class="body">
2602         <p>It has been a while since I managed to publish the last interview,
2603 but the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2604 Skolelinux</a> community is still going strong, and yesterday we even
2605 had a new school administrator show up on
2606 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a> to share
2607 his success story with installing Debian Edu at their school.  This
2608 time I have been able to get some helpful comments from the creator of
2609 Knoppix, Klaus Knopper, who was involved in a Skolelinux project in
2610 Germany a few years ago.</p>
2611
2612 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2613
2614 <p>I am Klaus Knopper.  I have a master degree in electrical
2615 engineering, and is currently professor in information management at
2616 the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
2617 freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.</p>
2618
2619 <p>All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
2620 from teaching, I'm also conducting some more or less experimental
2621 projects like the <a href="http://www.knoppix.org">Knoppix GNU/Linux live
2622 system</a> (Debian-based like Skolelinux),
2623 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html">ADRIANE</a>
2624 (a blind-friendly talking desktop system) and
2625 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/linbo/index-en.html">LINBO</a>
2626 (Linux-based network boot console, a fast remote install and repair
2627 system supporting various operating systems).</p>
2628
2629 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
2630 project?</strong></p>
2631
2632 <p>The credit for this have to go to Kurt Gramlich, who is the German
2633 coordinator for Skolelinux.  We were looking for an all-in-one open
2634 source community-supported distribution for schools, and Kurt
2635 introduced us to Skolelinux for this purpose.</p>
2636
2637 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2638 Edu?</strong></p>
2639
2640 <ul>
2641   <li>Quick installation,</li>
2642   <li>works (almost) out of the box,</li>
2643   <li>contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,</li>
2644   <li>is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
2645     single company,</li>
2646   <li>has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
2647     experience and problem solutions.</li>
2648 </ul>
2649
2650 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2651 Edu?</strong></p>
2652
2653 <ul>
2654   <li>Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to
2655   the next version.  Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to
2656   a new version means a full new installation from scratch to get it
2657   working again reliably.
2658
2659   <li>Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a
2660   little outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or
2661   similar educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing
2662   as their base.
2663
2664   <li>Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
2665   configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is
2666   not always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network
2667   configuration is actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux
2668   and not easy to change, so schools sometimes have to change their
2669   network configuration to make it "Skolelinux-compatible".
2670
2671   <li>Some proposed extensions, which were made available as
2672   contribution, like secure examination mode and lecture material
2673   distribution and collection, were not accepted into the mainline
2674   Skolelinux development and are now not easy to maintain in the
2675   future because of Skolelinux somewhat undeterministic update
2676   schemes.</li>
2677
2678   <li>Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers
2679   compared to Debian.</li>
2680
2681 </ul>
2682
2683 <p>For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
2684 rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
2685 Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
2686 upgradeable without reinstallation.</p>
2687
2688 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2689
2690 <p>GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
2691 programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
2692 occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
2693 programming languages for teaching.</p>
2694
2695 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2696 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2697
2698 <p>Strong arguments are</p>
2699
2700 <ul>
2701
2702   <li>Knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
2703     teaching and learning.</li>
2704
2705   <li>Students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
2706     home, and at their working place without running into license or
2707     conversion problems.</li>
2708
2709   <li>Closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
2710     than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
2711     customers to certain products.  But teachers need to teach
2712     science, not products.</li>
2713
2714   <li>If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
2715     would you need proprietary software for?</li>
2716
2717 </ul>
2718
2719       </div>
2720       <div class="tags">
2721
2722
2723         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>.
2724
2725
2726       </div>
2727     </div>
2728     <div class="padding"></div>
2729
2730     <div class="entry">
2731       <div class="title">
2732         <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>
2733       </div>
2734       <div class="date">
2735         30th November 2013
2736       </div>
2737       <div class="body">
2738         <p>If you want the ability to electronically communicate directly with
2739 your neighbors and friends using a network controlled by your peers in
2740 stead of centrally controlled by a few corporations, or would like to
2741 experiment with interesting network technology, the
2742 <a href="http://www.dugnadsnett.no/">Dugnasnett for alle i Oslo</a>
2743 might be project for you.  39 mesh nodes are currently being planned,
2744 in the freshly started initiative from NUUG and Hackeriet to create a
2745 wireless community network.  The work is inspired by
2746 <a href="http://freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a>,
2747 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan
2748 Network</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roofnet">Roofnet</a>
2749 and other successful mesh networks around the globe.  Two days ago we
2750 held a workshop to try to get people started on setting up their own
2751 mesh node, and there we decided to create a new mailing list
2752 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/dugnadsnett">dugnadsnett
2753 (at) nuug.no</a> and IRC channel
2754 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#dugnadsnett.no">#dugnadsnett.no</a> to
2755 coordinate the work.  See also the NUUG blog post
2756 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/E_postliste_og_IRC_kanal_for_Dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">announcing
2757 the mailing list and IRC channel</a>.</p>
2758
2759       </div>
2760       <div class="tags">
2761
2762
2763         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>.
2764
2765
2766       </div>
2767     </div>
2768     <div class="padding"></div>
2769
2770     <div class="entry">
2771       <div class="title">
2772         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
2773       </div>
2774       <div class="date">
2775         24th November 2013
2776       </div>
2777       <div class="body">
2778         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
2779 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
2780 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
2781 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
2782 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
2783 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
2784 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
2785 is working on.  I checked the
2786 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
2787 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
2788 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
2789 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
2790 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
2791 These are the release notes:</p>
2792
2793 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
2794
2795 <ul>
2796
2797   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
2798    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
2799    up.</li>
2800
2801   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
2802
2803   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
2804    Matthias Klose.</li>
2805
2806   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
2807    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
2808
2809   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
2810    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
2811    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
2812
2813 </ul>
2814
2815 <p>You can
2816 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2817 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2818 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2819 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2820 include a testsuite check.</p>
2821
2822       </div>
2823       <div class="tags">
2824
2825
2826         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>.
2827
2828
2829       </div>
2830     </div>
2831     <div class="padding"></div>
2832
2833     <div class="entry">
2834       <div class="title">
2835         <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>
2836       </div>
2837       <div class="date">
2838         21st November 2013
2839       </div>
2840       <div class="body">
2841         <p>Drones, flying robots, are getting more and more popular.  The most
2842 know ones are the killer drones used by some government to murder
2843 people they do not like without giving them the chance of a fair
2844 trial, but the technology have many good uses too, from mapping and
2845 forest maintenance to photography and search and rescue.  I am sure it
2846 is just a question of time before "bad drones" are in the hands of
2847 private enterprises and not only state criminals but petty criminals
2848 too.  The drone technology is very useful and very dangerous.  To have
2849 some control over the use of drones, I agree with Daniel Suarez in his
2850 TED talk
2851 "<a href="https://archive.org/details/DanielSuarez_2013G">The kill
2852 decision shouldn't belong to a robot</a>", where he suggested this
2853 little gem to keep the good while limiting the bad use of drones:</p>
2854
2855 <blockquote>
2856
2857 <p>Each robot and drone should have a cryptographically signed
2858 I.D. burned in at the factory that can be used to track its movement
2859 through public spaces. We have license plates on cars, tail numbers on
2860 aircraft. This is no different. And every citizen should be able to
2861 download an app that shows the population of drones and autonomous
2862 vehicles moving through public spaces around them, both right now and
2863 historically. And civic leaders should deploy sensors and civic drones
2864 to detect rogue drones, and instead of sending killer drones of their
2865 own up to shoot them down, they should notify humans to their
2866 presence. And in certain very high-security areas, perhaps civic
2867 drones would snare them and drag them off to a bomb disposal facility.</p>
2868
2869 <p>But notice, this is more an immune system than a weapons system. It
2870 would allow us to avail ourselves of the use of autonomous vehicles
2871 and drones while still preserving our open, civil society.</p>
2872
2873 </blockquote>
2874
2875 <p>The key is that <em>every citizen</em> should be able to read the
2876 radio beacons sent from the drones in the area, to be able to check
2877 both the government and others use of drones.  For such control to be
2878 effective, everyone must be able to do it.  What should such beacon
2879 contain?  At least formal owner, purpose, contact information and GPS
2880 location.  Probably also the origin and target position of the current
2881 flight.  And perhaps some registration number to be able to look up
2882 the drone in a central database tracking their movement.  Robots
2883 should not have privacy.  It is people who need privacy.</p>
2884
2885       </div>
2886       <div class="tags">
2887
2888
2889         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>.
2890
2891
2892       </div>
2893     </div>
2894     <div class="padding"></div>
2895
2896     <div class="entry">
2897       <div class="title">
2898         <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>
2899       </div>
2900       <div class="date">
2901         13th November 2013
2902       </div>
2903       <div class="body">
2904         <p>Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced
2905 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Bli_med___bygge_dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">our
2906 plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in
2907 Oslo</a>.  The workshop to help people get started will take place
2908 Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of
2909 people joining forces to make this happen.  We have
2910 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/oslo-nodes.geojson">9
2911 locations plotted on the map</a>, but we will need more before we have
2912 a connected mesh spread across Oslo.  If this sound interesting to
2913 you, please join us at the workshop.  If you are too impatient to wait
2914 15 days, please join us on the IRC channel
2915 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
2916 right away. :)</p>
2917
2918       </div>
2919       <div class="tags">
2920
2921
2922         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>.
2923
2924
2925       </div>
2926     </div>
2927     <div class="padding"></div>
2928
2929     <div class="entry">
2930       <div class="title">
2931         <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>
2932       </div>
2933       <div class="date">
2934         10th November 2013
2935       </div>
2936       <div class="body">
2937         <p>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
2938 use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
2939 bought arrived on Friday.  Here are my notes on how to set up the
2940 MR3040 as a mesh node using
2941 <a href="http://www.openwrt.org/">OpenWrt</a>.</p>
2942
2943 <p>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
2944 <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040">TL-MR3040</a>,
2945 and downloaded
2946 <a href="http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin">the
2947 recommended firmware image</a>
2948 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
2949 uploaded it into the original web interface.  The flashing went fine,
2950 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port.  After
2951 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
2952 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.</p>
2953
2954 <p>I started off by reading the instructions from
2955 <a href="http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine's_Research">Wireless
2956 Africa</a>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
2957 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
2958 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config">using
2959 batman-adv on OpenWrt</a>.  A small snag was the fact that the
2960 <tt>opkg install kmod-batman-adv</tt> command did not work as it
2961 should.  The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
2962 dependency crc16 was not already loaded.  I
2963 <a href="https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14452">reported the bug</a> to
2964 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon.  But the problem
2965 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
2966 seem to work when booting from scratch.</p>
2967
2968 <p>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/.  I did not bridge
2969 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
2970 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
2971 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
2972 them:</p>
2973
2974 <p><tt>/etc/config/network</tt></p>
2975
2976 <pre>
2977
2978 config interface 'loopback'
2979         option ifname 'lo'
2980         option proto 'static'
2981         option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
2982         option netmask '255.0.0.0'
2983
2984 config globals 'globals'
2985         option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
2986
2987 config interface 'lan'
2988         option ifname 'eth0'
2989         option type 'bridge'
2990         option proto 'dhcp'
2991         option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
2992         option netmask '255.255.255.0'
2993         option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
2994         option ip6assign '60'
2995
2996 config interface 'mesh'
2997         option ifname 'adhoc0'
2998         option mtu '1528'
2999         option proto 'batadv'
3000         option mesh 'bat0'
3001 </pre>
3002
3003 <p><tt>/etc/config/wireless</tt></p>
3004 <pre>
3005
3006 config wifi-device 'radio0'
3007         option type 'mac80211'
3008         option channel '11'
3009         option hwmode '11ng'
3010         option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
3011         option htmode 'HT20'
3012         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
3013         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
3014         list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
3015         list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
3016         option disabled '0'
3017
3018 config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
3019         option device 'radio0'
3020         option ifname 'adhoc0'
3021         option network 'mesh'
3022         option encryption 'none'
3023         option mode 'adhoc'
3024         option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
3025         option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
3026 </pre>
3027 <p><tt>/etc/config/batman-adv</tt></p>
3028 <pre>
3029
3030 config 'mesh' 'bat0'
3031         option interfaces 'adhoc0'
3032         option 'aggregated_ogms'
3033         option 'ap_isolation'
3034         option 'bonding'
3035         option 'fragmentation'
3036         option 'gw_bandwidth'
3037         option 'gw_mode'
3038         option 'gw_sel_class'
3039         option 'log_level'
3040         option 'orig_interval'
3041         option 'vis_mode'
3042         option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
3043         option 'distributed_arp_table'
3044         option 'network_coding'
3045         option 'hop_penalty'
3046
3047 # yet another batX instance
3048 # config 'mesh' 'bat5'
3049 #       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
3050 </pre>
3051
3052 <p>The mesh node is now operational.  I have yet to test its range,
3053 but I hope it is good.  I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box
3054 still wrapped up in plastic.</p>
3055
3056       </div>
3057       <div class="tags">
3058
3059
3060         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>.
3061
3062
3063       </div>
3064     </div>
3065     <div class="padding"></div>
3066
3067     <div class="entry">
3068       <div class="title">
3069         <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>
3070       </div>
3071       <div class="date">
3072          2nd November 2013
3073       </div>
3074       <div class="body">
3075         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
3076 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
3077 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
3078 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
3079 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
3080
3081 <p><pre>
3082 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
3083 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
3084 # Provides:          rsyslog
3085 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
3086 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
3087 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
3088 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
3089 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
3090 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
3091 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
3092 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
3093 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
3094 ### END INIT INFO
3095 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
3096 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
3097 </pre></p>
3098
3099 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
3100 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
3101 info/comments.</p>
3102
3103 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
3104 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
3105
3106 <p><pre>
3107 #!/bin/sh
3108
3109 # Define LSB log_* functions.
3110 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
3111 # and status_of_proc is working.
3112 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
3113
3114 #
3115 # Function that starts the daemon/service
3116
3117 #
3118 do_start()
3119 {
3120         # Return
3121         #   0 if daemon has been started
3122         #   1 if daemon was already running
3123         #   2 if daemon could not be started
3124         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
3125                 || return 1
3126         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
3127                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
3128                 || return 2
3129         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
3130         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
3131         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
3132 }
3133
3134 #
3135 # Function that stops the daemon/service
3136 #
3137 do_stop()
3138 {
3139         # Return
3140         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
3141         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
3142         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
3143         #   other if a failure occurred
3144         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
3145         RETVAL="$?"
3146         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
3147         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
3148         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
3149         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
3150         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
3151         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
3152         # sleep for some time.
3153         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
3154         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
3155         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
3156         rm -f $PIDFILE
3157         return "$RETVAL"
3158 }
3159
3160 #
3161 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
3162 #
3163 do_reload() {
3164         #
3165         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
3166         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
3167         # then implement that here.
3168         #
3169         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
3170         return 0
3171 }
3172
3173 SCRIPTNAME=$1
3174 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
3175 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
3176 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
3177     script="$1"
3178     shift
3179     . $script
3180 else
3181     exit 0
3182 fi
3183
3184 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
3185 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
3186
3187 # Exit if the package is not installed
3188 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
3189
3190 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
3191 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
3192
3193 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
3194 . /lib/init/vars.sh
3195
3196 case "$1" in
3197   start)
3198         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
3199         do_start
3200         case "$?" in
3201                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
3202                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
3203         esac
3204         ;;
3205   stop)
3206         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
3207         do_stop
3208         case "$?" in
3209                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
3210                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
3211         esac
3212         ;;
3213   status)
3214         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
3215         ;;
3216   #reload|force-reload)
3217         #
3218         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
3219         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
3220         #
3221         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
3222         #do_reload
3223         #log_end_msg $?
3224         #;;
3225   restart|force-reload)
3226         #
3227         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
3228         # 'force-reload' alias
3229         #
3230         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
3231         do_stop
3232         case "$?" in
3233           0|1)
3234                 do_start
3235                 case "$?" in
3236                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
3237                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
3238                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
3239                 esac
3240                 ;;
3241           *)
3242                 # Failed to stop
3243                 log_end_msg 1
3244                 ;;
3245         esac
3246         ;;
3247   *)
3248         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
3249         exit 3
3250         ;;
3251 esac
3252
3253 :
3254 </pre></p>
3255
3256 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
3257 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
3258 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
3259 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
3260
3261 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
3262 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
3263 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
3264 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
3265 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
3266
3267       </div>
3268       <div class="tags">
3269
3270
3271         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>.
3272
3273
3274       </div>
3275     </div>
3276     <div class="padding"></div>
3277
3278     <div class="entry">
3279       <div class="title">
3280         <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>
3281       </div>
3282       <div class="date">
3283          1st November 2013
3284       </div>
3285       <div class="body">
3286         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
3287 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
3288 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
3289 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
3290 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
3291 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
3292 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
3293 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
3294 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
3295 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
3296 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
3297 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
3298
3299 <p>The source is now available from
3300 <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>
3301
3302       </div>
3303       <div class="tags">
3304
3305
3306         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>.
3307
3308
3309       </div>
3310     </div>
3311     <div class="padding"></div>
3312
3313     <div class="entry">
3314       <div class="title">
3315         <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>
3316       </div>
3317       <div class="date">
3318         27th October 2013
3319       </div>
3320       <div class="body">
3321         <p>The
3322 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
3323 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
3324 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
3325 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
3326 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
3327 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
3328 of a plan to simplify the build system for
3329 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
3330 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
3331 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
3332 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
3333 Raspberry Pi.</p>
3334
3335 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
3336 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
3337 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
3338 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
3339 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
3340 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
3341 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
3342 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
3343 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
3344 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
3345 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
3346 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
3347 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
3348 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
3349 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
3350 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
3351 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
3352 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
3353 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
3354 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
3355 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
3356 available from
3357 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
3358 upstream project page</a>.</p>
3359
3360 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
3361 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
3362 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
3363 list:</p>
3364
3365 <p><pre>
3366 #!/bin/sh
3367 set -e # Exit on first error
3368 rootdir="$1"
3369 cd "$rootdir"
3370 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
3371 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
3372 EOF
3373 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
3374 # install a kernel somewhere too.
3375 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
3376     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
3377 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
3378 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
3379 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
3380 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
3381 </pre></p>
3382
3383 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
3384 to build the image:</p>
3385
3386 <pre>
3387 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
3388     --variant minbase \
3389     --arch armel \
3390     --distribution jessie \
3391     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
3392     --image test.img \
3393     --size 600M \
3394     --bootsize 64M \
3395     --boottype vfat \
3396     --log-level debug \
3397     --verbose \
3398     --no-kernel \
3399     --no-extlinux \
3400     --root-password raspberry \
3401     --hostname raspberrypi \
3402     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
3403     --customize `pwd`/customize \
3404     --package netbase \
3405     --package git-core \
3406     --package binutils \
3407     --package ca-certificates \
3408     --package wget \
3409     --package kmod
3410 </pre></p>
3411
3412 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
3413 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
3414 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
3415 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
3416 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
3417 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
3418 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
3419
3420 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
3421 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
3422 build dependency list.</p>
3423
3424 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
3425 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
3426 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
3427 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
3428
3429       </div>
3430       <div class="tags">
3431
3432
3433         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>.
3434
3435
3436       </div>
3437     </div>
3438     <div class="padding"></div>
3439
3440     <div class="entry">
3441       <div class="title">
3442         <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>
3443       </div>
3444       <div class="date">
3445         21st October 2013
3446       </div>
3447       <div class="body">
3448         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
3449 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
3450 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
3451 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
3452 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
3453 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
3454 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
3455 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
3456
3457 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
3458 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
3459 instead, I started playing with a
3460 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
3461 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
3462 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
3463 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
3464 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
3465 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
3466 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
3467 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
3468 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
3469 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
3470 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
3471 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
3472 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
3473 every client on the local network.</p>
3474
3475 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
3476 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
3477 and a script
3478 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
3479 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
3480 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
3481 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
3482 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
3483 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
3484 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
3485 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
3486 support.</p>
3487
3488 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
3489 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
3490
3491 <p><pre>
3492 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
3493     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
3494 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
3495 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
3496 %
3497 </pre></p>
3498
3499 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
3500 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
3501 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
3502 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
3503 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
3504 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
3505
3506 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
3507 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
3508 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
3509
3510 <p><table>
3511
3512 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
3513 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
3514 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
3515 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
3516 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
3517 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
3518
3519 </table></p>
3520
3521 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
3522 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
3523 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
3524 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
3525 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
3526 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
3527 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
3528
3529       </div>
3530       <div class="tags">
3531
3532
3533         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>.
3534
3535
3536       </div>
3537     </div>
3538     <div class="padding"></div>
3539
3540     <div class="entry">
3541       <div class="title">
3542         <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>
3543       </div>
3544       <div class="date">
3545         19th October 2013
3546       </div>
3547       <div class="body">
3548         <p>Back in 2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
3549 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee">the Spykee robot</a>
3550 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
3551 web page.  Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
3552 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github.  If
3553 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
3554 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl">the
3555 libspykee-perl github repository</a>.</p>
3556
3557       </div>
3558       <div class="tags">
3559
3560
3561         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>.
3562
3563
3564       </div>
3565     </div>
3566     <div class="padding"></div>
3567
3568     <div class="entry">
3569       <div class="title">
3570         <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>
3571       </div>
3572       <div class="date">
3573         15th October 2013
3574       </div>
3575       <div class="body">
3576         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
3577 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
3578 these. :)</p>
3579
3580 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
3581 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
3582 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
3583 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
3584 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
3585 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
3586 hope you will to. :)</p>
3587
3588 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
3589 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
3590 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
3591 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
3592 donated.  Are you next?</p>
3593
3594 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
3595 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
3596 statement under the heading
3597 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
3598 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
3599 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
3600 too.</p>
3601
3602       </div>
3603       <div class="tags">
3604
3605
3606         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>.
3607
3608
3609       </div>
3610     </div>
3611     <div class="padding"></div>
3612
3613     <div class="entry">
3614       <div class="title">
3615         <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>
3616       </div>
3617       <div class="date">
3618         11th October 2013
3619       </div>
3620       <div class="body">
3621         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
3622 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
3623 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
3624 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
3625 successful examples like
3626 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
3627 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
3628 (see
3629 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
3630 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
3631 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
3632 can be seen from their
3633 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
3634 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
3635 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
3636 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
3637 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
3638
3639 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
3640 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
3641 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
3642 my recent involvement in
3643 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
3644 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
3645 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
3646 when possible, given that most communication between people are
3647 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
3648 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
3649 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
3650 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
3651 important over the years.</p>
3652
3653 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
3654 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
3655 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
3656 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
3657 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
3658 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
3659 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
3660 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
3661 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
3662 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
3663 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
3664 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
3665 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
3666 speakers about this talk (from
3667 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
3668
3669 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
3670
3671 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
3672 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
3673 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
3674 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
3675 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
3676 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
3677 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
3678 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
3679 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
3680 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
3681 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
3682 that project (from
3683 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
3684
3685 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
3686
3687 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
3688 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
3689 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
3690 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
3691 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
3692 based community mesh networks.</p>
3693
3694 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
3695 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
3696 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
3697 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
3698 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
3699 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
3700 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
3701 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
3702 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
3703
3704 <p><table>
3705 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
3706 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
3707 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
3708 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
3709 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
3710 </table></p>
3711
3712 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
3713 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
3714 VillageTelco about
3715 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
3716 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
3717 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
3718 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
3719 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
3720 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
3721
3722 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
3723 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
3724 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
3725 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
3726
3727 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
3728 us on IRC, either channel
3729 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
3730 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
3731 irc.freenode.net.</p>
3732
3733 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
3734 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
3735 and Innovation called
3736 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
3737 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
3738 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
3739 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
3740 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
3741 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
3742 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
3743 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
3744
3745 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
3746 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
3747 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
3748 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
3749 mesh system.</p>
3750
3751       </div>
3752       <div class="tags">
3753
3754
3755         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>.
3756
3757
3758       </div>
3759     </div>
3760     <div class="padding"></div>
3761
3762     <div class="entry">
3763       <div class="title">
3764         <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>
3765       </div>
3766       <div class="date">
3767          8th October 2013
3768       </div>
3769       <div class="body">
3770         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
3771 Salvador had published a
3772 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
3773 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
3774 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
3775 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
3776 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
3777 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
3778 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
3779 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
3780 showing the <a href="http://www.zygotebody.com/">Zygote Body 3D model
3781 of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
3782 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
3783 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
3784 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
3785 computers without hard drives by installing one central
3786 <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP server</a>.</p>
3787
3788 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
3789
3790 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
3791
3792 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
3793 me know. :)</p>
3794
3795       </div>
3796       <div class="tags">
3797
3798
3799         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>.
3800
3801
3802       </div>
3803     </div>
3804     <div class="padding"></div>
3805
3806     <div class="entry">
3807       <div class="title">
3808         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
3809       </div>
3810       <div class="date">
3811         29th September 2013
3812       </div>
3813       <div class="body">
3814         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
3815 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
3816 complete announcement text can be found at
3817 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
3818 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
3819
3820 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
3821 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
3822 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
3823 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
3824
3825       </div>
3826       <div class="tags">
3827
3828
3829         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>.
3830
3831
3832       </div>
3833     </div>
3834     <div class="padding"></div>
3835
3836     <div class="entry">
3837       <div class="title">
3838         <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>
3839       </div>
3840       <div class="date">
3841         27th September 2013
3842       </div>
3843       <div class="body">
3844         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
3845 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
3846 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
3847 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
3848
3849 <ul>
3850
3851 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
3852 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
3853
3854 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
3855 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
3856
3857 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
3858 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
3859 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
3860 (Youtube)</li>
3861
3862 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
3863 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
3864
3865 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
3866 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
3867
3868 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
3869 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
3870 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
3871
3872 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
3873 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
3874 (Youtube)</li>
3875
3876 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
3877 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
3878
3879 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
3880 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
3881
3882 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
3883 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
3884 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
3885
3886 </ul>
3887
3888 <p>A larger list is available from
3889 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
3890 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
3891
3892 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
3893 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
3894 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
3895 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
3896 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
3897 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
3898 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
3899 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
3900 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
3901 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
3902 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
3903
3904       </div>
3905       <div class="tags">
3906
3907
3908         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>.
3909
3910
3911       </div>
3912     </div>
3913     <div class="padding"></div>
3914
3915     <div class="entry">
3916       <div class="title">
3917         <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>
3918       </div>
3919       <div class="date">
3920         16th September 2013
3921       </div>
3922       <div class="body">
3923         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
3924 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
3925
3926 <blockquote>
3927 <p>Hi,</p>
3928
3929 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
3930 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3931 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
3932
3933 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
3934 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
3935 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
3936 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
3937
3938 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
3939 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
3940
3941 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
3942 compared to beta1:</p>
3943
3944 <ul>
3945
3946 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
3947 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
3948 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
3949 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
3950 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
3951 main server.</li>
3952 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
3953 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
3954 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
3955 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
3956 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
3957
3958 </ul>
3959
3960 <p>Where to get it:</p>
3961
3962 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
3963
3964 <ul>
3965 <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>
3966 <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>
3967 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
3968 </ul>
3969
3970 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
3971
3972 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
3973 <ul>
3974 <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>
3975 <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>
3976 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
3977 </ul>
3978
3979 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
3980
3981 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
3982 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
3983 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
3984 as the other isos.</p>
3985
3986 <p>How to report bugs</p>
3987
3988 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
3989 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
3990
3991
3992 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
3993
3994 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
3995 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
3996 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
3997 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
3998 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
3999 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
4000 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
4001 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
4002 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
4003 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
4004 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
4005 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
4006 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
4007
4008 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
4009 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
4010 Squeeze release.</p>
4011
4012 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
4013
4014 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
4015 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
4016 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
4017 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
4018 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
4019 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
4020 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
4021 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
4022 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
4023 directory.</p>
4024
4025
4026 <p>cheers,
4027 <br>        Holger</p>
4028 </blockquote>
4029
4030       </div>
4031       <div class="tags">
4032
4033
4034         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>.
4035
4036
4037       </div>
4038     </div>
4039     <div class="padding"></div>
4040
4041     <div class="entry">
4042       <div class="title">
4043         <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>
4044       </div>
4045       <div class="date">
4046         10th September 2013
4047       </div>
4048       <div class="body">
4049         <p>I was introduced to the
4050 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
4051 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
4052 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
4053 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
4054 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
4055 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
4056 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
4057 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
4058
4059 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
4060 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
4061 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
4062 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
4063 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
4064
4065 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
4066 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
4067 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
4068 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
4069 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
4070 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
4071 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
4072 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
4073 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
4074 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
4075 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
4076 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
4077 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
4078 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
4079 missing in Debian).</p>
4080
4081 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
4082 scripts
4083 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
4084 and a administrative web interface
4085 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
4086 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
4087 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
4088 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
4089 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
4090 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
4091 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
4092 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
4093 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
4094 this is really working yet, see
4095 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
4096 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
4097 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
4098 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
4099 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
4100 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
4101 with lots of half baked features.</p>
4102
4103 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
4104 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
4105 at.</p>
4106
4107 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
4108
4109 <ol>
4110
4111 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
4112 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
4113 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
4114 to the Debian installer:<p>
4115 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
4116
4117 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
4118 install on.</li>
4119
4120 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
4121 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
4122
4123 </ol>
4124
4125 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
4126
4127 <ol>
4128
4129 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
4130 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
4131 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
4132 <pre>
4133 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
4134 </pre></li>
4135 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
4136 <pre>
4137 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
4138    apt-key add -
4139 apt-get update
4140 apt-get install freedombox-setup
4141 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
4142 </pre></li>
4143 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
4144
4145 </ol>
4146
4147 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
4148 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
4149 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
4150 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
4151 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
4152
4153 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
4154 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
4155 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
4156 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
4157
4158 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
4159 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
4160 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
4161 irc.debian.org and the
4162 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
4163 mailing list</a>.</p>
4164
4165 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
4166 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
4167 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
4168 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
4169 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
4170 default password is 'secret'.</p>
4171
4172       </div>
4173       <div class="tags">
4174
4175
4176         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>.
4177
4178
4179       </div>
4180     </div>
4181     <div class="padding"></div>
4182
4183     <div class="entry">
4184       <div class="title">
4185         <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>
4186       </div>
4187       <div class="date">
4188         22nd August 2013
4189       </div>
4190       <div class="body">
4191         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
4192 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
4193 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
4194
4195 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
4196
4197 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4198 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
4199
4200 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4201
4202 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
4203 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
4204 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
4205 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
4206 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
4207 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
4208 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
4209 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
4210 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
4211 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
4212 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
4213 desktop contains
4214 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
4215 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
4216 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
4217 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
4218
4219 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
4220 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
4221 release.</p>
4222
4223 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
4224 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
4225 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
4226 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
4227 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
4228 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
4229 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
4230 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
4231 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
4232 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
4233 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
4234
4235 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4236
4237 <ul>
4238
4239 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
4240     work also without a attached tty.</li>
4241 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
4242     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
4243     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
4244     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
4245     required).</li>
4246
4247 </ul>
4248
4249 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
4250
4251 <ul>
4252
4253 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
4254 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
4255 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
4256 stick ISO image.</li>
4257 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
4258 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
4259 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
4260     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
4261     cope with this.</li>
4262 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
4263 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
4264     empty password hashes.</li>
4265 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
4266     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
4267     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
4268
4269 </ul>
4270
4271 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
4272
4273 <ul>
4274
4275 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
4276     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
4277 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
4278     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
4279
4280 </ul>
4281
4282 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
4283
4284 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
4285
4286 <ul>
4287
4288 <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>
4289
4290 <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>
4291
4292 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
4293
4294 </ul>
4295
4296 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
4297 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
4298
4299 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
4300
4301 <ul>
4302
4303 <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>
4304 <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>
4305 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
4306
4307 </ul>
4308
4309 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
4310 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
4311
4312
4313 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
4314
4315 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
4316
4317       </div>
4318       <div class="tags">
4319
4320
4321         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>.
4322
4323
4324       </div>
4325     </div>
4326     <div class="padding"></div>
4327
4328     <div class="entry">
4329       <div class="title">
4330         <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>
4331       </div>
4332       <div class="date">
4333         18th August 2013
4334       </div>
4335       <div class="body">
4336         <p>Earlier, I reported about
4337 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
4338 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
4339 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
4340 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
4341 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
4342 currently on the disk.</p>
4343
4344 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
4345 <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>
4346 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
4347 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
4348 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
4349 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
4350 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
4351 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
4352 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
4353 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
4354 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
4355 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
4356 the broken disks.</p>
4357
4358       </div>
4359       <div class="tags">
4360
4361
4362         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>.
4363
4364
4365       </div>
4366     </div>
4367     <div class="padding"></div>
4368
4369     <div class="entry">
4370       <div class="title">
4371         <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>
4372       </div>
4373       <div class="date">
4374          2nd August 2013
4375       </div>
4376       <div class="body">
4377         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
4378 have worked on a Norwegian
4379 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
4380 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
4381 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
4382 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
4383 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
4384 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
4385 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
4386 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
4387 progress of the translation:</p>
4388
4389 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
4390
4391 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
4392 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
4393 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
4394 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
4395 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
4396 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
4397 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
4398 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
4399 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
4400 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
4401 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
4402
4403 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
4404 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
4405 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
4406 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
4407 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
4408 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
4409 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
4410 project files currently available from
4411 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
4412
4413 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
4414 the updated
4415 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
4416 and
4417 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
4418 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
4419 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
4420 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
4421
4422       </div>
4423       <div class="tags">
4424
4425
4426         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>.
4427
4428
4429       </div>
4430     </div>
4431     <div class="padding"></div>
4432
4433     <div class="entry">
4434       <div class="title">
4435         <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>
4436       </div>
4437       <div class="date">
4438         27th July 2013
4439       </div>
4440       <div class="body">
4441         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
4442 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
4443
4444 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
4445 2013-07-27</strong></p>
4446
4447 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4448 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
4449
4450 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4451
4452 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
4453 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
4454 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
4455 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
4456 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
4457 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
4458 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
4459 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
4460 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
4461 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
4462 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
4463 desktop contains
4464 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
4465 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
4466 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
4467 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
4468
4469 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
4470 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
4471 Squeeze release.</p>
4472
4473 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
4474 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
4475 release.</p>
4476
4477 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4478
4479 <ul>
4480
4481 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
4482    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
4483 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
4484    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
4485    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
4486    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
4487    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
4488 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
4489 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
4490 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
4491    crash bugs.</li>
4492
4493 </ul>
4494
4495 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
4496
4497 <ul>
4498
4499 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
4500    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
4501 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
4502    netinst CD.</li>
4503 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
4504    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
4505 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
4506    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
4507    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
4508 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
4509    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
4510    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
4511 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
4512    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
4513    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
4514 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
4515    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
4516 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
4517
4518 </ul>
4519
4520 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
4521
4522 <ul>
4523
4524 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
4525 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
4526     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
4527 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
4528
4529 </ul>
4530
4531 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
4532
4533 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
4534
4535 <ul>
4536
4537 <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>
4538
4539 <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>
4540
4541 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
4542
4543 </ul>
4544
4545 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
4546 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
4547
4548 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
4549
4550 <ul>
4551
4552 <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>
4553 <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>
4554 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
4555
4556 </ul>
4557
4558 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
4559 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
4560
4561
4562 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
4563
4564 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
4565
4566       </div>
4567       <div class="tags">
4568
4569
4570         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>.
4571
4572
4573       </div>
4574     </div>
4575     <div class="padding"></div>
4576
4577     <div class="entry">
4578       <div class="title">
4579         <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>
4580       </div>
4581       <div class="date">
4582         17th July 2013
4583       </div>
4584       <div class="body">
4585         <p>Today I switched to
4586 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
4587 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
4588 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
4589 <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
4590 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
4591 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
4592 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
4593 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
4594 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
4595 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
4596 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
4597 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
4598 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
4599 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
4600 station from now on.</p>
4601
4602 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
4603 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
4604 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
4605 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
4606 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
4607 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
4608 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
4609 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
4610 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
4611 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
4612 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
4613 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
4614
4615 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
4616 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
4617 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
4618 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
4619 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
4620 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
4621 parameters are tuned:</p>
4622
4623 <ul>
4624
4625 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
4626     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
4627
4628 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
4629     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
4630     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
4631
4632 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
4633     systems.</li>
4634
4635 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
4636     /etc/fstab.</li>
4637
4638 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
4639
4640 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
4641     cron.daily).</li>
4642
4643 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
4644     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
4645
4646 </ul>
4647
4648 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
4649 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
4650 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
4651 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
4652 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
4653 from getting the data on the disk (see
4654 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
4655 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
4656 right thing to do.</p>
4657
4658 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
4659 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
4660 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
4661
4662 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
4663 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
4664 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
4665 instead of during my work.</p>
4666
4667 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
4668 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
4669
4670 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
4671 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
4672 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
4673
4674 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
4675 there.</p>
4676
4677 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
4678 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
4679 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
4680 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
4681 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
4682 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
4683 back.</p>
4684
4685       </div>
4686       <div class="tags">
4687
4688
4689         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>.
4690
4691
4692       </div>
4693     </div>
4694     <div class="padding"></div>
4695
4696     <div class="entry">
4697       <div class="title">
4698         <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>
4699       </div>
4700       <div class="date">
4701         10th July 2013
4702       </div>
4703       <div class="body">
4704         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
4705 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
4706 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
4707 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
4708 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
4709 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
4710 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
4711 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
4712
4713 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
4714 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
4715 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
4716 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
4717 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
4718 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
4719 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
4720 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
4721 lock up when I download a new
4722 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
4723 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
4724 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
4725
4726 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
4727 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
4728 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
4729 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
4730 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
4731 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
4732
4733 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
4734 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
4735 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
4736 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
4737 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
4738 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
4739
4740 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
4741 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
4742 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
4743 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
4744 exist).</p>
4745
4746       </div>
4747       <div class="tags">
4748
4749
4750         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>.
4751
4752
4753       </div>
4754     </div>
4755     <div class="padding"></div>
4756
4757     <div class="entry">
4758       <div class="title">
4759         <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>
4760       </div>
4761       <div class="date">
4762          9th July 2013
4763       </div>
4764       <div class="body">
4765         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
4766 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
4767 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
4768 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
4769 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4770 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
4771 Bitraf</a>.</p>
4772
4773 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
4774 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
4775 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
4776 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
4777 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
4778
4779       </div>
4780       <div class="tags">
4781
4782
4783         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>.
4784
4785
4786       </div>
4787     </div>
4788     <div class="padding"></div>
4789
4790     <div class="entry">
4791       <div class="title">
4792         <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>
4793       </div>
4794       <div class="date">
4795          5th July 2013
4796       </div>
4797       <div class="body">
4798         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
4799 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
4800 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
4801 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
4802 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
4803 ended up picking a
4804 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
4805 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
4806 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
4807 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
4808 on that below.</p>
4809
4810 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
4811 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
4812 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
4813 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
4814 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
4815 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
4816 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
4817 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
4818 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
4819
4820 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
4821 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
4822 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
4823 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
4824 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
4825 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
4826 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
4827
4828 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
4829 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
4830
4831 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
4832 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
4833 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
4834 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
4835 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
4836 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
4837 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
4838 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
4839 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
4840 kernel developers as
4841 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
4842 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
4843 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
4844 Lenovo forums, both for
4845 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
4846 2012-11-10</a> and for
4847 <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
4848 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
4849 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
4850 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
4851 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
4852 There is even a
4853 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
4854 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
4855 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
4856
4857 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
4858 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
4859 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
4860 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
4861 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
4862 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
4863 fixed. :)</p>
4864
4865       </div>
4866       <div class="tags">
4867
4868
4869         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>.
4870
4871
4872       </div>
4873     </div>
4874     <div class="padding"></div>
4875
4876     <div class="entry">
4877       <div class="title">
4878         <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>
4879       </div>
4880       <div class="date">
4881          4th July 2013
4882       </div>
4883       <div class="body">
4884         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
4885 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
4886 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
4887 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
4888 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
4889 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
4890 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
4891 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
4892 with an expencive door stop.</p>
4893
4894 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
4895 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
4896 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
4897 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
4898 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
4899 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
4900 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
4901
4902 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
4903 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
4904 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
4905 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
4906 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
4907 new laptop now. :)</p>
4908
4909 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
4910
4911       </div>
4912       <div class="tags">
4913
4914
4915         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>.
4916
4917
4918       </div>
4919     </div>
4920     <div class="padding"></div>
4921
4922     <div class="entry">
4923       <div class="title">
4924         <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>
4925       </div>
4926       <div class="date">
4927          3rd July 2013
4928       </div>
4929       <div class="body">
4930         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
4931 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
4932
4933 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
4934 2013-07-03</strong></p>
4935
4936 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4937 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
4938
4939 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4940
4941 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
4942 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
4943 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
4944 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
4945 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
4946 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
4947 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
4948 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
4949 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
4950 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
4951 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
4952 desktop contains
4953 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
4954 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
4955 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
4956 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
4957
4958 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
4959 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
4960 Squeeze release.</p>
4961
4962 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4963 <ul>
4964   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
4965   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
4966     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
4967     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
4968   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
4969     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
4970     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
4971   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
4972     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
4973     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
4974     too.</li>
4975   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
4976     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
4977 </ul>
4978 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
4979 <ul>
4980   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
4981   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
4982   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
4983     up for some language options.</li>
4984   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
4985   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
4986   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
4987     d-i is doing it.</li>
4988   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
4989     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
4990   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
4991     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
4992     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
4993   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
4994     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
4995   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
4996   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
4997     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
4998   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
4999     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
5000 </ul>
5001 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
5002 <ul>
5003   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
5004     available yet (698840).</li>
5005   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
5006 </ul>
5007 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
5008
5009 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
5010 <ul>
5011   <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>
5012   <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>
5013   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
5014 </ul>
5015
5016 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
5017 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
5018
5019 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
5020 <ul>
5021   <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>
5022   <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>
5023   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
5024 </ul>
5025
5026 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
5027 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
5028
5029 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
5030
5031 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
5032
5033       </div>
5034       <div class="tags">
5035
5036
5037         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>.
5038
5039
5040       </div>
5041     </div>
5042     <div class="padding"></div>
5043
5044     <div class="entry">
5045       <div class="title">
5046         <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>
5047       </div>
5048       <div class="date">
5049         25th June 2013
5050       </div>
5051       <div class="body">
5052         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
5053 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
5054 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
5055 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
5056 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
5057 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
5058 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
5059 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
5060 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
5061 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
5062 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
5063
5064 <p><pre>
5065 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5066 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
5067 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
5068 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
5069 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
5070 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
5071 firmware-ipw2x00
5072 firmware-ipw2x00
5073 Preconfiguring packages ...
5074 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
5075 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
5076 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
5077 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
5078 #
5079 </pre></p>
5080
5081 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
5082 printed instead:</p>
5083
5084 <p><pre>
5085 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5086 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
5087 #
5088 </pre></p>
5089
5090 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
5091 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
5092
5093 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
5094 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
5095 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
5096 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
5097 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
5098 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
5099 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
5100 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
5101 machine.</p>
5102
5103 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
5104 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
5105 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
5106 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
5107 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
5108 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
5109
5110       </div>
5111       <div class="tags">
5112
5113
5114         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>.
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/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html">The value of a good distro wide test suite...</a>
5124       </div>
5125       <div class="date">
5126         22nd June 2013
5127       </div>
5128       <div class="body">
5129         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
5130 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
5131 which check that services are running, working, and return the
5132 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
5133 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
5134 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
5135 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
5136 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
5137 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
5138
5139 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
5140 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
5141 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
5142 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
5143 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
5144 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
5145 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
5146 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
5147 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
5148 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
5149 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
5150 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
5151 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
5152 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
5153
5154 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
5155 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
5156 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
5157 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
5158 the problem.</p>
5159
5160 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
5161 please join us on
5162 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
5163 irc.debian.org</a> and the
5164 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
5165 list.</p>
5166
5167       </div>
5168       <div class="tags">
5169
5170
5171         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>.
5172
5173
5174       </div>
5175     </div>
5176     <div class="padding"></div>
5177
5178     <div class="entry">
5179       <div class="title">
5180         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
5181       </div>
5182       <div class="date">
5183         17th June 2013
5184       </div>
5185       <div class="body">
5186         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
5187 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
5188 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
5189 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
5190 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
5191 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
5192 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
5193 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
5194
5195 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5196
5197 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
5198 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
5199 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
5200 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
5201 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
5202 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
5203 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
5204 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
5205 field.</p>
5206
5207 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
5208 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
5209 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
5210 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
5211 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
5212 the only one we have in our country.</p>
5213
5214 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
5215 project?</strong></p>
5216
5217 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
5218 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
5219 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
5220 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
5221 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
5222 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
5223 ways to contribute.</p>
5224
5225 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
5226 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
5227 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
5228 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
5229 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
5230 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
5231 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
5232 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
5233 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
5234 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
5235
5236 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5237 Edu?</strong></p>
5238
5239 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
5240 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
5241 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
5242 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
5243 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
5244 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
5245 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
5246 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
5247
5248 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
5249 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
5250 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
5251 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
5252 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
5253 project.</p>
5254
5255 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5256 Edu?</strong></p>
5257
5258 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
5259 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
5260 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
5261 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
5262 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
5263 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
5264 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
5265 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
5266 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
5267
5268 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
5269 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
5270 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
5271 on.</p>
5272
5273 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5274
5275 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
5276 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
5277 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
5278 Enlightenment project a lot!),
5279 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
5280 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
5281 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
5282 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
5283 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
5284
5285 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5286 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5287
5288 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
5289 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
5290 that:</p>
5291
5292 <ul>
5293
5294 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
5295
5296 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
5297     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
5298     of teenagers more?</li>
5299
5300 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
5301     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
5302     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
5303     them!)</li>
5304
5305 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
5306     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
5307     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
5308
5309 </ul>
5310
5311 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
5312 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
5313 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
5314 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
5315 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
5316
5317       </div>
5318       <div class="tags">
5319
5320
5321         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>.
5322
5323
5324       </div>
5325     </div>
5326     <div class="padding"></div>
5327
5328     <div class="entry">
5329       <div class="title">
5330         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
5331       </div>
5332       <div class="date">
5333         12th June 2013
5334       </div>
5335       <div class="body">
5336         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
5337 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5338 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
5339 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
5340 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
5341 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
5342
5343 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5344
5345 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
5346 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
5347 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
5348
5349 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
5350 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
5351 each other.</p>
5352
5353 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
5354 project?</strong></p>
5355
5356 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
5357 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
5358 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
5359 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
5360 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
5361 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
5362 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
5363 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
5364 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
5365 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
5366 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
5367 we'll get there one day.</p>
5368
5369 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5370 Edu?</strong></p>
5371
5372 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
5373 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
5374 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
5375 very high quality work.</p>
5376
5377 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
5378 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
5379 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
5380 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
5381 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
5382
5383 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5384 Edu?</strong></p>
5385
5386 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
5387 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
5388 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
5389
5390 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
5391 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
5392 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
5393 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
5394 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
5395 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
5396 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
5397 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
5398 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
5399 currently.</p>
5400
5401 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
5402 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
5403 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
5404 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
5405 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
5406 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
5407 autonomous.</p>
5408
5409 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5410
5411 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
5412 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
5413 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
5414 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
5415 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
5416
5417 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
5418 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
5419 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
5420 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
5421 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
5422 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
5423 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
5424 X.</p>
5425
5426 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
5427 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
5428 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
5429 it :p)
5430
5431 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5432 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5433
5434 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
5435 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
5436 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
5437 that.</p>
5438
5439 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
5440 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
5441 advantage of that.</p>
5442
5443 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
5444 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
5445 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
5446 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
5447 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
5448 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
5449 best solution for them.</p>
5450
5451 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
5452 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
5453 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
5454
5455       </div>
5456       <div class="tags">
5457
5458
5459         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>.
5460
5461
5462       </div>
5463     </div>
5464     <div class="padding"></div>
5465
5466     <div class="entry">
5467       <div class="title">
5468         <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>
5469       </div>
5470       <div class="date">
5471         11th June 2013
5472       </div>
5473       <div class="body">
5474         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
5475 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
5476 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
5477 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
5478 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
5479 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
5480 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
5481 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
5482 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
5483 i915 driver used by the
5484 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
5485 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
5486
5487 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
5488 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
5489 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
5490 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
5491 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
5492
5493 <pre>
5494 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
5495 update-initramfs -u -k all
5496 </pre>
5497
5498 <p>Since March 2012 there is
5499 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
5500 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
5501 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
5502 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
5503 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
5504 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
5505 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
5506 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
5507 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
5508 number.</p>
5509
5510 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
5511 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
5512
5513 <p><pre>
5514 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
5515     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
5516     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
5517  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
5518  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
5519     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
5520  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
5521     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
5522  Latency: 0
5523  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
5524  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
5525  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
5526  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
5527  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
5528  Capabilities: <access denied>
5529  Kernel driver in use: i915
5530 </pre></p>
5531
5532 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
5533
5534 <p><pre>
5535 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
5536        ...
5537         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
5538         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
5539        ...
5540 }
5541 </pre></p>
5542
5543 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
5544 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
5545 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
5546 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
5547 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
5548 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
5549 yet shown up in
5550 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
5551 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
5552 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
5553 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
5554 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
5555 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
5556
5557 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
5558 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
5559 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
5560 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
5561 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
5562 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
5563 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
5564 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
5565 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
5566 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
5567 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
5568 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
5569
5570 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
5571 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
5572 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
5573 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
5574 backlight.</p>
5575
5576       </div>
5577       <div class="tags">
5578
5579
5580         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>.
5581
5582
5583       </div>
5584     </div>
5585     <div class="padding"></div>
5586
5587     <div class="entry">
5588       <div class="title">
5589         <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>
5590       </div>
5591       <div class="date">
5592         10th June 2013
5593       </div>
5594       <div class="body">
5595         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
5596 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
5597
5598 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
5599 2013-06-10</strong></p>
5600
5601 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
5602 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
5603
5604 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
5605
5606 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
5607 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
5608 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
5609 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
5610 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
5611 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
5612 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
5613 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
5614 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
5615 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
5616 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
5617 desktop contains
5618 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
5619 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
5620 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
5621 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
5622
5623 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
5624 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
5625 Squeeze release.</p>
5626
5627 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
5628
5629 <ul>
5630
5631 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
5632 <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).
5633 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
5634 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
5635 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
5636
5637 </ul>
5638
5639 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
5640
5641 <ul>
5642
5643 <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.
5644 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
5645 <li>New Romanian translation.
5646 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
5647 <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).
5648 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
5649 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
5650 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
5651 <li>More testsuite tests.
5652 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
5653 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
5654
5655 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
5656 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
5657
5658 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
5659 them up with GOsa².</li>
5660
5661 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
5662
5663 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
5664 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
5665 entered password). </li>
5666
5667 </ul>
5668
5669 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
5670
5671 <ul>
5672
5673 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
5674
5675 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
5676 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
5677 missing import feature).</li>
5678
5679 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
5680
5681 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
5682 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
5683 unfixed.</li>
5684
5685 </ul>
5686
5687 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
5688
5689 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
5690
5691 <ul>
5692
5693 <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>
5694
5695 <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>
5696
5697 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
5698
5699 </ul>
5700
5701 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
5702 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
5703
5704 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
5705
5706 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
5707
5708       </div>
5709       <div class="tags">
5710
5711
5712         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>.
5713
5714
5715       </div>
5716     </div>
5717     <div class="padding"></div>
5718
5719     <div class="entry">
5720       <div class="title">
5721         <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>
5722       </div>
5723       <div class="date">
5724          5th June 2013
5725       </div>
5726       <div class="body">
5727         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
5728 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
5729 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
5730 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
5731 the project:
5732
5733 <ol>
5734
5735 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
5736   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
5737   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
5738   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
5739   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
5740
5741 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
5742   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
5743   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
5744   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
5745   #698840</a>.</li>
5746
5747 </ol>
5748
5749 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
5750 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
5751 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
5752
5753       </div>
5754       <div class="tags">
5755
5756
5757         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>.
5758
5759
5760       </div>
5761     </div>
5762     <div class="padding"></div>
5763
5764     <div class="entry">
5765       <div class="title">
5766         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
5767       </div>
5768       <div class="date">
5769          4th June 2013
5770       </div>
5771       <div class="body">
5772         <p>It has been a while since my last English
5773 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
5774 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
5775 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
5776 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
5777 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
5778
5779 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5780
5781 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
5782 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
5783 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
5784 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
5785
5786 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
5787 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
5788 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
5789
5790 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
5791 project?</strong></p>
5792
5793 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
5794 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
5795 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
5796 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
5797 manual.
5798
5799 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
5800 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
5801 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
5802 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
5803
5804 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
5805 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
5806 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
5807 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
5808 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
5809 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
5810 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
5811 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
5812 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
5813 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
5814
5815 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
5816 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
5817 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
5818 beautiful project.</p>
5819
5820 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5821 Edu?</strong></p>
5822
5823 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
5824 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
5825 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
5826
5827 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
5828 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
5829 of educational free software.</p>
5830
5831 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5832 Edu?</strong></p>
5833
5834 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
5835 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
5836 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
5837 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
5838 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
5839
5840 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
5841 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
5842 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
5843 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
5844 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
5845 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
5846 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
5847 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
5848
5849 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5850
5851 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
5852 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
5853 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
5854 also using the mathematical software
5855 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
5856 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
5857 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
5858
5859 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
5860 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
5861 statistics?</strong></p>
5862
5863 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
5864 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
5865 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
5866 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
5867
5868 <ul>
5869
5870 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
5871 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
5872 constructions in planar geometry
5873
5874 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
5875 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
5876 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
5877
5878 </ul>
5879
5880 <p>I like also
5881 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
5882 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
5883 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
5884
5885 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5886 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5887
5888 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
5889
5890 <ul>
5891
5892 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
5893
5894 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
5895     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
5896     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
5897
5898 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
5899
5900 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
5901     system.</li>
5902
5903 </ul>
5904
5905       </div>
5906       <div class="tags">
5907
5908
5909         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>.
5910
5911
5912       </div>
5913     </div>
5914     <div class="padding"></div>
5915
5916     <div class="entry">
5917       <div class="title">
5918         <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>
5919       </div>
5920       <div class="date">
5921          1st June 2013
5922       </div>
5923       <div class="body">
5924         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
5925 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
5926 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
5927 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
5928 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
5929 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
5930 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
5931 program.</p>
5932
5933 <!-- 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 -->
5934
5935 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
5936 <p>
5937 <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>
5938 <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>
5939 <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>
5940 <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>
5941 <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>
5942 <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>
5943 <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>
5944 <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>
5945 <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>
5946 <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>
5947 <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>
5948 <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>
5949 <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>
5950 <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>
5951 </p>
5952
5953 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
5954 <p>
5955 <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>
5956 <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>
5957 <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>
5958 <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>
5959 <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>
5960 <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>
5961 </p>
5962
5963 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
5964 <p>
5965 <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>
5966 </p>
5967
5968 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
5969 <p>
5970 <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>
5971 <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>
5972 <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>
5973 <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>
5974 <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>
5975 <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>
5976 <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>
5977 <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>
5978 <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>
5979 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
5980 <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>
5981 </p>
5982
5983 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
5984 <p>
5985 <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>
5986 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
5987 </p>
5988
5989 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
5990 <p>
5991 <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>
5992 <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>
5993 <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>
5994 </p>
5995
5996 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
5997 <p>
5998 <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>
5999 <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>
6000 <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>
6001 <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>
6002 <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>
6003 </p>
6004
6005 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
6006 <p>
6007 <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>
6008 <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>
6009 <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>
6010 <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>
6011 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
6012 <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>
6013 <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>
6014 <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>
6015 <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>
6016 <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>
6017 <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>
6018 <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>
6019 <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>
6020 <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>
6021 <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>
6022 <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>
6023 <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>
6024 </p>
6025
6026 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
6027 <p>
6028 <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>
6029 <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>
6030 </p>
6031
6032 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
6033 <p>
6034 <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>
6035 <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>
6036 <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>
6037 <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>
6038 <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>
6039 <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>
6040 <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>
6041 <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>
6042 <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>
6043 <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>
6044 </p>
6045
6046 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
6047 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
6048 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
6049 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
6050 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
6051 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
6052 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
6053
6054       </div>
6055       <div class="tags">
6056
6057
6058         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>.
6059
6060
6061       </div>
6062     </div>
6063     <div class="padding"></div>
6064
6065     <div class="entry">
6066       <div class="title">
6067         <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>
6068       </div>
6069       <div class="date">
6070         27th May 2013
6071       </div>
6072       <div class="body">
6073         <p>Two days ago, I asked
6074 <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
6075 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
6076 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
6077 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
6078 and Windows 8.</p>
6079
6080 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
6081 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
6082 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
6083 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
6084 enough to tell.</p>
6085
6086 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
6087 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
6088 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
6089 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
6090 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
6091 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
6092 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
6093 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
6094 to follow.</p>
6095
6096 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
6097 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
6098 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
6099 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
6100 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
6101 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
6102 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
6103 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
6104
6105 <p>I've updated the
6106 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
6107 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
6108 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
6109 machine.</p>
6110
6111 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
6112 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
6113
6114       </div>
6115       <div class="tags">
6116
6117
6118         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>.
6119
6120
6121       </div>
6122     </div>
6123     <div class="padding"></div>
6124
6125     <div class="entry">
6126       <div class="title">
6127         <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>
6128       </div>
6129       <div class="date">
6130         25th May 2013
6131       </div>
6132       <div class="body">
6133         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
6134 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
6135 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
6136 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
6137 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
6138 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
6139
6140 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
6141 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
6142 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
6143 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
6144 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
6145 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
6146 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
6147 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
6148 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
6149 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
6150
6151 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
6152 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6153 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
6154 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
6155 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
6156 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
6157
6158 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
6159 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
6160 on new Laptops?</p>
6161
6162       </div>
6163       <div class="tags">
6164
6165
6166         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>.
6167
6168
6169       </div>
6170     </div>
6171     <div class="padding"></div>
6172
6173     <div class="entry">
6174       <div class="title">
6175         <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>
6176       </div>
6177       <div class="date">
6178         17th May 2013
6179       </div>
6180       <div class="body">
6181         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
6182 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
6183 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
6184 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
6185 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
6186 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
6187 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
6188 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
6189 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
6190 donate some money</a>.
6191
6192 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
6193 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
6194 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
6195 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
6196 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
6197
6198 <p>The script,
6199 <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/>
6200 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
6201 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
6202 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
6203
6204 <ol>
6205
6206 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
6207 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
6208 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
6209     our configuration.</li>
6210 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
6211     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
6212     according to the profile specified in the config above,
6213     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
6214 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
6215     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
6216 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
6217
6218 </ol>
6219
6220 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
6221 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
6222 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
6223 the needed packages.</p>
6224
6225 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
6226 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
6227 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
6228 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
6229 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
6230 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
6231
6232 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
6233 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
6234 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
6235
6236 <p><pre>
6237 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
6238 DESKTOP="lxde"
6239 </pre></p>
6240
6241 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
6242 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
6243 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
6244 boot.</p>
6245
6246       </div>
6247       <div class="tags">
6248
6249
6250         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>.
6251
6252
6253       </div>
6254     </div>
6255     <div class="padding"></div>
6256
6257     <div class="entry">
6258       <div class="title">
6259         <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>
6260       </div>
6261       <div class="date">
6262         14th May 2013
6263       </div>
6264       <div class="body">
6265         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6266 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
6267 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
6268
6269 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
6270 2013-05-14</strong></p>
6271
6272 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
6273 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
6274 codename "Wheezy".</p>
6275
6276 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
6277
6278 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
6279 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
6280 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
6281 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
6282 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
6283 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
6284 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
6285 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
6286
6287 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
6288 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
6289 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
6290
6291 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
6292 <ul>
6293   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
6294     default.</li>
6295   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
6296   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
6297   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
6298     ibus-anthy.</li>
6299 </ul>
6300
6301 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
6302 <ul>
6303
6304   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
6305     reliability improvements.</li>
6306   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
6307     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
6308   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
6309     problems.</li>
6310   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
6311     direct:// URL.</li>
6312   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
6313   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
6314   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
6315   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
6316     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
6317   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
6318     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
6319 </ul>
6320
6321 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
6322 <ul>
6323
6324   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
6325     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
6326     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
6327   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
6328   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
6329     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
6330   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
6331   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
6332   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
6333     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
6334   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
6335     password submission problem
6336     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
6337
6338 </ul>
6339
6340 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
6341
6342 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
6343 <ul>
6344
6345   <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>
6346   <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>
6347   <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>
6348
6349 </ul>
6350
6351 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
6352
6353 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
6354
6355 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
6356
6357 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
6358
6359       </div>
6360       <div class="tags">
6361
6362
6363         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>.
6364
6365
6366       </div>
6367     </div>
6368     <div class="padding"></div>
6369
6370     <div class="entry">
6371       <div class="title">
6372         <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>
6373       </div>
6374       <div class="date">
6375         11th May 2013
6376       </div>
6377       <div class="body">
6378         <P>In January,
6379 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
6380 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
6381 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
6382 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
6383 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
6384 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
6385 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
6386 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
6387 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
6388 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
6389 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
6390 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
6391
6392 <p><table>
6393 <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>
6394 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
6395 <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>
6396 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
6397 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
6398 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
6399 <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>
6400 <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>
6401 <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>
6402 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
6403 </table></p>
6404
6405 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
6406 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
6407 available in experimental.</p>
6408
6409 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
6410 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
6411 for LEGO designers.</p>
6412
6413       </div>
6414       <div class="tags">
6415
6416
6417         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>.
6418
6419
6420       </div>
6421     </div>
6422     <div class="padding"></div>
6423
6424     <div class="entry">
6425       <div class="title">
6426         <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>
6427       </div>
6428       <div class="date">
6429          5th May 2013
6430       </div>
6431       <div class="body">
6432         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
6433 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
6434 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
6435 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
6436 soon.</p>
6437
6438 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
6439 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
6440 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
6441 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
6442 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
6443 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
6444 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
6445 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
6446 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
6447 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
6448 Edu.</a>
6449
6450 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
6451 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
6452 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
6453 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
6454 follow.<p>
6455
6456       </div>
6457       <div class="tags">
6458
6459
6460         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>.
6461
6462
6463       </div>
6464     </div>
6465     <div class="padding"></div>
6466
6467     <div class="entry">
6468       <div class="title">
6469         <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>
6470       </div>
6471       <div class="date">
6472         26th April 2013
6473       </div>
6474       <div class="body">
6475         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
6476 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
6477 announcement:</p>
6478
6479 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
6480 2013-04-26</strong></p>
6481
6482 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
6483 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
6484
6485 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
6486
6487 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
6488 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
6489 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
6490 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
6491 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
6492 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
6493 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
6494 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
6495 installed via the network.</p>
6496
6497 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
6498 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
6499 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
6500
6501 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
6502
6503 <ul>
6504 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
6505   <ul>
6506      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
6507      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
6508          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
6509          manual.)</li>
6510      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
6511      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
6512      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
6513      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
6514      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
6515      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
6516      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
6517      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
6518      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
6519      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
6520      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
6521      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
6522          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
6523          manual</a> for more details.</li>
6524      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
6525          installation.</li>
6526      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
6527          <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>
6528   </ul></li>
6529 </ul>
6530
6531 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
6532 <ul>
6533 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
6534     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
6535     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
6536 </ul>
6537
6538 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
6539 <ul>
6540 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
6541     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
6542     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
6543 </ul>
6544
6545 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
6546 <ul>
6547 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
6548     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
6549     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
6550 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
6551     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
6552     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
6553 </ul>
6554
6555 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
6556 <ul>
6557 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
6558     yet.</li>
6559 </ul>
6560
6561 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
6562
6563 <ul>
6564 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
6565     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
6566     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
6567 </ul>
6568
6569 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
6570
6571 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
6572 <ul>
6573 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
6574 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
6575 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
6576 </ul>
6577
6578 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
6579
6580 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
6581
6582 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
6583
6584 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
6585
6586       </div>
6587       <div class="tags">
6588
6589
6590         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>.
6591
6592
6593       </div>
6594     </div>
6595     <div class="padding"></div>
6596
6597     <div class="entry">
6598       <div class="title">
6599         <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>
6600       </div>
6601       <div class="date">
6602         16th April 2013
6603       </div>
6604       <div class="body">
6605         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
6606 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
6607 Details about the gathering can be found
6608 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
6609 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
6610 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
6611 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
6612 weekend.</p>
6613
6614 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
6615 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
6616 Edu release.</p>
6617
6618 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
6619
6620       </div>
6621       <div class="tags">
6622
6623
6624         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>.
6625
6626
6627       </div>
6628     </div>
6629     <div class="padding"></div>
6630
6631     <div class="entry">
6632       <div class="title">
6633         <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>
6634       </div>
6635       <div class="date">
6636          3rd April 2013
6637       </div>
6638       <div class="body">
6639         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
6640 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
6641 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
6642 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
6643
6644 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
6645 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
6646 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
6647 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
6648 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
6649 BTS. :)</p>
6650
6651       </div>
6652       <div class="tags">
6653
6654
6655         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>.
6656
6657
6658       </div>
6659     </div>
6660     <div class="padding"></div>
6661
6662     <div class="entry">
6663       <div class="title">
6664         <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>
6665       </div>
6666       <div class="date">
6667         26th March 2013
6668       </div>
6669       <div class="body">
6670         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
6671 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
6672 font you use when printing.</p>
6673
6674 <p>Three years ago,
6675 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
6676 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
6677 changed their default front from
6678 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
6679 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
6680 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
6681 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
6682 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
6683 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
6684 prints.</p>
6685
6686 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
6687 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
6688 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
6689 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
6690 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
6691 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
6692 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
6693 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
6694 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
6695 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
6696 depend on the documents printed.</p>
6697
6698 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
6699 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
6700 and save some money in the process.</p>
6701
6702 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
6703 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
6704 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
6705 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
6706 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
6707 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
6708 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
6709 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
6710 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
6711
6712       </div>
6713       <div class="tags">
6714
6715
6716         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6717
6718
6719       </div>
6720     </div>
6721     <div class="padding"></div>
6722
6723     <div class="entry">
6724       <div class="title">
6725         <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>
6726       </div>
6727       <div class="date">
6728         24th March 2013
6729       </div>
6730       <div class="body">
6731         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
6732 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
6733 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
6734 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
6735 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
6736 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
6737 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
6738 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
6739 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
6740 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
6741 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
6742 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
6743
6744 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
6745 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
6746 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
6747 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
6748 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
6749 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
6750 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
6751 all I had to do was to use the
6752 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
6753 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
6754 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
6755 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
6756 xsltproc/fop (aka
6757 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
6758 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
6759 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
6760 technical detail.</p>
6761
6762 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
6763 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
6764 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
6765 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
6766 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
6767 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
6768
6769 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
6770 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
6771 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
6772 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
6773 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
6774 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
6775 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
6776 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
6777 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
6778
6779 <p><blockquote><pre>
6780 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
6781 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
6782   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
6783     &lt;hr/&gt;
6784   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
6785 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
6786 </pre></blockquote></p>
6787
6788 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
6789
6790 <p><blockquote><pre>
6791 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
6792 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
6793   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
6794     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
6795       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
6796     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
6797   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
6798 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
6799 </pre></blockquote></p>
6800
6801 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
6802 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
6803 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
6804 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
6805 enough.</p>
6806
6807 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
6808 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
6809 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
6810 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
6811 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
6812 look like this:</p>
6813
6814 <p><blockquote><pre>
6815 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
6816 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
6817   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
6818     &lt;br/&gt;
6819   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
6820 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
6821 </pre></blockquote></p>
6822
6823 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
6824
6825 <p><blockquote><pre>
6826 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
6827 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
6828   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
6829   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
6830     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
6831   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
6832 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
6833 </pre></blockquote></p>
6834
6835 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
6836 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
6837 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
6838 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
6839 page.</p>
6840
6841 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
6842 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
6843 github</a>
6844 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
6845 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
6846 days.</p>
6847
6848       </div>
6849       <div class="tags">
6850
6851
6852         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>.
6853
6854
6855       </div>
6856     </div>
6857     <div class="padding"></div>
6858
6859     <div class="entry">
6860       <div class="title">
6861         <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>
6862       </div>
6863       <div class="date">
6864         17th March 2013
6865       </div>
6866       <div class="body">
6867         <p>Via
6868 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
6869 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
6870 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
6871 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
6872 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
6873 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
6874 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
6875
6876 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
6877 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
6878
6879 <blockquote>
6880 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
6881 </blockquote>
6882
6883 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
6884
6885 <blockquote>
6886 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
6887 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
6888 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
6889 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
6890 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
6891 </blockquote>
6892
6893 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
6894 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
6895 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
6896 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
6897
6898 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
6899 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
6900
6901 <blockquote>
6902 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
6903 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
6904 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
6905 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
6906 </blockquote>
6907
6908 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
6909 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
6910 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
6911 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
6912 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
6913
6914 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
6915 embedding:</p>
6916
6917 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
6918
6919       </div>
6920       <div class="tags">
6921
6922
6923         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>.
6924
6925
6926       </div>
6927     </div>
6928     <div class="padding"></div>
6929
6930     <div class="entry">
6931       <div class="title">
6932         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
6933       </div>
6934       <div class="date">
6935          8th March 2013
6936       </div>
6937       <div class="body">
6938         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
6939 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
6940 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
6941 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
6942 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
6943 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
6944 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
6945
6946 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
6947
6948 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
6949 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
6950
6951 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
6952 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
6953 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
6954 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
6955 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
6956 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
6957
6958 <p>Images are available for download at
6959 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
6960
6961 <p>md5sums:
6962 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
6963 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
6964 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
6965
6966 <p>sha1sums:
6967 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
6968 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
6969 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
6970
6971 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
6972
6973 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
6974 2013-03-03:</p>
6975
6976 <ul>
6977   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
6978   <ul>
6979         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
6980         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
6981   </ul></li>
6982   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
6983   <ul>
6984         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
6985         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
6986   </ul></li>
6987   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
6988      <ul>
6989         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
6990         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
6991         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
6992                 Closes: #664596</li>
6993         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
6994                 Closes: #664976</li>
6995         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
6996            <ul>
6997                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
6998                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
6999            </ul></li>
7000         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
7001            <ul>
7002                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
7003                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
7004                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
7005                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
7006                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
7007            </ul></li>
7008         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
7009     </ul>
7010   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
7011     <ul>
7012         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
7013     </ul></li>
7014 </ul>
7015
7016 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
7017 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
7018 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
7019 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
7020
7021 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
7022 mailinglist
7023 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
7024 </p></blockquote>
7025
7026 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
7027
7028       </div>
7029       <div class="tags">
7030
7031
7032         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>.
7033
7034
7035       </div>
7036     </div>
7037     <div class="padding"></div>
7038
7039     <div class="entry">
7040       <div class="title">
7041         <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>
7042       </div>
7043       <div class="date">
7044          3rd March 2013
7045       </div>
7046       <div class="body">
7047         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
7048 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
7049 support using
7050 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
7051 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
7052 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
7053 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
7054 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
7055 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
7056 using the GNU LGPL, and
7057 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
7058
7059 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
7060 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
7061 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
7062 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
7063 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
7064 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
7065
7066 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
7067 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
7068 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
7069 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
7070 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
7071 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
7072 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
7073 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
7074 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
7075 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
7076 signal distribution is handled using
7077 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
7078 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
7079 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
7080 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
7081 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
7082 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
7083 them up a bit more first.</p>
7084
7085 <p>The development is coordinated on the
7086 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
7087 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
7088 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
7089 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
7090 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
7091 development.</p>
7092
7093       </div>
7094       <div class="tags">
7095
7096
7097         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>.
7098
7099
7100       </div>
7101     </div>
7102     <div class="padding"></div>
7103
7104     <div class="entry">
7105       <div class="title">
7106         <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>
7107       </div>
7108       <div class="date">
7109         27th February 2013
7110       </div>
7111       <div class="body">
7112         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
7113 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
7114 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
7115 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
7116 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
7117 (where I am the chair of the board) and
7118 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
7119 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
7120 GNU», with this description:
7121
7122 <p><blockquote>
7123 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
7124 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
7125 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
7126 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
7127 </blockquote></p>
7128
7129 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
7130 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
7131 am really curious how many will show up.  See
7132 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
7133 page</a> for the location details.</p>
7134
7135       </div>
7136       <div class="tags">
7137
7138
7139         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>.
7140
7141
7142       </div>
7143     </div>
7144     <div class="padding"></div>
7145
7146     <div class="entry">
7147       <div class="title">
7148         <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>
7149       </div>
7150       <div class="date">
7151         15th February 2013
7152       </div>
7153       <div class="body">
7154         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
7155 now a great source of free maps available from
7156 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
7157 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
7158 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
7159 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
7160 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
7161 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
7162 page for descriptions).</p>
7163
7164 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
7165 map you can just edit the
7166 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
7167 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
7168
7169       </div>
7170       <div class="tags">
7171
7172
7173         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>.
7174
7175
7176       </div>
7177     </div>
7178     <div class="padding"></div>
7179
7180     <div class="entry">
7181       <div class="title">
7182         <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>
7183       </div>
7184       <div class="date">
7185         12th February 2013
7186       </div>
7187       <div class="body">
7188         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
7189 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
7190 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
7191 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
7192 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
7193 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
7194 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
7195 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
7196 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
7197 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
7198 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
7199 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
7200 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
7201 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
7202 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
7203 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
7204
7205 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
7206 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
7207 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
7208 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
7209 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
7210 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
7211 fields:</p>
7212
7213 <p><pre>
7214 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
7215 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
7216 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
7217 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
7218 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
7219 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
7220 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
7221 </pre></p>
7222
7223 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
7224 answer regarding
7225 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
7226 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
7227 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
7228 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
7229
7230 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
7231
7232 <p><pre>
7233 BEGIN:VCARD
7234 VERSION:2.1
7235 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
7236 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
7237 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
7238 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
7239 REV:20130212T095000Z
7240 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
7241 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
7242 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
7243 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
7244 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
7245 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
7246 END:VCARD
7247 </pre></p>
7248
7249 <p>The resulting QR code created using
7250 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
7251 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
7252 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
7253 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
7254 system.</p>
7255
7256 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
7257
7258 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
7259 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
7260 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
7261 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
7262
7263 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
7264 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
7265
7266       </div>
7267       <div class="tags">
7268
7269
7270         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>.
7271
7272
7273       </div>
7274     </div>
7275     <div class="padding"></div>
7276
7277     <div class="entry">
7278       <div class="title">
7279         <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>
7280       </div>
7281       <div class="date">
7282         10th February 2013
7283       </div>
7284       <div class="body">
7285         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
7286
7287 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
7288 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
7289 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
7290 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
7291 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
7292 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
7293 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
7294 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
7295 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
7296 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
7297 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
7298
7299 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
7300 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
7301 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
7302 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
7303 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
7304 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
7305 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
7306 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
7307 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
7308 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
7309 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
7310 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
7311 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
7312 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
7313 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
7314 ones own
7315 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
7316 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
7317 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
7318 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
7319 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
7320 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
7321 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
7322 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
7323 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
7324 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
7325 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
7326
7327 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
7328 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
7329 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
7330 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
7331 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
7332 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
7333
7334 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
7335 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
7336 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
7337
7338       </div>
7339       <div class="tags">
7340
7341
7342         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7343
7344
7345       </div>
7346     </div>
7347     <div class="padding"></div>
7348
7349     <div class="entry">
7350       <div class="title">
7351         <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>
7352       </div>
7353       <div class="date">
7354          2nd February 2013
7355       </div>
7356       <div class="body">
7357         <p>My
7358 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
7359 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
7360 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
7361 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
7362 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
7363 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
7364 version too.</p>
7365
7366 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
7367 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
7368 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
7369 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
7370 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
7371 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
7372 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
7373 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
7374
7375 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
7376 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
7377 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
7378 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
7379 it. :)</p>
7380
7381 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
7382 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
7383 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
7384
7385       </div>
7386       <div class="tags">
7387
7388
7389         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>.
7390
7391
7392       </div>
7393     </div>
7394     <div class="padding"></div>
7395
7396     <div class="entry">
7397       <div class="title">
7398         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
7399       </div>
7400       <div class="date">
7401         22nd January 2013
7402       </div>
7403       <div class="body">
7404         <p>Yesterday, I
7405 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
7406 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
7407 pluggable hardware devices, which I
7408 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
7409 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
7410 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
7411 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
7412 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
7413 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
7414 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
7415 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
7416 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
7417 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
7418
7419 <pre>
7420 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
7421 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
7422 </pre>
7423
7424 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
7425 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
7426 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
7427 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
7428
7429 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
7430 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
7431 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
7432 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
7433 word.</p>
7434
7435 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
7436 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
7437 process.</p>
7438
7439 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
7440 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
7441
7442       </div>
7443       <div class="tags">
7444
7445
7446         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>.
7447
7448
7449       </div>
7450     </div>
7451     <div class="padding"></div>
7452
7453     <div class="entry">
7454       <div class="title">
7455         <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>
7456       </div>
7457       <div class="date">
7458         21st January 2013
7459       </div>
7460       <div class="body">
7461         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
7462 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
7463 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
7464 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
7465 it, fetch the
7466 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
7467 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
7468 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
7469 autostart script.</p>
7470
7471 <p>The design is simple:</p>
7472
7473 <ul>
7474
7475 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
7476 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
7477
7478 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
7479 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
7480 initially did.</li>
7481
7482 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
7483 the APT database, a database
7484 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
7485 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
7486
7487 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
7488 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
7489 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
7490 package or packages.</li>
7491
7492 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
7493 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
7494
7495 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
7496 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
7497
7498 </ul>
7499
7500 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
7501 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
7502 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
7503 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
7504
7505 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
7506 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
7507 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
7508 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
7509 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
7510
7511 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
7512 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
7513 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
7514 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
7515 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
7516 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
7517 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
7518 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
7519
7520 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
7521 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
7522 '<tt>svn checkout
7523 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
7524 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
7525 devscripts package.</p>
7526
7527 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
7528 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
7529 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
7530 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
7531 instructions</a> for details.</p>
7532
7533       </div>
7534       <div class="tags">
7535
7536
7537         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>.
7538
7539
7540       </div>
7541     </div>
7542     <div class="padding"></div>
7543
7544     <div class="entry">
7545       <div class="title">
7546         <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>
7547       </div>
7548       <div class="date">
7549         19th January 2013
7550       </div>
7551       <div class="body">
7552         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
7553 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
7554 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
7555 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
7556 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
7557 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
7558 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
7559 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
7560 not a durable solution.
7561
7562 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
7563 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
7564
7565 <ul>
7566
7567 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
7568   than A4).</li>
7569 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
7570 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
7571 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
7572 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
7573 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
7574 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
7575 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
7576 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
7577 size).</li>
7578 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
7579   X.org packages.</li>
7580 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
7581   the time).
7582
7583 </ul>
7584
7585 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
7586 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
7587 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
7588 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
7589 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
7590 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
7591 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
7592 still be useful.</p>
7593
7594 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
7595 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
7596 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
7597 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
7598 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
7599 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
7600
7601       </div>
7602       <div class="tags">
7603
7604
7605         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>.
7606
7607
7608       </div>
7609     </div>
7610     <div class="padding"></div>
7611
7612     <div class="entry">
7613       <div class="title">
7614         <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>
7615       </div>
7616       <div class="date">
7617         18th January 2013
7618       </div>
7619       <div class="body">
7620         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
7621 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
7622 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
7623 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
7624 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
7625 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
7626 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
7627
7628 <pre>
7629 #!/usr/bin/python
7630 import sys
7631 import apt
7632 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
7633     cache = apt.Cache()
7634     cache.open(None)
7635     thepkgs = []
7636     for pkg in cache:
7637         version = pkg.candidate
7638         if version is None:
7639             version = pkg.installed
7640         if version is None:
7641             continue
7642         record = version.record
7643         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
7644             continue
7645         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
7646         for t in mime_types:
7647             t = t.rstrip().strip()
7648             if t == mimetype:
7649                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
7650     return thepkgs
7651 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
7652 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
7653     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
7654 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
7655 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
7656     print "  %s" %pkg
7657 </pre>
7658
7659 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
7660
7661 <pre>
7662 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
7663 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
7664   gecko-mediaplayer
7665 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
7666 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
7667   browser-plugin-gnash
7668 %
7669 </pre>
7670
7671 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
7672 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
7673 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
7674 anyone working on adding it?</p>
7675
7676 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
7677 request for icweasel support for this feature is
7678 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
7679 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
7680 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
7681 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
7682
7683       </div>
7684       <div class="tags">
7685
7686
7687         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>.
7688
7689
7690       </div>
7691     </div>
7692     <div class="padding"></div>
7693
7694     <div class="entry">
7695       <div class="title">
7696         <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>
7697       </div>
7698       <div class="date">
7699         16th January 2013
7700       </div>
7701       <div class="body">
7702         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
7703 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
7704 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
7705 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
7706 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
7707 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
7708 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
7709 downloaded by the browser.</p>
7710
7711 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
7712 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
7713 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
7714 can be found on the
7715 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
7716 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
7717 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
7718 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
7719 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
7720
7721 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
7722
7723 <pre>
7724   count MIME type
7725   ----- -----------------------
7726      32 text/plain
7727      30 audio/mpeg
7728      29 image/png
7729      28 image/jpeg
7730      27 application/ogg
7731      26 audio/x-mp3
7732      25 image/tiff
7733      25 image/gif
7734      22 image/bmp
7735      22 audio/x-wav
7736      20 audio/x-flac
7737      19 audio/x-mpegurl
7738      18 video/x-ms-asf
7739      18 audio/x-musepack
7740      18 audio/x-mpeg
7741      18 application/x-ogg
7742      17 video/mpeg
7743      17 audio/x-scpls
7744      17 audio/ogg
7745      16 video/x-ms-wmv
7746 </pre>
7747
7748 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
7749
7750 <pre>
7751   count MIME type
7752   ----- -----------------------
7753      33 text/plain
7754      32 image/png
7755      32 image/jpeg
7756      29 audio/mpeg
7757      27 image/gif
7758      26 image/tiff
7759      26 application/ogg
7760      25 audio/x-mp3
7761      22 image/bmp
7762      21 audio/x-wav
7763      19 audio/x-mpegurl
7764      19 audio/x-mpeg
7765      18 video/mpeg
7766      18 audio/x-scpls
7767      18 audio/x-flac
7768      18 application/x-ogg
7769      17 video/x-ms-asf
7770      17 text/html
7771      17 audio/x-musepack
7772      16 image/x-xbitmap
7773 </pre>
7774
7775 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
7776
7777 <pre>
7778   count MIME type
7779   ----- -----------------------
7780      31 text/plain
7781      31 image/png
7782      31 image/jpeg
7783      29 audio/mpeg
7784      28 application/ogg
7785      27 image/gif
7786      26 image/tiff
7787      26 audio/x-mp3
7788      23 audio/x-wav
7789      22 image/bmp
7790      21 audio/x-flac
7791      20 audio/x-mpegurl
7792      19 audio/x-mpeg
7793      18 video/x-ms-asf
7794      18 video/mpeg
7795      18 audio/x-scpls
7796      18 application/x-ogg
7797      17 audio/x-musepack
7798      16 video/x-ms-wmv
7799      16 video/x-msvideo
7800 </pre>
7801
7802 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
7803 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
7804 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
7805 issues.</p>
7806
7807 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
7808 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
7809
7810       </div>
7811       <div class="tags">
7812
7813
7814         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>.
7815
7816
7817       </div>
7818     </div>
7819     <div class="padding"></div>
7820
7821     <div class="entry">
7822       <div class="title">
7823         <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>
7824       </div>
7825       <div class="date">
7826         15th January 2013
7827       </div>
7828       <div class="body">
7829         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
7830 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
7831 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
7832 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
7833 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
7834 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
7835 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
7836 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
7837 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
7838 packages.</p>
7839
7840 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
7841 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
7842 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
7843 modalias.</p>
7844
7845 <p><blockquote>
7846 Package: package-name
7847 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
7848 </blockquote></p>
7849
7850 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
7851 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
7852
7853 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
7854 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
7855
7856 <p><blockquote>
7857 Package: cheese
7858 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
7859 </blockquote></p>
7860
7861 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
7862 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
7863
7864 <p><blockquote>
7865 Package: pcmciautils
7866 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
7867 </blockquote></p>
7868
7869 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
7870 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
7871
7872 <p><blockquote>
7873 Package: colorhug-client
7874 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
7875 </blockquote></p>
7876
7877 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
7878 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
7879 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
7880
7881 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
7882 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
7883 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
7884 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
7885 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
7886 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
7887 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
7888 Raring.</p>
7889
7890 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
7891 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
7892 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
7893 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
7894 try the
7895 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
7896 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
7897 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
7898 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
7899
7900 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
7901 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
7902
7903 <p><blockquote>
7904 % ./hw-support-lookup
7905 <br>yubikey-personalization
7906 <br>%
7907 </blockquote></p>
7908
7909 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
7910 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
7911
7912 <p><blockquote>
7913 % ./hw-support-lookup
7914 <br>pcmciautils
7915 <br>%
7916 </blockquote></p>
7917
7918 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
7919 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
7920 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
7921
7922 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
7923 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
7924 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
7925 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
7926 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
7927 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
7928 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
7929 see if it work.</p>
7930
7931 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
7932 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
7933 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
7934 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
7935
7936       </div>
7937       <div class="tags">
7938
7939
7940         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>.
7941
7942
7943       </div>
7944     </div>
7945     <div class="padding"></div>
7946
7947     <div class="entry">
7948       <div class="title">
7949         <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>
7950       </div>
7951       <div class="date">
7952         14th January 2013
7953       </div>
7954       <div class="body">
7955         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
7956 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
7957 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
7958 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
7959 in
7960 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
7961 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
7962
7963 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
7964
7965 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
7966 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
7967 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
7968 &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;,
7969 &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
7970 &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;.
7971
7972 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
7973 this shell script:</p>
7974
7975 <pre>
7976 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
7977 </pre>
7978
7979 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
7980 using modinfo:</p>
7981
7982 <pre>
7983 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
7984 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
7985 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
7986 %
7987 </pre>
7988
7989 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
7990
7991 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
7992 Bridge memory controller:</p>
7993
7994 <p><blockquote>
7995 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
7996 </blockquote></p>
7997
7998 <p>This represent these values:</p>
7999
8000 <pre>
8001  v   00008086  (vendor)
8002  d   00002770  (device)
8003  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
8004  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
8005  bc  06        (bus class)
8006  sc  00        (bus subclass)
8007  i   00        (interface)
8008 </pre>
8009
8010 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
8011 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
8012 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
8013 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
8014
8015 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
8016 means.</p>
8017
8018 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
8019
8020 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
8021 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
8022
8023 <p><blockquote>
8024 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
8025 </blockquote></p>
8026
8027 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
8028
8029 <pre>
8030  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
8031  p    0001  (device product)
8032  d    0206  (bcddevice)
8033  dc     09  (device class)
8034  dsc    00  (device subclass)
8035  dp     00  (device protocol)
8036  ic     09  (interface class)
8037  isc    00  (interface subclass)
8038  ip     00  (interface protocol)
8039 </pre>
8040
8041 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
8042 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
8043 these alias entries show up:</p>
8044
8045 <p><blockquote>
8046 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
8047 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
8048 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
8049 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
8050 </blockquote></p>
8051
8052 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
8053 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
8054 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
8055
8056 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
8057
8058 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
8059 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
8060
8061 <p><blockquote>
8062 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
8063 </blockquote></p>
8064
8065 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
8066
8067 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
8068
8069 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
8070 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
8071 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
8072
8073 <p><blockquote>
8074 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
8075 </blockquote></p>
8076
8077 <p>The values present are</p>
8078
8079 <pre>
8080  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
8081  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
8082  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
8083  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
8084  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
8085  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
8086  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
8087  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
8088  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
8089  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
8090  ct   10             (chassis type)
8091  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
8092 </pre>
8093
8094 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
8095 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
8096
8097 <pre>
8098   3 Desktop
8099   4 Low Profile Desktop
8100   5 Pizza Box
8101   6 Mini Tower
8102   7 Tower
8103   8 Portable
8104   9 Laptop
8105  10 Notebook
8106  11 Hand Held
8107  12 Docking Station
8108  13 All In One
8109  14 Sub Notebook
8110  15 Space-saving
8111  16 Lunch Box
8112  17 Main Server Chassis
8113  18 Expansion Chassis
8114  19 Sub Chassis
8115  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
8116  21 Peripheral Chassis
8117  22 RAID Chassis
8118  23 Rack Mount Chassis
8119  24 Sealed-case PC
8120  25 Multi-system
8121  26 CompactPCI
8122  27 AdvancedTCA
8123  28 Blade
8124  29 Blade Enclosing
8125 </pre>
8126
8127 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
8128 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
8129 claim it is a desktop.</p>
8130
8131 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
8132
8133 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
8134 test machine:</p>
8135
8136 <p><blockquote>
8137 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
8138 </blockquote></p>
8139
8140 <p>The values present are</p>
8141
8142 <pre>
8143   ty  01  (type)
8144   pr  00  (prototype)
8145   id  00  (id)
8146   ex  00  (extra)
8147 </pre>
8148
8149 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
8150 the valid values are.</p>
8151
8152 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
8153
8154 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
8155 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
8156 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
8157 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
8158 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
8159 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
8160 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
8161
8162 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
8163
8164 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
8165 one can use the following shell script:</p>
8166
8167 <pre>
8168   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
8169     echo "$id" ; \
8170     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
8171   done
8172 </pre>
8173
8174 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
8175 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
8176
8177 <pre>
8178   acpi:ACPI0003:
8179     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
8180   acpi:device:
8181   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
8182   acpi:IBM0068:
8183     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
8184     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
8185     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
8186     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
8187   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
8188     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
8189     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
8190     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
8191   [...]
8192 </pre>
8193
8194 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
8195 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
8196 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
8197 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
8198
8199 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
8200 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
8201 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
8202
8203       </div>
8204       <div class="tags">
8205
8206
8207         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>.
8208
8209
8210       </div>
8211     </div>
8212     <div class="padding"></div>
8213
8214     <div class="entry">
8215       <div class="title">
8216         <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>
8217       </div>
8218       <div class="date">
8219         10th January 2013
8220       </div>
8221       <div class="body">
8222         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
8223 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
8224 Launcher and updated the Debian package
8225 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
8226 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
8227 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
8228 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
8229 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
8230 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
8231 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
8232 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
8233 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
8234 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
8235 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
8236 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
8237 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
8238 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
8239 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
8240
8241       </div>
8242       <div class="tags">
8243
8244
8245         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>.
8246
8247
8248       </div>
8249     </div>
8250     <div class="padding"></div>
8251
8252     <div class="entry">
8253       <div class="title">
8254         <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>
8255       </div>
8256       <div class="date">
8257          9th January 2013
8258       </div>
8259       <div class="body">
8260         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
8261 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
8262 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
8263 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
8264 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
8265 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
8266 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
8267 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
8268 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
8269 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
8270 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
8271
8272 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
8273 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
8274 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
8275 simple:
8276
8277 <ul>
8278
8279 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
8280   starting when a user log in.</li>
8281
8282 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
8283   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
8284
8285 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
8286   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
8287   packages.</li>
8288
8289 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
8290   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
8291
8292 </ul>
8293
8294 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
8295 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
8296 discover database to find packages and
8297 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
8298 packages.</p>
8299
8300 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
8301 draft package is now checked into
8302 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
8303 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
8304 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
8305 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
8306 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
8307 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
8308 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
8309 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
8310 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
8311 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
8312 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
8313 because of the freeze).</p>
8314
8315 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
8316 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
8317 inserted):</p>
8318
8319 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
8320
8321 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
8322 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
8323 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
8324
8325 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
8326 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
8327 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
8328 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
8329 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
8330 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
8331 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
8332
8333 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
8334 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
8335 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
8336 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
8337 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
8338 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
8339 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
8340 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
8341 not be installed?</p>
8342
8343 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
8344 please send me an email. :)</p>
8345
8346       </div>
8347       <div class="tags">
8348
8349
8350         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>.
8351
8352
8353       </div>
8354     </div>
8355     <div class="padding"></div>
8356
8357     <div class="entry">
8358       <div class="title">
8359         <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>
8360       </div>
8361       <div class="date">
8362          2nd January 2013
8363       </div>
8364       <div class="body">
8365         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
8366 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
8367 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
8368 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
8369 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
8370 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
8371 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
8372 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
8373 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
8374 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
8375
8376 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
8377 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
8378 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
8379
8380       </div>
8381       <div class="tags">
8382
8383
8384         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>.
8385
8386
8387       </div>
8388     </div>
8389     <div class="padding"></div>
8390
8391     <div class="entry">
8392       <div class="title">
8393         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
8394       </div>
8395       <div class="date">
8396         28th December 2012
8397       </div>
8398       <div class="body">
8399         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
8400 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
8401 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
8402 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
8403 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
8404 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
8405 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
8406 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
8407 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
8408 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
8409 followed by many others. :)</p>
8410
8411 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
8412 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
8413 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
8414 you want to donate to the project.</p>
8415
8416       </div>
8417       <div class="tags">
8418
8419
8420         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>.
8421
8422
8423       </div>
8424     </div>
8425     <div class="padding"></div>
8426
8427     <div class="entry">
8428       <div class="title">
8429         <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>
8430       </div>
8431       <div class="date">
8432         25th December 2012
8433       </div>
8434       <div class="body">
8435         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
8436 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
8437
8438 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
8439 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
8440 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
8441 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
8442 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
8443 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
8444 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
8445 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
8446 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
8447 name.</p>
8448
8449 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
8450 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
8451 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
8452
8453 <blockquote><pre>
8454 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
8455 cd bitcoin
8456 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
8457 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
8458 </pre></blockquote>
8459
8460 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
8461 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
8462 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
8463 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
8464 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
8465 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
8466 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
8467 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
8468 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
8469
8470 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
8471 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
8472 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8473
8474       </div>
8475       <div class="tags">
8476
8477
8478         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>.
8479
8480
8481       </div>
8482     </div>
8483     <div class="padding"></div>
8484
8485     <div class="entry">
8486       <div class="title">
8487         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
8488       </div>
8489       <div class="date">
8490         21st December 2012
8491       </div>
8492       <div class="body">
8493         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
8494 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
8495 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
8496 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
8497 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
8498 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
8499 is now maintained by a
8500 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
8501 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
8502 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
8503 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
8504 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
8505 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
8506 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
8507 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
8508 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
8509 Corallo in a
8510 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
8511 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
8512 Debian package.</p>
8513
8514 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
8515 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
8516 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
8517 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
8518 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
8519 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
8520 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
8521 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
8522 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
8523 new version to unstable.
8524
8525 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
8526 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
8527 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
8528 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
8529 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
8530 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
8531 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
8532 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
8533 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
8534 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
8535 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
8536 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
8537 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
8538 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
8539 have not tested them.</p>
8540
8541 <p>My
8542 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
8543 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
8544 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
8545 years ago, as can be
8546 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
8547 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
8548 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
8549 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
8550 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
8551 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
8552 the same address as last time,
8553 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8554
8555       </div>
8556       <div class="tags">
8557
8558
8559         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>.
8560
8561
8562       </div>
8563     </div>
8564     <div class="padding"></div>
8565
8566     <div class="entry">
8567       <div class="title">
8568         <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>
8569       </div>
8570       <div class="date">
8571         18th December 2012
8572       </div>
8573       <div class="body">
8574         <p>A few days ago I came across
8575 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
8576 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
8577 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
8578 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
8579 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
8580 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
8581 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
8582 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
8583 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
8584
8585 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
8586 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
8587 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
8588 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
8589
8590 <blockquote><pre>
8591 2004-05-27 Book Store
8592       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
8593       Liabilities:Visa
8594 </pre></blockquote>
8595
8596 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
8597 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
8598 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
8599 Spang</a>,
8600 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
8601 Keen</a>,
8602 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
8603 Cantino</a> and
8604 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
8605 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
8606 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
8607 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
8608 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
8609
8610 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
8611 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
8612 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
8613 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
8614 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
8615
8616 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
8617 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
8618 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
8619 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
8620 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
8621 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
8622 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
8623 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
8624 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
8625
8626       </div>
8627       <div class="tags">
8628
8629
8630         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>.
8631
8632
8633       </div>
8634     </div>
8635     <div class="padding"></div>
8636
8637     <div class="entry">
8638       <div class="title">
8639         <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>
8640       </div>
8641       <div class="date">
8642          6th December 2012
8643       </div>
8644       <div class="body">
8645         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
8646 Oslo</a>, we use the
8647 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
8648 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
8649 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
8650 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
8651 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
8652 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
8653 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
8654 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
8655 Python.</p>
8656
8657 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
8658 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
8659 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
8660 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
8661 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
8662 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
8663
8664 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
8665 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
8666 user currently logged in:</p>
8667
8668 <blockquote><pre>
8669 #!/usr/bin/env python
8670 import getpass
8671 import xmlrpclib
8672 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
8673 username = getpass.getuser()
8674 password = getpass.getpass()
8675 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
8676 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
8677 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
8678 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
8679 result = server.logout(sessionid)
8680 print result
8681 </pre></blockquote>
8682
8683 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
8684 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
8685
8686       </div>
8687       <div class="tags">
8688
8689
8690         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>.
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/Why_isn_t_the_value_of_copyright_taxed_.html">Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?</a>
8700       </div>
8701       <div class="date">
8702         17th November 2012
8703       </div>
8704       <div class="body">
8705         <p>While working on a
8706 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
8707 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
8708 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
8709 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
8710 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
8711 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
8712
8713 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
8714 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
8715 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
8716 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
8717 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
8718 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
8719 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
8720 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
8721 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
8722 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
8723 arguments.</p>
8724
8725 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
8726 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
8727 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
8728 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
8729 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
8730 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
8731 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
8732 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
8733
8734 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
8735 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
8736 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
8737 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
8738 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
8739 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
8740 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
8741 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
8742 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
8743 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
8744 correct right holder.</p>
8745
8746 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
8747 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
8748 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
8749 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
8750 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
8751 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
8752 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
8753 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
8754 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
8755 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
8756 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
8757 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
8758 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
8759 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
8760
8761 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
8762 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
8763 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
8764
8765 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
8766 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
8767
8768       </div>
8769       <div class="tags">
8770
8771
8772         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>.
8773
8774
8775       </div>
8776     </div>
8777     <div class="padding"></div>
8778
8779     <div class="entry">
8780       <div class="title">
8781         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
8782       </div>
8783       <div class="date">
8784         14th November 2012
8785       </div>
8786       <div class="body">
8787         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
8788 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
8789 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
8790 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
8791 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
8792 the people behind the German
8793 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
8794 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
8795 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
8796
8797 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8798
8799 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
8800 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
8801 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
8802
8803 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
8804 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
8805 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
8806 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
8807 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
8808 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
8809
8810 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
8811 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
8812 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
8813 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
8814 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
8815 relationship management and the communication processes in the
8816 project.</p>
8817
8818 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
8819 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
8820 and a yoga teacher.</p>
8821
8822 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
8823 project?</strong></p>
8824
8825 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
8826
8827 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
8828 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
8829 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
8830 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
8831 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
8832 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
8833 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
8834 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
8835 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
8836 parents.</p>
8837
8838 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
8839 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
8840 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
8841 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
8842 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
8843 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
8844 Germany.</p>
8845
8846 <p>For information about our school project you can read
8847 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
8848 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
8849
8850 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
8851 Edu?</strong></p>
8852
8853 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
8854 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
8855
8856 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
8857 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
8858 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
8859 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
8860 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
8861 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
8862 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
8863 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
8864 teachers, parents...</p>
8865
8866 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
8867 Edu?</strong></p>
8868
8869 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
8870 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
8871
8872 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
8873 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
8874 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
8875 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
8876 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
8877
8878 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
8879 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
8880 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
8881 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
8882 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
8883 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
8884 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
8885
8886 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8887
8888 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
8889 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
8890 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
8891 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
8892
8893 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8894 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8895
8896 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
8897 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
8898 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
8899 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
8900 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
8901
8902 <ul>
8903
8904 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
8905 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
8906 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
8907
8908 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
8909 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
8910 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
8911 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
8912 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
8913 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
8914 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
8915
8916 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
8917 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
8918 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
8919 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
8920
8921 </ul>
8922
8923       </div>
8924       <div class="tags">
8925
8926
8927         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>.
8928
8929
8930       </div>
8931     </div>
8932     <div class="padding"></div>
8933
8934     <div class="entry">
8935       <div class="title">
8936         <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>
8937       </div>
8938       <div class="date">
8939          4th November 2012
8940       </div>
8941       <div class="body">
8942         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
8943 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
8944 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
8945 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
8946 see how a member of the bitcoin community
8947 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
8948 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
8949 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
8950 competition.  My thoughts go to the
8951 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
8952 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
8953 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
8954 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
8955 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
8956
8957 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
8958 that the community already seem to have
8959 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
8960 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
8961 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
8962 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
8963 wealth is available.</p>
8964
8965       </div>
8966       <div class="tags">
8967
8968
8969         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>.
8970
8971
8972       </div>
8973     </div>
8974     <div class="padding"></div>
8975
8976     <div class="entry">
8977       <div class="title">
8978         <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>
8979       </div>
8980       <div class="date">
8981         26th October 2012
8982       </div>
8983       <div class="body">
8984         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
8985 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
8986 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
8987 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
8988 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
8989 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
8990 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
8991 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
8992 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
8993 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
8994 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
8995 it every time.</p>
8996
8997 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
8998 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
8999 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
9000 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
9001 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
9002 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
9003 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
9004 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
9005 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
9006 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
9007 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
9008 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
9009
9010 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
9011 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
9012 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
9013 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
9014 article: First the unplanned outage:
9015
9016 <blockquote><pre>
9017 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
9018 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
9019 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
9020 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
9021 Duration:    40 minutes
9022 Scope:       Exchange 2003
9023 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
9024              a cluster failover.
9025
9026 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
9027              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
9028 Technician:  [xxx]
9029 </pre></blockquote>
9030
9031 Next the planned outage:
9032
9033 <blockquote><pre>
9034 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
9035 Severity:    Major (Planned)
9036 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
9037 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
9038 Duration:    10 hours
9039 Scope:       H2 Transport
9040 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
9041              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
9042              4510s.
9043 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
9044              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
9045              connectivity.
9046 Technician:  [xxx]
9047 </pre></blockquote>
9048
9049 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
9050 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
9051 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
9052 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
9053 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
9054 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
9055 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
9056
9057 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
9058 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
9059 university too.  We do register
9060 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
9061 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
9062 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
9063 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
9064 for other sites to consider too?</p>
9065
9066       </div>
9067       <div class="tags">
9068
9069
9070         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>.
9071
9072
9073       </div>
9074     </div>
9075     <div class="padding"></div>
9076
9077     <div class="entry">
9078       <div class="title">
9079         <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>
9080       </div>
9081       <div class="date">
9082         22nd October 2012
9083       </div>
9084       <div class="body">
9085         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
9086 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
9087 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
9088 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
9089 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
9090 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
9091 background information is available in Norwegian from
9092 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
9093 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
9094 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
9095 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
9096 willing to
9097 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
9098 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
9099 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
9100 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
9101 sounded like
9102 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
9103 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
9104 later.</p>
9105
9106 <p>And thought this action is
9107 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
9108 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
9109 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
9110 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
9111 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
9112 rights.</p>
9113
9114 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
9115 unacceptable terms.  For example
9116 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
9117 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
9118 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
9119 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
9120 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
9121
9122 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
9123 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
9124 restored the account of the user, as reported by
9125 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
9126 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
9127 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
9128 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
9129 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
9130 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
9131 reading two opinions from
9132 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
9133 Phipps</a> and
9134 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
9135 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
9136 details about the original story.</p>
9137
9138       </div>
9139       <div class="tags">
9140
9141
9142         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>.
9143
9144
9145       </div>
9146     </div>
9147     <div class="padding"></div>
9148
9149     <div class="entry">
9150       <div class="title">
9151         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
9152       </div>
9153       <div class="date">
9154         18th October 2012
9155       </div>
9156       <div class="body">
9157         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
9158 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
9159 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
9160 across a marvellous drawing by
9161 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
9162 visualising some of what is going on.
9163
9164 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
9165 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
9166
9167 <blockquote>
9168 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
9169 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
9170 </blockquote>
9171
9172 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
9173 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
9174 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
9175 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
9176 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
9177 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
9178
9179       </div>
9180       <div class="tags">
9181
9182
9183         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>.
9184
9185
9186       </div>
9187     </div>
9188     <div class="padding"></div>
9189
9190     <div class="entry">
9191       <div class="title">
9192         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
9193       </div>
9194       <div class="date">
9195         12th October 2012
9196       </div>
9197       <div class="body">
9198         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
9199 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
9200 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
9201 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
9202 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
9203 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
9204 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
9205 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
9206 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
9207 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
9208 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
9209 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
9210 matter".</p>
9211
9212 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
9213 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
9214 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
9215 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
9216 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
9217 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
9218 to argue its side.</p>
9219
9220 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
9221 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
9222 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
9223 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
9224
9225 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
9226 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
9227 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
9228
9229       </div>
9230       <div class="tags">
9231
9232
9233         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>.
9234
9235
9236       </div>
9237     </div>
9238     <div class="padding"></div>
9239
9240     <div class="entry">
9241       <div class="title">
9242         <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>
9243       </div>
9244       <div class="date">
9245          3rd October 2012
9246       </div>
9247       <div class="body">
9248         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
9249 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
9250 the computer science book collection available in his local
9251 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
9252 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
9253 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
9254 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
9255 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
9256 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
9257 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
9258 recently published books.</p>
9259
9260 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
9261 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
9262 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
9263 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
9264 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
9265 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
9266 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
9267 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
9268 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
9269 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
9270 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
9271 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
9272 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
9273 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
9274 for the library that evening.</p>
9275
9276 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
9277 going to know that for example
9278 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
9279 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
9280 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
9281 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
9282 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
9283 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
9284 book right away.</p>
9285
9286       </div>
9287       <div class="tags">
9288
9289
9290         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9291
9292
9293       </div>
9294     </div>
9295     <div class="padding"></div>
9296
9297     <div class="entry">
9298       <div class="title">
9299         <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>
9300       </div>
9301       <div class="date">
9302         23rd September 2012
9303       </div>
9304       <div class="body">
9305         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
9306 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
9307 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
9308 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
9309 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
9310 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
9311
9312 When I started, I
9313 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
9314 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
9315 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
9316 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
9317 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
9318 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
9319 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
9320
9321 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
9322
9323 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
9324 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
9325 the project files currently available from
9326 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
9327
9328 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
9329 the updated
9330 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
9331 and
9332 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
9333 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
9334 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
9335 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
9336
9337       </div>
9338       <div class="tags">
9339
9340
9341         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>.
9342
9343
9344       </div>
9345     </div>
9346     <div class="padding"></div>
9347
9348     <div class="entry">
9349       <div class="title">
9350         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
9351       </div>
9352       <div class="date">
9353         17th September 2012
9354       </div>
9355       <div class="body">
9356         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
9357 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
9358 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
9359 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
9360 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
9361 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
9362 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
9363
9364 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9365
9366 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
9367 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
9368 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
9369 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
9370 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
9371 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
9372 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
9373 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
9374 training is anyway very important</p>
9375
9376 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
9377 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
9378 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
9379 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
9380 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
9381
9382 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9383 project?</strong></p>
9384
9385 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
9386 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
9387 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
9388 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
9389 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
9390 hole.</p>
9391
9392 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9393 Edu?</strong></p>
9394
9395 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
9396 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
9397 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
9398 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
9399 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
9400 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
9401 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
9402 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
9403 hassle.</p>
9404
9405 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9406 Edu?</strong></p>
9407
9408 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
9409 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
9410 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
9411 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
9412 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
9413 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
9414 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
9415 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
9416
9417 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9418
9419 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
9420 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
9421 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
9422 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
9423 has the same...</p>
9424
9425 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
9426 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
9427 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
9428 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
9429
9430 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9431 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9432
9433 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
9434 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
9435 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
9436
9437 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
9438 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
9439 don't.</p>
9440
9441 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
9442 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
9443 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
9444 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
9445 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
9446 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
9447 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
9448
9449       </div>
9450       <div class="tags">
9451
9452
9453         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>.
9454
9455
9456       </div>
9457     </div>
9458     <div class="padding"></div>
9459
9460     <div class="entry">
9461       <div class="title">
9462         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
9463       </div>
9464       <div class="date">
9465         15th September 2012
9466       </div>
9467       <div class="body">
9468         <p>After the
9469 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
9470 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
9471 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
9472 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
9473 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
9474 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
9475 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
9476 was
9477 <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
9478 formal working group should be formed.</p>
9479
9480 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
9481 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
9482 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
9483 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
9484 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
9485 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
9486 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
9487 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
9488
9489 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
9490 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
9491 IETF.</p>
9492
9493       </div>
9494       <div class="tags">
9495
9496
9497         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>.
9498
9499
9500       </div>
9501     </div>
9502     <div class="padding"></div>
9503
9504     <div class="entry">
9505       <div class="title">
9506         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
9507       </div>
9508       <div class="date">
9509         12th September 2012
9510       </div>
9511       <div class="body">
9512         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
9513 publication of of
9514 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
9515 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
9516 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
9517 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
9518 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
9519 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
9520 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
9521 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
9522 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
9523 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
9524
9525 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
9526 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
9527 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
9528 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
9529
9530 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
9531 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
9532
9533       </div>
9534       <div class="tags">
9535
9536
9537         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>.
9538
9539
9540       </div>
9541     </div>
9542     <div class="padding"></div>
9543
9544     <div class="entry">
9545       <div class="title">
9546         <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>
9547       </div>
9548       <div class="date">
9549          7th September 2012
9550       </div>
9551       <div class="body">
9552         <p>As I
9553 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
9554 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
9555 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
9556 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
9557 repository for the project</a>.</p>
9558
9559 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
9560 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
9561 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
9562 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
9563
9564 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
9565 PostScript formats at
9566 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
9567 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
9568
9569       </div>
9570       <div class="tags">
9571
9572
9573         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>.
9574
9575
9576       </div>
9577     </div>
9578     <div class="padding"></div>
9579
9580     <div class="entry">
9581       <div class="title">
9582         <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>
9583       </div>
9584       <div class="date">
9585         23rd August 2012
9586       </div>
9587       <div class="body">
9588         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
9589 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
9590 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
9591 revisit the great site
9592 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
9593 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
9594 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
9595
9596       </div>
9597       <div class="tags">
9598
9599
9600         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>.
9601
9602
9603       </div>
9604     </div>
9605     <div class="padding"></div>
9606
9607     <div class="entry">
9608       <div class="title">
9609         <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>
9610       </div>
9611       <div class="date">
9612         17th August 2012
9613       </div>
9614       <div class="body">
9615         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
9616 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
9617 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
9618 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
9619 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
9620 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
9621 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
9622 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
9623 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
9624 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
9625 summer I
9626 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
9627 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
9628 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
9629
9630 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
9631 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
9632 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
9633 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
9634 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
9635 progress:</p>
9636
9637 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
9638
9639 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
9640 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
9641 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
9642 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
9643 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
9644 english version of the docbook source.</p>
9645
9646 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
9647 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
9648 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
9649 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
9650 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
9651 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
9652 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
9653 project files currently available from <a
9654 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
9655
9656 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
9657 the updated
9658 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
9659 and
9660 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
9661 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
9662 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
9663 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
9664
9665       </div>
9666       <div class="tags">
9667
9668
9669         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>.
9670
9671
9672       </div>
9673     </div>
9674     <div class="padding"></div>
9675
9676     <div class="entry">
9677       <div class="title">
9678         <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>
9679       </div>
9680       <div class="date">
9681         10th August 2012
9682       </div>
9683       <div class="body">
9684         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
9685 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
9686 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
9687 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
9688 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
9689 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
9690 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
9691 case for the language
9692 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
9693 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
9694
9695 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
9696 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
9697 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
9698 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
9699 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
9700
9701 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
9702 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
9703 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
9704 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
9705 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
9706 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
9707 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
9708 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
9709 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
9710 alias for 'nb'.</p>
9711
9712 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
9713 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
9714 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
9715 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
9716 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
9717 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
9718 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
9719 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
9720 at the same time. :(</p>
9721
9722 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
9723 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
9724 processors. :(</p>
9725
9726 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
9727
9728       </div>
9729       <div class="tags">
9730
9731
9732         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>.
9733
9734
9735       </div>
9736     </div>
9737     <div class="padding"></div>
9738
9739     <div class="entry">
9740       <div class="title">
9741         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
9742       </div>
9743       <div class="date">
9744         31st July 2012
9745       </div>
9746       <div class="body">
9747         <p>I tried to send this text to the
9748 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
9749 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
9750 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
9751 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
9752 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
9753 out.</p>
9754
9755 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
9756 learning curve at the moment.</p>
9757
9758 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
9759 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
9760 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
9761 available from
9762 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
9763 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
9764 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
9765 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
9766 Squeeze.</p>
9767
9768 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
9769 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
9770 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
9771 problems.</p>
9772
9773 <ul>
9774
9775 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
9776    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
9777    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
9778    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
9779    index references spanning several pages (See
9780    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
9781    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
9782    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
9783
9784 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
9785    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
9786    #683163</a>).</li>
9787
9788 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
9789    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
9790    footnote and text body, see
9791    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
9792    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
9793    refs listed are not right).</li>
9794
9795 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
9796
9797 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
9798    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
9799
9800 </ul>
9801
9802 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
9803 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
9804 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
9805
9806 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
9807
9808       </div>
9809       <div class="tags">
9810
9811
9812         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>.
9813
9814
9815       </div>
9816     </div>
9817     <div class="padding"></div>
9818
9819     <div class="entry">
9820       <div class="title">
9821         <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>
9822       </div>
9823       <div class="date">
9824         21st July 2012
9825       </div>
9826       <div class="body">
9827         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
9828 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
9829 norwegian version</a> of the book
9830 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
9831 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
9832 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
9833 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
9834 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
9835
9836 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
9837 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
9838 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
9839 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
9840 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
9841 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
9842 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
9843 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
9844 print. :)</p>
9845
9846 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
9847 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
9848 language.</p>
9849
9850       </div>
9851       <div class="tags">
9852
9853
9854         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>.
9855
9856
9857       </div>
9858     </div>
9859     <div class="padding"></div>
9860
9861     <div class="entry">
9862       <div class="title">
9863         <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>
9864       </div>
9865       <div class="date">
9866         16th July 2012
9867       </div>
9868       <div class="body">
9869         <p>I am currently working on a
9870 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
9871 to translate</a> the book
9872 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
9873 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
9874 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
9875 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
9876 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
9877 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
9878 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
9879
9880 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
9881 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
9882 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
9883 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
9884 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
9885 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
9886 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
9887 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
9888 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
9889
9890       </div>
9891       <div class="tags">
9892
9893
9894         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>.
9895
9896
9897       </div>
9898     </div>
9899     <div class="padding"></div>
9900
9901     <div class="entry">
9902       <div class="title">
9903         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
9904       </div>
9905       <div class="date">
9906          9th July 2012
9907       </div>
9908       <div class="body">
9909         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
9910 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
9911 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
9912 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
9913 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
9914 to adjust and scale the just released
9915 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
9916 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
9917 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
9918
9919 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9920
9921 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
9922 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
9923 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
9924 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
9925 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
9926 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
9927 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
9928 perspective when working with IT.</p>
9929
9930 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9931 project?</strong></p>
9932
9933 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
9934 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
9935 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
9936 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
9937 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
9938 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
9939
9940 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9941 Edu?</strong></p>
9942
9943 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
9944 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
9945 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
9946 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
9947 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
9948 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
9949 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
9950 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
9951 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
9952 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
9953 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
9954 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
9955 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
9956 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
9957 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
9958 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
9959 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
9960 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
9961 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
9962 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
9963 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
9964 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
9965 quicker to update.
9966
9967 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9968 Edu?</strong></p>
9969
9970 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
9971 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
9972 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
9973 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
9974 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
9975 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
9976
9977 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
9978 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
9979 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
9980 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
9981 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
9982 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
9983 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
9984 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
9985 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
9986 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
9987 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
9988 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
9989 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
9990 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
9991 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
9992
9993 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
9994 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
9995 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
9996 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
9997 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
9998 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
9999 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
10000 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
10001
10002 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
10003 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
10004 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
10005 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
10006 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
10007 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
10008 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
10009 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
10010 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
10011 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
10012 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
10013 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
10014 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
10015 sound file.</p>
10016
10017 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
10018 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
10019 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
10020 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
10021 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
10022 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
10023 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
10024 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
10025 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
10026
10027 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10028
10029 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
10030 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
10031 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
10032 )</p>
10033
10034 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10035 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10036
10037 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
10038 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
10039 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
10040 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
10041 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
10042 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
10043 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
10044 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
10045 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
10046 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
10047 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
10048 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
10049 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
10050 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
10051 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
10052
10053 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
10054 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
10055 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
10056 management with Airtime</a>,
10057 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
10058 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
10059 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
10060 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
10061 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
10062
10063       </div>
10064       <div class="tags">
10065
10066
10067         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>.
10068
10069
10070       </div>
10071     </div>
10072     <div class="padding"></div>
10073
10074     <div class="entry">
10075       <div class="title">
10076         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
10077       </div>
10078       <div class="date">
10079          8th July 2012
10080       </div>
10081       <div class="body">
10082         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
10083 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
10084 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
10085 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
10086 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
10087 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
10088 Steinberg in his blog post
10089 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
10090 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
10091 spending of your tax money.</p>
10092
10093 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
10094 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
10095 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
10096 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
10097 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
10098 purchases.</p>
10099
10100       </div>
10101       <div class="tags">
10102
10103
10104         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>.
10105
10106
10107       </div>
10108     </div>
10109     <div class="padding"></div>
10110
10111     <div class="entry">
10112       <div class="title">
10113         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
10114       </div>
10115       <div class="date">
10116          7th July 2012
10117       </div>
10118       <div class="body">
10119         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
10120 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
10121 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
10122 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
10123 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
10124 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
10125 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
10126 receive.  The software is
10127
10128 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
10129 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
10130 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
10131 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
10132 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
10133 Windows</a>.</p>
10134
10135 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
10136 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
10137
10138 <p><ul>
10139
10140   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
10141     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
10142
10143   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
10144     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
10145     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
10146     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
10147     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
10148     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
10149     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
10150     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
10151     </li>
10152
10153   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
10154     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
10155
10156   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
10157     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
10158
10159   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
10160     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
10161
10162   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
10163
10164   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
10165     formats </li>
10166
10167   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
10168     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
10169     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
10170     (as separate sets)</li>
10171
10172   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
10173     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
10174     percentage)</li>
10175
10176   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
10177     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
10178     memory):
10179     <ul>
10180       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
10181       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
10182       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
10183       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
10184       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
10185       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
10186       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
10187       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
10188       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
10189       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
10190           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
10191           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
10192           activity)</li>
10193       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
10194       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
10195     </ul></li>
10196
10197   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
10198     <ul>
10199       <li>Break periods</li>
10200       <li>For teacher(s):
10201         <ul>
10202           <li>Not available periods</li>
10203           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
10204           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
10205           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
10206           <li>Min hours daily</li>
10207           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
10208
10209           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
10210             days per week</li>
10211         </ul></li>
10212       <li>For students (sets):
10213         <ul>
10214           <li>Not available periods</li>
10215           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
10216           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
10217           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
10218           <li>Min hours daily</li>
10219           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
10220
10221           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
10222             days per week</li>
10223         </ul></li>
10224       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
10225         <ul>
10226           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
10227           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
10228           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
10229           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
10230           <li>End(s) students day</li>
10231           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
10232           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
10233             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
10234           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
10235           <li>Not overlapping</li>
10236           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
10237           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
10238         </ul></li>
10239     </ul></li>
10240
10241   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
10242     <ul>
10243       <li>Room not available periods</li>
10244       <li>For teacher(s):
10245         <ul>
10246           <li>Home room(s)</li>
10247           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
10248           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
10249         </ul>
10250       </li>
10251
10252       <li>For students (sets):
10253         <ul>
10254           <li>Home room(s)</li>
10255           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
10256           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
10257         </ul>
10258       </li>
10259       <li>Preferred room(s):
10260         <ul>
10261           <li>For a subject</li>
10262           <li>For an activity tag</li>
10263           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
10264           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
10265         </ul>
10266       </li>
10267
10268       <li>For a set of activities:
10269         <ul>
10270           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
10271         </ul>
10272       </li>
10273     </ul>
10274   </li>
10275 </ul></p>
10276
10277 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
10278 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
10279 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
10280 manually, check it out.
10281
10282 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
10283 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
10284 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
10285 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
10286 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
10287 section</a>.</p>
10288
10289       </div>
10290       <div class="tags">
10291
10292
10293         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>.
10294
10295
10296       </div>
10297     </div>
10298     <div class="padding"></div>
10299
10300     <div class="entry">
10301       <div class="title">
10302         <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>
10303       </div>
10304       <div class="date">
10305          3rd July 2012
10306       </div>
10307       <div class="body">
10308         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
10309 project (Norwegian version of
10310 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
10311 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
10312 a problem with the municipalities using
10313 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
10314 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
10315 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
10316 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
10317 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
10318 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
10319 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
10320 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
10321 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
10322 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
10323 the From: header.</p>
10324
10325 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
10326 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
10327 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
10328 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
10329 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
10330 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
10331 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
10332 behaviour.</p>
10333
10334 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
10335 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
10336 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
10337 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
10338 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
10339 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
10340 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
10341
10342       </div>
10343       <div class="tags">
10344
10345
10346         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>.
10347
10348
10349       </div>
10350     </div>
10351     <div class="padding"></div>
10352
10353     <div class="entry">
10354       <div class="title">
10355         <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>
10356       </div>
10357       <div class="date">
10358         26th June 2012
10359       </div>
10360       <div class="body">
10361         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
10362 another interview with the people behind
10363 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
10364 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
10365 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
10366 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
10367 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
10368 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
10369 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
10370
10371 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10372
10373 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
10374 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
10375 ICT in schools</p>
10376
10377 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10378 project?</strong></p>
10379
10380 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
10381 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
10382 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
10383 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
10384
10385 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10386 Edu?</strong></p>
10387
10388 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
10389 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
10390 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
10391 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
10392
10393 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10394 Edu?</strong></p>
10395
10396 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
10397 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
10398 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
10399 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
10400 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
10401 technologies in school.</p>
10402
10403 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10404
10405 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
10406 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
10407 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
10408
10409 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10410 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10411
10412 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
10413 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
10414 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
10415 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
10416
10417 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
10418 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
10419 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
10420
10421 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
10422 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
10423 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
10424 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
10425 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
10426 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
10427 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
10428 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
10429 working there.</p>
10430
10431       </div>
10432       <div class="tags">
10433
10434
10435         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>.
10436
10437
10438       </div>
10439     </div>
10440     <div class="padding"></div>
10441
10442     <div class="entry">
10443       <div class="title">
10444         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
10445       </div>
10446       <div class="date">
10447         24th June 2012
10448       </div>
10449       <div class="body">
10450         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
10451 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
10452 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
10453 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
10454 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
10455 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
10456 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
10457 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
10458 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
10459 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
10460 missing in my book.</p>
10461
10462 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
10463 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
10464 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
10465 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
10466 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
10467 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
10468 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
10469
10470       </div>
10471       <div class="tags">
10472
10473
10474         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>.
10475
10476
10477       </div>
10478     </div>
10479     <div class="padding"></div>
10480
10481     <div class="entry">
10482       <div class="title">
10483         <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>
10484       </div>
10485       <div class="date">
10486         11th June 2012
10487       </div>
10488       <div class="body">
10489         <p>During my work on
10490 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
10491 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
10492 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
10493 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
10494 explanation.</p>
10495
10496 <p><ul>
10497
10498 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
10499 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
10500 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
10501 system depend on tasksel tasks in
10502 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
10503 installation.</li>
10504
10505 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
10506 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
10507 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
10508 at least try to enable it for these services:
10509 <ul>
10510
10511   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
10512     quotas.</li>
10513   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
10514   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
10515   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
10516   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
10517   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
10518
10519 </ul></li>
10520
10521 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
10522 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
10523 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
10524 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
10525
10526 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
10527 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
10528 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
10529
10530 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
10531 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
10532 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
10533 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
10534 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
10535 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
10536
10537 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
10538 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
10539 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
10540 in Wheezy.
10541
10542 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
10543 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
10544 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
10545
10546 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
10547 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
10548 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
10549 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
10550
10551 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
10552 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
10553 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
10554 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
10555
10556 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
10557 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
10558 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
10559
10560 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
10561 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
10562 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
10563
10564 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
10565 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
10566 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
10567 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
10568 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
10569
10570 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
10571 <ul>
10572
10573 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
10574 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
10575 <li>and probably more?</li>
10576 </ul></li>
10577
10578 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
10579 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
10580 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
10581 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
10582 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
10583 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
10584 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
10585 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
10586
10587
10588 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
10589 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
10590 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
10591 use.</li>
10592
10593 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
10594 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
10595 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
10596 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
10597 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
10598
10599 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
10600 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
10601 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
10602 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
10603 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
10604 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
10605
10606 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
10607 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
10608 There are at least three implementations,
10609 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
10610 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
10611 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
10612 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
10613 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
10614 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
10615 given room.</li>
10616
10617 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
10618 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
10619 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
10620 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
10621 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
10622 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
10623 investigated.</li>
10624
10625 </ul></p>
10626
10627 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
10628 version.</p>
10629
10630       </div>
10631       <div class="tags">
10632
10633
10634         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>.
10635
10636
10637       </div>
10638     </div>
10639     <div class="padding"></div>
10640
10641     <div class="entry">
10642       <div class="title">
10643         <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>
10644       </div>
10645       <div class="date">
10646          9th June 2012
10647       </div>
10648       <div class="body">
10649         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
10650 <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
10651 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
10652 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
10653 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
10654 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
10655 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
10656 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
10657 be willing to pay for.</p>
10658
10659 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
10660 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
10661 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
10662 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
10663 Orwell</a>.</p>
10664
10665       </div>
10666       <div class="tags">
10667
10668
10669         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>.
10670
10671
10672       </div>
10673     </div>
10674     <div class="padding"></div>
10675
10676     <div class="entry">
10677       <div class="title">
10678         <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>
10679       </div>
10680       <div class="date">
10681          6th June 2012
10682       </div>
10683       <div class="body">
10684         <p>A few days ago
10685 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
10686 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
10687 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
10688 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
10689 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
10690 code for HP, Dell and IBM
10691 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
10692 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
10693 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
10694 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
10695 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
10696
10697 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
10698 output:
10699
10700 <blockquote><pre>
10701 % 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>
10702 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": ""})
10703 %
10704 </pre></blockquote>
10705
10706 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
10707 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
10708 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
10709
10710       </div>
10711       <div class="tags">
10712
10713
10714         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>.
10715
10716
10717       </div>
10718     </div>
10719     <div class="padding"></div>
10720
10721     <div class="entry">
10722       <div class="title">
10723         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
10724       </div>
10725       <div class="date">
10726          2nd June 2012
10727       </div>
10728       <div class="body">
10729         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
10730 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
10731 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
10732 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
10733 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
10734 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
10735
10736 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10737
10738 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
10739 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
10740 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
10741 by Angela).</p>
10742
10743 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
10744 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
10745 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
10746 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
10747 becoming an osteopath.</p>
10748
10749 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
10750 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
10751 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
10752 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
10753 skills with communication skills.</p>
10754
10755 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10756 project?</strong></p>
10757
10758 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
10759 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
10760 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
10761 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
10762 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
10763
10764 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
10765 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
10766 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
10767 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
10768 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
10769 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
10770 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
10771 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
10772 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
10773
10774 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
10775 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
10776 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
10777
10778 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
10779
10780 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
10781 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
10782 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
10783 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
10784 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
10785 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
10786 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
10787 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
10788 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
10789 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
10790 point.</p>
10791
10792 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
10793 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
10794 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
10795 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
10796 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
10797 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
10798
10799 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
10800 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
10801 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
10802 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
10803 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
10804 spare time.</p>
10805
10806 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
10807 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
10808 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
10809 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
10810 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
10811
10812 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
10813 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
10814 avoidance do exist.</p>
10815
10816 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
10817 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
10818 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
10819 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
10820 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
10821 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
10822 and probably a gain for all.</p>
10823
10824 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10825 Edu?</strong></p>
10826
10827 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
10828 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
10829 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
10830 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
10831 project communication, honest communication within the group of
10832 developers, etc.</p>
10833
10834 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10835 Edu?</strong></p>
10836
10837 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
10838
10839 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
10840 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
10841 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
10842 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
10843 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
10844 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
10845 contribute).</p>
10846
10847 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
10848 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
10849 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
10850 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
10851 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
10852 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
10853 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
10854 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
10855 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
10856 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
10857
10858 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10859
10860 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
10861
10862 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
10863 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
10864 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
10865
10866 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
10867 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
10868 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
10869 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
10870
10871 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
10872 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
10873 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
10874 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
10875 whiteboard.</p>
10876
10877 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
10878
10879 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10880 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10881
10882 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
10883 enrol people.</p>
10884
10885       </div>
10886       <div class="tags">
10887
10888
10889         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>.
10890
10891
10892       </div>
10893     </div>
10894     <div class="padding"></div>
10895
10896     <div class="entry">
10897       <div class="title">
10898         <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>
10899       </div>
10900       <div class="date">
10901          1st June 2012
10902       </div>
10903       <div class="body">
10904         <p>A few years ago I wrote
10905 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
10906 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
10907 I have learned from colleges here at the
10908 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
10909 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
10910 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
10911 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
10912 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
10913
10914 <p><pre>
10915 use strict;
10916 use warnings;
10917 use SOAP::Lite;
10918 use Data::Dumper;
10919 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
10920 my $App = 'test';
10921 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
10922 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
10923 my $s = SOAP::Lite
10924     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
10925     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
10926     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
10927     ;
10928 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
10929     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
10930     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
10931     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
10932 );
10933 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
10934 </pre></p>
10935
10936 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
10937
10938 <p><pre>
10939 $VAR1 = {
10940           'Asset' => {
10941                      'Entitlements' => {
10942                                        'EntitlementData' => [
10943                                                             {
10944                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
10945                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
10946                                                               'Provider' => '',
10947                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
10948                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
10949                                                             },
10950                                                             {
10951                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
10952                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
10953                                                               'Provider' => '',
10954                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
10955                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
10956                                                             },
10957                                                             {
10958                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
10959                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
10960                                                               'Provider' => '',
10961                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
10962                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
10963                                                             }
10964                                                           ]
10965                                      },
10966                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
10967                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
10968                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
10969                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
10970                                           'Buid' => '2323',
10971                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
10972                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
10973                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
10974                                         }
10975                    }
10976         };
10977 </pre></p>
10978
10979 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
10980 service outside the
10981 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
10982 documentation</a>, and according to
10983 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
10984 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
10985 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
10986
10987 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
10988 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
10989
10990       </div>
10991       <div class="tags">
10992
10993
10994         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>.
10995
10996
10997       </div>
10998     </div>
10999     <div class="padding"></div>
11000
11001     <div class="entry">
11002       <div class="title">
11003         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
11004       </div>
11005       <div class="date">
11006         31st May 2012
11007       </div>
11008       <div class="body">
11009         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
11010 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
11011 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
11012 running Debian Squeeze, where
11013 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
11014 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
11015 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
11016 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
11017 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
11018 another day.</p>
11019
11020 <p>After calibration, I get a
11021 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
11022 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
11023 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
11024 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
11025 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
11026 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
11027 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
11028 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
11029 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
11030 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
11031 and a simple</p>
11032
11033 <p><pre>
11034 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
11035 </pre></p>
11036
11037 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
11038 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
11039 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
11040 enough for now.</p>
11041
11042       </div>
11043       <div class="tags">
11044
11045
11046         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11047
11048
11049       </div>
11050     </div>
11051     <div class="padding"></div>
11052
11053     <div class="entry">
11054       <div class="title">
11055         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
11056       </div>
11057       <div class="date">
11058         27th May 2012
11059       </div>
11060       <div class="body">
11061         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
11062 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
11063 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
11064 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
11065 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
11066 since then, helping to make sure the
11067 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
11068 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
11069
11070 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11071
11072 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
11073 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
11074 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
11075 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
11076 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
11077 our computer network.</p>
11078
11079 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
11080 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
11081 (4 months).</p>
11082
11083 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11084 project?</strong></p>
11085
11086 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
11087 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
11088 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
11089 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
11090 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
11091 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
11092 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
11093 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
11094 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
11095 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
11096 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
11097 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
11098 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
11099 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
11100
11101 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11102 Edu?</strong></p>
11103
11104 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
11105 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
11106 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
11107 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
11108 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
11109 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
11110 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
11111 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
11112
11113 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11114 Edu?</strong></p>
11115
11116 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
11117 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
11118 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
11119 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
11120 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
11121 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
11122 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
11123 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
11124 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
11125 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
11126 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
11127 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
11128
11129 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11130
11131 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
11132 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
11133 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
11134
11135 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11136 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11137
11138 <p><ol>
11139
11140 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
11141 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
11142 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
11143 developing.</li>
11144
11145 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
11146 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
11147 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
11148 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
11149 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
11150
11151 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
11152 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
11153 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
11154
11155 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
11156 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
11157 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
11158 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
11159
11160 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
11161 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
11162 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
11163
11164 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
11165
11166 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
11167 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
11168 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
11169 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
11170
11171 </ol></p>
11172
11173       </div>
11174       <div class="tags">
11175
11176
11177         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>.
11178
11179
11180       </div>
11181     </div>
11182     <div class="padding"></div>
11183
11184     <div class="entry">
11185       <div class="title">
11186         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
11187       </div>
11188       <div class="date">
11189         26th May 2012
11190       </div>
11191       <div class="body">
11192         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
11193 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
11194 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
11195 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
11196 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
11197
11198 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
11199 <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>
11200 comment:</p>
11201
11202 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
11203 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
11204 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
11205 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
11206 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
11207 </blockquote></p>
11208
11209 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
11210 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
11211 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
11212 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
11213 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
11214 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
11215 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
11216 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
11217 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
11218 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
11219 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
11220 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
11221 of wasted effort.</p>
11222
11223 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
11224 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
11225 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
11226
11227 <p>See
11228 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
11229 and
11230 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
11231 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
11232 </blockquote></p>
11233
11234       </div>
11235       <div class="tags">
11236
11237
11238         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>.
11239
11240
11241       </div>
11242     </div>
11243     <div class="padding"></div>
11244
11245     <div class="entry">
11246       <div class="title">
11247         <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>
11248       </div>
11249       <div class="date">
11250         18th May 2012
11251       </div>
11252       <div class="body">
11253         <p>In january, I
11254 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
11255 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
11256 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
11257 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
11258 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
11259 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
11260 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
11261 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
11262 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
11263 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
11264
11265 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
11266 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
11267 drivers. :)</p>
11268
11269       </div>
11270       <div class="tags">
11271
11272
11273         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11274
11275
11276       </div>
11277     </div>
11278     <div class="padding"></div>
11279
11280     <div class="entry">
11281       <div class="title">
11282         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
11283       </div>
11284       <div class="date">
11285         13th May 2012
11286       </div>
11287       <div class="body">
11288         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
11289 publish another interview with the people behind
11290 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
11291 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
11292 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
11293 details get right before release.
11294
11295 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11296
11297 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
11298 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
11299 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
11300 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
11301 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
11302 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
11303 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
11304 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
11305
11306 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
11307 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
11308 home since 2006.</p>
11309
11310 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11311 project?</strong></p>
11312
11313 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
11314 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
11315 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
11316 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
11317 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
11318 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
11319
11320 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
11321 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
11322 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
11323 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
11324 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
11325 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
11326 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
11327 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
11328 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
11329 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
11330 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
11331 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
11332 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
11333 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
11334 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
11335 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
11336
11337 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11338 Edu?</strong></p>
11339
11340 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
11341 for me as today.</p>
11342
11343 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
11344
11345 <p><ul>
11346
11347 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
11348 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
11349
11350 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
11351 cost.</li>
11352
11353 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
11354 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
11355 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
11356 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
11357 server</li>
11358
11359 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
11360 school.</li>
11361
11362 </ul></p>
11363
11364 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
11365 came up in this way:</p>
11366
11367 <p><ul>
11368
11369 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
11370 now.</li>
11371
11372 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
11373 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
11374 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
11375
11376 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
11377 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
11378 interfaces used in the past.</li>
11379
11380 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
11381 different needs.</li>
11382
11383 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
11384
11385 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
11386 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
11387 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
11388
11389 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
11390 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
11391
11392 </ul></p>
11393
11394 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11395 Edu?</strong></p>
11396
11397 <p><ul>
11398
11399 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
11400 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
11401 whole municipality areas.</li>
11402
11403 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
11404 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
11405 politicians.</li>
11406
11407 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
11408
11409 </ul></p>
11410
11411 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11412
11413 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
11414 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
11415 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
11416 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
11417 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
11418 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
11419
11420 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
11421 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
11422 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
11423 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
11424 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
11425
11426 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11427 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11428
11429 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
11430 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
11431 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
11432
11433       </div>
11434       <div class="tags">
11435
11436
11437         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>.
11438
11439
11440       </div>
11441     </div>
11442     <div class="padding"></div>
11443
11444     <div class="entry">
11445       <div class="title">
11446         <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>
11447       </div>
11448       <div class="date">
11449         30th April 2012
11450       </div>
11451       <div class="body">
11452         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
11453 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
11454
11455 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
11456 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
11457 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
11458 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
11459 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
11460 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
11461 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
11462 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
11463 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
11464 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
11465 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
11466 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
11467 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
11468 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
11469 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
11470 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
11471
11472 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
11473 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
11474 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
11475 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
11476 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
11477 finally found a Danish supplier
11478 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
11479 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
11480 days ago.</p>
11481
11482 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
11483 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
11484 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
11485 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
11486 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
11487 toys.</p>
11488
11489       </div>
11490       <div class="tags">
11491
11492
11493         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11494
11495
11496       </div>
11497     </div>
11498     <div class="padding"></div>
11499
11500     <div class="entry">
11501       <div class="title">
11502         <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>
11503       </div>
11504       <div class="date">
11505         26th April 2012
11506       </div>
11507       <div class="body">
11508         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
11509 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
11510 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
11511 that the video editor application included with
11512 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
11513 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
11514 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
11515
11516 <p><blockquote>
11517 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
11518 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
11519 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
11520 </blockquote></p>
11521
11522 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
11523
11524 <p><blockquote>
11525 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
11526 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
11527 </blockquote></p>
11528
11529 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
11530 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
11531 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
11532 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
11533 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
11534 video.  AMR is
11535 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
11536 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
11537 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
11538 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
11539 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
11540 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
11541 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
11542
11543 <p>I know why I prefer
11544 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
11545 standards</a> also for video.</p>
11546
11547       </div>
11548       <div class="tags">
11549
11550
11551         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/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>.
11552
11553
11554       </div>
11555     </div>
11556     <div class="padding"></div>
11557
11558     <div class="entry">
11559       <div class="title">
11560         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
11561       </div>
11562       <div class="date">
11563         19th April 2012
11564       </div>
11565       <div class="body">
11566         <p>Here in Norway, the
11567 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
11568 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
11569 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
11570 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
11571 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
11572 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
11573 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
11574 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
11575 on the same level.</p>
11576
11577 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
11578 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
11579 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
11580 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
11581 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
11582 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
11583 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
11584 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
11585 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
11586 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
11587 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
11588 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
11589 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
11590 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
11591 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
11592 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
11593 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
11594 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
11595
11596 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
11597 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
11598 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
11599 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
11600 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
11601 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
11602 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
11603 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
11604
11605 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
11606 from Simon Phipps
11607 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
11608 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
11609
11610 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
11611 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
11612 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
11613 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
11614 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
11615 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
11616 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
11617 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
11618 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
11619
11620       </div>
11621       <div class="tags">
11622
11623
11624         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>.
11625
11626
11627       </div>
11628     </div>
11629     <div class="padding"></div>
11630
11631     <div class="entry">
11632       <div class="title">
11633         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
11634       </div>
11635       <div class="date">
11636         15th April 2012
11637       </div>
11638       <div class="body">
11639         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
11640 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
11641 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
11642 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
11643 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
11644 up in the recently released
11645 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
11646 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
11647
11648 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11649
11650 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
11651 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
11652 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
11653 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
11654 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
11655 information technology and science/technology.</p>
11656
11657 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11658 project?</strong></p>
11659
11660 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
11661 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
11662 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
11663 contributing.</p>
11664
11665 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11666 Edu?</strong></p>
11667
11668 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
11669 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
11670 Debian Project!</p>
11671
11672 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11673 Edu?</strong></p>
11674
11675 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
11676 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
11677 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
11678 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
11679 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
11680 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
11681 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
11682
11683 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
11684 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
11685
11686 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11687
11688 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
11689 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
11690 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
11691 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
11692
11693 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11694 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11695
11696 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
11697 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
11698 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
11699 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
11700 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
11701 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
11702 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
11703
11704 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
11705 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
11706 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
11707 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
11708 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
11709 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
11710 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
11711 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
11712
11713       </div>
11714       <div class="tags">
11715
11716
11717         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>.
11718
11719
11720       </div>
11721     </div>
11722     <div class="padding"></div>
11723
11724     <div class="entry">
11725       <div class="title">
11726         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
11727       </div>
11728       <div class="date">
11729          8th April 2012
11730       </div>
11731       <div class="body">
11732         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
11733 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
11734 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
11735 contributor to the
11736 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
11737 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
11738
11739 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11740
11741 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
11742 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
11743
11744 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11745 project?</strong></p>
11746
11747 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
11748 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
11749 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
11750 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
11751 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
11752 "localisation".</p>
11753
11754 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11755 Edu?</strong></p>
11756
11757 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11758 Edu?</strong></p>
11759
11760 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
11761 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
11762 education system.</p>
11763
11764 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
11765 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
11766 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
11767 money on the latest hardware.</p>
11768
11769 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11770
11771 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
11772 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
11773 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
11774
11775 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11776 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11777
11778 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
11779 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
11780 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
11781
11782       </div>
11783       <div class="tags">
11784
11785
11786         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>.
11787
11788
11789       </div>
11790     </div>
11791     <div class="padding"></div>
11792
11793     <div class="entry">
11794       <div class="title">
11795         <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>
11796       </div>
11797       <div class="date">
11798          6th April 2012
11799       </div>
11800       <div class="body">
11801         <p>Recently I have spent time with
11802 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
11803 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
11804 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
11805 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
11806 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
11807 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
11808 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
11809 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
11810
11811 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
11812 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
11813 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
11814 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
11815 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
11816 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
11817 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
11818 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
11819
11820 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
11821 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
11822 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
11823 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
11824 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
11825 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
11826 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
11827 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
11828
11829 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
11830 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
11831 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
11832 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
11833 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
11834 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
11835 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
11836 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
11837 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
11838 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
11839
11840 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
11841 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
11842 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
11843 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
11844
11845 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
11846 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
11847
11848       </div>
11849       <div class="tags">
11850
11851
11852         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>.
11853
11854
11855       </div>
11856     </div>
11857     <div class="padding"></div>
11858
11859     <div class="entry">
11860       <div class="title">
11861         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
11862       </div>
11863       <div class="date">
11864          5th April 2012
11865       </div>
11866       <div class="body">
11867         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
11868 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
11869 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
11870 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
11871 for schools.  Check out his article
11872 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
11873 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
11874
11875       </div>
11876       <div class="tags">
11877
11878
11879         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>.
11880
11881
11882       </div>
11883     </div>
11884     <div class="padding"></div>
11885
11886     <div class="entry">
11887       <div class="title">
11888         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
11889       </div>
11890       <div class="date">
11891          1st April 2012
11892       </div>
11893       <div class="body">
11894         <p>Germany is a core area for the
11895 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
11896 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
11897 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
11898
11899 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11900
11901 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
11902 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
11903 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
11904 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
11905 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
11906 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
11907 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
11908 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
11909
11910 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
11911 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
11912 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
11913 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
11914 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
11915 the end of April this year.</p>
11916
11917 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11918 project?</strong></p>
11919
11920 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
11921 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
11922 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
11923 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
11924 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
11925 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
11926 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
11927 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
11928 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
11929 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
11930 Skolelinux.</p>
11931
11932 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
11933 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
11934 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
11935 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
11936 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
11937 the admin teachers.</p>
11938
11939 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11940 Edu?</strong></p>
11941
11942 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
11943 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
11944 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
11945
11946 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
11947 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
11948 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
11949 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
11950 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
11951
11952 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11953 Edu?</strong></p>
11954
11955 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
11956
11957 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11958
11959 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
11960 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
11961 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
11962 LibreOffice.</p>
11963
11964 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11965 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11966
11967 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
11968 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
11969 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
11970
11971       </div>
11972       <div class="tags">
11973
11974
11975         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>.
11976
11977
11978       </div>
11979     </div>
11980     <div class="padding"></div>
11981
11982     <div class="entry">
11983       <div class="title">
11984         <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>
11985       </div>
11986       <div class="date">
11987         25th March 2012
11988       </div>
11989       <div class="body">
11990         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
11991
11992 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
11993 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
11994 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
11995 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
11996 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
11997 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
11998 and download as a
11999 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
12000 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
12001
12002 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
12003   <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"' />
12004     <p>Download video as
12005       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
12006 </video></p>
12007
12008       </div>
12009       <div class="tags">
12010
12011
12012         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>.
12013
12014
12015       </div>
12016     </div>
12017     <div class="padding"></div>
12018
12019     <div class="entry">
12020       <div class="title">
12021         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
12022       </div>
12023       <div class="date">
12024         19th March 2012
12025       </div>
12026       <div class="body">
12027         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
12028 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
12029 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
12030 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
12031 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
12032
12033 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12034
12035 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
12036 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
12037 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
12038 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
12039 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
12040 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
12041 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
12042 installations.</p>
12043
12044 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12045 project?</strong></p>
12046
12047 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
12048 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
12049 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
12050 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
12051 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
12052 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
12053 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
12054 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
12055 these things we decided to try it.</p>
12056
12057 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12058 Edu?</strong></p>
12059
12060 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
12061 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
12062 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
12063 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
12064 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
12065 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
12066 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
12067 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
12068
12069 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12070 Edu?</strong></p>
12071
12072 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
12073 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
12074 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
12075 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
12076 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
12077
12078 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12079
12080 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
12081 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
12082 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
12083 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
12084 that counts...)</p>
12085
12086 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12087 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12088
12089 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
12090 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
12091 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
12092 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
12093 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
12094 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
12095 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
12096 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
12097 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
12098 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
12099 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
12100
12101 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
12102 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
12103 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
12104
12105       </div>
12106       <div class="tags">
12107
12108
12109         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>.
12110
12111
12112       </div>
12113     </div>
12114     <div class="padding"></div>
12115
12116     <div class="entry">
12117       <div class="title">
12118         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
12119       </div>
12120       <div class="date">
12121         16th March 2012
12122       </div>
12123       <div class="body">
12124         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
12125 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
12126 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
12127 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
12128
12129 <ol>
12130
12131 <li>The documentation is written in a
12132 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
12133 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
12134 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
12135 docbook XML.</li>
12136
12137 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
12138 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
12139 with the translated text.</li>
12140
12141 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
12142 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
12143 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
12144 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
12145 images.</li>
12146
12147 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
12148 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
12149
12150 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
12151 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
12152
12153 </ol>
12154
12155 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
12156 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
12157 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
12158 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
12159 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
12160
12161 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
12162 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
12163 package</a>.</p>
12164
12165       </div>
12166       <div class="tags">
12167
12168
12169         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>.
12170
12171
12172       </div>
12173     </div>
12174     <div class="padding"></div>
12175
12176     <div class="entry">
12177       <div class="title">
12178         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
12179       </div>
12180       <div class="date">
12181         11th March 2012
12182       </div>
12183       <div class="body">
12184         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
12185 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
12186 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
12187 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
12188 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
12189 you have not done so already.</p>
12190
12191 <p>I plan to present the new version at
12192 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
12193 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
12194 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
12195
12196       </div>
12197       <div class="tags">
12198
12199
12200         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>.
12201
12202
12203       </div>
12204     </div>
12205     <div class="padding"></div>
12206
12207     <div class="entry">
12208       <div class="title">
12209         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
12210       </div>
12211       <div class="date">
12212          9th March 2012
12213       </div>
12214       <div class="body">
12215         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
12216 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
12217 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
12218 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
12219 more international audience.</p>
12220
12221 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
12222 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
12223 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
12224 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
12225 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
12226 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
12227 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
12228
12229
12230 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12231
12232 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
12233 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
12234 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
12235 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
12236 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
12237 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
12238 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
12239 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
12240 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
12241 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
12242 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
12243
12244 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12245 project?</strong></p>
12246
12247 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
12248 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
12249 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
12250 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
12251 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
12252 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
12253 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
12254 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
12255 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
12256 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
12257 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
12258 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
12259 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
12260
12261 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12262 Edu?</strong></p>
12263
12264 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
12265 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
12266 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
12267 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
12268 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
12269 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
12270 Japan.</p>
12271
12272 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12273 Edu?</strong></p>
12274
12275 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
12276 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
12277 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
12278 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
12279 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
12280 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
12281 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
12282 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
12283 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
12284 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
12285 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
12286 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
12287 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
12288 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
12289 help.</p>
12290
12291 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12292
12293 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
12294 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
12295 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
12296 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
12297 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
12298 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
12299 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
12300 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
12301 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
12302 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
12303 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
12304
12305 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12306 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12307
12308 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
12309 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
12310 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
12311 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
12312 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
12313 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
12314 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
12315 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
12316 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
12317 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
12318 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
12319 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
12320
12321       </div>
12322       <div class="tags">
12323
12324
12325         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>.
12326
12327
12328       </div>
12329     </div>
12330     <div class="padding"></div>
12331
12332     <div class="entry">
12333       <div class="title">
12334         <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>
12335       </div>
12336       <div class="date">
12337          7th March 2012
12338       </div>
12339       <div class="body">
12340         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
12341
12342 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
12343 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
12344 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
12345 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
12346 download as a
12347 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
12348 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
12349
12350 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
12351   <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"' />
12352     <p>Download video as
12353       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
12354 </video></p>
12355
12356       </div>
12357       <div class="tags">
12358
12359
12360         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>.
12361
12362
12363       </div>
12364     </div>
12365     <div class="padding"></div>
12366
12367     <div class="entry">
12368       <div class="title">
12369         <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>
12370       </div>
12371       <div class="date">
12372          4th March 2012
12373       </div>
12374       <div class="body">
12375         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
12376 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
12377 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
12378 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
12379 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
12380 need a software solution for your school.</p>
12381
12382       </div>
12383       <div class="tags">
12384
12385
12386         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>.
12387
12388
12389       </div>
12390     </div>
12391     <div class="padding"></div>
12392
12393     <div class="entry">
12394       <div class="title">
12395         <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>
12396       </div>
12397       <div class="date">
12398          3rd March 2012
12399       </div>
12400       <div class="body">
12401         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
12402 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
12403 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
12404 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
12405 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
12406 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
12407 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
12408 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
12409 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
12410 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
12411 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
12412 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
12413 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
12414 year...</p>
12415
12416 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
12417 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
12418 name,
12419 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
12420 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
12421 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
12422 mean). I've been following
12423 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
12424 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
12425 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
12426 Check it out. :)</p>
12427
12428       </div>
12429       <div class="tags">
12430
12431
12432         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>.
12433
12434
12435       </div>
12436     </div>
12437     <div class="padding"></div>
12438
12439     <div class="entry">
12440       <div class="title">
12441         <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>
12442       </div>
12443       <div class="date">
12444         27th February 2012
12445       </div>
12446       <div class="body">
12447         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
12448 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
12449 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
12450 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
12451 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
12452 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
12453 need a software solution for your school.</p>
12454
12455       </div>
12456       <div class="tags">
12457
12458
12459         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>.
12460
12461
12462       </div>
12463     </div>
12464     <div class="padding"></div>
12465
12466     <div class="entry">
12467       <div class="title">
12468         <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>
12469       </div>
12470       <div class="date">
12471         19th February 2012
12472       </div>
12473       <div class="body">
12474         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
12475 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
12476 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
12477 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
12478 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
12479 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
12480 solution for your school.</p>
12481
12482       </div>
12483       <div class="tags">
12484
12485
12486         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>.
12487
12488
12489       </div>
12490     </div>
12491     <div class="padding"></div>
12492
12493     <div class="entry">
12494       <div class="title">
12495         <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>
12496       </div>
12497       <div class="date">
12498         14th February 2012
12499       </div>
12500       <div class="body">
12501         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
12502 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
12503 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
12504 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
12505 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
12506 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
12507 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
12508 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
12509 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
12510
12511 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
12512 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
12513 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
12514 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
12515 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
12516
12517 <blockquote><pre>
12518 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
12519 do
12520     printf "Failed disk $d: "
12521     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
12522 done
12523 </blockquote></pre>
12524
12525 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
12526 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
12527
12528 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
12529
12530 <blockquote><pre>
12531 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
12532 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
12533 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
12534 </blockquote></pre>
12535
12536 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
12537 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
12538 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
12539 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
12540 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
12541 mounted inside my box.</p>
12542
12543 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
12544 Software RAID in the
12545 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
12546 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
12547 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
12548 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
12549 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
12550 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
12551
12552       </div>
12553       <div class="tags">
12554
12555
12556         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>.
12557
12558
12559       </div>
12560     </div>
12561     <div class="padding"></div>
12562
12563     <div class="entry">
12564       <div class="title">
12565         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
12566       </div>
12567       <div class="date">
12568         13th February 2012
12569       </div>
12570       <div class="body">
12571         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
12572 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
12573 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
12574 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
12575 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
12576 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
12577 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
12578 change the global proxy setting by editing
12579 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
12580 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
12581
12582 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
12583 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
12584 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
12585
12586 <blockquote><pre>
12587 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
12588 {
12589    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
12590        isPlainHostName(host) ||
12591        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
12592       return "DIRECT";
12593    else
12594       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
12595 }
12596 </pre></blockquote>
12597
12598 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
12599
12600 <blockquote><pre>
12601 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
12602 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
12603 </pre></blockquote>
12604
12605 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
12606 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
12607 would be used for
12608 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
12609 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
12610 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
12611 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
12612 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
12613 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
12614 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
12615 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
12616 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
12617 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
12618
12619 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
12620 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
12621 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
12622 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
12623 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
12624 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
12625
12626 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
12627 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
12628 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
12629 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
12630 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
12631 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
12632 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
12633 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
12634 the network setup changes.</p>
12635
12636 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
12637 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
12638 draft</a> and a
12639 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
12640 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
12641
12642       </div>
12643       <div class="tags">
12644
12645
12646         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>.
12647
12648
12649       </div>
12650     </div>
12651     <div class="padding"></div>
12652
12653     <div class="entry">
12654       <div class="title">
12655         <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>
12656       </div>
12657       <div class="date">
12658          5th February 2012
12659       </div>
12660       <div class="body">
12661         <p>Since the Lenny version of
12662 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
12663 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
12664 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
12665 in the morning.  This is done using the
12666 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
12667
12668 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
12669 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
12670 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
12671 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
12672 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
12673 the
12674 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
12675 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
12676 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
12677 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
12678 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
12679
12680 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
12681 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
12682 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
12683 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
12684 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
12685 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
12686 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
12687
12688 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
12689 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
12690 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
12691 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
12692 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
12693
12694       </div>
12695       <div class="tags">
12696
12697
12698         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>.
12699
12700
12701       </div>
12702     </div>
12703     <div class="padding"></div>
12704
12705     <div class="entry">
12706       <div class="title">
12707         <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>
12708       </div>
12709       <div class="date">
12710          4th February 2012
12711       </div>
12712       <div class="body">
12713         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
12714 publish the third beta version of
12715 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
12716 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
12717 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
12718 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
12719 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
12720 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
12721 on the project announcement list.</p>
12722
12723 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
12724 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
12725
12726 <ul>
12727
12728 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
12729   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
12730   the installation.</li>
12731
12732 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
12733   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
12734
12735 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
12736   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
12737   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
12738
12739 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
12740   for the local system administrator is created during installation
12741   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
12742   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
12743   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
12744   up to date on the system.</li>
12745
12746 </ul>
12747
12748 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
12749 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
12750 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
12751 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
12752
12753 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
12754 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
12755 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
12756 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
12757 will see you there?</p>
12758
12759       </div>
12760       <div class="tags">
12761
12762
12763         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>.
12764
12765
12766       </div>
12767     </div>
12768     <div class="padding"></div>
12769
12770     <div class="entry">
12771       <div class="title">
12772         <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>
12773       </div>
12774       <div class="date">
12775         27th January 2012
12776       </div>
12777       <div class="body">
12778         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
12779 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
12780 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
12781 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
12782 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
12783 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
12784 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
12785
12786 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
12787 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
12788 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
12789 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
12790 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
12791 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
12792 not taken care of by this.</p>
12793
12794 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
12795 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
12796 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
12797 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
12798 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
12799 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
12800 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
12801 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
12802 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
12803 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
12804 firmware packages.</p>
12805
12806 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
12807 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
12808 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
12809 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
12810 initrd with extra firmware, the
12811 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
12812 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
12813 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
12814
12815 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
12816 network cards working.  For this,
12817 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
12818 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
12819 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
12820
12821 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
12822 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
12823 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
12824
12825 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
12826 try.</p>
12827
12828       </div>
12829       <div class="tags">
12830
12831
12832         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>.
12833
12834
12835       </div>
12836     </div>
12837     <div class="padding"></div>
12838
12839     <div class="entry">
12840       <div class="title">
12841         <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>
12842       </div>
12843       <div class="date">
12844         25th January 2012
12845       </div>
12846       <div class="body">
12847         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
12848 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
12849 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
12850 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
12851 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
12852
12853 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
12854 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
12855 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
12856 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
12857 this is done, log on to the central server and run
12858 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
12859 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
12860 will look similar to this:</p>
12861
12862 <p><blockquote><pre>
12863 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
12864 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
12865 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.
12866
12867 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
12868
12869 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12870 enter password: *******
12871 %
12872 </pre></blockquote></p>
12873
12874 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
12875 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
12876 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
12877 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
12878 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
12879 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
12880 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
12881 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
12882 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
12883 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
12884 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
12885 automatically.</p>
12886
12887 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
12888 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
12889
12890 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
12891 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
12892 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
12893
12894       </div>
12895       <div class="tags">
12896
12897
12898         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>.
12899
12900
12901       </div>
12902     </div>
12903     <div class="padding"></div>
12904
12905     <div class="entry">
12906       <div class="title">
12907         <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>
12908       </div>
12909       <div class="date">
12910         10th January 2012
12911       </div>
12912       <div class="body">
12913         <p>In the Squeeze version of
12914 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
12915 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
12916 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
12917 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
12918 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
12919 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
12920 first time.</p>
12921
12922 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
12923 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
12924 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
12925 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
12926
12927 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
12928 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
12929 new setting.</p>
12930
12931 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
12932 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
12933 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
12934
12935       </div>
12936       <div class="tags">
12937
12938
12939         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>.
12940
12941
12942       </div>
12943     </div>
12944     <div class="padding"></div>
12945
12946     <div class="entry">
12947       <div class="title">
12948         <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>
12949       </div>
12950       <div class="date">
12951          7th January 2012
12952       </div>
12953       <div class="body">
12954         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
12955 the second beta version of
12956 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
12957 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
12958 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
12959 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
12960 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
12961 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
12962 on the project announcement list.</p>
12963
12964       </div>
12965       <div class="tags">
12966
12967
12968         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>.
12969
12970
12971       </div>
12972     </div>
12973     <div class="padding"></div>
12974
12975     <div class="entry">
12976       <div class="title">
12977         <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>
12978       </div>
12979       <div class="date">
12980          3rd January 2012
12981       </div>
12982       <div class="body">
12983         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
12984 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
12985 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
12986 interesting.</p>
12987
12988 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
12989 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
12990 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
12991 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
12992 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
12993 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
12994 wrap up its tasks.</p>
12995
12996 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
12997 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
12998 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
12999 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
13000 because I was typing.</P>
13001
13002 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
13003 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
13004 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
13005 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
13006 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
13007 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
13008 generate entropy.</p>
13009
13010 <p>The fix is in
13011 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
13012 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
13013 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
13014 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
13015
13016       </div>
13017       <div class="tags">
13018
13019
13020         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>.
13021
13022
13023       </div>
13024     </div>
13025     <div class="padding"></div>
13026
13027     <div class="entry">
13028       <div class="title">
13029         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
13030       </div>
13031       <div class="date">
13032         21st November 2011
13033       </div>
13034       <div class="body">
13035         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
13036 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
13037 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
13038 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
13039 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
13040 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
13041 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
13042 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
13043 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
13044 the tools to do so.</p>
13045
13046 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
13047 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
13048 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
13049 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
13050
13051 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
13052 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
13053 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
13054 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
13055 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
13056 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
13057 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
13058 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
13059
13060 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
13061 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
13062 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
13063
13064 <p><pre>
13065 #!/usr/bin/perl
13066 use strict;
13067 use warnings;
13068 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
13069 BEGIN {
13070     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
13071     my %rhelmodules = (
13072         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
13073         );
13074     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
13075         eval "use $module;";
13076         if ($@) {
13077             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
13078             system("yum install -y $pkg");
13079             eval "use $module;";
13080         }
13081     }
13082 }
13083 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
13084
13085 upgrade_dell();
13086
13087 exit 0;
13088
13089 sub run_firmware_script {
13090     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
13091     unless ($script) {
13092         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
13093         exit 1
13094     }
13095     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
13096
13097     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
13098         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
13099     } else {
13100         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
13101     }
13102 }
13103
13104 sub run_firmware_scripts {
13105     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
13106     # Run firmware packages
13107     for my $dir (@dirs) {
13108         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
13109         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
13110         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
13111             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
13112             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
13113         }
13114         closedir $dh;
13115     }
13116 }
13117
13118 sub download {
13119     my $url = shift;
13120     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
13121     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
13122 }
13123
13124 sub upgrade_dell {
13125     my @dirs;
13126     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
13127     chomp $product;
13128
13129     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
13130
13131         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
13132         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
13133
13134         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
13135             CLEANUP => 1
13136             );
13137         chdir($tmpdir);
13138         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
13139         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
13140         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
13141         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
13142         my $fwopts = "-q";
13143         if (@paths) {
13144             for my $url (@paths) {
13145                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
13146             }
13147             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
13148         } else {
13149             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
13150             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
13151         }
13152         chdir('/');
13153     } else {
13154         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
13155         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
13156     }
13157 }
13158
13159 sub fetch_dell_fw {
13160     my $path = shift;
13161     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
13162     download($url);
13163 }
13164
13165 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
13166 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
13167 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
13168 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
13169     my $filename = shift;
13170
13171     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
13172     chomp $product;
13173     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
13174
13175     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
13176
13177     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
13178     my @paths;
13179     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
13180         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
13181         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
13182         my $oscode;
13183         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
13184             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
13185         } else {
13186             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
13187         }
13188         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
13189         {
13190             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
13191         }
13192     }
13193     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
13194         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
13195
13196         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
13197         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
13198
13199         my $cpath = $component->{path};
13200         for my $path (@paths) {
13201             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
13202                 push(@paths, $cpath);
13203             }
13204         }
13205     }
13206     return @paths;
13207 }
13208 </pre>
13209
13210 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
13211 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
13212 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
13213 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
13214 outdated.</p>
13215
13216       </div>
13217       <div class="tags">
13218
13219
13220         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>.
13221
13222
13223       </div>
13224     </div>
13225     <div class="padding"></div>
13226
13227     <div class="entry">
13228       <div class="title">
13229         <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>
13230       </div>
13231       <div class="date">
13232          7th October 2011
13233       </div>
13234       <div class="body">
13235         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
13236 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
13237 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
13238 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
13239 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
13240 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
13241 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
13242 models.</p>
13243
13244 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
13245 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
13246 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
13247 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
13248
13249 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
13250 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
13251 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
13252 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
13253 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
13254 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
13255 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
13256 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
13257 distributed.</p>
13258
13259 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
13260
13261 <ul>
13262
13263 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
13264   other relevant equipment.</li>
13265
13266 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
13267
13268 </ul>
13269
13270 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
13271 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
13272 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
13273 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
13274 books available.</p>
13275
13276 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
13277 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
13278 libraries. :)</p>
13279
13280       </div>
13281       <div class="tags">
13282
13283
13284         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>.
13285
13286
13287       </div>
13288     </div>
13289     <div class="padding"></div>
13290
13291     <div class="entry">
13292       <div class="title">
13293         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
13294       </div>
13295       <div class="date">
13296         17th September 2011
13297       </div>
13298       <div class="body">
13299         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
13300 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
13301 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
13302 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
13303 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
13304 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
13305 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
13306 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
13307
13308 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
13309
13310 <blockquote><pre>
13311 #!/bin/sh
13312 # apt-get install lsdvd
13313 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
13314 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
13315 </pre></blockquote>
13316
13317 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
13318 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
13319 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
13320 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
13321
13322 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
13323 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
13324 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
13325 back as an ISO.
13326
13327 <blockquote><pre>
13328 #!/bin/sh
13329 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
13330 set -e
13331 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
13332 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
13333 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
13334 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
13335 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
13336 </pre></blockquote>
13337
13338 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
13339
13340 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
13341 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
13342 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
13343 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
13344 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
13345
13346 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
13347 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
13348 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
13349 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
13350 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
13351 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
13352
13353       </div>
13354       <div class="tags">
13355
13356
13357         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>.
13358
13359
13360       </div>
13361     </div>
13362     <div class="padding"></div>
13363
13364     <div class="entry">
13365       <div class="title">
13366         <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>
13367       </div>
13368       <div class="date">
13369          4th August 2011
13370       </div>
13371       <div class="body">
13372         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
13373 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
13374 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
13375 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
13376 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
13377 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
13378 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
13379 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
13380 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
13381
13382 <p><blockquote>
13383 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
13384 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
13385 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
13386 </blockquote></p>
13387
13388 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
13389 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
13390 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
13391 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
13392 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
13393 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
13394 hard to explain.</p>
13395
13396 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
13397 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
13398 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
13399 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
13400 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
13401 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
13402 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
13403 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
13404 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
13405 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
13406 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
13407 mode).</p>
13408
13409 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
13410 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
13411 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
13412 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
13413 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
13414 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
13415 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
13416 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
13417 after visiting single user mode.</p>
13418
13419 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
13420 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
13421 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
13422 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
13423 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
13424 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
13425 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
13426 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
13427
13428 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
13429 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
13430 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
13431
13432       </div>
13433       <div class="tags">
13434
13435
13436         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>.
13437
13438
13439       </div>
13440     </div>
13441     <div class="padding"></div>
13442
13443     <div class="entry">
13444       <div class="title">
13445         <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>
13446       </div>
13447       <div class="date">
13448         30th July 2011
13449       </div>
13450       <div class="body">
13451         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
13452 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
13453 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
13454 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
13455 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
13456 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
13457 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
13458 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
13459 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
13460 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
13461 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
13462 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
13463 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
13464
13465 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
13466 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
13467 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
13468 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
13469 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
13470 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
13471 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
13472 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
13473 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
13474
13475 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
13476 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
13477 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
13478 is presented.</p>
13479
13480 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
13481 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
13482 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
13483 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
13484 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
13485 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
13486 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
13487 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
13488 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
13489 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
13490 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
13491 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
13492 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
13493 find time to push this forward.</p>
13494
13495       </div>
13496       <div class="tags">
13497
13498
13499         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>.
13500
13501
13502       </div>
13503     </div>
13504     <div class="padding"></div>
13505
13506     <div class="entry">
13507       <div class="title">
13508         <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>
13509       </div>
13510       <div class="date">
13511         29th July 2011
13512       </div>
13513       <div class="body">
13514         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
13515 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
13516 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
13517 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
13518 issues.</p>
13519
13520 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
13521 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
13522 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
13523
13524 <ol>
13525
13526 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
13527 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
13528 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
13529 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
13530 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
13531 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
13532 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
13533 Debian.</li>
13534
13535 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
13536 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
13537 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
13538 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
13539 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
13540 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
13541 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
13542 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
13543 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
13544 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
13545 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
13546 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
13547 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
13548
13549 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
13550 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
13551 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
13552 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
13553 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
13554 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
13555 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
13556 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
13557 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
13558 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
13559
13560 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
13561 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
13562 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
13563 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
13564 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
13565 latter behaviour.</li>
13566
13567 </ol>
13568
13569 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
13570 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
13571 it do not matter much.</p>
13572
13573 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
13574 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
13575 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
13576
13577       </div>
13578       <div class="tags">
13579
13580
13581         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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
13582
13583
13584       </div>
13585     </div>
13586     <div class="padding"></div>
13587
13588     <div class="entry">
13589       <div class="title">
13590         <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>
13591       </div>
13592       <div class="date">
13593         26th July 2011
13594       </div>
13595       <div class="body">
13596         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
13597 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
13598 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
13599 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
13600 security support for a few years.</p>
13601
13602 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
13603 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
13604 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
13605 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
13606 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
13607 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
13608 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
13609 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
13610 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
13611 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
13612 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
13613 easier in the future.</p>
13614
13615 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
13616 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
13617 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
13618 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
13619 do not have time for.</p>
13620
13621       </div>
13622       <div class="tags">
13623
13624
13625         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>.
13626
13627
13628       </div>
13629     </div>
13630     <div class="padding"></div>
13631
13632     <div class="entry">
13633       <div class="title">
13634         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
13635       </div>
13636       <div class="date">
13637         20th June 2011
13638       </div>
13639       <div class="body">
13640         <p>Reading
13641 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
13642 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
13643 parts of the
13644 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
13645 and
13646 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
13647 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
13648 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
13649 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
13650
13651       </div>
13652       <div class="tags">
13653
13654
13655         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>.
13656
13657
13658       </div>
13659     </div>
13660     <div class="padding"></div>
13661
13662     <div class="entry">
13663       <div class="title">
13664         <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>
13665       </div>
13666       <div class="date">
13667         30th April 2011
13668       </div>
13669       <div class="body">
13670         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
13671 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
13672 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
13673 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
13674 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
13675 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
13676 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
13677 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
13678 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
13679 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
13680
13681 <p>Where is it?  Visit
13682 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
13683 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
13684 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
13685 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
13686
13687       </div>
13688       <div class="tags">
13689
13690
13691         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>.
13692
13693
13694       </div>
13695     </div>
13696     <div class="padding"></div>
13697
13698     <div class="entry">
13699       <div class="title">
13700         <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>
13701       </div>
13702       <div class="date">
13703         29th April 2011
13704       </div>
13705       <div class="body">
13706         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
13707 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
13708 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
13709 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
13710 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
13711 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
13712 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
13713 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
13714 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
13715 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
13716 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
13717 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
13718 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
13719
13720 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
13721 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
13722 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
13723 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
13724 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
13725 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
13726 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
13727 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
13728 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
13729 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
13730 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
13731 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
13732 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
13733
13734 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
13735 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
13736 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
13737 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
13738 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
13739 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
13740 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
13741 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
13742 it.</p>
13743
13744 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
13745 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
13746 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
13747 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
13748 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
13749 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
13750 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
13751
13752 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
13753 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
13754 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
13755 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
13756 and range= options.</p>
13757
13758 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
13759 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
13760 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
13761 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
13762 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
13763 to best handle this.  I've noticed
13764 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
13765 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
13766 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
13767 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
13768
13769 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
13770 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
13771 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
13772 discussions instead of only
13773 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
13774 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
13775 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
13776 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
13777 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
13778 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
13779
13780       </div>
13781       <div class="tags">
13782
13783
13784         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>.
13785
13786
13787       </div>
13788     </div>
13789     <div class="padding"></div>
13790
13791     <div class="entry">
13792       <div class="title">
13793         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
13794       </div>
13795       <div class="date">
13796          6th April 2011
13797       </div>
13798       <div class="body">
13799         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
13800 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
13801 A few days ago the project
13802 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
13803 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
13804 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
13805 into Gnash.</p>
13806
13807       </div>
13808       <div class="tags">
13809
13810
13811         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>.
13812
13813
13814       </div>
13815     </div>
13816     <div class="padding"></div>
13817
13818     <div class="entry">
13819       <div class="title">
13820         <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>
13821       </div>
13822       <div class="date">
13823          3rd April 2011
13824       </div>
13825       <div class="body">
13826         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
13827 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
13828 update in English.</p>
13829
13830 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
13831 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
13832 of the British service
13833 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
13834 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
13835 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
13836 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
13837 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
13838 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
13839 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
13840 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
13841 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
13842 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
13843 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
13844 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
13845 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
13846
13847 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
13848 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
13849 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
13850 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
13851 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
13852 public infrastructure.</p>
13853
13854 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
13855 such service?</p>
13856
13857       </div>
13858       <div class="tags">
13859
13860
13861         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>.
13862
13863
13864       </div>
13865     </div>
13866     <div class="padding"></div>
13867
13868     <div class="entry">
13869       <div class="title">
13870         <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>
13871       </div>
13872       <div class="date">
13873         28th January 2011
13874       </div>
13875       <div class="body">
13876         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
13877 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
13878 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
13879 available on the Internet, and check our locally
13880 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
13881 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
13882 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
13883 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
13884 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
13885 out which security holes were present in our free software
13886 collection.</p>
13887
13888 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
13889 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
13890 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
13891 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
13892 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
13893 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
13894 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
13895 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
13896 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
13897 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
13898 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
13899 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
13900 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
13901 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
13902 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
13903 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
13904
13905 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
13906 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
13907 check out, one could look up
13908 <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
13909 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
13910 The most recent one is
13911 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
13912 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
13913 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
13914
13915 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
13916 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
13917 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
13918 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
13919 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
13920 security issues out.</p>
13921
13922 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
13923 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
13924 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
13925 RHEL is providing
13926 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
13927 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
13928 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
13929
13930 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
13931 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
13932 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
13933 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
13934 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
13935 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
13936 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
13937 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
13938 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
13939 established soon.</p>
13940
13941 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
13942 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
13943 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
13944 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
13945 for their packages.</p>
13946
13947       </div>
13948       <div class="tags">
13949
13950
13951         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>.
13952
13953
13954       </div>
13955     </div>
13956     <div class="padding"></div>
13957
13958     <div class="entry">
13959       <div class="title">
13960         <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>
13961       </div>
13962       <div class="date">
13963         23rd January 2011
13964       </div>
13965       <div class="body">
13966         <p>In the
13967 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
13968 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
13969 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
13970 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
13971 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
13972 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
13973 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
13974 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
13975 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
13976 one of my machines like this:</p>
13977
13978 <pre>
13979 loaded modules:
13980 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
13981 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
13982 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
13983 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
13984 10de:03ec pata_amd
13985 10de:03f6 sata_nv
13986 1022:1103 k8temp
13987 109e:036e bttv
13988 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
13989 11ab:4364 sky2
13990 </pre>
13991
13992 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
13993 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
13994
13995 <pre>
13996 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
13997     echo loaded pci modules:
13998     (
13999         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
14000         for address in * ; do
14001             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
14002                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
14003                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
14004                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
14005                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
14006                     echo "$id $module"
14007                 fi
14008             fi
14009         done
14010     )
14011     echo
14012 fi
14013 </pre>
14014
14015 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
14016 mappings:</p>
14017
14018 <pre>
14019 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
14020     echo loaded usb modules:
14021     (
14022         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
14023         for address in * ; do
14024             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
14025                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
14026                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
14027                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
14028                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
14029                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
14030                         echo "$id $module"
14031                     fi
14032                 fi
14033             fi
14034         done
14035     )
14036     echo
14037 fi
14038 </pre>
14039
14040 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
14041 well.</p>
14042
14043       </div>
14044       <div class="tags">
14045
14046
14047         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>.
14048
14049
14050       </div>
14051     </div>
14052     <div class="padding"></div>
14053
14054     <div class="entry">
14055       <div class="title">
14056         <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>
14057       </div>
14058       <div class="date">
14059         16th January 2011
14060       </div>
14061       <div class="body">
14062         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
14063 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
14064 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
14065 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
14066 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
14067 the Wikipedia article on
14068 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
14069 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
14070 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
14071 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
14072 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
14073 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
14074 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
14075 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
14076 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
14077 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
14078 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
14079 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
14080
14081 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
14082 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
14083 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
14084 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
14085 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
14086 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
14087 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
14088 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
14089 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
14090 from last week</a>.</p>
14091
14092 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
14093 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
14094 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
14095 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
14096 was without royalties and license terms, check out
14097 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
14098 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
14099
14100 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
14101 available from
14102 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
14103 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
14104 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
14105
14106 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
14107 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
14108 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
14109 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
14110
14111       </div>
14112       <div class="tags">
14113
14114
14115         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/video">video</a>.
14116
14117
14118       </div>
14119     </div>
14120     <div class="padding"></div>
14121
14122     <div class="entry">
14123       <div class="title">
14124         <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>
14125       </div>
14126       <div class="date">
14127         12th January 2011
14128       </div>
14129       <div class="body">
14130         <p>Today I discovered
14131 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
14132 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
14133 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
14134 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
14135 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
14136 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
14137 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
14138 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
14139 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
14140 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
14141 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
14142 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
14143 on the Google announcement is available from
14144 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
14145 A good read. :)</p>
14146
14147 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
14148 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
14149 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
14150 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
14151 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
14152 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
14153 browsers support H.264, and others support
14154 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
14155 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
14156 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
14157 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
14158 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
14159 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
14160 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
14161 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
14162
14163 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
14164 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
14165 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
14166 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
14167 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
14168 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
14169 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
14170
14171 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
14172 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
14173 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
14174 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
14175 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
14176 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
14177 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
14178
14179 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
14180 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
14181 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
14182 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
14183 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
14184 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
14185 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
14186
14187 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
14188 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
14189 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
14190 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
14191 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
14192 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
14193 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
14194 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
14195 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
14196 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
14197 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
14198 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
14199 I guess time will tell.</p>
14200
14201 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
14202 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
14203 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
14204
14205       </div>
14206       <div class="tags">
14207
14208
14209         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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
14210
14211
14212       </div>
14213     </div>
14214     <div class="padding"></div>
14215
14216     <div class="entry">
14217       <div class="title">
14218         <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>
14219       </div>
14220       <div class="date">
14221         30th December 2010
14222       </div>
14223       <div class="body">
14224         <p>After trying to
14225 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
14226 Ogg Theora</a> to
14227 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
14228 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
14229 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
14230 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
14231 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
14232 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
14233 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
14234
14235 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
14236 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
14237 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
14238 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
14239 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
14240 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
14241 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
14242
14243 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
14244 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
14245
14246       </div>
14247       <div class="tags">
14248
14249
14250         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>.
14251
14252
14253       </div>
14254     </div>
14255     <div class="padding"></div>
14256
14257     <div class="entry">
14258       <div class="title">
14259         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
14260       </div>
14261       <div class="date">
14262         27th December 2010
14263       </div>
14264       <div class="body">
14265         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
14266 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
14267 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
14268 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
14269 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
14270 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
14271 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
14272 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
14273
14274 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
14275 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
14276 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
14277 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
14278 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
14279 page</a>.</p>
14280
14281 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
14282 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
14283 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
14284 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
14285 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
14286 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
14287 specification on equal terms.</p>
14288
14289 <blockquote>
14290
14291 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
14292 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
14293 open standard:</p>
14294
14295 <ul>
14296
14297 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
14298 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
14299 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
14300 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
14301
14302 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
14303 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
14304 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
14305 nominal fee.</li>
14306
14307 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
14308 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
14309 free basis.</li>
14310
14311 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
14312
14313 </ul>
14314 </blockquote>
14315
14316 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
14317 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
14318 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
14319 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
14320 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
14321 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
14322 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
14323
14324 <blockquote>
14325
14326 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
14327
14328 <ol>
14329
14330 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
14331 tilgængelig.</li>
14332
14333 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
14334 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
14335
14336 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
14337 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
14338
14339 </ol>
14340
14341 </blockquote>
14342
14343 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
14344 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
14345
14346 <blockquote>
14347
14348 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
14349
14350 <ol>
14351
14352 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
14353 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
14354
14355 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
14356 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
14357 Standard themselves;</li>
14358
14359 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
14360 any party or in any business model;</li>
14361
14362 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
14363 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
14364 parties;</li>
14365
14366 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
14367 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
14368 parties.</li>
14369
14370 </ol>
14371
14372 </blockquote>
14373
14374 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
14375 its
14376 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
14377 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
14378
14379 <blockquote>
14380 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
14381
14382 <ul>
14383
14384 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
14385   democratic:
14386
14387          <ul>
14388
14389          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
14390             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
14391             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
14392             and managed.</li>
14393
14394          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
14395             method, can be changed through input from all
14396             participants.</li>
14397
14398          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
14399             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
14400
14401          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
14402             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
14403
14404          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
14405             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
14406             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
14407
14408          </ul>
14409
14410 </li>
14411
14412 </ul>
14413
14414 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
14415 <ul>
14416
14417 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
14418   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
14419   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
14420   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
14421   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
14422
14423 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
14424   a technical or economic barriers</li>
14425
14426 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
14427   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
14428   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
14429   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
14430   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
14431   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
14432   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
14433   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
14434   intended to function.</li>
14435
14436 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
14437   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
14438   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
14439
14440 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
14441   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
14442   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
14443   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
14444   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
14445   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
14446   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
14447   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
14448
14449       <ul>
14450
14451       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
14452         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
14453         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
14454
14455       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
14456         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
14457         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
14458         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
14459
14460       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
14461         licensor</li>
14462
14463       </ul>
14464 </li>
14465
14466 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
14467   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
14468   or restricted licensing terms</li>
14469
14470 </ul>
14471
14472 </blockquote>
14473
14474 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
14475 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
14476 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
14477 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
14478 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
14479 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
14480 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
14481 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
14482 Standards.</p>
14483
14484       </div>
14485       <div class="tags">
14486
14487
14488         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>.
14489
14490
14491       </div>
14492     </div>
14493     <div class="padding"></div>
14494
14495     <div class="entry">
14496       <div class="title">
14497         <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>
14498       </div>
14499       <div class="date">
14500         25th December 2010
14501       </div>
14502       <div class="body">
14503         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
14504 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
14505
14506 <blockquote>
14507
14508 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
14509 as follows:</p>
14510
14511 <ol>
14512
14513 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
14514 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
14515 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
14516
14517 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
14518 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
14519 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
14520 parties.</li>
14521
14522 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
14523 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
14524 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
14525
14526 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
14527 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
14528
14529 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
14530
14531 </ol>
14532
14533 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
14534 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
14535 products based on the standard.</p>
14536 </blockquote>
14537
14538 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
14539 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
14540 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
14541 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
14542 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
14543 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
14544 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
14545 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
14546
14547 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
14548
14549 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
14550 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
14551 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
14552 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
14553 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
14554 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
14555 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
14556 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
14557 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
14558 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
14559 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
14560 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
14561 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
14562 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
14563
14564 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
14565
14566 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
14567 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
14568 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
14569 documentation indicating this.</p>
14570
14571 <p>According to
14572 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
14573 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
14574 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
14575 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
14576 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
14577 report is correct.</p>
14578
14579 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
14580
14581 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
14582 container format</a> and both the
14583 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
14584 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
14585 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
14586
14587 <blockquote>
14588
14589 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
14590 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
14591 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
14592 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
14593 specification compliance.
14594
14595 </blockquote>
14596
14597 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
14598 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
14599 this is the term:<p>
14600
14601 <blockquote>
14602
14603 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
14604 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
14605 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
14606 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
14607 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
14608 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
14609 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
14610 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
14611 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
14612 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
14613 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
14614 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
14615
14616 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
14617 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
14618 </blockquote>
14619
14620 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
14621 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
14622 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
14623 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
14624 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
14625
14626 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
14627
14628 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
14629 Theora format.
14630 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
14631 and
14632 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
14633 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
14634 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
14635 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
14636 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
14637 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
14638 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
14639 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
14640
14641 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
14642
14643 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
14644
14645 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
14646
14647 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
14648 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
14649 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
14650 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
14651 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
14652 this.</p>
14653
14654 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
14655 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
14656
14657       </div>
14658       <div class="tags">
14659
14660
14661         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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
14662
14663
14664       </div>
14665     </div>
14666     <div class="padding"></div>
14667
14668     <div class="entry">
14669       <div class="title">
14670         <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>
14671       </div>
14672       <div class="date">
14673         25th December 2010
14674       </div>
14675       <div class="body">
14676         <p>A few days ago
14677 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
14678 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
14679 2.0 of
14680 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
14681 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
14682 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
14683 Nothing very surprising there, given
14684 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
14685 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
14686 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
14687 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
14688 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
14689 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
14690 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
14691 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
14692 standard definition from its content.</p>
14693
14694 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
14695 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
14696 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
14697 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
14698 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
14699 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
14700 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
14701 background information about that story is available in
14702 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
14703 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
14704
14705 <blockquote>
14706 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
14707 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
14708 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
14709
14710 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
14711
14712 <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>
14713
14714 <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>
14715
14716 <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>
14717
14718 <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>
14719
14720 <p>
14721 <ul>
14722 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
14723 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
14724 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
14725 </ul>
14726 </p>
14727
14728 <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>
14729
14730 <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>
14731
14732 <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>
14733
14734 <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>
14735
14736 <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>
14737
14738
14739 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
14740 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
14741 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
14742 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
14743 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
14744 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
14745
14746 </p>
14747
14748 <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>
14749
14750 <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>
14751
14752 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
14753
14754 <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>
14755
14756 <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>
14757
14758 <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>
14759
14760 <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>
14761
14762 <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>
14763
14764 <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>
14765
14766 <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>
14767
14768 <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>
14769
14770 <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>
14771
14772 <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>
14773
14774 <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>
14775
14776 <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>
14777
14778 <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>
14779
14780 <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>
14781
14782 <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>
14783
14784 <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>
14785
14786 <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>
14787
14788 <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>
14789
14790 <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>
14791
14792 <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>
14793
14794 <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>
14795
14796 <p>On security:</p>
14797
14798 <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>
14799
14800 <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>
14801
14802 <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>
14803
14804 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
14805
14806 <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>
14807
14808 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
14809
14810 <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>
14811
14812 <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>
14813
14814 <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>
14815
14816 <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>
14817
14818 <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>
14819
14820 <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>
14821
14822 <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>
14823
14824 <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>
14825
14826 <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>
14827
14828 <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>
14829
14830 <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>
14831
14832 <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>
14833
14834 <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>
14835
14836 <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>
14837
14838 <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>
14839
14840 <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>
14841
14842 <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>
14843
14844 <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>
14845
14846 <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>
14847
14848 <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>
14849
14850 <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>
14851
14852 <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>
14853
14854 <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>
14855
14856 <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>
14857
14858 <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>
14859
14860 <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>
14861
14862 <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>
14863
14864 <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>
14865
14866 <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>
14867
14868 <p>Cordially,<br>
14869 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
14870 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
14871 </blockquote>
14872
14873       </div>
14874       <div class="tags">
14875
14876
14877         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>.
14878
14879
14880       </div>
14881     </div>
14882     <div class="padding"></div>
14883
14884     <div class="entry">
14885       <div class="title">
14886         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
14887       </div>
14888       <div class="date">
14889         25th December 2010
14890       </div>
14891       <div class="body">
14892         <p>Half a year ago I
14893 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
14894 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
14895 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
14896 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
14897
14898 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
14899 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
14900 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
14901 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
14902 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
14903 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
14904 got such a great test tool available.</p>
14905
14906       </div>
14907       <div class="tags">
14908
14909
14910         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>.
14911
14912
14913       </div>
14914     </div>
14915     <div class="padding"></div>
14916
14917     <div class="entry">
14918       <div class="title">
14919         <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>
14920       </div>
14921       <div class="date">
14922         22nd December 2010
14923       </div>
14924       <div class="body">
14925         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
14926 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
14927 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
14928 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
14929 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
14930 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
14931 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
14932 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
14933 university.</p>
14934
14935 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
14936 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
14937 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
14938 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
14939 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
14940 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
14941 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
14942 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
14943
14944 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
14945 I perform on a new model.</p>
14946
14947 <ul>
14948
14949 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
14950 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
14951 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
14952
14953 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
14954 installation, X.org is working.</li>
14955
14956 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
14957 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
14958 reported by the program.</li>
14959
14960 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
14961 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
14962 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
14963 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
14964 normally test this by playing
14965 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
14966 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
14967
14968 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
14969 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
14970
14971 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
14972 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
14973
14974 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
14975 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
14976
14977 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
14978 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
14979 few.</li>
14980
14981 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
14982 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
14983 notice this.</li>
14984
14985 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
14986 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
14987 resume.</li>
14988
14989 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
14990 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
14991 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
14992 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
14993 not.</li>
14994
14995 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
14996 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
14997 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
14998 existence.</li>
14999
15000 </ul>
15001
15002 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
15003 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
15004 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
15005 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
15006 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
15007 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
15008 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
15009 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
15010
15011       </div>
15012       <div class="tags">
15013
15014
15015         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>.
15016
15017
15018       </div>
15019     </div>
15020     <div class="padding"></div>
15021
15022     <div class="entry">
15023       <div class="title">
15024         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
15025       </div>
15026       <div class="date">
15027         11th December 2010
15028       </div>
15029       <div class="body">
15030         <p>As I continue to explore
15031 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
15032 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
15033 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
15034
15035 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
15036 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
15037 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
15038 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
15039 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
15040 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
15041 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
15042 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
15043 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
15044 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
15045 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
15046 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
15047 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
15048 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
15049 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
15050 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
15051 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
15052 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
15053 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
15054 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
15055
15056 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
15057 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
15058 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
15059 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
15060 If the Skolelinux foundation
15061 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
15062 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
15063 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
15064 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
15065 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
15066 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
15067 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
15068 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
15069
15070 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
15071 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
15072 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
15073 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
15074 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
15075 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
15076 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
15077 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
15078 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
15079 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
15080 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
15081 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
15082 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
15083 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
15084 currencies.</p>
15085
15086 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
15087 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
15088 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
15089 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
15090 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
15091 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
15092 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
15093 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
15094 BitCoins.  Check out
15095 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
15096 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
15097 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
15098 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
15099 yet.</p>
15100
15101 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
15102 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
15103 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
15104 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
15105 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
15106
15107       </div>
15108       <div class="tags">
15109
15110
15111         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>.
15112
15113
15114       </div>
15115     </div>
15116     <div class="padding"></div>
15117
15118     <div class="entry">
15119       <div class="title">
15120         <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>
15121       </div>
15122       <div class="date">
15123         10th December 2010
15124       </div>
15125       <div class="body">
15126         <p>With this weeks lawless
15127 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
15128 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
15129 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
15130 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
15131 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
15132 A blog post from
15133 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
15134 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
15135 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
15136 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
15137 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
15138 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
15139 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
15140
15141 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
15142 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
15143 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
15144 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
15145 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
15146 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
15147 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
15148 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
15149 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
15150 Debian</a> soon.</p>
15151
15152 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
15153 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
15154 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
15155 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
15156 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
15157 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
15158 you can even get
15159 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
15160 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
15161 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
15162 on the current exchange rates.</p>
15163
15164 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
15165 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
15166 donations to the address
15167 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
15168
15169       </div>
15170       <div class="tags">
15171
15172
15173         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>.
15174
15175
15176       </div>
15177     </div>
15178     <div class="padding"></div>
15179
15180     <div class="entry">
15181       <div class="title">
15182         <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>
15183       </div>
15184       <div class="date">
15185          9th December 2010
15186       </div>
15187       <div class="body">
15188         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
15189 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
15190 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
15191 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
15192 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
15193 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
15194 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
15195 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
15196 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
15197 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
15198 operational.</p>
15199
15200 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
15201 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
15202 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
15203 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
15204 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
15205 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
15206 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
15207
15208       </div>
15209       <div class="tags">
15210
15211
15212         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>.
15213
15214
15215       </div>
15216     </div>
15217     <div class="padding"></div>
15218
15219     <div class="entry">
15220       <div class="title">
15221         <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>
15222       </div>
15223       <div class="date">
15224         29th November 2010
15225       </div>
15226       <div class="body">
15227         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
15228 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
15229 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
15230 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
15231 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
15232 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
15233
15234 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
15235 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
15236 will hold its
15237 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
15238 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
15239 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
15240 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
15241 vote this year.</p>
15242
15243       </div>
15244       <div class="tags">
15245
15246
15247         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>.
15248
15249
15250       </div>
15251     </div>
15252     <div class="padding"></div>
15253
15254     <div class="entry">
15255       <div class="title">
15256         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
15257       </div>
15258       <div class="date">
15259         27th November 2010
15260       </div>
15261       <div class="body">
15262         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
15263 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
15264 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
15265 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
15266 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
15267 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
15268 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
15269 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
15270
15271 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
15272 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
15273 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
15274 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
15275 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
15276 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
15277 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
15278 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
15279 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
15280 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
15281 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
15282
15283 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
15284 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
15285 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
15286 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
15287 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
15288 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
15289 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
15290 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
15291 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
15292 what is going on.</p>
15293
15294       </div>
15295       <div class="tags">
15296
15297
15298         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>.
15299
15300
15301       </div>
15302     </div>
15303     <div class="padding"></div>
15304
15305     <div class="entry">
15306       <div class="title">
15307         <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>
15308       </div>
15309       <div class="date">
15310         22nd November 2010
15311       </div>
15312       <div class="body">
15313         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
15314 upgrade testing of the
15315 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
15316 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
15317 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
15318 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
15319
15320 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
15321
15322 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
15323
15324 <blockquote><p>
15325   apache2.2-bin
15326   aptdaemon
15327   baobab
15328   binfmt-support
15329   browser-plugin-gnash
15330   cheese-common
15331   cli-common
15332   cups-pk-helper
15333   dmz-cursor-theme
15334   empathy
15335   empathy-common
15336   freedesktop-sound-theme
15337   freeglut3
15338   gconf-defaults-service
15339   gdm-themes
15340   gedit-plugins
15341   geoclue
15342   geoclue-hostip
15343   geoclue-localnet
15344   geoclue-manual
15345   geoclue-yahoo
15346   gnash
15347   gnash-common
15348   gnome
15349   gnome-backgrounds
15350   gnome-cards-data
15351   gnome-codec-install
15352   gnome-core
15353   gnome-desktop-environment
15354   gnome-disk-utility
15355   gnome-screenshot
15356   gnome-search-tool
15357   gnome-session-canberra
15358   gnome-system-log
15359   gnome-themes-extras
15360   gnome-themes-more
15361   gnome-user-share
15362   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
15363   gstreamer0.10-tools
15364   gtk2-engines
15365   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
15366   gtk2-engines-smooth
15367   hamster-applet
15368   libapache2-mod-dnssd
15369   libapr1
15370   libaprutil1
15371   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
15372   libaprutil1-ldap
15373   libart2.0-cil
15374   libboost-date-time1.42.0
15375   libboost-python1.42.0
15376   libboost-thread1.42.0
15377   libchamplain-0.4-0
15378   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
15379   libcheese-gtk18
15380   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
15381   libcryptui0
15382   libdiscid0
15383   libelf1
15384   libepc-1.0-2
15385   libepc-common
15386   libepc-ui-1.0-2
15387   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
15388   libfreerdp0
15389   libgconf2.0-cil
15390   libgdata-common
15391   libgdata7
15392   libgdu-gtk0
15393   libgee2
15394   libgeoclue0
15395   libgexiv2-0
15396   libgif4
15397   libglade2.0-cil
15398   libglib2.0-cil
15399   libgmime2.4-cil
15400   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
15401   libgnome2.24-cil
15402   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
15403   libgpod-common
15404   libgpod4
15405   libgtk2.0-cil
15406   libgtkglext1
15407   libgtksourceview2.0-common
15408   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
15409   libmono-addins0.2-cil
15410   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
15411   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
15412   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
15413   libmono-posix2.0-cil
15414   libmono-security2.0-cil
15415   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
15416   libmono-system2.0-cil
15417   libmtp8
15418   libmusicbrainz3-6
15419   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
15420   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
15421   libopal3.6.8
15422   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
15423   libpt2.6.7
15424   libpython2.6
15425   librpm1
15426   librpmio1
15427   libsdl1.2debian
15428   libsrtp0
15429   libssh-4
15430   libtelepathy-farsight0
15431   libtelepathy-glib0
15432   libtidy-0.99-0
15433   media-player-info
15434   mesa-utils
15435   mono-2.0-gac
15436   mono-gac
15437   mono-runtime
15438   nautilus-sendto
15439   nautilus-sendto-empathy
15440   p7zip-full
15441   pkg-config
15442   python-aptdaemon
15443   python-aptdaemon-gtk
15444   python-axiom
15445   python-beautifulsoup
15446   python-bugbuddy
15447   python-clientform
15448   python-coherence
15449   python-configobj
15450   python-crypto
15451   python-cupshelpers
15452   python-elementtree
15453   python-epsilon
15454   python-evolution
15455   python-feedparser
15456   python-gdata
15457   python-gdbm
15458   python-gst0.10
15459   python-gtkglext1
15460   python-gtksourceview2
15461   python-httplib2
15462   python-louie
15463   python-mako
15464   python-markupsafe
15465   python-mechanize
15466   python-nevow
15467   python-notify
15468   python-opengl
15469   python-openssl
15470   python-pam
15471   python-pkg-resources
15472   python-pyasn1
15473   python-pysqlite2
15474   python-rdflib
15475   python-serial
15476   python-tagpy
15477   python-twisted-bin
15478   python-twisted-conch
15479   python-twisted-core
15480   python-twisted-web
15481   python-utidylib
15482   python-webkit
15483   python-xdg
15484   python-zope.interface
15485   remmina
15486   remmina-plugin-data
15487   remmina-plugin-rdp
15488   remmina-plugin-vnc
15489   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
15490   rhythmbox-plugins
15491   rpm-common
15492   rpm2cpio
15493   seahorse-plugins
15494   shotwell
15495   software-center
15496   system-config-printer-udev
15497   telepathy-gabble
15498   telepathy-mission-control-5
15499   telepathy-salut
15500   tomboy
15501   totem
15502   totem-coherence
15503   totem-mozilla
15504   totem-plugins
15505   transmission-common
15506   xdg-user-dirs
15507   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
15508   xserver-xephyr
15509 </p></blockquote>
15510
15511 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
15512
15513 <blockquote><p>
15514   cheese
15515   ekiga
15516   eog
15517   epiphany-extensions
15518   evolution-exchange
15519   fast-user-switch-applet
15520   file-roller
15521   gcalctool
15522   gconf-editor
15523   gdm
15524   gedit
15525   gedit-common
15526   gnome-games
15527   gnome-games-data
15528   gnome-nettool
15529   gnome-system-tools
15530   gnome-themes
15531   gnuchess
15532   gucharmap
15533   guile-1.8-libs
15534   libavahi-ui0
15535   libdmx1
15536   libgalago3
15537   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
15538   libgtksourceview2.0-0
15539   liblircclient0
15540   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
15541   libspeexdsp1
15542   libsvga1
15543   rhythmbox
15544   seahorse
15545   sound-juicer
15546   system-config-printer
15547   totem-common
15548   transmission-gtk
15549   vinagre
15550   vino
15551 </p></blockquote>
15552
15553 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
15554
15555 <blockquote><p>
15556   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
15557 </p></blockquote>
15558
15559 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
15560
15561 <blockquote><p>
15562 [nothing]
15563 </p></blockquote>
15564
15565 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
15566
15567 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
15568
15569 <blockquote><p>
15570   ksmserver
15571 </p></blockquote>
15572
15573 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
15574
15575 <blockquote><p>
15576   kwin
15577   network-manager-kde
15578 </p></blockquote>
15579
15580 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
15581
15582 <blockquote><p>
15583   arts
15584   dolphin
15585   freespacenotifier
15586   google-gadgets-gst
15587   google-gadgets-xul
15588   kappfinder
15589   kcalc
15590   kcharselect
15591   kde-core
15592   kde-plasma-desktop
15593   kde-standard
15594   kde-window-manager
15595   kdeartwork
15596   kdeartwork-emoticons
15597   kdeartwork-style
15598   kdeartwork-theme-icon
15599   kdebase
15600   kdebase-apps
15601   kdebase-workspace
15602   kdebase-workspace-bin
15603   kdebase-workspace-data
15604   kdeeject
15605   kdelibs
15606   kdeplasma-addons
15607   kdeutils
15608   kdewallpapers
15609   kdf
15610   kfloppy
15611   kgpg
15612   khelpcenter4
15613   kinfocenter
15614   konq-plugins-l10n
15615   konqueror-nsplugins
15616   kscreensaver
15617   kscreensaver-xsavers
15618   ktimer
15619   kwrite
15620   libgle3
15621   libkde4-ruby1.8
15622   libkonq5
15623   libkonq5-templates
15624   libnetpbm10
15625   libplasma-ruby
15626   libplasma-ruby1.8
15627   libqt4-ruby1.8
15628   marble-data
15629   marble-plugins
15630   netpbm
15631   nuvola-icon-theme
15632   plasma-dataengines-workspace
15633   plasma-desktop
15634   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
15635   plasma-runners-addons
15636   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
15637   plasma-scriptengine-python
15638   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
15639   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
15640   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
15641   plasma-scriptengines
15642   plasma-wallpapers-addons
15643   plasma-widget-folderview
15644   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
15645   ruby
15646   sweeper
15647   update-notifier-kde
15648   xscreensaver-data-extra
15649   xscreensaver-gl
15650   xscreensaver-gl-extra
15651   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
15652 </p></blockquote>
15653
15654 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
15655
15656 <blockquote><p>
15657   ark
15658   google-gadgets-common
15659   google-gadgets-qt
15660   htdig
15661   kate
15662   kdebase-bin
15663   kdebase-data
15664   kdepasswd
15665   kfind
15666   klipper
15667   konq-plugins
15668   konqueror
15669   ksysguard
15670   ksysguardd
15671   libarchive1
15672   libcln6
15673   libeet1
15674   libeina-svn-06
15675   libggadget-1.0-0b
15676   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
15677   libgps19
15678   libkdecorations4
15679   libkephal4
15680   libkonq4
15681   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
15682   libkscreensaver5
15683   libksgrd4
15684   libksignalplotter4
15685   libkunitconversion4
15686   libkwineffects1a
15687   libmarblewidget4
15688   libntrack-qt4-1
15689   libntrack0
15690   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
15691   libplasmaclock4a
15692   libplasmagenericshell4
15693   libprocesscore4a
15694   libprocessui4a
15695   libqalculate5
15696   libqedje0a
15697   libqtruby4shared2
15698   libqzion0a
15699   libruby1.8
15700   libscim8c2a
15701   libsmokekdecore4-3
15702   libsmokekdeui4-3
15703   libsmokekfile3
15704   libsmokekhtml3
15705   libsmokekio3
15706   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
15707   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
15708   libsmokekparts3
15709   libsmokektexteditor3
15710   libsmokekutils3
15711   libsmokenepomuk3
15712   libsmokephonon3
15713   libsmokeplasma3
15714   libsmokeqtcore4-3
15715   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
15716   libsmokeqtgui4-3
15717   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
15718   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
15719   libsmokeqtscript4-3
15720   libsmokeqtsql4-3
15721   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
15722   libsmokeqttest4-3
15723   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
15724   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
15725   libsmokeqtxml4-3
15726   libsmokesolid3
15727   libsmokesoprano3
15728   libtaskmanager4a
15729   libtidy-0.99-0
15730   libweather-ion4a
15731   libxklavier16
15732   libxxf86misc1
15733   okteta
15734   oxygencursors
15735   plasma-dataengines-addons
15736   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
15737   plasma-widget-lancelot
15738   plasma-widgets-addons
15739   plasma-widgets-workspace
15740   polkit-kde-1
15741   ruby1.8
15742   systemsettings
15743   update-notifier-common
15744 </p></blockquote>
15745
15746 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
15747 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
15748 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
15749 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
15750
15751       </div>
15752       <div class="tags">
15753
15754
15755         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>.
15756
15757
15758       </div>
15759     </div>
15760     <div class="padding"></div>
15761
15762     <div class="entry">
15763       <div class="title">
15764         <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>
15765       </div>
15766       <div class="date">
15767         22nd November 2010
15768       </div>
15769       <div class="body">
15770         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
15771 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
15772 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
15773 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
15774 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
15775 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
15776 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
15777 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
15778 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
15779
15780 <p>I found
15781 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
15782 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
15783 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
15784 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
15785 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
15786 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
15787
15788 <pre>
15789 #!/bin/sh
15790
15791 # Based on
15792 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
15793
15794 set -e
15795 set -x
15796
15797 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
15798     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
15799     exit 1
15800 else
15801     host="$1"
15802 fi
15803
15804 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
15805     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
15806     exit 1
15807 fi
15808
15809 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
15810 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
15811 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
15812 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
15813
15814 img=$host.img
15815 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
15816 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
15817
15818 parted $img mklabel msdos
15819 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
15820 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
15821 parted $img set 1 boot on
15822
15823 modprobe dm-mod
15824 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
15825 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
15826
15827 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
15828 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
15829 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
15830
15831 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
15832 losetup -d /dev/loop0
15833 </pre>
15834
15835 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
15836 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
15837
15838 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
15839 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
15840 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
15841 seem to work just fine.</p>
15842
15843       </div>
15844       <div class="tags">
15845
15846
15847         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>.
15848
15849
15850       </div>
15851     </div>
15852     <div class="padding"></div>
15853
15854     <div class="entry">
15855       <div class="title">
15856         <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>
15857       </div>
15858       <div class="date">
15859         20th November 2010
15860       </div>
15861       <div class="body">
15862         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
15863 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
15864 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
15865 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
15866
15867 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
15868 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
15869 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
15870
15871 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
15872
15873 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
15874
15875 <blockquote><p>
15876   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
15877   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
15878   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
15879   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
15880   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
15881   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
15882   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
15883   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
15884   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
15885   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
15886   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
15887   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
15888   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
15889   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
15890   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
15891   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
15892   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
15893   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
15894   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
15895   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
15896   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
15897   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
15898   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
15899   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
15900   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
15901   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
15902   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
15903   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
15904   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
15905   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
15906   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
15907   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
15908   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
15909   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
15910   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
15911   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
15912   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
15913   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
15914   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
15915   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
15916   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
15917   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
15918   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
15919   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
15920   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
15921   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
15922   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
15923   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
15924   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
15925   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
15926   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
15927   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
15928   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
15929   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
15930   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
15931   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
15932   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
15933   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
15934   zip
15935 </p></blockquote>
15936
15937 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
15938
15939 <blockquote><p>
15940   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
15941   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
15942   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
15943   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
15944   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
15945   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
15946   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
15947   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
15948   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
15949   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
15950   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
15951   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
15952   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
15953   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
15954   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
15955   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
15956   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
15957   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
15958   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
15959   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
15960   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
15961   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
15962   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
15963   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
15964   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
15965   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
15966   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
15967   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
15968   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
15969 </p></blockquote>
15970
15971 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
15972
15973 <blockquote><p>
15974   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
15975 </p></blockquote>
15976
15977 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
15978
15979 <blockquote><p>
15980 [nothing]
15981 </p></blockquote>
15982
15983 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
15984
15985 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
15986
15987 <blockquote><p>
15988   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
15989   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
15990   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
15991   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
15992   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
15993   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
15994   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
15995   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
15996   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
15997   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
15998   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
15999   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
16000   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
16001   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
16002   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
16003   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
16004   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
16005   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
16006   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
16007   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
16008   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
16009   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
16010   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
16011   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
16012   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
16013   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
16014   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
16015   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
16016   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
16017   ttf-sazanami-gothic
16018 </p></blockquote>
16019
16020 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
16021
16022 <blockquote><p>
16023   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
16024   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
16025   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
16026   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
16027   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
16028   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
16029   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
16030   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
16031   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
16032   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
16033   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
16034   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
16035   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
16036   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
16037   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
16038   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
16039   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
16040   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
16041   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
16042   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
16043   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
16044   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
16045   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
16046   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
16047   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
16048   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
16049   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
16050   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
16051   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
16052   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
16053   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
16054   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
16055   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
16056 </p></blockquote>
16057
16058 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
16059
16060 <blockquote><p>
16061   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
16062   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
16063   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
16064   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
16065   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
16066   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
16067   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
16068 </p></blockquote>
16069
16070 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
16071
16072 <blockquote><p>
16073   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
16074 </p></blockquote>
16075
16076       </div>
16077       <div class="tags">
16078
16079
16080         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>.
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/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
16090       </div>
16091       <div class="date">
16092         20th November 2010
16093       </div>
16094       <div class="body">
16095         <p>Answering
16096 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
16097 call from the Gnash project</a> for
16098 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
16099 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
16100 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
16101 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
16102 releases out more often.</p>
16103
16104 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
16105 I have considered setting up a <a
16106 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
16107 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
16108 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
16109 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
16110 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
16111 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
16112 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
16113 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
16114 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
16115 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
16116 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
16117 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
16118
16119       </div>
16120       <div class="tags">
16121
16122
16123         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>.
16124
16125
16126       </div>
16127     </div>
16128     <div class="padding"></div>
16129
16130     <div class="entry">
16131       <div class="title">
16132         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
16133       </div>
16134       <div class="date">
16135          9th November 2010
16136       </div>
16137       <div class="body">
16138         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
16139
16140 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
16141 3D linked in from
16142 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
16143 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
16144
16145       </div>
16146       <div class="tags">
16147
16148
16149         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>.
16150
16151
16152       </div>
16153     </div>
16154     <div class="padding"></div>
16155
16156     <div class="entry">
16157       <div class="title">
16158         <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>
16159       </div>
16160       <div class="date">
16161          7th November 2010
16162       </div>
16163       <div class="body">
16164         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
16165 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
16166 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
16167 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
16168 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
16169 working using this DVD.</p>
16170
16171 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
16172 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
16173 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
16174 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
16175 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
16176 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
16177 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
16178
16179 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
16180 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
16181 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
16182 Debian archive.</p>
16183
16184 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
16185 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
16186 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
16187 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
16188 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
16189 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
16190 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
16191 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
16192 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
16193 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
16194 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
16195 free X driver should work.</p>
16196
16197 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
16198 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
16199 DVD more useful again.</p>
16200
16201       </div>
16202       <div class="tags">
16203
16204
16205         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>.
16206
16207
16208       </div>
16209     </div>
16210     <div class="padding"></div>
16211
16212     <div class="entry">
16213       <div class="title">
16214         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
16215       </div>
16216       <div class="date">
16217         24th October 2010
16218       </div>
16219       <div class="body">
16220         <p>Some updates.</p>
16221
16222 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
16223 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
16224 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
16225 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
16226 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
16227 :)</p>
16228
16229 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
16230 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
16231 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
16232 It is called
16233 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
16234 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
16235 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
16236 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
16237 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
16238 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
16239
16240 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
16241 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
16242 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
16243 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
16244 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
16245 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
16246 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
16247 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
16248 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
16249 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
16250
16251       </div>
16252       <div class="tags">
16253
16254
16255         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>.
16256
16257
16258       </div>
16259     </div>
16260     <div class="padding"></div>
16261
16262     <div class="entry">
16263       <div class="title">
16264         <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>
16265       </div>
16266       <div class="date">
16267         19th October 2010
16268       </div>
16269       <div class="body">
16270         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
16271 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
16272 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
16273 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
16274 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
16275 AVM2 flash files.</p>
16276
16277 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
16278 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
16279 following text:</P>
16280
16281 <p><blockquote>
16282
16283   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
16284   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
16285
16286   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
16287
16288   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
16289
16290   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
16291   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
16292   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
16293   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
16294   days. The project web page is available from
16295   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
16296   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
16297   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
16298
16299   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
16300   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
16301   to get this to happen.</p>
16302
16303   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
16304   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
16305
16306 </blockquote></p>
16307
16308 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
16309 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
16310 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
16311 :)</p>
16312
16313       </div>
16314       <div class="tags">
16315
16316
16317         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>.
16318
16319
16320       </div>
16321     </div>
16322     <div class="padding"></div>
16323
16324     <div class="entry">
16325       <div class="title">
16326         <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>
16327       </div>
16328       <div class="date">
16329          9th October 2010
16330       </div>
16331       <div class="body">
16332         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
16333 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
16334 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
16335 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
16336 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
16337 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
16338 robots.</p>
16339
16340 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
16341 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
16342 a few less important features too.</p>
16343
16344 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
16345 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
16346 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
16347 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
16348
16349 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
16350 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
16351 source or binary package:</p>
16352
16353 <p><ul>
16354 <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>
16355 <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>
16356 <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>
16357 </ul></p>
16358
16359 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
16360 please let me know.</p>
16361
16362       </div>
16363       <div class="tags">
16364
16365
16366         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>.
16367
16368
16369       </div>
16370     </div>
16371     <div class="padding"></div>
16372
16373     <div class="entry">
16374       <div class="title">
16375         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
16376       </div>
16377       <div class="date">
16378          3rd October 2010
16379       </div>
16380       <div class="body">
16381         <p><ul>
16382
16383 <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
16384 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
16385
16386 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
16387 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
16388 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
16389
16390 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
16391 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
16392 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
16393 simple setup.
16394
16395 </ul></p>
16396
16397       </div>
16398       <div class="tags">
16399
16400
16401         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>.
16402
16403
16404       </div>
16405     </div>
16406     <div class="padding"></div>
16407
16408     <div class="entry">
16409       <div class="title">
16410         <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>
16411       </div>
16412       <div class="date">
16413          9th September 2010
16414       </div>
16415       <div class="body">
16416         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
16417 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
16418 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
16419 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
16420 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
16421 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
16422 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
16423 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
16424 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
16425
16426 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
16427 written:</p>
16428
16429 <blockquote>
16430 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
16431 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
16432 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
16433 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
16434 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
16435
16436 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
16437 standard.</p>
16438 </blockquote>
16439
16440 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
16441 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
16442 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
16443 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
16444
16445 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
16446 read
16447 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
16448 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
16449 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
16450 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
16451 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
16452 the issue.  The solution is to support the
16453 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
16454 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
16455 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
16456
16457       </div>
16458       <div class="tags">
16459
16460
16461         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/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>.
16462
16463
16464       </div>
16465     </div>
16466     <div class="padding"></div>
16467
16468     <div class="entry">
16469       <div class="title">
16470         <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>
16471       </div>
16472       <div class="date">
16473          4th September 2010
16474       </div>
16475       <div class="body">
16476         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
16477 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
16478 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
16479 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
16480 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
16481 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
16482 installed.</p>
16483
16484 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
16485 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
16486 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
16487 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
16488 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
16489 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
16490 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
16491 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
16492 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
16493
16494 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
16495 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
16496 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
16497 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
16498 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
16499 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
16500 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
16501 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
16502 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
16503 pages they want to visit.</p>
16504
16505 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
16506 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
16507 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
16508 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
16509 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
16510 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
16511 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
16512 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
16513 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
16514 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
16515 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
16516
16517       </div>
16518       <div class="tags">
16519
16520
16521         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>.
16522
16523
16524       </div>
16525     </div>
16526     <div class="padding"></div>
16527
16528     <div class="entry">
16529       <div class="title">
16530         <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>
16531       </div>
16532       <div class="date">
16533          1st September 2010
16534       </div>
16535       <div class="body">
16536         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
16537 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
16538 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
16539 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
16540 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
16541 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
16542 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
16543 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
16544 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
16545 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
16546 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
16547 drive around.</p>
16548
16549 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
16550 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
16551
16552 <p><pre>
16553 use Spykee;
16554 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
16555 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
16556 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
16557 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
16558 $spykee->left();
16559 sleep 2;
16560 $spykee->right();
16561 sleep 2;
16562 $spykee->forward();
16563 sleep 2;
16564 $spykee->back();
16565 sleep 2;
16566 $spykee->stop();
16567 </pre></p>
16568
16569 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
16570 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
16571 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
16572 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
16573 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
16574 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
16575 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
16576 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
16577 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
16578 going. :).</p>
16579
16580 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
16581 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
16582 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
16583 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
16584
16585       </div>
16586       <div class="tags">
16587
16588
16589         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>.
16590
16591
16592       </div>
16593     </div>
16594     <div class="padding"></div>
16595
16596     <div class="entry">
16597       <div class="title">
16598         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
16599       </div>
16600       <div class="date">
16601         30th August 2010
16602       </div>
16603       <div class="body">
16604         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
16605 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
16606 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
16607 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
16608 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
16609 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
16610 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
16611
16612 <pre>
16613 % ln foo bar
16614 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
16615 %
16616 </pre>
16617
16618 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
16619 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
16620 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
16621 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
16622 nevertheless. :)</p>
16623
16624 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
16625 git from
16626 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
16627
16628       </div>
16629       <div class="tags">
16630
16631
16632         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>.
16633
16634
16635       </div>
16636     </div>
16637     <div class="padding"></div>
16638
16639     <div class="entry">
16640       <div class="title">
16641         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
16642       </div>
16643       <div class="date">
16644         26th August 2010
16645       </div>
16646       <div class="body">
16647         <p>My file system sematics program
16648 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
16649 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
16650 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
16651 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
16652 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
16653 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
16654 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
16655 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
16656 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
16657 script:</p>
16658
16659 <pre>
16660 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
16661   mode_t retval = 0;
16662   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
16663   if (-1 != fd) {
16664     unlink(name);
16665     struct stat statbuf;
16666     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
16667       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
16668     }
16669     close(fd);
16670   }
16671   return retval;
16672 }
16673
16674 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
16675 int test_umask(void) {
16676   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
16677
16678   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
16679   mode_t newmode;
16680   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
16681     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
16682            newmode);
16683   }
16684   umask(007);
16685   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
16686     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
16687            newmode);
16688   }
16689
16690   umask (orig_umask);
16691   return 0;
16692 }
16693
16694 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
16695   [...]
16696   test_umask();
16697   return 0;
16698 }
16699 </pre>
16700
16701 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
16702
16703 <pre>
16704 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
16705 info: testing symlink creation
16706 info: testing subdirectory creation
16707 info: testing fcntl locking
16708   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
16709   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
16710   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
16711   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
16712   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
16713   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
16714 info: testing umask effect on file creation
16715 </pre>
16716
16717 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
16718 result:</p>
16719
16720 <pre>
16721 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
16722 info: testing symlink creation
16723 info: testing subdirectory creation
16724 info: testing fcntl locking
16725   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
16726   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
16727   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
16728   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
16729   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
16730   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
16731 info: testing umask effect on file creation
16732   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
16733   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
16734 </pre>
16735
16736 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
16737 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
16738 directory.</p>
16739
16740 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
16741 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
16742
16743 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
16744 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
16745 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
16746
16747       </div>
16748       <div class="tags">
16749
16750
16751         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>.
16752
16753
16754       </div>
16755     </div>
16756     <div class="padding"></div>
16757
16758     <div class="entry">
16759       <div class="title">
16760         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
16761       </div>
16762       <div class="date">
16763         15th August 2010
16764       </div>
16765       <div class="body">
16766         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
16767 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
16768 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
16769 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
16770 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
16771 long time.</p>
16772
16773       </div>
16774       <div class="tags">
16775
16776
16777         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>.
16778
16779
16780       </div>
16781     </div>
16782     <div class="padding"></div>
16783
16784     <div class="entry">
16785       <div class="title">
16786         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
16787       </div>
16788       <div class="date">
16789          9th August 2010
16790       </div>
16791       <div class="body">
16792         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
16793 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
16794 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
16795 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
16796 generated configuration.</p>
16797
16798 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
16799 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
16800 without any manual configuration.</p>
16801
16802 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
16803 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
16804 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
16805 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
16806 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
16807 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
16808 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
16809 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
16810 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
16811 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
16812 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
16813 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
16814 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
16815 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
16816 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
16817 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
16818 use.</p>
16819
16820 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
16821 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
16822 working properly out of the box:</p>
16823
16824 <ul>
16825 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
16826 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
16827 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
16828 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
16829 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
16830 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
16831 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
16832 </ul>
16833
16834 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
16835
16836 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
16837 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
16838 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
16839 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
16840 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
16841
16842 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
16843 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
16844 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
16845 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
16846 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
16847 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
16848 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
16849 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
16850
16851 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
16852 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
16853 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
16854 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
16855 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
16856 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
16857 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
16858 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
16859 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
16860 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
16861 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
16862 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
16863 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
16864 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
16865 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
16866 current DNS domain is used.</p>
16867
16868 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
16869 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
16870 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
16871 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
16872 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
16873 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
16874 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
16875 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
16876 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
16877 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
16878 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
16879 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
16880 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
16881
16882 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
16883 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
16884 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
16885 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
16886 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
16887 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
16888 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
16889 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
16890 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
16891 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
16892 do for now. :)</p>
16893
16894 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
16895 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
16896 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
16897 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
16898 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
16899 yet.</p>
16900
16901 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
16902 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16903
16904 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
16905 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
16906 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
16907 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
16908
16909       </div>
16910       <div class="tags">
16911
16912
16913         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>.
16914
16915
16916       </div>
16917     </div>
16918     <div class="padding"></div>
16919
16920     <div class="entry">
16921       <div class="title">
16922         <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>
16923       </div>
16924       <div class="date">
16925          8th August 2010
16926       </div>
16927       <div class="body">
16928         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
16929 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
16930 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
16931 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
16932 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
16933 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
16934 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
16935
16936 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
16937 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
16938 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
16939 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
16940 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
16941 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
16942 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
16943
16944 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
16945 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
16946 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
16947 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
16948 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
16949
16950 <pre>
16951 /*
16952  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
16953  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
16954  * directory.
16955  * License: GPL v2 or later
16956  *
16957  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
16958  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
16959 */
16960
16961 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
16962 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
16963 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
16964
16965 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
16966
16967 #include &lt;errno.h>
16968 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
16969 #include &lt;stdio.h>
16970 #include &lt;string.h>
16971 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
16972 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
16973 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
16974 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
16975 #include &lt;unistd.h>
16976
16977 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
16978 /*
16979  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
16980  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
16981  * below.
16982  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
16983  */
16984 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
16985 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
16986   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
16987 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
16988   char *zErrMsg;
16989   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
16990   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
16991   unlink(name);
16992   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
16993   if( rc ){
16994     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
16995     sqlite3_close(db);
16996     return -1;
16997   }
16998
16999   /* create tables */
17000   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
17001   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
17002     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
17003     sqlite3_close(db);
17004     return -1;
17005   }
17006   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
17007   sqlite3_close(db);
17008   return 0;
17009 }
17010 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
17011
17012 /*
17013  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
17014  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
17015  * done in the sqlite3 library.
17016  * See also
17017  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
17018  * POSIX specification
17019  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
17020  */
17021 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
17022   struct flock fl;
17023   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
17024   unlink(name);
17025   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
17026   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
17027
17028   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
17029   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
17030   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
17031   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
17032   fl.l_len    = 1;
17033   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
17034   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17035
17036   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
17037   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
17038   fl.l_len    = 510;
17039   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
17040   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17041
17042   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
17043   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
17044   fl.l_len    = 1;
17045   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
17046   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17047
17048   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
17049   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
17050   fl.l_len    = 1;
17051   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
17052   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17053
17054   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
17055   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
17056   fl.l_len    = 510;
17057   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17058
17059   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
17060   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
17061   fl.l_len    = 2;
17062   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
17063   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17064
17065   close(fd);
17066   return 0;
17067 }
17068
17069 /*
17070  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
17071  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
17072  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
17073  * slowing down file operations.
17074  */
17075 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
17076 #define LEVELS 5
17077   char *path = strdup("test");
17078   char *dirs[LEVELS];
17079   int level;
17080   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
17081   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
17082     char *newpath = NULL;
17083     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
17084       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
17085              path, strerror(errno));
17086       break;
17087     }
17088     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
17089     free(path);
17090     path = newpath;
17091   }
17092   return 0;
17093 }
17094
17095 /*
17096  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
17097  * KDE.
17098  */
17099 int test_symlinks(void) {
17100   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
17101   unlink("symlink");
17102   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
17103     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
17104   return 0;
17105 }
17106
17107 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
17108   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
17109   test_symlinks();
17110   test_subdirectory_creation();
17111 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
17112   test_sqlite_open();
17113 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
17114   test_gcompris_locking();
17115   return 0;
17116 }
17117 </pre>
17118
17119 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
17120 this:</p>
17121
17122 <pre>
17123 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
17124 info: testing symlink creation
17125 info: testing subdirectory creation
17126 info: sqlite worked
17127 info: testing fcntl locking
17128   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17129   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17130   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
17131   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17132   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17133   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
17134 </pre>
17135
17136 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
17137 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
17138 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
17139 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
17140 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
17141 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
17142 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
17143 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
17144
17145 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
17146 it. :)</p>
17147
17148 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
17149 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
17150 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
17151
17152       </div>
17153       <div class="tags">
17154
17155
17156         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>.
17157
17158
17159       </div>
17160     </div>
17161     <div class="padding"></div>
17162
17163     <div class="entry">
17164       <div class="title">
17165         <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>
17166       </div>
17167       <div class="date">
17168          7th August 2010
17169       </div>
17170       <div class="body">
17171         <p>A few days ago, I
17172 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
17173 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
17174 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
17175 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
17176 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
17177 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
17178 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
17179 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
17180 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
17181
17182 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
17183 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
17184 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
17185 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
17186 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
17187 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
17188 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
17189 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
17190 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
17191 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
17192 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
17193 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
17194 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
17195 gave it a IP address.</p>
17196
17197 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
17198 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
17199 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
17200 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
17201 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
17202 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
17203 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
17204 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
17205
17206 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
17207 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
17208 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
17209 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
17210 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
17211 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
17212
17213 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
17214 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
17215 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
17216 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
17217 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
17218 with UID and GID values.</p>
17219
17220 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
17221 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17222
17223       </div>
17224       <div class="tags">
17225
17226
17227         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>.
17228
17229
17230       </div>
17231     </div>
17232     <div class="padding"></div>
17233
17234     <div class="entry">
17235       <div class="title">
17236         <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>
17237       </div>
17238       <div class="date">
17239          3rd August 2010
17240       </div>
17241       <div class="body">
17242         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
17243 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
17244 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
17245 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
17246 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
17247 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
17248 servers.</p>
17249
17250 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
17251 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
17252 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
17253 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
17254 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
17255 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
17256 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
17257 .uio.no.</p>
17258
17259 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
17260 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
17261 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
17262 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
17263 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
17264 university servers.</p>
17265
17266 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
17267 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
17268 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
17269 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
17270 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
17271 uses.</p>
17272
17273       </div>
17274       <div class="tags">
17275
17276
17277         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>.
17278
17279
17280       </div>
17281     </div>
17282     <div class="padding"></div>
17283
17284     <div class="entry">
17285       <div class="title">
17286         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
17287       </div>
17288       <div class="date">
17289         27th July 2010
17290       </div>
17291       <div class="body">
17292         <p>I discovered this while doing
17293 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
17294 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
17295 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
17296 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
17297 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
17298
17299 <p>An example is from todays
17300 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
17301 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
17302 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
17303 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
17304 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
17305 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
17306 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
17307
17308 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
17309
17310 <blockquote><pre>
17311 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
17312  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
17313   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
17314 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
17315  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
17316 </pre></blockquote>
17317
17318 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
17319 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
17320 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
17321 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
17322 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
17323 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
17324 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
17325 of dependency loops.</p>
17326
17327 <p>Thanks to
17328 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
17329 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
17330 dependencies
17331 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
17332 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
17333
17334 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
17335 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
17336 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
17337 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
17338 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
17339 it.</p>
17340
17341       </div>
17342       <div class="tags">
17343
17344
17345         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>.
17346
17347
17348       </div>
17349     </div>
17350     <div class="padding"></div>
17351
17352     <div class="entry">
17353       <div class="title">
17354         <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>
17355       </div>
17356       <div class="date">
17357         27th July 2010
17358       </div>
17359       <div class="body">
17360         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
17361 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
17362 completed.</p>
17363
17364 <blockquote>
17365 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
17366 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
17367 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
17368 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
17369 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
17370 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
17371 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
17372 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
17373
17374 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
17375 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
17376 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
17377
17378 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
17379 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
17380 much.</p>
17381
17382 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
17383
17384 <ul>
17385 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
17386 <ul>
17387   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
17388          combination with some new artwork
17389   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
17390   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
17391   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
17392   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
17393   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
17394   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
17395   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
17396   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
17397   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
17398 </ul></li>
17399 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
17400     Enabled for:
17401 <ul>
17402   <li>PAM
17403   <li>LDAP
17404   <li>IMAP
17405   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
17406 </ul>
17407 </li>
17408 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
17409 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
17410     fetched from LDAP.</li>
17411 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
17412 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
17413 </ul>
17414 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
17415
17416 <ul>
17417 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
17418     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
17419     for testing.</li>
17420 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
17421     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
17422     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
17423 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
17424 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
17425 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
17426 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
17427     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
17428 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
17429     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
17430     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
17431 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
17432     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
17433     and help out with translations.</li>
17434 </ul>
17435
17436 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
17437
17438 <ul>
17439 <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>
17440 <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>
17441 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
17442 </ul>
17443 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
17444
17445 <ul>
17446 <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>
17447 <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>
17448 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
17449 </ul>
17450
17451 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
17452 get closer to the final release.</p>
17453
17454 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
17455
17456 <ul>
17457 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
17458 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
17459 </ul>
17460
17461 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
17462 <ul>
17463 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
17464 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
17465 </ul>
17466 <p>How to report bugs:
17467 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
17468
17469 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
17470 </blockquote>
17471
17472       </div>
17473       <div class="tags">
17474
17475
17476         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>.
17477
17478
17479       </div>
17480     </div>
17481     <div class="padding"></div>
17482
17483     <div class="entry">
17484       <div class="title">
17485         <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>
17486       </div>
17487       <div class="date">
17488         25th July 2010
17489       </div>
17490       <div class="body">
17491         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
17492 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
17493 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
17494 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
17495 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
17496
17497 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
17498 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
17499 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
17500 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
17501 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
17502 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
17503 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
17504
17505 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
17506 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
17507 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
17508 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
17509 up. :)</p>
17510
17511 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
17512 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
17513 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
17514
17515 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
17516 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
17517 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
17518 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
17519 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
17520 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
17521 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
17522 release another day.</p>
17523
17524 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
17525 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17526
17527       </div>
17528       <div class="tags">
17529
17530
17531         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>.
17532
17533
17534       </div>
17535     </div>
17536     <div class="padding"></div>
17537
17538     <div class="entry">
17539       <div class="title">
17540         <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>
17541       </div>
17542       <div class="date">
17543         18th July 2010
17544       </div>
17545       <div class="body">
17546         <p>Thanks to
17547 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
17548 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
17549 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
17550 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
17551 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
17552 only available from the development server, until more experience is
17553 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
17554
17555 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
17556 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
17557 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
17558 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
17559 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
17560 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
17561 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
17562
17563       </div>
17564       <div class="tags">
17565
17566
17567         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>.
17568
17569
17570       </div>
17571     </div>
17572     <div class="padding"></div>
17573
17574     <div class="entry">
17575       <div class="title">
17576         <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>
17577       </div>
17578       <div class="date">
17579         17th July 2010
17580       </div>
17581       <div class="body">
17582         <p>This is a
17583 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
17584 on my
17585 <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
17586 work</a> on
17587 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
17588 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
17589
17590 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
17591 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
17592 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
17593 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
17594
17595 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
17596 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
17597 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
17598
17599 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
17600
17601 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
17602 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
17603 the web.
17604
17605 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
17606 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
17607 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
17608 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
17609 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
17610 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
17611
17612 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
17613 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
17614 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
17615 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
17616 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
17617 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
17618 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
17619 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
17620 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
17621 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
17622 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
17623 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
17624 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
17625 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
17626 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
17627 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
17628
17629 <blockquote><pre>
17630 ldapsearch -h ldap \
17631   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
17632   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
17633   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
17634   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
17635   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
17636   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
17637
17638 ldapsearch -h ldap \
17639   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
17640   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
17641   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
17642   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
17643   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
17644 </pre></blockquote>
17645
17646 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
17647 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
17648 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
17649 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17650 also exist.</p>
17651
17652 <blockquote><pre>
17653 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17654 objectclass: top
17655 objectclass: dnsdomain
17656 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
17657 dc: tjener
17658 arecord: 10.0.2.2
17659 associateddomain: tjener.intern
17660
17661 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17662 objectclass: top
17663 objectclass: dnsdomain2
17664 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
17665 dc: 2
17666 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
17667 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
17668 </pre></blockquote>
17669
17670 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
17671 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
17672 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
17673 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
17674 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
17675 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
17676 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
17677 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
17678 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
17679 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
17680 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
17681 instead.</p>
17682
17683 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
17684 like this:</p>
17685
17686 <blockquote><pre>
17687 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
17688   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
17689   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
17690   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
17691   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
17692   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
17693
17694 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
17695   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
17696 </pre></blockquote>
17697
17698 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
17699 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
17700 reverse lookups.</p>
17701
17702 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
17703 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
17704 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
17705 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
17706
17707 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
17708 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
17709 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
17710
17711 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
17712 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
17713 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
17714 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
17715 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
17716
17717 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
17718 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
17719 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
17720 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
17721 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
17722
17723 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
17724 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
17725 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
17726 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
17727 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
17728 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
17729
17730 <blockquote><pre>
17731 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
17732     SUP top
17733     AUXILIARY
17734     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
17735           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
17736           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
17737           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
17738           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
17739     ))
17740 </pre></blockquote>
17741
17742 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
17743 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
17744 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
17745 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
17746 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
17747 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
17748
17749 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
17750
17751 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
17752 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
17753 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
17754 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
17755 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
17756
17757 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
17758 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
17759 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
17760 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
17761
17762 <blockquote><pre>
17763 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
17764 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
17765 </pre></blockquote>
17766
17767 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
17768 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
17769 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
17770 search result is this entry:</p>
17771
17772 <blockquote><pre>
17773 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17774 cn: dhcp
17775 objectClass: top
17776 objectClass: dhcpServer
17777 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17778 </pre></blockquote>
17779
17780 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
17781 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
17782 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
17783 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
17784 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
17785 The search result is this entry:</p>
17786
17787 <blockquote><pre>
17788 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17789 cn: DHCP Config
17790 objectClass: top
17791 objectClass: dhcpService
17792 objectClass: dhcpOptions
17793 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17794 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
17795 dhcpStatements: authoritative
17796 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
17797 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
17798 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
17799 </pre></blockquote>
17800
17801 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
17802 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
17803 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
17804 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
17805 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
17806 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
17807 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
17808 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
17809 related computer objects.</p>
17810
17811 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
17812 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
17813 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
17814 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
17815 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
17816 like:</p>
17817
17818 <blockquote><pre>
17819 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17820 cn: hostname
17821 objectClass: top
17822 objectClass: dhcpHost
17823 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
17824 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
17825 </pre></blockquote>
17826
17827 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
17828 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
17829 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
17830 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
17831 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
17832 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
17833 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
17834 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
17835 structural object class.
17836
17837 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
17838
17839 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
17840 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
17841 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
17842 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
17843 in the configuration.</p>
17844
17845 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
17846 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
17847 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
17848 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
17849 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
17850 structure.</p>
17851
17852 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
17853 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
17854
17855 <blockquote><pre>
17856 ou=services
17857   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
17858     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
17859     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
17860       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
17861         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
17862     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
17863       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
17864         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
17865     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
17866       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
17867 </pre></blockquote>
17868
17869 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
17870 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
17871 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
17872 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
17873
17874 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
17875 like this:</p>
17876
17877 <blockquote><pre>
17878 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17879 dc: hostname
17880 objectClass: top
17881 objectClass: dhcpHost
17882 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
17883 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
17884 associateddomain: hostname.intern
17885 arecord: 10.11.12.13
17886 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
17887 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
17888 </pre></blockquote>
17889
17890 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
17891 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
17892 auxiliary object class.</p>
17893
17894       </div>
17895       <div class="tags">
17896
17897
17898         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>.
17899
17900
17901       </div>
17902     </div>
17903     <div class="padding"></div>
17904
17905     <div class="entry">
17906       <div class="title">
17907         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
17908       </div>
17909       <div class="date">
17910         14th July 2010
17911       </div>
17912       <div class="body">
17913         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
17914 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
17915 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
17916 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
17917 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
17918
17919 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
17920 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
17921
17922 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
17923 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
17924 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
17925 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
17926 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
17927 to a slave DNS server.</p>
17928
17929 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
17930 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
17931 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
17932 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
17933 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
17934 seem to work.</p>
17935
17936 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
17937 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
17938 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
17939 this:</p>
17940
17941 <blockquote><pre>
17942   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17943   cn: hostname
17944   objectClass: dhcphost
17945   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
17946   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
17947   associateddomain: hostname.intern
17948   arecord: 10.11.12.13
17949   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
17950   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
17951   ldapconfigsound: Y
17952 </pre></blockquote>
17953
17954 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
17955 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
17956 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
17957 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
17958
17959 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
17960 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
17961 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
17962 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
17963 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
17964 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
17965 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
17966 might be a good place to put it.</p>
17967
17968 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
17969 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17970
17971       </div>
17972       <div class="tags">
17973
17974
17975         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>.
17976
17977
17978       </div>
17979     </div>
17980     <div class="padding"></div>
17981
17982     <div class="entry">
17983       <div class="title">
17984         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
17985       </div>
17986       <div class="date">
17987         11th July 2010
17988       </div>
17989       <div class="body">
17990         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
17991 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
17992 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
17993 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
17994
17995 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
17996 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
17997 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
17998 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
17999 LTSP clients.</p>
18000
18001 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
18002 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
18003 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
18004
18005 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
18006 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
18007 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
18008
18009 <blockquote><pre>
18010 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
18011 #
18012 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
18013 #
18014 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
18015 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
18016 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
18017 #
18018 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
18019 # existence of attribute names.
18020 #
18021 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
18022 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
18023 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
18024 #
18025 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
18026 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
18027 #
18028 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
18029 #     SUP top
18030 #     AUXILIARY
18031 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
18032
18033 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
18034 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
18035     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
18036     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
18037         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
18038         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
18039             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
18040             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
18041             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
18042             # bass value on to clients
18043             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
18044         done
18045     done
18046 fi
18047 </pre></blockquote>
18048
18049 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
18050 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
18051 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
18052 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
18053 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
18054
18055 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
18056 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18057
18058 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
18059 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
18060 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
18061 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
18062 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
18063 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
18064
18065       </div>
18066       <div class="tags">
18067
18068
18069         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>.
18070
18071
18072       </div>
18073     </div>
18074     <div class="padding"></div>
18075
18076     <div class="entry">
18077       <div class="title">
18078         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
18079       </div>
18080       <div class="date">
18081          9th July 2010
18082       </div>
18083       <div class="body">
18084         <p>Since
18085 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
18086 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
18087 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
18088 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
18089 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
18090 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
18091 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
18092 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
18093 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
18094 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
18095 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
18096 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
18097 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
18098
18099       </div>
18100       <div class="tags">
18101
18102
18103         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>.
18104
18105
18106       </div>
18107     </div>
18108     <div class="padding"></div>
18109
18110     <div class="entry">
18111       <div class="title">
18112         <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>
18113       </div>
18114       <div class="date">
18115          3rd July 2010
18116       </div>
18117       <div class="body">
18118         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
18119 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
18120 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
18121 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
18122 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
18123 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
18124 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
18125 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
18126
18127 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
18128 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
18129 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
18130 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
18131 publish the difference.</p>
18132
18133 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
18134
18135 <blockquote><p>
18136   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
18137   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
18138   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
18139   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
18140   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
18141   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
18142   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
18143   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
18144 </p></blockquote>
18145
18146 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
18147
18148 <blockquote><p>
18149   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
18150   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
18151   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
18152   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
18153   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
18154   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
18155   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
18156   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
18157   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
18158   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
18159   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
18160   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
18161   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
18162   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
18163   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
18164   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
18165   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
18166   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
18167   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
18168   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
18169 </p></blockquote>
18170
18171 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
18172
18173 <blockquote><p>
18174   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
18175   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
18176   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
18177   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
18178   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
18179   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
18180   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
18181   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
18182   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
18183   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
18184   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
18185   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
18186   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
18187   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
18188   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
18189   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
18190   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
18191   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
18192   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
18193   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
18194   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
18195 </p></blockquote>
18196
18197 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
18198
18199 <blockquote><p>
18200   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
18201   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
18202   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
18203 </p></blockquote>
18204
18205 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
18206 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
18207 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
18208 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
18209 the difference somewhat.
18210
18211       </div>
18212       <div class="tags">
18213
18214
18215         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>.
18216
18217
18218       </div>
18219     </div>
18220     <div class="padding"></div>
18221
18222     <div class="entry">
18223       <div class="title">
18224         <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>
18225       </div>
18226       <div class="date">
18227          1st July 2010
18228       </div>
18229       <div class="body">
18230         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
18231 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
18232 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
18233 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
18234 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
18235 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
18236 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
18237 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
18238 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
18239
18240 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
18241
18242 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
18243 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
18244 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
18245 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
18246 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
18247 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
18248 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
18249 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
18250 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
18251 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
18252 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
18253 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
18254 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
18255 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
18256 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
18257
18258 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
18259
18260 <blockquote><pre>
18261 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
18262 </pre></blockquote>
18263
18264 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
18265 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
18266 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
18267 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
18268 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
18269 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
18270 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
18271 on how to get this working.</p>
18272
18273 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
18274 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
18275 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
18276 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
18277 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
18278 instructions I found in the
18279 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
18280 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
18281
18282 <blockquote><pre>
18283         debug-level             0
18284         reload-count            unlimited
18285         paranoia                no
18286
18287         enable-cache            passwd          yes
18288         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
18289         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
18290         suggested-size          passwd          211
18291         check-files             passwd          yes
18292         persistent              passwd          yes
18293         shared                  passwd          yes
18294         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
18295         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
18296
18297         enable-cache            group           yes
18298         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
18299         negative-time-to-live   group           20
18300         suggested-size          group           211
18301         check-files             group           yes
18302         persistent              group           yes
18303         shared                  group           yes
18304         max-db-size             group           33554432
18305         auto-propagate          group           yes
18306
18307         enable-cache            hosts           no
18308         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
18309         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
18310         suggested-size          hosts           211
18311         check-files             hosts           yes
18312         persistent              hosts           yes
18313         shared                  hosts           yes
18314         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
18315
18316         enable-cache            services        yes
18317         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
18318         negative-time-to-live   services        20
18319         suggested-size          services        211
18320         check-files             services        yes
18321         persistent              services        yes
18322         shared                  services        yes
18323         max-db-size             services        33554432
18324 </pre></blockquote>
18325
18326 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
18327 automatically like the one provided in
18328 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
18329 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
18330 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
18331 look like this:</p>
18332
18333 <blockquote><pre>
18334 passwd:         files ldap
18335 group:          files ldap
18336 shadow:         files ldap
18337 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
18338 networks:       files
18339 protocols:      files
18340 services:       files
18341 ethers:         files
18342 rpc:            files
18343 netgroup:       files ldap
18344 </pre></blockquote>
18345
18346 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
18347 shadow and netgroup.</p>
18348
18349 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
18350 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
18351 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
18352 attributes cached.
18353
18354 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
18355   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
18356
18357 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
18358 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
18359 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
18360 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
18361 discovered sssd.</p>
18362
18363 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
18364
18365 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
18366 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
18367 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
18368 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
18369 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
18370 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
18371 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
18372 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
18373 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
18374 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
18375 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
18376 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
18377 version 1.2 is now in testing.
18378
18379 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
18380 roaming setup I want</p>
18381
18382 <blockquote><pre>
18383 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
18384 </pre></blockquote>
18385
18386 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
18387 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
18388
18389 <blockquote><pre>
18390 [sssd]
18391 config_file_version = 2
18392 reconnection_retries = 3
18393 sbus_timeout = 30
18394 services = nss, pam
18395 domains = INTERN
18396
18397 [nss]
18398 filter_groups = root
18399 filter_users = root
18400 reconnection_retries = 3
18401
18402 [pam]
18403 reconnection_retries = 3
18404
18405 [domain/INTERN]
18406 enumerate = false
18407 cache_credentials = true
18408
18409 id_provider = ldap
18410 auth_provider = ldap
18411 chpass_provider = ldap
18412
18413 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
18414 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18415 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
18416 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
18417 </pre></blockquote>
18418
18419 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
18420 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
18421
18422 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
18423 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
18424 modify it manually.</p>
18425
18426 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
18427 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18428
18429       </div>
18430       <div class="tags">
18431
18432
18433         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>.
18434
18435
18436       </div>
18437     </div>
18438     <div class="padding"></div>
18439
18440     <div class="entry">
18441       <div class="title">
18442         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
18443       </div>
18444       <div class="date">
18445         28th June 2010
18446       </div>
18447       <div class="body">
18448         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
18449 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
18450 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
18451 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
18452 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
18453 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
18454 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
18455 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
18456 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
18457 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
18458
18459 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
18460 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
18461 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
18462 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
18463 released.</p>
18464
18465 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
18466 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
18467 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
18468 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
18469
18470 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
18471 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18472
18473 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
18474 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
18475 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
18476 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
18477 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
18478
18479       </div>
18480       <div class="tags">
18481
18482
18483         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>.
18484
18485
18486       </div>
18487     </div>
18488     <div class="padding"></div>
18489
18490     <div class="entry">
18491       <div class="title">
18492         <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>
18493       </div>
18494       <div class="date">
18495         24th June 2010
18496       </div>
18497       <div class="body">
18498         <p>A while back, I
18499 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
18500 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
18501 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
18502 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
18503
18504 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
18505 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
18506 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
18507 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
18508
18509 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
18510 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
18511 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
18512 Debian Edu.</p>
18513
18514 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
18515 the
18516 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
18517 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
18518 available today from IETF.</p>
18519
18520 <pre>
18521 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
18522 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
18523 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
18524  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
18525         NAME 'dhcpHost'
18526         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
18527 -       SUP top
18528 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
18529         MUST cn
18530         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
18531         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
18532 </pre>
18533
18534 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
18535 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
18536 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
18537
18538 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
18539 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18540
18541       </div>
18542       <div class="tags">
18543
18544
18545         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>.
18546
18547
18548       </div>
18549     </div>
18550     <div class="padding"></div>
18551
18552     <div class="entry">
18553       <div class="title">
18554         <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>
18555       </div>
18556       <div class="date">
18557         16th June 2010
18558       </div>
18559       <div class="body">
18560         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
18561 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
18562 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
18563 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
18564 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
18565 this:
18566
18567 <blockquote><pre>
18568 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
18569 tasksel --new-install
18570 </pre></blockquote>
18571
18572 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
18573 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
18574 any output what so ever.
18575
18576 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
18577 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
18578 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
18579 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
18580 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
18581 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
18582 code like this:
18583
18584 <blockquote><pre>
18585 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
18586 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
18587 $cmd
18588 </pre></blockquote>
18589
18590 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
18591 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
18592 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
18593 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
18594 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
18595 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
18596 installation.</p>
18597
18598 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
18599 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
18600 like this.</p>
18601
18602       </div>
18603       <div class="tags">
18604
18605
18606         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>.
18607
18608
18609       </div>
18610     </div>
18611     <div class="padding"></div>
18612
18613     <div class="entry">
18614       <div class="title">
18615         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
18616       </div>
18617       <div class="date">
18618         13th June 2010
18619       </div>
18620       <div class="body">
18621         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
18622 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
18623 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
18624 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
18625 pages.</p>
18626
18627 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
18628 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
18629 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
18630 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
18631 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
18632 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
18633 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
18634 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
18635 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
18636 see how the project is doing.</p>
18637
18638 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
18639 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
18640 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
18641 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
18642 Windows.  This is great.</p>
18643
18644       </div>
18645       <div class="tags">
18646
18647
18648         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>.
18649
18650
18651       </div>
18652     </div>
18653     <div class="padding"></div>
18654
18655     <div class="entry">
18656       <div class="title">
18657         <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>
18658       </div>
18659       <div class="date">
18660         13th June 2010
18661       </div>
18662       <div class="body">
18663         <p>My
18664 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
18665 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
18666 finally made the upgrade logs available from
18667 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
18668 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
18669 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
18670 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
18671
18672 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
18673 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
18674 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
18675 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
18676 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
18677 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
18678 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
18679 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
18680
18681 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
18682 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
18683 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
18684 too surprising.</p>
18685
18686 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
18687 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
18688 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
18689 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
18690 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
18691 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
18692 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
18693 continue.</p>
18694
18695 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
18696 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
18697   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
18698   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
18699   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
18700   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
18701   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
18702   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
18703   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
18704   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
18705   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
18706   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
18707   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
18708   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
18709   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
18710   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
18711   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
18712   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
18713   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
18714   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
18715   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
18716   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
18717   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
18718   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
18719   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
18720   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
18721   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
18722   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
18723   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
18724   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
18725
18726 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
18727
18728 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
18729   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
18730   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
18731   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
18732   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
18733   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
18734   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
18735   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
18736   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
18737   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
18738   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
18739   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
18740   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
18741   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
18742   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
18743   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
18744   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
18745   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
18746   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
18747   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
18748   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
18749   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
18750   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
18751   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
18752   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
18753   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
18754   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
18755   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
18756   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
18757   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
18758   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
18759   zip</p>
18760
18761 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
18762
18763 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
18764   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
18765   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
18766   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
18767   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
18768   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
18769   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
18770   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
18771   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
18772   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
18773   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
18774   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
18775   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
18776   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
18777   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
18778   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
18779   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
18780   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
18781   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
18782   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
18783   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
18784   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
18785   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
18786   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
18787   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
18788   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
18789   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
18790   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
18791
18792 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
18793 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
18794   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
18795   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
18796   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
18797   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
18798   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
18799   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
18800   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
18801   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
18802   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
18803   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
18804   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
18805   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
18806   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
18807   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
18808   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
18809   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
18810   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
18811   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
18812   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
18813   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
18814   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
18815   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
18816   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
18817   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
18818   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
18819   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
18820   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
18821   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
18822   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
18823   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
18824   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
18825   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
18826   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
18827   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
18828   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
18829   xulrunner-1.9</p>
18830
18831
18832       </div>
18833       <div class="tags">
18834
18835
18836         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>.
18837
18838
18839       </div>
18840     </div>
18841     <div class="padding"></div>
18842
18843     <div class="entry">
18844       <div class="title">
18845         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
18846       </div>
18847       <div class="date">
18848         11th June 2010
18849       </div>
18850       <div class="body">
18851         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
18852 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
18853 have been discovered and reported in the process
18854 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
18855 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
18856 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
18857 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
18858 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
18859
18860 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
18861 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
18862 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
18863 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
18864 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
18865 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
18866
18867 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
18868 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
18869 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
18870 is created.  The bug report
18871 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
18872 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
18873 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
18874 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
18875 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
18876 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
18877 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
18878 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
18879 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
18880 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
18881 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
18882 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
18883 Debian Squeeze.</p>
18884
18885 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
18886 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
18887 trick:</p>
18888
18889 <blockquote><pre>
18890 #!/bin/sh
18891 set -ex
18892
18893 if [ "$1" ] ; then
18894     desktop=$1
18895 else
18896     desktop=gnome
18897 fi
18898
18899 from=lenny
18900 to=squeeze
18901
18902 exec &lt; /dev/null
18903 unset LANG
18904 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
18905 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
18906 fuser -mv .
18907 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
18908 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
18909 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
18910 #!/bin/sh
18911 exit 101
18912 EOF
18913 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
18914 exit_cleanup() {
18915     umount $tmpdir/proc
18916 }
18917 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
18918 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
18919 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
18920
18921 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
18922
18923 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
18924 # to return the correct answers.
18925 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
18926     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
18927
18928 # Include the desktop and laptop task
18929 for test in desktop laptop ; do
18930     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
18931 #!/bin/sh
18932 exit 2
18933 EOF
18934     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
18935 done
18936
18937 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
18938 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
18939 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
18940 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
18941
18942 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
18943 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
18944 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
18945 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
18946 fuser -mv
18947 </pre></blockquote>
18948
18949 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
18950 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
18951 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
18952 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
18953 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
18954 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
18955
18956 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
18957 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
18958 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
18959 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
18960 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
18961 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
18962 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
18963
18964 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
18965 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
18966 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
18967 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
18968 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
18969 packages.</p>
18970
18971       </div>
18972       <div class="tags">
18973
18974
18975         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>.
18976
18977
18978       </div>
18979     </div>
18980     <div class="padding"></div>
18981
18982     <div class="entry">
18983       <div class="title">
18984         <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>
18985       </div>
18986       <div class="date">
18987          6th June 2010
18988       </div>
18989       <div class="body">
18990         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
18991 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
18992 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
18993 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
18994 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
18995 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
18996 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
18997
18998 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
18999 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
19000 COLUMNS):</p>
19001
19002 <blockquote><pre>
19003 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
19004 previous=N
19005 PREVLEVEL=
19006 RUNLEVEL=
19007 runlevel=S
19008 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
19009 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
19010 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
19011 </pre></blockquote>
19012
19013 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
19014 script.</p>
19015
19016 <blockquote><pre>
19017 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
19018 previous=N
19019 PREVLEVEL=N
19020 RUNLEVEL=S
19021 runlevel=S
19022 </pre></blockquote>
19023
19024 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
19025 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
19026 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
19027
19028 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
19029 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
19030 choice.</p>
19031
19032       </div>
19033       <div class="tags">
19034
19035
19036         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>.
19037
19038
19039       </div>
19040     </div>
19041     <div class="padding"></div>
19042
19043     <div class="entry">
19044       <div class="title">
19045         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
19046       </div>
19047       <div class="date">
19048          6th June 2010
19049       </div>
19050       <div class="body">
19051         <p>Via the
19052 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
19053 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
19054 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
19055 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
19056 following the standards wars of today.</p>
19057
19058       </div>
19059       <div class="tags">
19060
19061
19062         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>.
19063
19064
19065       </div>
19066     </div>
19067     <div class="padding"></div>
19068
19069     <div class="entry">
19070       <div class="title">
19071         <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>
19072       </div>
19073       <div class="date">
19074          3rd June 2010
19075       </div>
19076       <div class="body">
19077         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
19078 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
19079 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
19080 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
19081 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
19082
19083 <blockquote><pre>
19084 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
19085   vendor                    count
19086   Dell Computer Corporation     1
19087     PowerEdge 1750              1
19088   IBM                           1
19089     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
19090   Intel                         2
19091   [no-dmi-info]                 3
19092 maintainer:~#
19093 </pre></blockquote>
19094
19095 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
19096 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
19097 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
19098 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
19099 option to list the individual machines.</p>
19100
19101 <p>A larger list is
19102 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
19103 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
19104 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
19105 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
19106 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
19107 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
19108 collector.</p>
19109
19110       </div>
19111       <div class="tags">
19112
19113
19114         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>.
19115
19116
19117       </div>
19118     </div>
19119     <div class="padding"></div>
19120
19121     <div class="entry">
19122       <div class="title">
19123         <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>
19124       </div>
19125       <div class="date">
19126          1st June 2010
19127       </div>
19128       <div class="body">
19129         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
19130 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
19131 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
19132 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
19133 wait.</p>
19134
19135 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
19136 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
19137 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
19138 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
19139 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
19140 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
19141
19142 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
19143 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
19144 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
19145 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
19146 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
19147 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
19148 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
19149 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
19150
19151 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
19152
19153       </div>
19154       <div class="tags">
19155
19156
19157         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>.
19158
19159
19160       </div>
19161     </div>
19162     <div class="padding"></div>
19163
19164     <div class="entry">
19165       <div class="title">
19166         <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>
19167       </div>
19168       <div class="date">
19169         27th May 2010
19170       </div>
19171       <div class="body">
19172         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
19173 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
19174 issues are known and should be solved:
19175
19176 <p><ul>
19177
19178 <li>The wicd package seen to
19179 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
19180 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
19181 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
19182 seem to be on the case.</li>
19183
19184 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
19185 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
19186 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
19187 maintainer is on the case.</li>
19188
19189 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
19190 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
19191 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
19192 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
19193 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
19194 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
19195 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
19196 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
19197
19198 </ul></p>
19199
19200 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
19201 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
19202 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
19203 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
19204
19205 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
19206 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
19207 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
19208 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
19209
19210 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
19211
19212       </div>
19213       <div class="tags">
19214
19215
19216         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>.
19217
19218
19219       </div>
19220     </div>
19221     <div class="padding"></div>
19222
19223     <div class="entry">
19224       <div class="title">
19225         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
19226       </div>
19227       <div class="date">
19228         22nd May 2010
19229       </div>
19230       <div class="body">
19231         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
19232 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
19233 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
19234 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
19235
19236 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
19237 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
19238 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
19239 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
19240 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
19241 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
19242 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
19243 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
19244 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
19245 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
19246 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
19247 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
19248 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
19249 going to work.</p>
19250
19251 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
19252 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
19253 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
19254 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
19255 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
19256 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
19257 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
19258 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
19259 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
19260 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
19261 Edu.</p>
19262
19263 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
19264 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
19265 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
19266 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
19267 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
19268 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
19269
19270 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
19271 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
19272
19273       </div>
19274       <div class="tags">
19275
19276
19277         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>.
19278
19279
19280       </div>
19281     </div>
19282     <div class="padding"></div>
19283
19284     <div class="entry">
19285       <div class="title">
19286         <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>
19287       </div>
19288       <div class="date">
19289         19th May 2010
19290       </div>
19291       <div class="body">
19292         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
19293 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
19294 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
19295 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
19296 into unstable.  The
19297 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
19298 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
19299 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
19300 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
19301 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
19302 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
19303 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
19304
19305 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
19306 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
19307 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
19308 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
19309 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
19310 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
19311 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
19312 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
19313
19314 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
19315 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
19316 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
19317 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
19318 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
19319 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
19320 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
19321
19322 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
19323 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
19324 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
19325 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
19326 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
19327 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
19328 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
19329 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
19330 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
19331 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
19332 on the home directory servers.</p>
19333
19334 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
19335 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
19336 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
19337 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
19338 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
19339 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
19340
19341 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
19342 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
19343
19344       </div>
19345       <div class="tags">
19346
19347
19348         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>.
19349
19350
19351       </div>
19352     </div>
19353     <div class="padding"></div>
19354
19355     <div class="entry">
19356       <div class="title">
19357         <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>
19358       </div>
19359       <div class="date">
19360         14th May 2010
19361       </div>
19362       <div class="body">
19363         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
19364 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
19365 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
19366 expected, if I am to believe the
19367 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
19368 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
19369 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
19370 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
19371 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
19372 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
19373 version.</p>
19374
19375 More information about
19376 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
19377 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
19378 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
19379 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
19380
19381 <blockquote><pre>
19382 CONCURRENCY=none
19383 </pre></blockquote>
19384
19385 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
19386 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
19387 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
19388 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
19389
19390       </div>
19391       <div class="tags">
19392
19393
19394         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>.
19395
19396
19397       </div>
19398     </div>
19399     <div class="padding"></div>
19400
19401     <div class="entry">
19402       <div class="title">
19403         <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>
19404       </div>
19405       <div class="date">
19406         14th May 2010
19407       </div>
19408       <div class="body">
19409         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
19410 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
19411 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
19412 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
19413 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
19414 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
19415 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
19416 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
19417
19418 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
19419 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
19420 this on the collector host:</p>
19421
19422 <blockquote><pre>
19423 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
19424 </pre></blockquote>
19425
19426 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
19427 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
19428
19429 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
19430 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
19431 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
19432 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
19433 written yet.</p>
19434
19435       </div>
19436       <div class="tags">
19437
19438
19439         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>.
19440
19441
19442       </div>
19443     </div>
19444     <div class="padding"></div>
19445
19446     <div class="entry">
19447       <div class="title">
19448         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
19449       </div>
19450       <div class="date">
19451         13th May 2010
19452       </div>
19453       <div class="body">
19454         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
19455 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
19456 has been
19457 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
19458
19459 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
19460 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
19461 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
19462 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
19463 based boot system.  Tollef is
19464 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
19465 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
19466 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
19467 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
19468 at the moment do not.</p>
19469
19470 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
19471 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
19472 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
19473 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
19474 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
19475 way forward.</p>
19476
19477 <p>In the mean time, based on the
19478 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
19479 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
19480 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
19481 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
19482 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
19483 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
19484 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
19485 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
19486
19487       </div>
19488       <div class="tags">
19489
19490
19491         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>.
19492
19493
19494       </div>
19495     </div>
19496     <div class="padding"></div>
19497
19498     <div class="entry">
19499       <div class="title">
19500         <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>
19501       </div>
19502       <div class="date">
19503          6th May 2010
19504       </div>
19505       <div class="body">
19506         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
19507 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
19508 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
19509 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
19510 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
19511 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
19512 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
19513
19514 <blockquote><pre>
19515 CONCURRENCY=makefile
19516 </pre></blockquote>
19517
19518 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
19519 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
19520 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
19521 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
19522 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
19523 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
19524 make this happen.</p>
19525
19526 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
19527 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
19528 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
19529 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
19530 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
19531
19532 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
19533 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
19534 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
19535 fix the remaining issues.</p>
19536
19537 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
19538 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
19539 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
19540 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
19541
19542       </div>
19543       <div class="tags">
19544
19545
19546         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>.
19547
19548
19549       </div>
19550     </div>
19551     <div class="padding"></div>
19552
19553     <div class="entry">
19554       <div class="title">
19555         <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>
19556       </div>
19557       <div class="date">
19558          2nd May 2010
19559       </div>
19560       <div class="body">
19561         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
19562 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
19563 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
19564
19565 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
19566 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
19567 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
19568 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
19569 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
19570
19571 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
19572 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
19573
19574 <blockquote><pre>
19575 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
19576 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
19577 Password expires                                        : never
19578 Password inactive                                       : never
19579 Account expires                                         : never
19580 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
19581 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
19582 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
19583 root@tjener:~#
19584 </pre></blockquote>
19585
19586 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
19587 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
19588 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
19589 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
19590 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
19591 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
19592
19593 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
19594 intended:</p>
19595
19596 <blockquote><pre>
19597 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
19598 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
19599 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
19600 Password expires                                        : never
19601 Password inactive                                       : never
19602 Account expires                                         : never
19603 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
19604 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
19605 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
19606 root@tjener:~#
19607 </pre></blockquote>
19608
19609 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
19610 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
19611 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
19612
19613 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
19614 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
19615
19616 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
19617 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
19618
19619 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
19620 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
19621 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
19622 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
19623 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
19624 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
19625 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
19626
19627 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
19628 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
19629 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
19630 change.</p>
19631
19632       </div>
19633       <div class="tags">
19634
19635
19636         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>.
19637
19638
19639       </div>
19640     </div>
19641     <div class="padding"></div>
19642
19643     <div class="entry">
19644       <div class="title">
19645         <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>
19646       </div>
19647       <div class="date">
19648         28th April 2010
19649       </div>
19650       <div class="body">
19651         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
19652 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
19653 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
19654 and go.</p>
19655
19656 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
19657 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
19658 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
19659 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
19660
19661 <ul>
19662
19663  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
19664    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
19665    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
19666    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
19667    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
19668    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
19669    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
19670    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
19671    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
19672    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
19673    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
19674    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
19675
19676  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
19677    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
19678    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
19679    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
19680    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
19681    or the Fedora developed
19682    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
19683    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
19684
19685  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
19686    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
19687    directory, using unison.</li>
19688
19689  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
19690    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
19691    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
19692    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
19693    implemented.</li>
19694
19695  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
19696    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
19697
19698  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
19699    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
19700    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
19701
19702 </ul>
19703
19704 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
19705 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
19706 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
19707 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
19708 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
19709 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
19710 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
19711 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
19712 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
19713
19714 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
19715 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
19716
19717       </div>
19718       <div class="tags">
19719
19720
19721         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>.
19722
19723
19724       </div>
19725     </div>
19726     <div class="padding"></div>
19727
19728     <div class="entry">
19729       <div class="title">
19730         <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>
19731       </div>
19732       <div class="date">
19733         19th April 2010
19734       </div>
19735       <div class="body">
19736         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
19737 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
19738 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
19739 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
19740 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
19741 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
19742 restrictions on the web, for example from
19743 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
19744 epub-version from
19745 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
19746 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
19747 strongly recommend this book.</p>
19748
19749       </div>
19750       <div class="tags">
19751
19752
19753         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>.
19754
19755
19756       </div>
19757     </div>
19758     <div class="padding"></div>
19759
19760     <div class="entry">
19761       <div class="title">
19762         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
19763       </div>
19764       <div class="date">
19765         14th April 2010
19766       </div>
19767       <div class="body">
19768         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
19769 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
19770 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
19771 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
19772 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
19773 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
19774 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
19775 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
19776 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
19777
19778 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
19779 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
19780 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
19781 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
19782 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
19783
19784 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
19785 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
19786
19787 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
19788 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
19789 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
19790 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
19791 to work properly.</p>
19792
19793 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
19794 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
19795 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
19796 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
19797 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
19798 time.</p>
19799
19800 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
19801 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
19802 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
19803 up in a few days.</p>
19804
19805       </div>
19806       <div class="tags">
19807
19808
19809         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>.
19810
19811
19812       </div>
19813     </div>
19814     <div class="padding"></div>
19815
19816     <div class="entry">
19817       <div class="title">
19818         <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>
19819       </div>
19820       <div class="date">
19821          6th March 2010
19822       </div>
19823       <div class="body">
19824         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
19825 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
19826 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
19827 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
19828 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
19829 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
19830
19831 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
19832 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
19833 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
19834 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
19835
19836 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
19837 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
19838 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
19839 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
19840 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
19841 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
19842
19843       </div>
19844       <div class="tags">
19845
19846
19847         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>.
19848
19849
19850       </div>
19851     </div>
19852     <div class="padding"></div>
19853
19854     <div class="entry">
19855       <div class="title">
19856         <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>
19857       </div>
19858       <div class="date">
19859         11th February 2010
19860       </div>
19861       <div class="body">
19862         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
19863 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
19864 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
19865 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
19866 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
19867 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
19868 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
19869
19870 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
19871
19872 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
19873 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
19874 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
19875 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
19876
19877       </div>
19878       <div class="tags">
19879
19880
19881         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>.
19882
19883
19884       </div>
19885     </div>
19886     <div class="padding"></div>
19887
19888     <div class="entry">
19889       <div class="title">
19890         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
19891       </div>
19892       <div class="date">
19893         27th January 2010
19894       </div>
19895       <div class="body">
19896         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
19897 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
19898 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
19899 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
19900 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
19901 further.</p>
19902
19903 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
19904 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
19905 configured to be a server for the
19906 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
19907 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
19908 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
19909 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
19910 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
19911 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
19912 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
19913 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
19914 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
19915 and Nagios configuration.</p>
19916
19917 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
19918 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
19919 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
19920 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
19921
19922 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
19923 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
19924 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
19925 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
19926 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
19927 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
19928 the machine.</p>
19929
19930 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
19931 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
19932 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
19933 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
19934
19935 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
19936 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
19937 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
19938 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
19939 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
19940 everything is taken care of.</p>
19941
19942       </div>
19943       <div class="tags">
19944
19945
19946         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>.
19947
19948
19949       </div>
19950     </div>
19951     <div class="padding"></div>
19952
19953     <div class="entry">
19954       <div class="title">
19955         <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>
19956       </div>
19957       <div class="date">
19958         12th August 2009
19959       </div>
19960       <div class="body">
19961         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
19962 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
19963 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
19964 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
19965
19966 <table>
19967 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
19968 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
19969 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
19970 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
19971 </table>
19972
19973 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
19974 got these numbers:</p>
19975
19976 <table>
19977 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
19978 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
19979 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
19980 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
19981 </table>
19982
19983 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
19984
19985 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
19986 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
19987 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
19988 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
19989 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
19990
19991
19992 <table>
19993 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
19994 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
19995 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
19996 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
19997 </table>
19998
19999 <p>And with 'site:no':
20000
20001 <table>
20002 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
20003 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
20004 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
20005 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
20006 </table>
20007
20008 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
20009 numbers.</p>
20010
20011       </div>
20012       <div class="tags">
20013
20014
20015         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>.
20016
20017
20018       </div>
20019     </div>
20020     <div class="padding"></div>
20021
20022     <div class="entry">
20023       <div class="title">
20024         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
20025       </div>
20026       <div class="date">
20027          8th August 2009
20028       </div>
20029       <div class="body">
20030         <p>According to <a
20031 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
20032 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
20033 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
20034 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
20035 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
20036 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
20037 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
20038 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
20039 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
20040 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
20041
20042 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
20043 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
20044 seminar this autumn.</p>
20045
20046       </div>
20047       <div class="tags">
20048
20049
20050         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>.
20051
20052
20053       </div>
20054     </div>
20055     <div class="padding"></div>
20056
20057     <div class="entry">
20058       <div class="title">
20059         <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>
20060       </div>
20061       <div class="date">
20062         27th July 2009
20063       </div>
20064       <div class="body">
20065         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
20066 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
20067 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
20068 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
20069 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
20070 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
20071 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
20072
20073 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
20074 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
20075 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
20076
20077       </div>
20078       <div class="tags">
20079
20080
20081         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>.
20082
20083
20084       </div>
20085     </div>
20086     <div class="padding"></div>
20087
20088     <div class="entry">
20089       <div class="title">
20090         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
20091       </div>
20092       <div class="date">
20093         22nd July 2009
20094       </div>
20095       <div class="body">
20096         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
20097 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
20098 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
20099 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
20100 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
20101 the package up to date.</p>
20102
20103 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
20104 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
20105 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
20106 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
20107 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
20108 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
20109 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
20110 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
20111 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
20112 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
20113 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
20114 working on the future release.</p>
20115
20116 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
20117 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
20118
20119       </div>
20120       <div class="tags">
20121
20122
20123         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>.
20124
20125
20126       </div>
20127     </div>
20128     <div class="padding"></div>
20129
20130     <div class="entry">
20131       <div class="title">
20132         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
20133       </div>
20134       <div class="date">
20135         24th June 2009
20136       </div>
20137       <div class="body">
20138         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
20139 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
20140 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
20141 funded
20142 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
20143 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
20144 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
20145 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
20146 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
20147 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
20148
20149 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
20150 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
20151 boot:</p>
20152
20153 <ul>
20154
20155 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
20156
20157 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
20158    clock is in UTC.</li>
20159
20160 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
20161    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
20162    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
20163
20164 </ul>
20165
20166 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
20167 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
20168 Villegas</a>.
20169
20170 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
20171 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
20172 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
20173 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
20174 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
20175 using this.</p>
20176
20177 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
20178 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
20179 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
20180 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
20181 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
20182 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
20183 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
20184
20185       </div>
20186       <div class="tags">
20187
20188
20189         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>.
20190
20191
20192       </div>
20193     </div>
20194     <div class="padding"></div>
20195
20196     <div class="entry">
20197       <div class="title">
20198         <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>
20199       </div>
20200       <div class="date">
20201          2nd May 2009
20202       </div>
20203       <div class="body">
20204         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
20205 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
20206 do not yet know them.</p>
20207
20208 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
20209 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
20210 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
20211 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
20212 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
20213 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
20214 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
20215 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
20216 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
20217 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
20218 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
20219
20220 <p>The second one is
20221 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
20222 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
20223 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
20224 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
20225 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
20226 and the company behind it is running
20227 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
20228 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
20229 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
20230 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
20231 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
20232 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
20233 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
20234 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
20235
20236 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
20237 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
20238 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
20239 surrounded by today.</p>
20240
20241       </div>
20242       <div class="tags">
20243
20244
20245         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>.
20246
20247
20248       </div>
20249     </div>
20250     <div class="padding"></div>
20251
20252     <div class="entry">
20253       <div class="title">
20254         <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>
20255       </div>
20256       <div class="date">
20257         28th April 2009
20258       </div>
20259       <div class="body">
20260         <p>Julien Blache
20261 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
20262 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
20263 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
20264 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
20265 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
20266 properties.</p>
20267
20268       </div>
20269       <div class="tags">
20270
20271
20272         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>.
20273
20274
20275       </div>
20276     </div>
20277     <div class="padding"></div>
20278
20279     <div class="entry">
20280       <div class="title">
20281         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
20282       </div>
20283       <div class="date">
20284          5th April 2009
20285       </div>
20286       <div class="body">
20287         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
20288 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
20289 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
20290 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
20291 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
20292 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
20293 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
20294 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
20295
20296 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
20297 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
20298 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
20299   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
20300   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
20301
20302 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
20303 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
20304 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
20305 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
20306
20307 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
20308 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
20309 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
20310 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
20311
20312 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
20313 set -e
20314 URL="$1"
20315 SAVEFILE="$2"
20316 DURATION="$3"
20317 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
20318   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
20319   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
20320 pid=$!
20321 sleep $DURATION
20322 kill $pid
20323 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
20324
20325       </div>
20326       <div class="tags">
20327
20328
20329         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>.
20330
20331
20332       </div>
20333     </div>
20334     <div class="padding"></div>
20335
20336     <div class="entry">
20337       <div class="title">
20338         <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>
20339       </div>
20340       <div class="date">
20341         30th March 2009
20342       </div>
20343       <div class="body">
20344         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
20345 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
20346 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
20347 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
20348 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
20349 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
20350 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
20351 application.</p>
20352
20353 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
20354 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
20355 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
20356 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
20357 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
20358 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
20359 blocked from doing so.</p>
20360
20361 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
20362 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
20363 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
20364 requirements change.</p>
20365
20366 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
20367 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
20368 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
20369
20370       </div>
20371       <div class="tags">
20372
20373
20374         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>.
20375
20376
20377       </div>
20378     </div>
20379     <div class="padding"></div>
20380
20381     <div class="entry">
20382       <div class="title">
20383         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
20384       </div>
20385       <div class="date">
20386         29th March 2009
20387       </div>
20388       <div class="body">
20389         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
20390 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
20391 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
20392 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
20393 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
20394 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
20395 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
20396 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
20397 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
20398 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
20399 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
20400 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
20401 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
20402 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
20403 now. :)</p>
20404
20405       </div>
20406       <div class="tags">
20407
20408
20409         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>.
20410
20411
20412       </div>
20413     </div>
20414     <div class="padding"></div>
20415
20416     <div class="entry">
20417       <div class="title">
20418         <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>
20419       </div>
20420       <div class="date">
20421         29th March 2009
20422       </div>
20423       <div class="body">
20424         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
20425 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
20426 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
20427 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
20428 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
20429 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
20430
20431 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
20432 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
20433 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
20434 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
20435 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
20436 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
20437 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
20438 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
20439 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
20440 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
20441 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
20442 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
20443 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
20444
20445 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
20446 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
20447 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
20448 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
20449
20450 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
20451 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
20452
20453 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
20454 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
20455 new IETF work group?</p>
20456
20457       </div>
20458       <div class="tags">
20459
20460
20461         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>.
20462
20463
20464       </div>
20465     </div>
20466     <div class="padding"></div>
20467
20468     <div class="entry">
20469       <div class="title">
20470         <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>
20471       </div>
20472       <div class="date">
20473         28th February 2009
20474       </div>
20475       <div class="body">
20476         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
20477 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
20478 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
20479 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
20480 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
20481 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
20482 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
20483 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
20484 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
20485 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
20486 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
20487 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
20488 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
20489 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
20490 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
20491 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
20492 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
20493 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
20494 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
20495 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
20496 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
20497 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
20498 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
20499 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
20500 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
20501 machine.</p>
20502
20503 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
20504 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
20505 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
20506 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
20507 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
20508 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
20509 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
20510
20511 <pre>
20512 use LWP::Simple;
20513 use POSIX;
20514 use WWW::Mechanize;
20515 use Date::Parse;
20516 [...]
20517 sub get_support_info {
20518     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
20519     my $str;
20520
20521     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
20522         # fetch website from Dell support
20523         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";
20524         my $webpage = get($url);
20525         return undef unless ($webpage);
20526
20527         my $daysleft = -1;
20528         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
20529         foreach my $line (@lines) {
20530             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
20531             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
20532             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
20533
20534             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
20535             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
20536             my $lastend = "";
20537             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
20538                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
20539
20540                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
20541                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
20542                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
20543                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
20544                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
20545                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
20546                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
20547             }
20548             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
20549             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
20550                 if ($lastend lt $today);
20551         }
20552     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
20553         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
20554         my $url =
20555             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
20556         $mech->get($url);
20557         my $fields = {
20558             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
20559             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
20560             'country' => 'NO',
20561             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
20562             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
20563         };
20564         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
20565                             fields      => $fields );
20566         # Next step is screen scraping
20567         my $content = $mech->content();
20568
20569         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
20570         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
20571         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
20572         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
20573
20574         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
20575
20576         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
20577             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
20578                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
20579             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
20580             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
20581                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
20582             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
20583                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
20584
20585             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
20586
20587             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
20588                 if ($end lt $today);
20589         }
20590     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
20591         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
20592         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
20593         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
20594             my $content =
20595                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
20596             if ($content) {
20597                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
20598                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
20599                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
20600                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
20601
20602                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
20603                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
20604
20605                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
20606
20607                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
20608                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
20609                     if ($end lt $today);
20610             }
20611         }
20612     }
20613     return $str;
20614 }
20615 </pre>
20616
20617 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
20618 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
20619 from dmidecode.</p>
20620
20621 <pre>
20622 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
20623                        "447707-B21");
20624 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
20625 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
20626                        "1234567");
20627 </pre>
20628
20629 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
20630 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
20631
20632 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
20633 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
20634 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
20635 do so.</p>
20636
20637       </div>
20638       <div class="tags">
20639
20640
20641         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>.
20642
20643
20644       </div>
20645     </div>
20646     <div class="padding"></div>
20647
20648     <div class="entry">
20649       <div class="title">
20650         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
20651       </div>
20652       <div class="date">
20653         20th February 2009
20654       </div>
20655       <div class="body">
20656         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
20657 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
20658 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
20659 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
20660 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
20661 the "missing" computer.</p>
20662
20663 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
20664 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
20665 code blocks as defined in the
20666 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
20667 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
20668 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
20669 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
20670 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
20671 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
20672 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
20673 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
20674 codes.</p>
20675
20676 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
20677 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
20678 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
20679 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
20680 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
20681 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
20682
20683 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
20684 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
20685 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
20686 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
20687 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
20688 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
20689 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
20690 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
20691 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
20692 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
20693
20694 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
20695 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
20696 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
20697
20698       </div>
20699       <div class="tags">
20700
20701
20702         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>.
20703
20704
20705       </div>
20706     </div>
20707     <div class="padding"></div>
20708
20709     <div class="entry">
20710       <div class="title">
20711         <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>
20712       </div>
20713       <div class="date">
20714         17th January 2009
20715       </div>
20716       <div class="body">
20717         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
20718 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
20719 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
20720 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
20721 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
20722 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
20723 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
20724 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
20725 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
20726 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
20727 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
20728 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
20729 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
20730 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
20731
20732 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
20733 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
20734 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
20735 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
20736 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
20737 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
20738 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
20739 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
20740 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
20741 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
20742 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
20743 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
20744 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
20745 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
20746 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
20747 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
20748 playing when the download is done.</p>
20749
20750 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
20751 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
20752 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
20753 too.</p>
20754
20755 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
20756 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
20757 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
20758 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
20759
20760       </div>
20761       <div class="tags">
20762
20763
20764         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>.
20765
20766
20767       </div>
20768     </div>
20769     <div class="padding"></div>
20770
20771     <div class="entry">
20772       <div class="title">
20773         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
20774       </div>
20775       <div class="date">
20776         28th December 2008
20777       </div>
20778       <div class="body">
20779         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
20780 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
20781 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
20782 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
20783 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
20784 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
20785 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
20786 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
20787 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
20788 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
20789 source, sink and mixer applications and
20790 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
20791 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
20792 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
20793 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
20794 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
20795 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
20796 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
20797 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
20798 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
20799
20800 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
20801 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
20802 larger stick as well.</p>
20803
20804       </div>
20805       <div class="tags">
20806
20807
20808         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>.
20809
20810
20811       </div>
20812     </div>
20813     <div class="padding"></div>
20814
20815     <div class="entry">
20816       <div class="title">
20817         <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>
20818       </div>
20819       <div class="date">
20820          7th December 2008
20821       </div>
20822       <div class="body">
20823         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
20824 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
20825 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
20826 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
20827 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
20828 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
20829 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
20830 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
20831
20832 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
20833 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
20834 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
20835 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
20836 of these cards.</p>
20837
20838       </div>
20839       <div class="tags">
20840
20841
20842         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>.
20843
20844
20845       </div>
20846     </div>
20847     <div class="padding"></div>
20848
20849     <div class="entry">
20850       <div class="title">
20851         <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>
20852       </div>
20853       <div class="date">
20854         25th November 2008
20855       </div>
20856       <div class="body">
20857         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
20858 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
20859 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
20860 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
20861 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
20862 notes are available on
20863 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
20864 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
20865 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
20866 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
20867 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
20868 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
20869 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
20870 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
20871 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
20872
20873 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
20874 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
20875
20876       </div>
20877       <div class="tags">
20878
20879
20880         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>.
20881
20882
20883       </div>
20884     </div>
20885     <div class="padding"></div>
20886
20887     <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>
20888     <div id="sidebar">
20889
20890
20891
20892 <h2>Archive</h2>
20893 <ul>
20894
20895 <li>2014
20896 <ul>
20897
20898 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
20899
20900 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
20901
20902 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
20903
20904 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
20905
20906 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
20907
20908 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
20909
20910 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
20911
20912 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
20913
20914 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
20915
20916 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (2)</a></li>
20917
20918 </ul></li>
20919
20920 <li>2013
20921 <ul>
20922
20923 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
20924
20925 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
20926
20927 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
20928
20929 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
20930
20931 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
20932
20933 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
20934
20935 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
20936
20937 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
20938
20939 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
20940
20941 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
20942
20943 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
20944
20945 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
20946
20947 </ul></li>
20948
20949 <li>2012
20950 <ul>
20951
20952 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
20953
20954 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
20955
20956 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
20957
20958 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
20959
20960 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
20961
20962 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
20963
20964 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
20965
20966 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
20967
20968 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
20969
20970 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
20971
20972 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
20973
20974 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
20975
20976 </ul></li>
20977
20978 <li>2011
20979 <ul>
20980
20981 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
20982
20983 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
20984
20985 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
20986
20987 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
20988
20989 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
20990
20991 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
20992
20993 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
20994
20995 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
20996
20997 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
20998
20999 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
21000
21001 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
21002
21003 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
21004
21005 </ul></li>
21006
21007 <li>2010
21008 <ul>
21009
21010 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
21011
21012 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
21013
21014 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
21015
21016 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
21017
21018 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
21019
21020 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
21021
21022 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
21023
21024 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
21025
21026 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
21027
21028 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
21029
21030 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
21031
21032 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
21033
21034 </ul></li>
21035
21036 <li>2009
21037 <ul>
21038
21039 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
21040
21041 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
21042
21043 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
21044
21045 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
21046
21047 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
21048
21049 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
21050
21051 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
21052
21053 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
21054
21055 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
21056
21057 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
21058
21059 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
21060
21061 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
21062
21063 </ul></li>
21064
21065 <li>2008
21066 <ul>
21067
21068 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
21069
21070 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
21071
21072 </ul></li>
21073
21074 </ul>
21075
21076
21077
21078 <h2>Tags</h2>
21079 <ul>
21080
21081  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
21082
21083  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
21084
21085  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
21086
21087  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
21088
21089  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
21090
21091  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
21092
21093  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
21094
21095  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
21096
21097  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (105)</a></li>
21098
21099  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (150)</a></li>
21100
21101  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
21102
21103  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
21104
21105  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (12)</a></li>
21106
21107  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
21108
21109  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (257)</a></li>
21110
21111  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
21112
21113  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
21114
21115  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (13)</a></li>
21116
21117  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (8)</a></li>
21118
21119  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
21120
21121  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
21122
21123  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (9)</a></li>
21124
21125  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
21126
21127  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
21128
21129  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
21130
21131  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
21132
21133  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
21134
21135  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
21136
21137  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (31)</a></li>
21138
21139  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (248)</a></li>
21140
21141  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (162)</a></li>
21142
21143  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
21144
21145  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
21146
21147  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (48)</a></li>
21148
21149  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (75)</a></li>
21150
21151  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
21152
21153  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
21154
21155  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
21156
21157  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
21158
21159  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
21160
21161  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
21162
21163  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
21164
21165  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
21166
21167  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
21168
21169  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
21170
21171  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
21172
21173  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (45)</a></li>
21174
21175  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
21176
21177  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
21178
21179  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (26)</a></li>
21180
21181  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
21182
21183  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
21184
21185  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (43)</a></li>
21186
21187  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
21188
21189  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (33)</a></li>
21190
21191 </ul>
21192
21193
21194     </div>
21195     <p style="text-align: right">
21196  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
21197 </p>
21198
21199   </body>
21200 </html>