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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/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>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         23rd August 2012
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
  32 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
  33 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
  34 revisit the great site
  35 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
  36 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
  37 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
  38
  39       </div>
  40       <div class="tags">
  41
  42
  43         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>.
  44
  45
  46       </div>
  47     </div>
  48     <div class="padding"></div>
  49
  50     <div class="entry">
  51       <div class="title">
  52         <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>
  53       </div>
  54       <div class="date">
  55         17th August 2012
  56       </div>
  57       <div class="body">
  58         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
  59 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
  60 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
  61 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
  62 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
  63 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
  64 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
  65 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
  66 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
  67 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
  68 summer I
  69 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
  70 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
  71 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
  72
  73 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
  74 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
  75 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
  76 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
  77 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
  78 progress:</p>
  79
  80 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
  81
  82 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
  83 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
  84 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
  85 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
  86 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
  87 english version of the docbook source.</p>
  88
  89 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
  90 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
  91 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
  92 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
  93 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
  94 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
  95 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
  96 project files currently available from <a
  97 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
  98
  99 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
 100 the updated
 101 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
 102 and
 103 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
 104 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
 105 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
 106 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
 107
 108       </div>
 109       <div class="tags">
 110
 111
 112         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>.
 113
 114
 115       </div>
 116     </div>
 117     <div class="padding"></div>
 118
 119     <div class="entry">
 120       <div class="title">
 121         <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>
 122       </div>
 123       <div class="date">
 124         10th August 2012
 125       </div>
 126       <div class="body">
 127         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
 128 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
 129 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
 130 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
 131 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
 132 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
 133 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
 134 case for the language
 135 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
 136 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
 137
 138 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
 139 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
 140 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
 141 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
 142 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
 143
 144 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
 145 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
 146 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
 147 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
 148 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
 149 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
 150 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
 151 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
 152 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
 153 alias for 'nb'.</p>
 154
 155 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
 156 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
 157 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
 158 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
 159 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
 160 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
 161 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
 162 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
 163 at the same time. :(</p>
 164
 165 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
 166 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
 167 processors. :(</p>
 168
 169 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
 170
 171       </div>
 172       <div class="tags">
 173
 174
 175         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>.
 176
 177
 178       </div>
 179     </div>
 180     <div class="padding"></div>
 181
 182     <div class="entry">
 183       <div class="title">
 184         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
 185       </div>
 186       <div class="date">
 187         31st July 2012
 188       </div>
 189       <div class="body">
 190         <p>I tried to send this text to the
 191 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
 192 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
 193 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
 194 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
 195 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
 196 out.</p>
 197
 198 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
 199 learning curve at the moment.</p>
 200
 201 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
 202 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
 203 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
 204 available from
 205 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
 206 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
 207 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
 208 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
 209 Squeeze.</p>
 210
 211 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
 212 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
 213 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
 214 problems.</p>
 215
 216 <ul>
 217
 218 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
 219    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
 220    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
 221    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
 222    index references spanning several pages (See
 223    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
 224    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
 225    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
 226
 227 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
 228    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
 229    #683163</a>).</li>
 230
 231 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
 232    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
 233    footnote and text body, see
 234    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
 235    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
 236    refs listed are not right).</li>
 237
 238 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
 239
 240 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
 241    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
 242
 243 </ul>
 244
 245 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
 246 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
 247 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
 248
 249 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
 250
 251       </div>
 252       <div class="tags">
 253
 254
 255         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>.
 256
 257
 258       </div>
 259     </div>
 260     <div class="padding"></div>
 261
 262     <div class="entry">
 263       <div class="title">
 264         <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>
 265       </div>
 266       <div class="date">
 267         21st July 2012
 268       </div>
 269       <div class="body">
 270         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
 271 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
 272 norwegian version</a> of the book
 273 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
 274 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
 275 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
 276 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
 277 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
 278
 279 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
 280 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
 281 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
 282 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
 283 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
 284 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
 285 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
 286 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
 287 print. :)</p>
 288
 289 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
 290 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
 291 language.</p>
 292
 293       </div>
 294       <div class="tags">
 295
 296
 297         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>.
 298
 299
 300       </div>
 301     </div>
 302     <div class="padding"></div>
 303
 304     <div class="entry">
 305       <div class="title">
 306         <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>
 307       </div>
 308       <div class="date">
 309         16th July 2012
 310       </div>
 311       <div class="body">
 312         <p>I am currently working on a
 313 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
 314 to translate</a> the book
 315 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
 316 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
 317 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
 318 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
 319 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
 320 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
 321 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
 322
 323 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
 324 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
 325 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
 326 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
 327 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
 328 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
 329 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
 330 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
 331 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
 332
 333       </div>
 334       <div class="tags">
 335
 336
 337         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>.
 338
 339
 340       </div>
 341     </div>
 342     <div class="padding"></div>
 343
 344     <div class="entry">
 345       <div class="title">
 346         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
 347       </div>
 348       <div class="date">
 349          9th July 2012
 350       </div>
 351       <div class="body">
 352         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
 353 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
 354 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
 355 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
 356 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
 357 to adjust and scale the just released
 358 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
 359 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
 360 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
 361
 362 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 363
 364 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
 365 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
 366 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
 367 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
 368 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
 369 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
 370 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
 371 perspective when working with IT.</p>
 372
 373 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 374 project?</strong></p>
 375
 376 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
 377 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
 378 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
 379 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
 380 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
 381 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
 382
 383 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 384 Edu?</strong></p>
 385
 386 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
 387 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
 388 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
 389 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
 390 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
 391 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
 392 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
 393 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
 394 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
 395 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
 396 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
 397 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
 398 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
 399 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
 400 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
 401 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
 402 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
 403 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
 404 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
 405 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
 406 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
 407 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
 408 quicker to update.
 409
 410 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 411 Edu?</strong></p>
 412
 413 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
 414 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
 415 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
 416 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
 417 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
 418 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
 419
 420 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
 421 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
 422 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
 423 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
 424 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
 425 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
 426 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
 427 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
 428 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
 429 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
 430 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
 431 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
 432 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
 433 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
 434 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
 435
 436 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
 437 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
 438 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
 439 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
 440 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
 441 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
 442 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
 443 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
 444
 445 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
 446 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
 447 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
 448 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
 449 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
 450 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
 451 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
 452 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
 453 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
 454 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
 455 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
 456 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
 457 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
 458 sound file.</p>
 459
 460 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
 461 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
 462 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
 463 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
 464 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
 465 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
 466 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
 467 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
 468 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
 469
 470 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 471
 472 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
 473 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
 474 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
 475 )</p>
 476
 477 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 478 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 479
 480 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
 481 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
 482 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
 483 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
 484 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
 485 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
 486 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
 487 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
 488 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
 489 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
 490 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
 491 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
 492 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
 493 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
 494 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
 495
 496 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
 497 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
 498 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
 499 management with Airtime</a>,
 500 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
 501 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
 502 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
 503 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
 504 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
 505
 506       </div>
 507       <div class="tags">
 508
 509
 510         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>.
 511
 512
 513       </div>
 514     </div>
 515     <div class="padding"></div>
 516
 517     <div class="entry">
 518       <div class="title">
 519         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
 520       </div>
 521       <div class="date">
 522          8th July 2012
 523       </div>
 524       <div class="body">
 525         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
 526 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
 527 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
 528 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
 529 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
 530 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
 531 Steinberg in his blog post
 532 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
 533 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
 534 spending of your tax money.</p>
 535
 536 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
 537 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
 538 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
 539 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
 540 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
 541 purchases.</p>
 542
 543       </div>
 544       <div class="tags">
 545
 546
 547         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>.
 548
 549
 550       </div>
 551     </div>
 552     <div class="padding"></div>
 553
 554     <div class="entry">
 555       <div class="title">
 556         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
 557       </div>
 558       <div class="date">
 559          7th July 2012
 560       </div>
 561       <div class="body">
 562         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
 563 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
 564 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
 565 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
 566 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
 567 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
 568 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
 569 receive.  The software is
 570
 571 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
 572 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
 573 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
 574 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
 575 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
 576 Windows</a>.</p>
 577
 578 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
 579 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
 580
 581 <p><ul>
 582
 583   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
 584     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
 585
 586   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
 587     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
 588     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
 589     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
 590     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
 591     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
 592     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
 593     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
 594     </li>
 595
 596   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
 597     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
 598
 599   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
 600     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
 601
 602   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
 603     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
 604
 605   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
 606
 607   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
 608     formats </li>
 609
 610   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
 611     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
 612     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
 613     (as separate sets)</li>
 614
 615   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
 616     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
 617     percentage)</li>
 618
 619   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
 620     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
 621     memory):
 622     <ul>
 623       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
 624       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
 625       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
 626       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
 627       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
 628       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
 629       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
 630       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
 631       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
 632       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
 633           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
 634           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
 635           activity)</li>
 636       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
 637       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
 638     </ul></li>
 639
 640   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
 641     <ul>
 642       <li>Break periods</li>
 643       <li>For teacher(s):
 644         <ul>
 645           <li>Not available periods</li>
 646           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
 647           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
 648           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
 649           <li>Min hours daily</li>
 650           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
 651
 652           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
 653             days per week</li>
 654         </ul></li>
 655       <li>For students (sets):
 656         <ul>
 657           <li>Not available periods</li>
 658           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
 659           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
 660           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
 661           <li>Min hours daily</li>
 662           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
 663
 664           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
 665             days per week</li>
 666         </ul></li>
 667       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
 668         <ul>
 669           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
 670           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
 671           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
 672           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
 673           <li>End(s) students day</li>
 674           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
 675           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
 676             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
 677           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
 678           <li>Not overlapping</li>
 679           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
 680           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
 681         </ul></li>
 682     </ul></li>
 683
 684   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
 685     <ul>
 686       <li>Room not available periods</li>
 687       <li>For teacher(s):
 688         <ul>
 689           <li>Home room(s)</li>
 690           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
 691           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
 692         </ul>
 693       </li>
 694
 695       <li>For students (sets):
 696         <ul>
 697           <li>Home room(s)</li>
 698           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
 699           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
 700         </ul>
 701       </li>
 702       <li>Preferred room(s):
 703         <ul>
 704           <li>For a subject</li>
 705           <li>For an activity tag</li>
 706           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
 707           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
 708         </ul>
 709       </li>
 710
 711       <li>For a set of activities:
 712         <ul>
 713           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
 714         </ul>
 715       </li>
 716     </ul>
 717   </li>
 718 </ul></p>
 719
 720 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
 721 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
 722 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
 723 manually, check it out.
 724
 725 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
 726 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
 727 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
 728 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
 729 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
 730 section</a>.</p>
 731
 732       </div>
 733       <div class="tags">
 734
 735
 736         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>.
 737
 738
 739       </div>
 740     </div>
 741     <div class="padding"></div>
 742
 743     <div class="entry">
 744       <div class="title">
 745         <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>
 746       </div>
 747       <div class="date">
 748          3rd July 2012
 749       </div>
 750       <div class="body">
 751         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
 752 project (Norwegian version of
 753 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
 754 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
 755 a problem with the municipalities using
 756 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
 757 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
 758 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
 759 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
 760 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
 761 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
 762 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
 763 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
 764 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
 765 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
 766 the From: header.</p>
 767
 768 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
 769 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
 770 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
 771 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
 772 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
 773 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
 774 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
 775 behaviour.</p>
 776
 777 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
 778 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
 779 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
 780 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
 781 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
 782 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
 783 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
 784
 785       </div>
 786       <div class="tags">
 787
 788
 789         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>.
 790
 791
 792       </div>
 793     </div>
 794     <div class="padding"></div>
 795
 796     <div class="entry">
 797       <div class="title">
 798         <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>
 799       </div>
 800       <div class="date">
 801         26th June 2012
 802       </div>
 803       <div class="body">
 804         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
 805 another interview with the people behind
 806 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
 807 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
 808 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
 809 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
 810 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
 811 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
 812 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
 813
 814 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 815
 816 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
 817 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
 818 ICT in schools</p>
 819
 820 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 821 project?</strong></p>
 822
 823 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
 824 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
 825 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
 826 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
 827
 828 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 829 Edu?</strong></p>
 830
 831 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
 832 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
 833 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
 834 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
 835
 836 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 837 Edu?</strong></p>
 838
 839 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
 840 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
 841 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
 842 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
 843 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
 844 technologies in school.</p>
 845
 846 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 847
 848 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
 849 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
 850 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
 851
 852 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 853 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 854
 855 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
 856 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
 857 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
 858 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
 859
 860 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
 861 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
 862 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
 863
 864 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
 865 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
 866 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
 867 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
 868 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
 869 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
 870 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
 871 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
 872 working there.</p>
 873
 874       </div>
 875       <div class="tags">
 876
 877
 878         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>.
 879
 880
 881       </div>
 882     </div>
 883     <div class="padding"></div>
 884
 885     <div class="entry">
 886       <div class="title">
 887         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
 888       </div>
 889       <div class="date">
 890         24th June 2012
 891       </div>
 892       <div class="body">
 893         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
 894 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
 895 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
 896 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
 897 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
 898 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
 899 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
 900 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
 901 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
 902 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
 903 missing in my book.</p>
 904
 905 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
 906 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
 907 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
 908 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
 909 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
 910 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
 911 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
 912
 913       </div>
 914       <div class="tags">
 915
 916
 917         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>.
 918
 919
 920       </div>
 921     </div>
 922     <div class="padding"></div>
 923
 924     <div class="entry">
 925       <div class="title">
 926         <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>
 927       </div>
 928       <div class="date">
 929         11th June 2012
 930       </div>
 931       <div class="body">
 932         <p>During my work on
 933 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
 934 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
 935 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
 936 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
 937 explanation.</p>
 938
 939 <p><ul>
 940
 941 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
 942 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
 943 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
 944 system depend on tasksel tasks in
 945 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
 946 installation.</li>
 947
 948 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
 949 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
 950 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
 951 at least try to enable it for these services:
 952 <ul>
 953
 954   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
 955     quotas.</li>
 956   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
 957   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
 958   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
 959   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
 960   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
 961
 962 </ul></li>
 963
 964 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
 965 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
 966 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
 967 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
 968
 969 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
 970 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
 971 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
 972
 973 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
 974 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
 975 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
 976 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
 977 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
 978 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
 979
 980 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
 981 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
 982 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
 983 in Wheezy.
 984
 985 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
 986 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
 987 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
 988
 989 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
 990 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
 991 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
 992 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
 993
 994 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
 995 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
 996 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
 997 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
 998
 999 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
1000 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
1001 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
1002
1003 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
1004 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
1005 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
1006
1007 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
1008 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
1009 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
1010 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
1011 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
1012
1013 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
1014 <ul>
1015
1016 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
1017 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
1018 <li>and probably more?</li>
1019 </ul></li>
1020
1021 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
1022 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
1023 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
1024 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
1025 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
1026 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
1027 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
1028 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
1029
1030
1031 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
1032 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
1033 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
1034 use.</li>
1035
1036 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
1037 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
1038 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
1039 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
1040 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
1041
1042 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
1043 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
1044 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
1045 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
1046 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
1047 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
1048
1049 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
1050 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
1051 There are at least three implementations,
1052 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
1053 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
1054 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
1055 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
1056 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
1057 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
1058 given room.</li>
1059
1060 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
1061 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
1062 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
1063 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
1064 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
1065 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
1066 investigated.</li>
1067
1068 </ul></p>
1069
1070 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
1071 version.</p>
1072
1073       </div>
1074       <div class="tags">
1075
1076
1077         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>.
1078
1079
1080       </div>
1081     </div>
1082     <div class="padding"></div>
1083
1084     <div class="entry">
1085       <div class="title">
1086         <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>
1087       </div>
1088       <div class="date">
1089          9th June 2012
1090       </div>
1091       <div class="body">
1092         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
1093 <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
1094 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
1095 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
1096 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
1097 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
1098 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
1099 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
1100 be willing to pay for.</p>
1101
1102 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
1103 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
1104 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
1105 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
1106 Orwell</a>.</p>
1107
1108       </div>
1109       <div class="tags">
1110
1111
1112         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>.
1113
1114
1115       </div>
1116     </div>
1117     <div class="padding"></div>
1118
1119     <div class="entry">
1120       <div class="title">
1121         <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>
1122       </div>
1123       <div class="date">
1124          6th June 2012
1125       </div>
1126       <div class="body">
1127         <p>A few days ago
1128 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
1129 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
1130 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
1131 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
1132 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
1133 code for HP, Dell and IBM
1134 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
1135 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
1136 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
1137 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
1138 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
1139
1140 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
1141 output:
1142
1143 <blockquote><pre>
1144 % 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>
1145 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": ""})
1146 %
1147 </pre></blockquote>
1148
1149 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
1150 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
1151 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
1152
1153       </div>
1154       <div class="tags">
1155
1156
1157         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>.
1158
1159
1160       </div>
1161     </div>
1162     <div class="padding"></div>
1163
1164     <div class="entry">
1165       <div class="title">
1166         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
1167       </div>
1168       <div class="date">
1169          2nd June 2012
1170       </div>
1171       <div class="body">
1172         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
1173 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
1174 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
1175 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
1176 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
1177 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
1178
1179 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1180
1181 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
1182 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
1183 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
1184 by Angela).</p>
1185
1186 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
1187 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
1188 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
1189 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
1190 becoming an osteopath.</p>
1191
1192 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
1193 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
1194 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
1195 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
1196 skills with communication skills.</p>
1197
1198 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1199 project?</strong></p>
1200
1201 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
1202 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
1203 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
1204 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
1205 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
1206
1207 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
1208 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
1209 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
1210 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
1211 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
1212 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
1213 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
1214 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
1215 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
1216
1217 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
1218 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
1219 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
1220
1221 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
1222
1223 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
1224 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
1225 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
1226 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
1227 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
1228 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
1229 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
1230 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
1231 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
1232 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
1233 point.</p>
1234
1235 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
1236 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
1237 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
1238 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
1239 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
1240 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
1241
1242 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
1243 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
1244 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
1245 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
1246 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
1247 spare time.</p>
1248
1249 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
1250 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
1251 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
1252 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
1253 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
1254
1255 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
1256 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
1257 avoidance do exist.</p>
1258
1259 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
1260 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
1261 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
1262 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
1263 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
1264 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
1265 and probably a gain for all.</p>
1266
1267 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1268 Edu?</strong></p>
1269
1270 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
1271 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
1272 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
1273 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
1274 project communication, honest communication within the group of
1275 developers, etc.</p>
1276
1277 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1278 Edu?</strong></p>
1279
1280 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
1281
1282 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
1283 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
1284 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
1285 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
1286 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
1287 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
1288 contribute).</p>
1289
1290 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
1291 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
1292 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
1293 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
1294 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
1295 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
1296 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
1297 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
1298 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
1299 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
1300
1301 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1302
1303 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
1304
1305 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
1306 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
1307 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
1308
1309 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
1310 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
1311 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
1312 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
1313
1314 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
1315 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
1316 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
1317 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
1318 whiteboard.</p>
1319
1320 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
1321
1322 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1323 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1324
1325 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
1326 enrol people.</p>
1327
1328       </div>
1329       <div class="tags">
1330
1331
1332         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>.
1333
1334
1335       </div>
1336     </div>
1337     <div class="padding"></div>
1338
1339     <div class="entry">
1340       <div class="title">
1341         <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>
1342       </div>
1343       <div class="date">
1344          1st June 2012
1345       </div>
1346       <div class="body">
1347         <p>A few years ago I wrote
1348 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
1349 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
1350 I have learned from colleges here at the
1351 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
1352 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
1353 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
1354 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
1355 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
1356
1357 <p><pre>
1358 use strict;
1359 use warnings;
1360 use SOAP::Lite;
1361 use Data::Dumper;
1362 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
1363 my $App = 'test';
1364 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
1365 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
1366 my $s = SOAP::Lite
1367     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
1368     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
1369     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
1370     ;
1371 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
1372     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
1373     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
1374     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
1375 );
1376 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
1377 </pre></p>
1378
1379 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
1380
1381 <p><pre>
1382 $VAR1 = {
1383           'Asset' => {
1384                      'Entitlements' => {
1385                                        'EntitlementData' => [
1386                                                             {
1387                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
1388                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
1389                                                               'Provider' => '',
1390                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
1391                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
1392                                                             },
1393                                                             {
1394                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
1395                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
1396                                                               'Provider' => '',
1397                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
1398                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
1399                                                             },
1400                                                             {
1401                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
1402                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
1403                                                               'Provider' => '',
1404                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
1405                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
1406                                                             }
1407                                                           ]
1408                                      },
1409                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
1410                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
1411                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
1412                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
1413                                           'Buid' => '2323',
1414                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
1415                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
1416                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
1417                                         }
1418                    }
1419         };
1420 </pre></p>
1421
1422 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
1423 service outside the
1424 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
1425 documentation</a>, and according to
1426 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
1427 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
1428 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
1429
1430 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
1431 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
1432
1433       </div>
1434       <div class="tags">
1435
1436
1437         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>.
1438
1439
1440       </div>
1441     </div>
1442     <div class="padding"></div>
1443
1444     <div class="entry">
1445       <div class="title">
1446         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
1447       </div>
1448       <div class="date">
1449         31st May 2012
1450       </div>
1451       <div class="body">
1452         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
1453 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
1454 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
1455 running Debian Squeeze, where
1456 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
1457 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
1458 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
1459 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
1460 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
1461 another day.</p>
1462
1463 <p>After calibration, I get a
1464 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
1465 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
1466 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
1467 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
1468 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
1469 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
1470 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
1471 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
1472 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
1473 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
1474 and a simple</p>
1475
1476 <p><pre>
1477 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
1478 </pre></p>
1479
1480 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
1481 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
1482 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
1483 enough for now.</p>
1484
1485       </div>
1486       <div class="tags">
1487
1488
1489         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1490
1491
1492       </div>
1493     </div>
1494     <div class="padding"></div>
1495
1496     <div class="entry">
1497       <div class="title">
1498         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
1499       </div>
1500       <div class="date">
1501         27th May 2012
1502       </div>
1503       <div class="body">
1504         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
1505 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
1506 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
1507 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
1508 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
1509 since then, helping to make sure the
1510 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
1511 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
1512
1513 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1514
1515 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
1516 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
1517 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
1518 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
1519 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
1520 our computer network.</p>
1521
1522 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
1523 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
1524 (4 months).</p>
1525
1526 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1527 project?</strong></p>
1528
1529 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
1530 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
1531 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
1532 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
1533 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
1534 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
1535 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
1536 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
1537 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
1538 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
1539 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
1540 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
1541 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
1542 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
1543
1544 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1545 Edu?</strong></p>
1546
1547 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
1548 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
1549 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
1550 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
1551 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
1552 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
1553 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
1554 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
1555
1556 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1557 Edu?</strong></p>
1558
1559 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
1560 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
1561 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
1562 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
1563 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
1564 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
1565 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
1566 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
1567 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
1568 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
1569 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
1570 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
1571
1572 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1573
1574 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
1575 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
1576 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
1577
1578 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1579 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1580
1581 <p><ol>
1582
1583 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
1584 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
1585 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
1586 developing.</li>
1587
1588 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
1589 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
1590 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
1591 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
1592 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
1593
1594 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
1595 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
1596 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
1597
1598 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
1599 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
1600 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
1601 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
1602
1603 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
1604 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
1605 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
1606
1607 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
1608
1609 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
1610 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
1611 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
1612 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
1613
1614 </ol></p>
1615
1616       </div>
1617       <div class="tags">
1618
1619
1620         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>.
1621
1622
1623       </div>
1624     </div>
1625     <div class="padding"></div>
1626
1627     <div class="entry">
1628       <div class="title">
1629         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
1630       </div>
1631       <div class="date">
1632         26th May 2012
1633       </div>
1634       <div class="body">
1635         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
1636 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
1637 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
1638 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
1639 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
1640
1641 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
1642 <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>
1643 comment:</p>
1644
1645 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
1646 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
1647 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
1648 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
1649 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
1650 </blockquote></p>
1651
1652 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
1653 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
1654 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
1655 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
1656 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
1657 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
1658 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
1659 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
1660 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
1661 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
1662 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
1663 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
1664 of wasted effort.</p>
1665
1666 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
1667 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
1668 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
1669
1670 <p>See
1671 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
1672 and
1673 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
1674 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
1675 </blockquote></p>
1676
1677       </div>
1678       <div class="tags">
1679
1680
1681         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>.
1682
1683
1684       </div>
1685     </div>
1686     <div class="padding"></div>
1687
1688     <div class="entry">
1689       <div class="title">
1690         <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>
1691       </div>
1692       <div class="date">
1693         18th May 2012
1694       </div>
1695       <div class="body">
1696         <p>In january, I
1697 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
1698 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
1699 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
1700 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
1701 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
1702 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
1703 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
1704 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
1705 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
1706 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
1707
1708 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
1709 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
1710 drivers. :)</p>
1711
1712       </div>
1713       <div class="tags">
1714
1715
1716         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1717
1718
1719       </div>
1720     </div>
1721     <div class="padding"></div>
1722
1723     <div class="entry">
1724       <div class="title">
1725         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
1726       </div>
1727       <div class="date">
1728         13th May 2012
1729       </div>
1730       <div class="body">
1731         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
1732 publish another interview with the people behind
1733 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
1734 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
1735 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
1736 details get right before release.
1737
1738 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1739
1740 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
1741 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
1742 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
1743 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
1744 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
1745 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
1746 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
1747 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
1748
1749 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
1750 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
1751 home since 2006.</p>
1752
1753 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1754 project?</strong></p>
1755
1756 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
1757 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
1758 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
1759 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
1760 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
1761 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
1762
1763 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
1764 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
1765 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
1766 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
1767 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
1768 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
1769 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
1770 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
1771 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
1772 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
1773 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
1774 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
1775 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
1776 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
1777 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
1778 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
1779
1780 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1781 Edu?</strong></p>
1782
1783 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
1784 for me as today.</p>
1785
1786 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
1787
1788 <p><ul>
1789
1790 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
1791 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
1792
1793 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
1794 cost.</li>
1795
1796 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
1797 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
1798 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
1799 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
1800 server</li>
1801
1802 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
1803 school.</li>
1804
1805 </ul></p>
1806
1807 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
1808 came up in this way:</p>
1809
1810 <p><ul>
1811
1812 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
1813 now.</li>
1814
1815 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
1816 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
1817 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
1818
1819 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
1820 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
1821 interfaces used in the past.</li>
1822
1823 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
1824 different needs.</li>
1825
1826 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
1827
1828 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
1829 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
1830 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
1831
1832 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
1833 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
1834
1835 </ul></p>
1836
1837 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1838 Edu?</strong></p>
1839
1840 <p><ul>
1841
1842 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
1843 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
1844 whole municipality areas.</li>
1845
1846 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
1847 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
1848 politicians.</li>
1849
1850 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
1851
1852 </ul></p>
1853
1854 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1855
1856 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
1857 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
1858 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
1859 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
1860 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
1861 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
1862
1863 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
1864 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
1865 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
1866 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
1867 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
1868
1869 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1870 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1871
1872 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
1873 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
1874 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
1875
1876       </div>
1877       <div class="tags">
1878
1879
1880         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>.
1881
1882
1883       </div>
1884     </div>
1885     <div class="padding"></div>
1886
1887     <div class="entry">
1888       <div class="title">
1889         <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>
1890       </div>
1891       <div class="date">
1892         30th April 2012
1893       </div>
1894       <div class="body">
1895         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
1896 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
1897
1898 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
1899 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
1900 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
1901 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
1902 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
1903 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
1904 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
1905 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
1906 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
1907 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
1908 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
1909 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
1910 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
1911 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
1912 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
1913 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
1914
1915 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
1916 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
1917 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
1918 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
1919 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
1920 finally found a Danish supplier
1921 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
1922 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
1923 days ago.</p>
1924
1925 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
1926 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
1927 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
1928 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
1929 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
1930 toys.</p>
1931
1932       </div>
1933       <div class="tags">
1934
1935
1936         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1937
1938
1939       </div>
1940     </div>
1941     <div class="padding"></div>
1942
1943     <div class="entry">
1944       <div class="title">
1945         <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>
1946       </div>
1947       <div class="date">
1948         26th April 2012
1949       </div>
1950       <div class="body">
1951         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
1952 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
1953 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
1954 that the video editor application included with
1955 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
1956 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
1957 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
1958
1959 <p><blockquote>
1960 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
1961 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
1962 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
1963 </blockquote></p>
1964
1965 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
1966
1967 <p><blockquote>
1968 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
1969 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
1970 </blockquote></p>
1971
1972 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
1973 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
1974 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
1975 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
1976 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
1977 video.  AMR is
1978 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
1979 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
1980 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
1981 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
1982 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
1983 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
1984 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
1985
1986 <p>I know why I prefer
1987 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
1988 standards</a> also for video.</p>
1989
1990       </div>
1991       <div class="tags">
1992
1993
1994         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>.
1995
1996
1997       </div>
1998     </div>
1999     <div class="padding"></div>
2000
2001     <div class="entry">
2002       <div class="title">
2003         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
2004       </div>
2005       <div class="date">
2006         19th April 2012
2007       </div>
2008       <div class="body">
2009         <p>Here in Norway, the
2010 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
2011 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
2012 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
2013 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
2014 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
2015 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
2016 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
2017 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
2018 on the same level.</p>
2019
2020 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
2021 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
2022 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
2023 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
2024 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
2025 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
2026 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
2027 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
2028 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
2029 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
2030 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
2031 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
2032 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
2033 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
2034 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
2035 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
2036 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
2037 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
2038
2039 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
2040 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
2041 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
2042 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
2043 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
2044 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
2045 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
2046 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
2047
2048 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
2049 from Simon Phipps
2050 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
2051 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
2052
2053 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
2054 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
2055 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
2056 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
2057 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
2058 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
2059 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
2060 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
2061 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
2062
2063       </div>
2064       <div class="tags">
2065
2066
2067         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>.
2068
2069
2070       </div>
2071     </div>
2072     <div class="padding"></div>
2073
2074     <div class="entry">
2075       <div class="title">
2076         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
2077       </div>
2078       <div class="date">
2079         15th April 2012
2080       </div>
2081       <div class="body">
2082         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
2083 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
2084 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
2085 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
2086 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
2087 up in the recently released
2088 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
2089 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
2090
2091 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2092
2093 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
2094 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
2095 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
2096 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
2097 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
2098 information technology and science/technology.</p>
2099
2100 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2101 project?</strong></p>
2102
2103 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
2104 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
2105 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
2106 contributing.</p>
2107
2108 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2109 Edu?</strong></p>
2110
2111 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
2112 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
2113 Debian Project!</p>
2114
2115 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2116 Edu?</strong></p>
2117
2118 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
2119 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
2120 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
2121 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
2122 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
2123 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
2124 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
2125
2126 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
2127 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
2128
2129 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2130
2131 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
2132 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
2133 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
2134 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
2135
2136 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2137 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2138
2139 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
2140 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
2141 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
2142 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
2143 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
2144 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
2145 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
2146
2147 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
2148 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
2149 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
2150 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
2151 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
2152 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
2153 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
2154 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
2155
2156       </div>
2157       <div class="tags">
2158
2159
2160         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>.
2161
2162
2163       </div>
2164     </div>
2165     <div class="padding"></div>
2166
2167     <div class="entry">
2168       <div class="title">
2169         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
2170       </div>
2171       <div class="date">
2172          8th April 2012
2173       </div>
2174       <div class="body">
2175         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
2176 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
2177 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
2178 contributor to the
2179 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
2180 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
2181
2182 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2183
2184 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
2185 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
2186
2187 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2188 project?</strong></p>
2189
2190 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
2191 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
2192 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
2193 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
2194 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
2195 "localisation".</p>
2196
2197 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2198 Edu?</strong></p>
2199
2200 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2201 Edu?</strong></p>
2202
2203 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
2204 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
2205 education system.</p>
2206
2207 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
2208 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
2209 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
2210 money on the latest hardware.</p>
2211
2212 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2213
2214 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
2215 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
2216 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
2217
2218 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2219 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2220
2221 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
2222 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
2223 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
2224
2225       </div>
2226       <div class="tags">
2227
2228
2229         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>.
2230
2231
2232       </div>
2233     </div>
2234     <div class="padding"></div>
2235
2236     <div class="entry">
2237       <div class="title">
2238         <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>
2239       </div>
2240       <div class="date">
2241          6th April 2012
2242       </div>
2243       <div class="body">
2244         <p>Recently I have spent time with
2245 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
2246 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
2247 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
2248 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
2249 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
2250 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
2251 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
2252 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
2253
2254 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
2255 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
2256 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
2257 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
2258 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
2259 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
2260 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
2261 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
2262
2263 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
2264 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
2265 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
2266 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
2267 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
2268 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
2269 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
2270 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
2271
2272 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
2273 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
2274 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
2275 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
2276 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
2277 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
2278 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
2279 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
2280 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
2281 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
2282
2283 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
2284 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
2285 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
2286 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
2287
2288 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
2289 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
2290
2291       </div>
2292       <div class="tags">
2293
2294
2295         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>.
2296
2297
2298       </div>
2299     </div>
2300     <div class="padding"></div>
2301
2302     <div class="entry">
2303       <div class="title">
2304         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
2305       </div>
2306       <div class="date">
2307          5th April 2012
2308       </div>
2309       <div class="body">
2310         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
2311 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
2312 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
2313 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
2314 for schools.  Check out his article
2315 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
2316 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
2317
2318       </div>
2319       <div class="tags">
2320
2321
2322         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>.
2323
2324
2325       </div>
2326     </div>
2327     <div class="padding"></div>
2328
2329     <div class="entry">
2330       <div class="title">
2331         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
2332       </div>
2333       <div class="date">
2334          1st April 2012
2335       </div>
2336       <div class="body">
2337         <p>Germany is a core area for the
2338 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
2339 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
2340 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
2341
2342 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2343
2344 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
2345 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
2346 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
2347 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
2348 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
2349 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
2350 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
2351 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
2352
2353 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
2354 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
2355 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
2356 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
2357 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
2358 the end of April this year.</p>
2359
2360 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2361 project?</strong></p>
2362
2363 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
2364 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
2365 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
2366 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
2367 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
2368 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
2369 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
2370 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
2371 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
2372 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
2373 Skolelinux.</p>
2374
2375 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
2376 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
2377 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
2378 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
2379 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
2380 the admin teachers.</p>
2381
2382 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2383 Edu?</strong></p>
2384
2385 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
2386 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
2387 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
2388
2389 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
2390 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
2391 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
2392 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
2393 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
2394
2395 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2396 Edu?</strong></p>
2397
2398 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
2399
2400 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2401
2402 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
2403 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
2404 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
2405 LibreOffice.</p>
2406
2407 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2408 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2409
2410 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
2411 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
2412 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
2413
2414       </div>
2415       <div class="tags">
2416
2417
2418         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>.
2419
2420
2421       </div>
2422     </div>
2423     <div class="padding"></div>
2424
2425     <div class="entry">
2426       <div class="title">
2427         <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>
2428       </div>
2429       <div class="date">
2430         25th March 2012
2431       </div>
2432       <div class="body">
2433         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
2434
2435 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
2436 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
2437 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
2438 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
2439 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
2440 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
2441 and download as a
2442 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
2443 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
2444
2445 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
2446   <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"' />
2447     <p>Download video as
2448       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
2449 </video></p>
2450
2451       </div>
2452       <div class="tags">
2453
2454
2455         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>.
2456
2457
2458       </div>
2459     </div>
2460     <div class="padding"></div>
2461
2462     <div class="entry">
2463       <div class="title">
2464         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
2465       </div>
2466       <div class="date">
2467         19th March 2012
2468       </div>
2469       <div class="body">
2470         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
2471 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
2472 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
2473 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
2474 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
2475
2476 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2477
2478 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
2479 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
2480 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
2481 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
2482 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
2483 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
2484 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
2485 installations.</p>
2486
2487 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2488 project?</strong></p>
2489
2490 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
2491 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
2492 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
2493 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
2494 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
2495 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
2496 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
2497 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
2498 these things we decided to try it.</p>
2499
2500 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2501 Edu?</strong></p>
2502
2503 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
2504 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
2505 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
2506 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
2507 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
2508 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
2509 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
2510 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
2511
2512 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2513 Edu?</strong></p>
2514
2515 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
2516 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
2517 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
2518 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
2519 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
2520
2521 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2522
2523 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
2524 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
2525 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
2526 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
2527 that counts...)</p>
2528
2529 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2530 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2531
2532 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
2533 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
2534 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
2535 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
2536 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
2537 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
2538 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
2539 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
2540 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
2541 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
2542 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
2543
2544 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
2545 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
2546 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
2547
2548       </div>
2549       <div class="tags">
2550
2551
2552         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>.
2553
2554
2555       </div>
2556     </div>
2557     <div class="padding"></div>
2558
2559     <div class="entry">
2560       <div class="title">
2561         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
2562       </div>
2563       <div class="date">
2564         16th March 2012
2565       </div>
2566       <div class="body">
2567         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
2568 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
2569 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
2570 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
2571
2572 <ol>
2573
2574 <li>The documentation is written in a
2575 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
2576 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
2577 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
2578 docbook XML.</li>
2579
2580 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
2581 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
2582 with the translated text.</li>
2583
2584 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
2585 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
2586 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
2587 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
2588 images.</li>
2589
2590 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
2591 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
2592
2593 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
2594 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
2595
2596 </ol>
2597
2598 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
2599 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
2600 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
2601 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
2602 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
2603
2604 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
2605 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
2606 package</a>.</p>
2607
2608       </div>
2609       <div class="tags">
2610
2611
2612         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>.
2613
2614
2615       </div>
2616     </div>
2617     <div class="padding"></div>
2618
2619     <div class="entry">
2620       <div class="title">
2621         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
2622       </div>
2623       <div class="date">
2624         11th March 2012
2625       </div>
2626       <div class="body">
2627         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
2628 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
2629 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
2630 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
2631 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
2632 you have not done so already.</p>
2633
2634 <p>I plan to present the new version at
2635 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
2636 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
2637 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
2638
2639       </div>
2640       <div class="tags">
2641
2642
2643         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>.
2644
2645
2646       </div>
2647     </div>
2648     <div class="padding"></div>
2649
2650     <div class="entry">
2651       <div class="title">
2652         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
2653       </div>
2654       <div class="date">
2655          9th March 2012
2656       </div>
2657       <div class="body">
2658         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
2659 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
2660 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2661 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
2662 more international audience.</p>
2663
2664 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
2665 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
2666 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
2667 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
2668 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
2669 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
2670 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
2671
2672
2673 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2674
2675 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
2676 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
2677 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
2678 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
2679 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
2680 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
2681 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
2682 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
2683 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
2684 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
2685 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
2686
2687 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2688 project?</strong></p>
2689
2690 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
2691 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
2692 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
2693 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
2694 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
2695 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
2696 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
2697 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
2698 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
2699 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
2700 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
2701 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
2702 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
2703
2704 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2705 Edu?</strong></p>
2706
2707 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
2708 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
2709 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
2710 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
2711 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
2712 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
2713 Japan.</p>
2714
2715 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2716 Edu?</strong></p>
2717
2718 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
2719 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
2720 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
2721 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
2722 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
2723 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
2724 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
2725 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
2726 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
2727 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
2728 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
2729 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
2730 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
2731 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
2732 help.</p>
2733
2734 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2735
2736 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
2737 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
2738 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
2739 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
2740 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
2741 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
2742 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
2743 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
2744 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
2745 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
2746 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
2747
2748 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2749 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2750
2751 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
2752 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
2753 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
2754 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
2755 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
2756 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
2757 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
2758 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
2759 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
2760 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
2761 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
2762 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
2763
2764       </div>
2765       <div class="tags">
2766
2767
2768         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>.
2769
2770
2771       </div>
2772     </div>
2773     <div class="padding"></div>
2774
2775     <div class="entry">
2776       <div class="title">
2777         <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>
2778       </div>
2779       <div class="date">
2780          7th March 2012
2781       </div>
2782       <div class="body">
2783         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
2784
2785 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
2786 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
2787 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
2788 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
2789 download as a
2790 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
2791 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
2792
2793 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
2794   <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"' />
2795     <p>Download video as
2796       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
2797 </video></p>
2798
2799       </div>
2800       <div class="tags">
2801
2802
2803         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>.
2804
2805
2806       </div>
2807     </div>
2808     <div class="padding"></div>
2809
2810     <div class="entry">
2811       <div class="title">
2812         <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>
2813       </div>
2814       <div class="date">
2815          4th March 2012
2816       </div>
2817       <div class="body">
2818         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
2819 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2820 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
2821 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
2822 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
2823 need a software solution for your school.</p>
2824
2825       </div>
2826       <div class="tags">
2827
2828
2829         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>.
2830
2831
2832       </div>
2833     </div>
2834     <div class="padding"></div>
2835
2836     <div class="entry">
2837       <div class="title">
2838         <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>
2839       </div>
2840       <div class="date">
2841          3rd March 2012
2842       </div>
2843       <div class="body">
2844         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
2845 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
2846 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
2847 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
2848 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
2849 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
2850 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
2851 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
2852 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
2853 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
2854 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
2855 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
2856 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
2857 year...</p>
2858
2859 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
2860 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
2861 name,
2862 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
2863 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
2864 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
2865 mean). I've been following
2866 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
2867 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
2868 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
2869 Check it out. :)</p>
2870
2871       </div>
2872       <div class="tags">
2873
2874
2875         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>.
2876
2877
2878       </div>
2879     </div>
2880     <div class="padding"></div>
2881
2882     <div class="entry">
2883       <div class="title">
2884         <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>
2885       </div>
2886       <div class="date">
2887         27th February 2012
2888       </div>
2889       <div class="body">
2890         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
2891 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2892 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
2893 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
2894 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
2895 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
2896 need a software solution for your school.</p>
2897
2898       </div>
2899       <div class="tags">
2900
2901
2902         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>.
2903
2904
2905       </div>
2906     </div>
2907     <div class="padding"></div>
2908
2909     <div class="entry">
2910       <div class="title">
2911         <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>
2912       </div>
2913       <div class="date">
2914         19th February 2012
2915       </div>
2916       <div class="body">
2917         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
2918 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
2919 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
2920 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
2921 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
2922 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
2923 solution for your school.</p>
2924
2925       </div>
2926       <div class="tags">
2927
2928
2929         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>.
2930
2931
2932       </div>
2933     </div>
2934     <div class="padding"></div>
2935
2936     <div class="entry">
2937       <div class="title">
2938         <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>
2939       </div>
2940       <div class="date">
2941         14th February 2012
2942       </div>
2943       <div class="body">
2944         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
2945 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
2946 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
2947 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
2948 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
2949 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
2950 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
2951 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
2952 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
2953
2954 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
2955 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
2956 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
2957 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
2958 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
2959
2960 <blockquote><pre>
2961 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
2962 do
2963     printf "Failed disk $d: "
2964     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
2965 done
2966 </blockquote></pre>
2967
2968 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
2969 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
2970
2971 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
2972
2973 <blockquote><pre>
2974 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
2975 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
2976 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
2977 </blockquote></pre>
2978
2979 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
2980 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
2981 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
2982 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
2983 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
2984 mounted inside my box.</p>
2985
2986 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
2987 Software RAID in the
2988 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
2989 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
2990 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
2991 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
2992 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
2993 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
2994
2995       </div>
2996       <div class="tags">
2997
2998
2999         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>.
3000
3001
3002       </div>
3003     </div>
3004     <div class="padding"></div>
3005
3006     <div class="entry">
3007       <div class="title">
3008         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
3009       </div>
3010       <div class="date">
3011         13th February 2012
3012       </div>
3013       <div class="body">
3014         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
3015 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
3016 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
3017 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
3018 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
3019 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
3020 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
3021 change the global proxy setting by editing
3022 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
3023 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
3024
3025 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
3026 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
3027 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
3028
3029 <blockquote><pre>
3030 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
3031 {
3032    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
3033        isPlainHostName(host) ||
3034        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
3035       return "DIRECT";
3036    else
3037       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
3038 }
3039 </pre></blockquote>
3040
3041 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
3042
3043 <blockquote><pre>
3044 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
3045 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
3046 </pre></blockquote>
3047
3048 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
3049 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
3050 would be used for
3051 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
3052 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
3053 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
3054 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
3055 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
3056 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
3057 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
3058 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
3059 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
3060 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
3061
3062 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
3063 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
3064 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
3065 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
3066 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
3067 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
3068
3069 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
3070 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
3071 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
3072 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
3073 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
3074 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
3075 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
3076 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
3077 the network setup changes.</p>
3078
3079 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
3080 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
3081 draft</a> and a
3082 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
3083 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
3084
3085       </div>
3086       <div class="tags">
3087
3088
3089         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>.
3090
3091
3092       </div>
3093     </div>
3094     <div class="padding"></div>
3095
3096     <div class="entry">
3097       <div class="title">
3098         <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>
3099       </div>
3100       <div class="date">
3101          5th February 2012
3102       </div>
3103       <div class="body">
3104         <p>Since the Lenny version of
3105 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
3106 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
3107 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
3108 in the morning.  This is done using the
3109 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
3110
3111 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
3112 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
3113 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
3114 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
3115 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
3116 the
3117 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
3118 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
3119 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
3120 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
3121 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
3122
3123 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
3124 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
3125 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
3126 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
3127 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
3128 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
3129 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
3130
3131 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
3132 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
3133 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
3134 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
3135 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
3136
3137       </div>
3138       <div class="tags">
3139
3140
3141         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>.
3142
3143
3144       </div>
3145     </div>
3146     <div class="padding"></div>
3147
3148     <div class="entry">
3149       <div class="title">
3150         <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>
3151       </div>
3152       <div class="date">
3153          4th February 2012
3154       </div>
3155       <div class="body">
3156         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
3157 publish the third beta version of
3158 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
3159 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
3160 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
3161 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
3162 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
3163 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
3164 on the project announcement list.</p>
3165
3166 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
3167 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
3168
3169 <ul>
3170
3171 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
3172   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
3173   the installation.</li>
3174
3175 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
3176   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
3177
3178 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
3179   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
3180   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
3181
3182 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
3183   for the local system administrator is created during installation
3184   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
3185   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
3186   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
3187   up to date on the system.</li>
3188
3189 </ul>
3190
3191 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
3192 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
3193 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
3194 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
3195
3196 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
3197 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
3198 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
3199 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
3200 will see you there?</p>
3201
3202       </div>
3203       <div class="tags">
3204
3205
3206         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>.
3207
3208
3209       </div>
3210     </div>
3211     <div class="padding"></div>
3212
3213     <div class="entry">
3214       <div class="title">
3215         <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>
3216       </div>
3217       <div class="date">
3218         27th January 2012
3219       </div>
3220       <div class="body">
3221         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
3222 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
3223 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
3224 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
3225 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
3226 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
3227 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
3228
3229 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
3230 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
3231 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
3232 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
3233 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
3234 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
3235 not taken care of by this.</p>
3236
3237 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
3238 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
3239 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
3240 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
3241 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
3242 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
3243 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
3244 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
3245 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
3246 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
3247 firmware packages.</p>
3248
3249 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
3250 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
3251 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
3252 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
3253 initrd with extra firmware, the
3254 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
3255 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
3256 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
3257
3258 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
3259 network cards working.  For this,
3260 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
3261 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
3262 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
3263
3264 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
3265 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
3266 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
3267
3268 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
3269 try.</p>
3270
3271       </div>
3272       <div class="tags">
3273
3274
3275         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>.
3276
3277
3278       </div>
3279     </div>
3280     <div class="padding"></div>
3281
3282     <div class="entry">
3283       <div class="title">
3284         <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>
3285       </div>
3286       <div class="date">
3287         25th January 2012
3288       </div>
3289       <div class="body">
3290         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
3291 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
3292 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
3293 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
3294 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
3295
3296 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
3297 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
3298 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
3299 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
3300 this is done, log on to the central server and run
3301 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
3302 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
3303 will look similar to this:</p>
3304
3305 <p><blockquote><pre>
3306 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
3307 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
3308 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.
3309
3310 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
3311
3312 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3313 enter password: *******
3314 %
3315 </pre></blockquote></p>
3316
3317 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
3318 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
3319 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
3320 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
3321 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
3322 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
3323 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
3324 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
3325 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
3326 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
3327 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
3328 automatically.</p>
3329
3330 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
3331 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
3332
3333 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
3334 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
3335 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
3336
3337       </div>
3338       <div class="tags">
3339
3340
3341         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>.
3342
3343
3344       </div>
3345     </div>
3346     <div class="padding"></div>
3347
3348     <div class="entry">
3349       <div class="title">
3350         <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>
3351       </div>
3352       <div class="date">
3353         10th January 2012
3354       </div>
3355       <div class="body">
3356         <p>In the Squeeze version of
3357 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
3358 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
3359 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
3360 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
3361 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
3362 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
3363 first time.</p>
3364
3365 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
3366 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
3367 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
3368 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
3369
3370 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
3371 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
3372 new setting.</p>
3373
3374 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
3375 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
3376 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
3377
3378       </div>
3379       <div class="tags">
3380
3381
3382         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>.
3383
3384
3385       </div>
3386     </div>
3387     <div class="padding"></div>
3388
3389     <div class="entry">
3390       <div class="title">
3391         <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>
3392       </div>
3393       <div class="date">
3394          7th January 2012
3395       </div>
3396       <div class="body">
3397         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
3398 the second beta version of
3399 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
3400 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
3401 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
3402 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
3403 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
3404 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
3405 on the project announcement list.</p>
3406
3407       </div>
3408       <div class="tags">
3409
3410
3411         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>.
3412
3413
3414       </div>
3415     </div>
3416     <div class="padding"></div>
3417
3418     <div class="entry">
3419       <div class="title">
3420         <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>
3421       </div>
3422       <div class="date">
3423          3rd January 2012
3424       </div>
3425       <div class="body">
3426         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
3427 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
3428 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
3429 interesting.</p>
3430
3431 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
3432 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
3433 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
3434 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
3435 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
3436 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
3437 wrap up its tasks.</p>
3438
3439 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
3440 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
3441 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
3442 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
3443 because I was typing.</P>
3444
3445 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
3446 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
3447 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
3448 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
3449 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
3450 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
3451 generate entropy.</p>
3452
3453 <p>The fix is in
3454 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
3455 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
3456 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
3457 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
3458
3459       </div>
3460       <div class="tags">
3461
3462
3463         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>.
3464
3465
3466       </div>
3467     </div>
3468     <div class="padding"></div>
3469
3470     <div class="entry">
3471       <div class="title">
3472         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
3473       </div>
3474       <div class="date">
3475         21st November 2011
3476       </div>
3477       <div class="body">
3478         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
3479 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
3480 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
3481 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
3482 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
3483 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
3484 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
3485 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
3486 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
3487 the tools to do so.</p>
3488
3489 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
3490 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
3491 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
3492 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
3493
3494 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
3495 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
3496 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
3497 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
3498 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
3499 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
3500 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
3501 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
3502
3503 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
3504 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
3505 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
3506
3507 <p><pre>
3508 #!/usr/bin/perl
3509 use strict;
3510 use warnings;
3511 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
3512 BEGIN {
3513     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
3514     my %rhelmodules = (
3515         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
3516         );
3517     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
3518         eval "use $module;";
3519         if ($@) {
3520             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
3521             system("yum install -y $pkg");
3522             eval "use $module;";
3523         }
3524     }
3525 }
3526 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
3527
3528 upgrade_dell();
3529
3530 exit 0;
3531
3532 sub run_firmware_script {
3533     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
3534     unless ($script) {
3535         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
3536         exit 1
3537     }
3538     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
3539
3540     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
3541         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
3542     } else {
3543         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
3544     }
3545 }
3546
3547 sub run_firmware_scripts {
3548     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
3549     # Run firmware packages
3550     for my $dir (@dirs) {
3551         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
3552         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
3553         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
3554             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
3555             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
3556         }
3557         closedir $dh;
3558     }
3559 }
3560
3561 sub download {
3562     my $url = shift;
3563     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
3564     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
3565 }
3566
3567 sub upgrade_dell {
3568     my @dirs;
3569     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
3570     chomp $product;
3571
3572     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
3573
3574         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
3575         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
3576
3577         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
3578             CLEANUP => 1
3579             );
3580         chdir($tmpdir);
3581         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
3582         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
3583         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
3584         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
3585         my $fwopts = "-q";
3586         if (@paths) {
3587             for my $url (@paths) {
3588                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
3589             }
3590             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
3591         } else {
3592             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
3593             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
3594         }
3595         chdir('/');
3596     } else {
3597         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
3598         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
3599     }
3600 }
3601
3602 sub fetch_dell_fw {
3603     my $path = shift;
3604     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
3605     download($url);
3606 }
3607
3608 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
3609 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
3610 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
3611 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
3612     my $filename = shift;
3613
3614     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
3615     chomp $product;
3616     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
3617
3618     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
3619
3620     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
3621     my @paths;
3622     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
3623         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
3624         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
3625         my $oscode;
3626         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
3627             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
3628         } else {
3629             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
3630         }
3631         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
3632         {
3633             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
3634         }
3635     }
3636     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
3637         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
3638
3639         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
3640         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
3641
3642         my $cpath = $component->{path};
3643         for my $path (@paths) {
3644             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
3645                 push(@paths, $cpath);
3646             }
3647         }
3648     }
3649     return @paths;
3650 }
3651 </pre>
3652
3653 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
3654 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
3655 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
3656 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
3657 outdated.</p>
3658
3659       </div>
3660       <div class="tags">
3661
3662
3663         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>.
3664
3665
3666       </div>
3667     </div>
3668     <div class="padding"></div>
3669
3670     <div class="entry">
3671       <div class="title">
3672         <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>
3673       </div>
3674       <div class="date">
3675          7th October 2011
3676       </div>
3677       <div class="body">
3678         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
3679 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
3680 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
3681 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
3682 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
3683 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
3684 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
3685 models.</p>
3686
3687 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
3688 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
3689 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
3690 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
3691
3692 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
3693 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
3694 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
3695 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (abount
3696 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
3697 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
3698 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
3699 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
3700 distributed.</p>
3701
3702 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
3703
3704 <ul>
3705
3706 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
3707   other relevant equipment.</li>
3708
3709 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
3710
3711 </ul>
3712
3713 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
3714 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
3715 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
3716 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
3717 books available.</p>
3718
3719 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
3720 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
3721 libraries. :)</p>
3722
3723       </div>
3724       <div class="tags">
3725
3726
3727         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>.
3728
3729
3730       </div>
3731     </div>
3732     <div class="padding"></div>
3733
3734     <div class="entry">
3735       <div class="title">
3736         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
3737       </div>
3738       <div class="date">
3739         17th September 2011
3740       </div>
3741       <div class="body">
3742         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
3743 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
3744 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
3745 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
3746 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
3747 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
3748 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
3749 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
3750
3751 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
3752
3753 <blockquote><pre>
3754 #!/bin/sh
3755 # apt-get install lsdvd
3756 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
3757 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
3758 </pre></blockquote>
3759
3760 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
3761 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
3762 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
3763 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
3764
3765 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
3766 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
3767 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
3768 back as an ISO.
3769
3770 <blockquote><pre>
3771 #!/bin/sh
3772 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
3773 set -e
3774 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
3775 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
3776 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
3777 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
3778 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
3779 </pre></blockquote>
3780
3781 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
3782
3783 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
3784 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
3785 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
3786 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
3787 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
3788
3789 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
3790 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
3791 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
3792 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
3793 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
3794 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
3795
3796       </div>
3797       <div class="tags">
3798
3799
3800         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>.
3801
3802
3803       </div>
3804     </div>
3805     <div class="padding"></div>
3806
3807     <div class="entry">
3808       <div class="title">
3809         <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>
3810       </div>
3811       <div class="date">
3812          4th August 2011
3813       </div>
3814       <div class="body">
3815         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
3816 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
3817 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
3818 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
3819 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
3820 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
3821 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
3822 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
3823 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
3824
3825 <p><blockquote>
3826 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
3827 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
3828 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
3829 </blockquote></p>
3830
3831 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
3832 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
3833 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
3834 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
3835 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
3836 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
3837 hard to explain.</p>
3838
3839 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
3840 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
3841 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
3842 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
3843 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
3844 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
3845 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
3846 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
3847 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
3848 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
3849 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
3850 mode).</p>
3851
3852 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
3853 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
3854 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
3855 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
3856 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
3857 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
3858 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
3859 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
3860 after visiting single user mode.</p>
3861
3862 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
3863 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
3864 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
3865 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
3866 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
3867 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
3868 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
3869 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
3870
3871 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
3872 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
3873 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
3874
3875       </div>
3876       <div class="tags">
3877
3878
3879         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>.
3880
3881
3882       </div>
3883     </div>
3884     <div class="padding"></div>
3885
3886     <div class="entry">
3887       <div class="title">
3888         <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>
3889       </div>
3890       <div class="date">
3891         30th July 2011
3892       </div>
3893       <div class="body">
3894         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
3895 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
3896 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
3897 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
3898 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
3899 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
3900 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
3901 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
3902 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
3903 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
3904 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
3905 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
3906 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
3907
3908 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
3909 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
3910 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
3911 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
3912 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
3913 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
3914 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
3915 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
3916 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
3917
3918 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
3919 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
3920 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
3921 is presented.</p>
3922
3923 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
3924 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
3925 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
3926 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
3927 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
3928 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
3929 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
3930 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
3931 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
3932 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
3933 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
3934 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
3935 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
3936 find time to push this forward.</p>
3937
3938       </div>
3939       <div class="tags">
3940
3941
3942         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>.
3943
3944
3945       </div>
3946     </div>
3947     <div class="padding"></div>
3948
3949     <div class="entry">
3950       <div class="title">
3951         <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>
3952       </div>
3953       <div class="date">
3954         29th July 2011
3955       </div>
3956       <div class="body">
3957         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
3958 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
3959 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
3960 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
3961 issues.</p>
3962
3963 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
3964 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
3965 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
3966
3967 <ol>
3968
3969 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
3970 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
3971 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
3972 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
3973 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
3974 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
3975 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
3976 Debian.</li>
3977
3978 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
3979 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
3980 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
3981 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
3982 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
3983 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
3984 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
3985 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
3986 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
3987 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
3988 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
3989 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
3990 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
3991
3992 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
3993 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
3994 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
3995 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
3996 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
3997 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
3998 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
3999 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
4000 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
4001 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
4002
4003 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
4004 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
4005 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
4006 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
4007 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
4008 latter behaviour.</li>
4009
4010 </ol>
4011
4012 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
4013 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
4014 it do not matter much.</p>
4015
4016 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
4017 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
4018 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
4019
4020       </div>
4021       <div class="tags">
4022
4023
4024         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>.
4025
4026
4027       </div>
4028     </div>
4029     <div class="padding"></div>
4030
4031     <div class="entry">
4032       <div class="title">
4033         <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>
4034       </div>
4035       <div class="date">
4036         26th July 2011
4037       </div>
4038       <div class="body">
4039         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
4040 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
4041 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
4042 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
4043 security support for a few years.</p>
4044
4045 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
4046 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
4047 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
4048 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
4049 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
4050 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
4051 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
4052 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
4053 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
4054 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
4055 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
4056 easier in the future.</p>
4057
4058 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
4059 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
4060 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
4061 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
4062 do not have time for.</p>
4063
4064       </div>
4065       <div class="tags">
4066
4067
4068         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>.
4069
4070
4071       </div>
4072     </div>
4073     <div class="padding"></div>
4074
4075     <div class="entry">
4076       <div class="title">
4077         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
4078       </div>
4079       <div class="date">
4080         20th June 2011
4081       </div>
4082       <div class="body">
4083         <p>Reading
4084 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
4085 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
4086 parts of the
4087 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
4088 and
4089 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
4090 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
4091 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
4092 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
4093
4094       </div>
4095       <div class="tags">
4096
4097
4098         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>.
4099
4100
4101       </div>
4102     </div>
4103     <div class="padding"></div>
4104
4105     <div class="entry">
4106       <div class="title">
4107         <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>
4108       </div>
4109       <div class="date">
4110         30th April 2011
4111       </div>
4112       <div class="body">
4113         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
4114 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
4115 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
4116 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
4117 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
4118 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
4119 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
4120 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
4121 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
4122 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
4123
4124 <p>Where is it?  Visit
4125 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
4126 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
4127 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
4128 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
4129
4130       </div>
4131       <div class="tags">
4132
4133
4134         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>.
4135
4136
4137       </div>
4138     </div>
4139     <div class="padding"></div>
4140
4141     <div class="entry">
4142       <div class="title">
4143         <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>
4144       </div>
4145       <div class="date">
4146         29th April 2011
4147       </div>
4148       <div class="body">
4149         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
4150 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
4151 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
4152 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
4153 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
4154 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
4155 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
4156 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
4157 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
4158 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
4159 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
4160 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
4161 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
4162
4163 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
4164 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
4165 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
4166 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
4167 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
4168 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
4169 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
4170 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
4171 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
4172 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
4173 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
4174 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
4175 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
4176
4177 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
4178 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
4179 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
4180 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
4181 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
4182 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
4183 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
4184 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
4185 it.</p>
4186
4187 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
4188 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
4189 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
4190 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
4191 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
4192 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
4193 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
4194
4195 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
4196 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
4197 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
4198 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
4199 and range= options.</p>
4200
4201 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
4202 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
4203 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
4204 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
4205 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
4206 to best handle this.  I've noticed
4207 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
4208 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
4209 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
4210 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
4211
4212 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
4213 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
4214 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
4215 discussions instead of only
4216 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
4217 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
4218 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
4219 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
4220 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
4221 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
4222
4223       </div>
4224       <div class="tags">
4225
4226
4227         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>.
4228
4229
4230       </div>
4231     </div>
4232     <div class="padding"></div>
4233
4234     <div class="entry">
4235       <div class="title">
4236         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
4237       </div>
4238       <div class="date">
4239          6th April 2011
4240       </div>
4241       <div class="body">
4242         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
4243 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
4244 A few days ago the project
4245 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
4246 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
4247 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
4248 into Gnash.</p>
4249
4250       </div>
4251       <div class="tags">
4252
4253
4254         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>.
4255
4256
4257       </div>
4258     </div>
4259     <div class="padding"></div>
4260
4261     <div class="entry">
4262       <div class="title">
4263         <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>
4264       </div>
4265       <div class="date">
4266          3rd April 2011
4267       </div>
4268       <div class="body">
4269         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
4270 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
4271 update in English.</p>
4272
4273 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
4274 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
4275 of the British service
4276 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
4277 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
4278 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
4279 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
4280 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
4281 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
4282 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
4283 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
4284 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
4285 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
4286 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
4287 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
4288 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
4289
4290 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
4291 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
4292 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
4293 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
4294 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
4295 public infrastructure.</p>
4296
4297 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
4298 such service?</p>
4299
4300       </div>
4301       <div class="tags">
4302
4303
4304         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>.
4305
4306
4307       </div>
4308     </div>
4309     <div class="padding"></div>
4310
4311     <div class="entry">
4312       <div class="title">
4313         <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>
4314       </div>
4315       <div class="date">
4316         28th January 2011
4317       </div>
4318       <div class="body">
4319         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
4320 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
4321 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
4322 available on the Internet, and check our locally
4323 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
4324 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
4325 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
4326 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
4327 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
4328 out which security holes were present in our free software
4329 collection.</p>
4330
4331 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
4332 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
4333 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
4334 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
4335 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
4336 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
4337 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
4338 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
4339 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
4340 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
4341 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
4342 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
4343 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
4344 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
4345 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
4346 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
4347
4348 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
4349 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
4350 check out, one could look up
4351 <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
4352 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
4353 The most recent one is
4354 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
4355 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
4356 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
4357
4358 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
4359 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
4360 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
4361 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
4362 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
4363 security issues out.</p>
4364
4365 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
4366 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
4367 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
4368 RHEL is providing
4369 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
4370 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
4371 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
4372
4373 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
4374 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
4375 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
4376 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
4377 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
4378 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
4379 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
4380 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
4381 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
4382 established soon.</p>
4383
4384 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
4385 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
4386 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
4387 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
4388 for their packages.</p>
4389
4390       </div>
4391       <div class="tags">
4392
4393
4394         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>.
4395
4396
4397       </div>
4398     </div>
4399     <div class="padding"></div>
4400
4401     <div class="entry">
4402       <div class="title">
4403         <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>
4404       </div>
4405       <div class="date">
4406         23rd January 2011
4407       </div>
4408       <div class="body">
4409         <p>In the
4410 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
4411 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
4412 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
4413 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
4414 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
4415 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
4416 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
4417 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
4418 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
4419 one of my machines like this:</p>
4420
4421 <pre>
4422 loaded modules:
4423 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
4424 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
4425 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
4426 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
4427 10de:03ec pata_amd
4428 10de:03f6 sata_nv
4429 1022:1103 k8temp
4430 109e:036e bttv
4431 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
4432 11ab:4364 sky2
4433 </pre>
4434
4435 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
4436 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
4437
4438 <pre>
4439 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
4440     echo loaded pci modules:
4441     (
4442         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
4443         for address in * ; do
4444             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
4445                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4446                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
4447                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
4448                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
4449                     echo "$id $module"
4450                 fi
4451             fi
4452         done
4453     )
4454     echo
4455 fi
4456 </pre>
4457
4458 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
4459 mappings:</p>
4460
4461 <pre>
4462 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
4463     echo loaded usb modules:
4464     (
4465         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
4466         for address in * ; do
4467             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
4468                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4469                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
4470                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
4471                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
4472                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
4473                         echo "$id $module"
4474                     fi
4475                 fi
4476             fi
4477         done
4478     )
4479     echo
4480 fi
4481 </pre>
4482
4483 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
4484 well.</p>
4485
4486       </div>
4487       <div class="tags">
4488
4489
4490         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>.
4491
4492
4493       </div>
4494     </div>
4495     <div class="padding"></div>
4496
4497     <div class="entry">
4498       <div class="title">
4499         <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>
4500       </div>
4501       <div class="date">
4502         16th January 2011
4503       </div>
4504       <div class="body">
4505         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
4506 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
4507 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
4508 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
4509 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
4510 the Wikipedia article on
4511 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
4512 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
4513 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
4514 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
4515 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
4516 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
4517 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
4518 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
4519 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
4520 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
4521 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
4522 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
4523
4524 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
4525 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
4526 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
4527 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
4528 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
4529 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
4530 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
4531 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
4532 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
4533 from last week</a>.</p>
4534
4535 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
4536 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
4537 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
4538 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
4539 was without royalties and license terms, check out
4540 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
4541 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
4542
4543 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
4544 available from
4545 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
4546 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
4547 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
4548
4549 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
4550 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
4551 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
4552 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
4553
4554       </div>
4555       <div class="tags">
4556
4557
4558         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>.
4559
4560
4561       </div>
4562     </div>
4563     <div class="padding"></div>
4564
4565     <div class="entry">
4566       <div class="title">
4567         <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>
4568       </div>
4569       <div class="date">
4570         12th January 2011
4571       </div>
4572       <div class="body">
4573         <p>Today I discovered
4574 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
4575 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
4576 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
4577 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
4578 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
4579 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
4580 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
4581 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
4582 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
4583 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
4584 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
4585 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
4586 on the Google announcement is available from
4587 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
4588 A good read. :)</p>
4589
4590 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
4591 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
4592 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
4593 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
4594 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
4595 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
4596 browsers support H.264, and others support
4597 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
4598 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
4599 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
4600 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
4601 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
4602 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
4603 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
4604 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
4605
4606 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
4607 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
4608 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
4609 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
4610 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
4611 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
4612 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
4613
4614 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
4615 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
4616 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
4617 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
4618 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
4619 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
4620 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
4621
4622 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
4623 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
4624 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
4625 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
4626 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
4627 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
4628 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
4629
4630 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
4631 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
4632 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
4633 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
4634 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
4635 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
4636 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
4637 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
4638 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
4639 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
4640 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
4641 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
4642 I guess time will tell.</p>
4643
4644 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
4645 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
4646 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
4647
4648       </div>
4649       <div class="tags">
4650
4651
4652         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>.
4653
4654
4655       </div>
4656     </div>
4657     <div class="padding"></div>
4658
4659     <div class="entry">
4660       <div class="title">
4661         <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>
4662       </div>
4663       <div class="date">
4664         30th December 2010
4665       </div>
4666       <div class="body">
4667         <p>After trying to
4668 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
4669 Ogg Theora</a> to
4670 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
4671 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
4672 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
4673 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
4674 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
4675 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
4676 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
4677
4678 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
4679 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
4680 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
4681 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
4682 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
4683 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
4684 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
4685
4686 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
4687 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
4688
4689       </div>
4690       <div class="tags">
4691
4692
4693         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>.
4694
4695
4696       </div>
4697     </div>
4698     <div class="padding"></div>
4699
4700     <div class="entry">
4701       <div class="title">
4702         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
4703       </div>
4704       <div class="date">
4705         27th December 2010
4706       </div>
4707       <div class="body">
4708         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
4709 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
4710 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
4711 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
4712 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
4713 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
4714 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
4715 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
4716
4717 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
4718 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
4719 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
4720 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
4721 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
4722 page</a>.</p>
4723
4724 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
4725 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
4726 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
4727 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
4728 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
4729 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
4730 specification on equal terms.</p>
4731
4732 <blockquote>
4733
4734 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
4735 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
4736 open standard:</p>
4737
4738 <ul>
4739
4740 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
4741 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
4742 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
4743 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
4744
4745 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
4746 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
4747 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
4748 nominal fee.</li>
4749
4750 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
4751 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
4752 free basis.</li>
4753
4754 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
4755
4756 </ul>
4757 </blockquote>
4758
4759 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
4760 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
4761 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
4762 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
4763 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
4764 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
4765 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
4766
4767 <blockquote>
4768
4769 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
4770
4771 <ol>
4772
4773 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
4774 tilgængelig.</li>
4775
4776 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
4777 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
4778
4779 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
4780 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
4781
4782 </ol>
4783
4784 </blockquote>
4785
4786 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
4787 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
4788
4789 <blockquote>
4790
4791 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
4792
4793 <ol>
4794
4795 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
4796 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
4797
4798 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
4799 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
4800 Standard themselves;</li>
4801
4802 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
4803 any party or in any business model;</li>
4804
4805 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
4806 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
4807 parties;</li>
4808
4809 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
4810 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
4811 parties.</li>
4812
4813 </ol>
4814
4815 </blockquote>
4816
4817 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
4818 its
4819 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
4820 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
4821
4822 <blockquote>
4823 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
4824
4825 <ul>
4826
4827 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
4828   democratic:
4829
4830          <ul>
4831
4832          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
4833             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
4834             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
4835             and managed.</li>
4836
4837          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
4838             method, can be changed through input from all
4839             participants.</li>
4840
4841          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
4842             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
4843
4844          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
4845             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
4846
4847          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
4848             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
4849             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
4850
4851          </ul>
4852
4853 </li>
4854
4855 </ul>
4856
4857 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
4858 <ul>
4859
4860 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
4861   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
4862   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
4863   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
4864   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
4865
4866 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
4867   a technical or economic barriers</li>
4868
4869 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
4870   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
4871   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
4872   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
4873   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
4874   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
4875   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
4876   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
4877   intended to function.</li>
4878
4879 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
4880   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
4881   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
4882
4883 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
4884   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
4885   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
4886   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
4887   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
4888   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
4889   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
4890   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
4891
4892       <ul>
4893
4894       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
4895         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
4896         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
4897
4898       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
4899         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
4900         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
4901         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
4902
4903       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
4904         licensor</li>
4905
4906       </ul>
4907 </li>
4908
4909 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
4910   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
4911   or restricted licensing terms</li>
4912
4913 </ul>
4914
4915 </blockquote>
4916
4917 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
4918 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
4919 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
4920 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
4921 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
4922 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
4923 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
4924 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
4925 Standards.</p>
4926
4927       </div>
4928       <div class="tags">
4929
4930
4931         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>.
4932
4933
4934       </div>
4935     </div>
4936     <div class="padding"></div>
4937
4938     <div class="entry">
4939       <div class="title">
4940         <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>
4941       </div>
4942       <div class="date">
4943         25th December 2010
4944       </div>
4945       <div class="body">
4946         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
4947 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
4948
4949 <blockquote>
4950
4951 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
4952 as follows:</p>
4953
4954 <ol>
4955
4956 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
4957 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
4958 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
4959
4960 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
4961 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
4962 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
4963 parties.</li>
4964
4965 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
4966 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
4967 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
4968
4969 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
4970 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
4971
4972 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
4973
4974 </ol>
4975
4976 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
4977 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
4978 products based on the standard.</p>
4979 </blockquote>
4980
4981 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
4982 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
4983 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
4984 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
4985 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
4986 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
4987 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
4988 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
4989
4990 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
4991
4992 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
4993 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
4994 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
4995 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
4996 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
4997 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
4998 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
4999 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
5000 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
5001 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
5002 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
5003 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
5004 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
5005 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
5006
5007 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
5008
5009 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
5010 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
5011 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
5012 documentation indicating this.</p>
5013
5014 <p>According to
5015 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
5016 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
5017 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
5018 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
5019 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
5020 report is correct.</p>
5021
5022 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
5023
5024 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
5025 container format</a> and both the
5026 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
5027 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
5028 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
5029
5030 <blockquote>
5031
5032 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
5033 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
5034 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
5035 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
5036 specification compliance.
5037
5038 </blockquote>
5039
5040 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
5041 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
5042 this is the term:<p>
5043
5044 <blockquote>
5045
5046 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
5047 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
5048 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
5049 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
5050 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
5051 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
5052 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
5053 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
5054 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
5055 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
5056 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
5057 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
5058
5059 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
5060 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
5061 </blockquote>
5062
5063 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
5064 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
5065 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
5066 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
5067 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
5068
5069 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
5070
5071 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
5072 Theora format.
5073 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
5074 and
5075 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
5076 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
5077 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
5078 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
5079 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
5080 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
5081 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
5082 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
5083
5084 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
5085
5086 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
5087
5088 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
5089
5090 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
5091 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
5092 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
5093 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
5094 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
5095 this.</p>
5096
5097 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
5098 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
5099
5100       </div>
5101       <div class="tags">
5102
5103
5104         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>.
5105
5106
5107       </div>
5108     </div>
5109     <div class="padding"></div>
5110
5111     <div class="entry">
5112       <div class="title">
5113         <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>
5114       </div>
5115       <div class="date">
5116         25th December 2010
5117       </div>
5118       <div class="body">
5119         <p>A few days ago
5120 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
5121 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
5122 2.0 of
5123 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
5124 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
5125 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
5126 Nothing very surprising there, given
5127 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
5128 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
5129 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
5130 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
5131 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
5132 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
5133 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
5134 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
5135 standard definition from its content.</p>
5136
5137 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
5138 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
5139 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
5140 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
5141 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
5142 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
5143 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
5144 background information about that story is available in
5145 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
5146 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
5147
5148 <blockquote>
5149 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
5150 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
5151 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
5152
5153 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
5154
5155 <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>
5156
5157 <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>
5158
5159 <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>
5160
5161 <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>
5162
5163 <p>
5164 <ul>
5165 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
5166 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
5167 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
5168 </ul>
5169 </p>
5170
5171 <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>
5172
5173 <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>
5174
5175 <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>
5176
5177 <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>
5178
5179 <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>
5180
5181
5182 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
5183 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
5184 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
5185 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
5186 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
5187 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
5188
5189 </p>
5190
5191 <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>
5192
5193 <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>
5194
5195 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
5196
5197 <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>
5198
5199 <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>
5200
5201 <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>
5202
5203 <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>
5204
5205 <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>
5206
5207 <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>
5208
5209 <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>
5210
5211 <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>
5212
5213 <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>
5214
5215 <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>
5216
5217 <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>
5218
5219 <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>
5220
5221 <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>
5222
5223 <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>
5224
5225 <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>
5226
5227 <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>
5228
5229 <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>
5230
5231 <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>
5232
5233 <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>
5234
5235 <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>
5236
5237 <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>
5238
5239 <p>On security:</p>
5240
5241 <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>
5242
5243 <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>
5244
5245 <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>
5246
5247 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
5248
5249 <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>
5250
5251 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
5252
5253 <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>
5254
5255 <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>
5256
5257 <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>
5258
5259 <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>
5260
5261 <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>
5262
5263 <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>
5264
5265 <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>
5266
5267 <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>
5268
5269 <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>
5270
5271 <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>
5272
5273 <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>
5274
5275 <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>
5276
5277 <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>
5278
5279 <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>
5280
5281 <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>
5282
5283 <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>
5284
5285 <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>
5286
5287 <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>
5288
5289 <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>
5290
5291 <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>
5292
5293 <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>
5294
5295 <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>
5296
5297 <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>
5298
5299 <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>
5300
5301 <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>
5302
5303 <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>
5304
5305 <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>
5306
5307 <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>
5308
5309 <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>
5310
5311 <p>Cordially,<br>
5312 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
5313 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
5314 </blockquote>
5315
5316       </div>
5317       <div class="tags">
5318
5319
5320         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>.
5321
5322
5323       </div>
5324     </div>
5325     <div class="padding"></div>
5326
5327     <div class="entry">
5328       <div class="title">
5329         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
5330       </div>
5331       <div class="date">
5332         25th December 2010
5333       </div>
5334       <div class="body">
5335         <p>Half a year ago I
5336 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
5337 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
5338 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
5339 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
5340
5341 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
5342 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
5343 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
5344 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
5345 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
5346 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
5347 got such a great test tool available.</p>
5348
5349       </div>
5350       <div class="tags">
5351
5352
5353         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>.
5354
5355
5356       </div>
5357     </div>
5358     <div class="padding"></div>
5359
5360     <div class="entry">
5361       <div class="title">
5362         <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>
5363       </div>
5364       <div class="date">
5365         22nd December 2010
5366       </div>
5367       <div class="body">
5368         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5369 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5370 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5371 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5372 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5373 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5374 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5375 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5376 university.</p>
5377
5378 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5379 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5380 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5381 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5382 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5383 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5384 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5385 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5386
5387 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5388 I perform on a new model.</p>
5389
5390 <ul>
5391
5392 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5393 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5394 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5395
5396 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5397 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5398
5399 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5400 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5401 reported by the program.</li>
5402
5403 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5404 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5405 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5406 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5407 normally test this by playing
5408 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5409 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5410
5411 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5412 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5413
5414 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5415 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5416
5417 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5418 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5419
5420 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5421 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5422 few.</li>
5423
5424 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5425 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5426 notice this.</li>
5427
5428 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5429 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5430 resume.</li>
5431
5432 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5433 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5434 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5435 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5436 not.</li>
5437
5438 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5439 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5440 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5441 existence.</li>
5442
5443 </ul>
5444
5445 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5446 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5447 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5448 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5449 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5450 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5451 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5452 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5453
5454       </div>
5455       <div class="tags">
5456
5457
5458         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>.
5459
5460
5461       </div>
5462     </div>
5463     <div class="padding"></div>
5464
5465     <div class="entry">
5466       <div class="title">
5467         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5468       </div>
5469       <div class="date">
5470         11th December 2010
5471       </div>
5472       <div class="body">
5473         <p>As I continue to explore
5474 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5475 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5476 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5477
5478 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5479 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5480 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5481 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5482 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5483 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5484 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5485 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5486 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5487 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5488 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5489 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5490 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5491 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5492 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5493 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5494 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
5495 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5496 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5497 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
5498
5499 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5500 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5501 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5502 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5503 If the Skolelinux foundation
5504 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5505 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5506 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5507 Given that it is impossible to know if money can across the border or
5508 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5509 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5510 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5511 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5512
5513 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5514 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5515 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5516 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5517 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5518 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5519 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5520 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5521 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5522 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5523 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5524 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5525 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5526 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5527 currencies.</p>
5528
5529 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5530 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5531 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5532 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5533 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5534 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5535 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5536 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5537 BitCoins.  Check out
5538 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5539 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5540 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5541 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5542 yet.</p>
5543
5544 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5545 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5546 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5547 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5548 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5549
5550       </div>
5551       <div class="tags">
5552
5553
5554         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>.
5555
5556
5557       </div>
5558     </div>
5559     <div class="padding"></div>
5560
5561     <div class="entry">
5562       <div class="title">
5563         <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>
5564       </div>
5565       <div class="date">
5566         10th December 2010
5567       </div>
5568       <div class="body">
5569         <p>With this weeks lawless
5570 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5571 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5572 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5573 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5574 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5575 A blog post from
5576 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5577 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5578 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5579 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5580 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5581 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5582 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5583
5584 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5585 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5586 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5587 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5588 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5589 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5590 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5591 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5592 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5593 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5594
5595 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5596 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5597 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5598 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5599 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5600 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5601 you can even get
5602 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5603 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5604 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5605 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5606
5607 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5608 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5609 donations to the address
5610 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5611
5612       </div>
5613       <div class="tags">
5614
5615
5616         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>.
5617
5618
5619       </div>
5620     </div>
5621     <div class="padding"></div>
5622
5623     <div class="entry">
5624       <div class="title">
5625         <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>
5626       </div>
5627       <div class="date">
5628          9th December 2010
5629       </div>
5630       <div class="body">
5631         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
5632 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
5633 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
5634 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
5635 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
5636 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
5637 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
5638 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
5639 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
5640 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
5641 operational.</p>
5642
5643 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
5644 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
5645 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
5646 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
5647 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
5648 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
5649 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
5650
5651       </div>
5652       <div class="tags">
5653
5654
5655         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>.
5656
5657
5658       </div>
5659     </div>
5660     <div class="padding"></div>
5661
5662     <div class="entry">
5663       <div class="title">
5664         <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>
5665       </div>
5666       <div class="date">
5667         29th November 2010
5668       </div>
5669       <div class="body">
5670         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5671 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
5672 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
5673 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
5674 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
5675 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
5676
5677 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
5678 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
5679 will hold its
5680 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
5681 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
5682 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
5683 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
5684 vote this year.</p>
5685
5686       </div>
5687       <div class="tags">
5688
5689
5690         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>.
5691
5692
5693       </div>
5694     </div>
5695     <div class="padding"></div>
5696
5697     <div class="entry">
5698       <div class="title">
5699         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5700       </div>
5701       <div class="date">
5702         27th November 2010
5703       </div>
5704       <div class="body">
5705         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5706 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5707 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5708 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5709 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5710 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5711 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5712 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5713
5714 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5715 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5716 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5717 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5718 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5719 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5720 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5721 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5722 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5723 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5724 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5725
5726 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5727 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5728 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5729 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5730 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5731 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5732 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5733 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5734 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5735 what is going on.</p>
5736
5737       </div>
5738       <div class="tags">
5739
5740
5741         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>.
5742
5743
5744       </div>
5745     </div>
5746     <div class="padding"></div>
5747
5748     <div class="entry">
5749       <div class="title">
5750         <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>
5751       </div>
5752       <div class="date">
5753         22nd November 2010
5754       </div>
5755       <div class="body">
5756         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
5757 upgrade testing of the
5758 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5759 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
5760 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
5761 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
5762
5763 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5764
5765 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5766
5767 <blockquote><p>
5768   apache2.2-bin
5769   aptdaemon
5770   baobab
5771   binfmt-support
5772   browser-plugin-gnash
5773   cheese-common
5774   cli-common
5775   cups-pk-helper
5776   dmz-cursor-theme
5777   empathy
5778   empathy-common
5779   freedesktop-sound-theme
5780   freeglut3
5781   gconf-defaults-service
5782   gdm-themes
5783   gedit-plugins
5784   geoclue
5785   geoclue-hostip
5786   geoclue-localnet
5787   geoclue-manual
5788   geoclue-yahoo
5789   gnash
5790   gnash-common
5791   gnome
5792   gnome-backgrounds
5793   gnome-cards-data
5794   gnome-codec-install
5795   gnome-core
5796   gnome-desktop-environment
5797   gnome-disk-utility
5798   gnome-screenshot
5799   gnome-search-tool
5800   gnome-session-canberra
5801   gnome-system-log
5802   gnome-themes-extras
5803   gnome-themes-more
5804   gnome-user-share
5805   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5806   gstreamer0.10-tools
5807   gtk2-engines
5808   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5809   gtk2-engines-smooth
5810   hamster-applet
5811   libapache2-mod-dnssd
5812   libapr1
5813   libaprutil1
5814   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
5815   libaprutil1-ldap
5816   libart2.0-cil
5817   libboost-date-time1.42.0
5818   libboost-python1.42.0
5819   libboost-thread1.42.0
5820   libchamplain-0.4-0
5821   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
5822   libcheese-gtk18
5823   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5824   libcryptui0
5825   libdiscid0
5826   libelf1
5827   libepc-1.0-2
5828   libepc-common
5829   libepc-ui-1.0-2
5830   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5831   libfreerdp0
5832   libgconf2.0-cil
5833   libgdata-common
5834   libgdata7
5835   libgdu-gtk0
5836   libgee2
5837   libgeoclue0
5838   libgexiv2-0
5839   libgif4
5840   libglade2.0-cil
5841   libglib2.0-cil
5842   libgmime2.4-cil
5843   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5844   libgnome2.24-cil
5845   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5846   libgpod-common
5847   libgpod4
5848   libgtk2.0-cil
5849   libgtkglext1
5850   libgtksourceview2.0-common
5851   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5852   libmono-addins0.2-cil
5853   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5854   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5855   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5856   libmono-posix2.0-cil
5857   libmono-security2.0-cil
5858   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5859   libmono-system2.0-cil
5860   libmtp8
5861   libmusicbrainz3-6
5862   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5863   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5864   libopal3.6.8
5865   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
5866   libpt2.6.7
5867   libpython2.6
5868   librpm1
5869   librpmio1
5870   libsdl1.2debian
5871   libsrtp0
5872   libssh-4
5873   libtelepathy-farsight0
5874   libtelepathy-glib0
5875   libtidy-0.99-0
5876   media-player-info
5877   mesa-utils
5878   mono-2.0-gac
5879   mono-gac
5880   mono-runtime
5881   nautilus-sendto
5882   nautilus-sendto-empathy
5883   p7zip-full
5884   pkg-config
5885   python-aptdaemon
5886   python-aptdaemon-gtk
5887   python-axiom
5888   python-beautifulsoup
5889   python-bugbuddy
5890   python-clientform
5891   python-coherence
5892   python-configobj
5893   python-crypto
5894   python-cupshelpers
5895   python-elementtree
5896   python-epsilon
5897   python-evolution
5898   python-feedparser
5899   python-gdata
5900   python-gdbm
5901   python-gst0.10
5902   python-gtkglext1
5903   python-gtksourceview2
5904   python-httplib2
5905   python-louie
5906   python-mako
5907   python-markupsafe
5908   python-mechanize
5909   python-nevow
5910   python-notify
5911   python-opengl
5912   python-openssl
5913   python-pam
5914   python-pkg-resources
5915   python-pyasn1
5916   python-pysqlite2
5917   python-rdflib
5918   python-serial
5919   python-tagpy
5920   python-twisted-bin
5921   python-twisted-conch
5922   python-twisted-core
5923   python-twisted-web
5924   python-utidylib
5925   python-webkit
5926   python-xdg
5927   python-zope.interface
5928   remmina
5929   remmina-plugin-data
5930   remmina-plugin-rdp
5931   remmina-plugin-vnc
5932   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5933   rhythmbox-plugins
5934   rpm-common
5935   rpm2cpio
5936   seahorse-plugins
5937   shotwell
5938   software-center
5939   system-config-printer-udev
5940   telepathy-gabble
5941   telepathy-mission-control-5
5942   telepathy-salut
5943   tomboy
5944   totem
5945   totem-coherence
5946   totem-mozilla
5947   totem-plugins
5948   transmission-common
5949   xdg-user-dirs
5950   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
5951   xserver-xephyr
5952 </p></blockquote>
5953
5954 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5955
5956 <blockquote><p>
5957   cheese
5958   ekiga
5959   eog
5960   epiphany-extensions
5961   evolution-exchange
5962   fast-user-switch-applet
5963   file-roller
5964   gcalctool
5965   gconf-editor
5966   gdm
5967   gedit
5968   gedit-common
5969   gnome-games
5970   gnome-games-data
5971   gnome-nettool
5972   gnome-system-tools
5973   gnome-themes
5974   gnuchess
5975   gucharmap
5976   guile-1.8-libs
5977   libavahi-ui0
5978   libdmx1
5979   libgalago3
5980   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5981   libgtksourceview2.0-0
5982   liblircclient0
5983   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5984   libspeexdsp1
5985   libsvga1
5986   rhythmbox
5987   seahorse
5988   sound-juicer
5989   system-config-printer
5990   totem-common
5991   transmission-gtk
5992   vinagre
5993   vino
5994 </p></blockquote>
5995
5996 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5997
5998 <blockquote><p>
5999   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6000 </p></blockquote>
6001
6002 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6003
6004 <blockquote><p>
6005 [nothing]
6006 </p></blockquote>
6007
6008 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6009
6010 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6011
6012 <blockquote><p>
6013   ksmserver
6014 </p></blockquote>
6015
6016 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6017
6018 <blockquote><p>
6019   kwin
6020   network-manager-kde
6021 </p></blockquote>
6022
6023 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6024
6025 <blockquote><p>
6026   arts
6027   dolphin
6028   freespacenotifier
6029   google-gadgets-gst
6030   google-gadgets-xul
6031   kappfinder
6032   kcalc
6033   kcharselect
6034   kde-core
6035   kde-plasma-desktop
6036   kde-standard
6037   kde-window-manager
6038   kdeartwork
6039   kdeartwork-emoticons
6040   kdeartwork-style
6041   kdeartwork-theme-icon
6042   kdebase
6043   kdebase-apps
6044   kdebase-workspace
6045   kdebase-workspace-bin
6046   kdebase-workspace-data
6047   kdeeject
6048   kdelibs
6049   kdeplasma-addons
6050   kdeutils
6051   kdewallpapers
6052   kdf
6053   kfloppy
6054   kgpg
6055   khelpcenter4
6056   kinfocenter
6057   konq-plugins-l10n
6058   konqueror-nsplugins
6059   kscreensaver
6060   kscreensaver-xsavers
6061   ktimer
6062   kwrite
6063   libgle3
6064   libkde4-ruby1.8
6065   libkonq5
6066   libkonq5-templates
6067   libnetpbm10
6068   libplasma-ruby
6069   libplasma-ruby1.8
6070   libqt4-ruby1.8
6071   marble-data
6072   marble-plugins
6073   netpbm
6074   nuvola-icon-theme
6075   plasma-dataengines-workspace
6076   plasma-desktop
6077   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
6078   plasma-runners-addons
6079   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
6080   plasma-scriptengine-python
6081   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
6082   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
6083   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
6084   plasma-scriptengines
6085   plasma-wallpapers-addons
6086   plasma-widget-folderview
6087   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6088   ruby
6089   sweeper
6090   update-notifier-kde
6091   xscreensaver-data-extra
6092   xscreensaver-gl
6093   xscreensaver-gl-extra
6094   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6095 </p></blockquote>
6096
6097 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6098
6099 <blockquote><p>
6100   ark
6101   google-gadgets-common
6102   google-gadgets-qt
6103   htdig
6104   kate
6105   kdebase-bin
6106   kdebase-data
6107   kdepasswd
6108   kfind
6109   klipper
6110   konq-plugins
6111   konqueror
6112   ksysguard
6113   ksysguardd
6114   libarchive1
6115   libcln6
6116   libeet1
6117   libeina-svn-06
6118   libggadget-1.0-0b
6119   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
6120   libgps19
6121   libkdecorations4
6122   libkephal4
6123   libkonq4
6124   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
6125   libkscreensaver5
6126   libksgrd4
6127   libksignalplotter4
6128   libkunitconversion4
6129   libkwineffects1a
6130   libmarblewidget4
6131   libntrack-qt4-1
6132   libntrack0
6133   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
6134   libplasmaclock4a
6135   libplasmagenericshell4
6136   libprocesscore4a
6137   libprocessui4a
6138   libqalculate5
6139   libqedje0a
6140   libqtruby4shared2
6141   libqzion0a
6142   libruby1.8
6143   libscim8c2a
6144   libsmokekdecore4-3
6145   libsmokekdeui4-3
6146   libsmokekfile3
6147   libsmokekhtml3
6148   libsmokekio3
6149   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
6150   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
6151   libsmokekparts3
6152   libsmokektexteditor3
6153   libsmokekutils3
6154   libsmokenepomuk3
6155   libsmokephonon3
6156   libsmokeplasma3
6157   libsmokeqtcore4-3
6158   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
6159   libsmokeqtgui4-3
6160   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
6161   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
6162   libsmokeqtscript4-3
6163   libsmokeqtsql4-3
6164   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
6165   libsmokeqttest4-3
6166   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
6167   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
6168   libsmokeqtxml4-3
6169   libsmokesolid3
6170   libsmokesoprano3
6171   libtaskmanager4a
6172   libtidy-0.99-0
6173   libweather-ion4a
6174   libxklavier16
6175   libxxf86misc1
6176   okteta
6177   oxygencursors
6178   plasma-dataengines-addons
6179   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
6180   plasma-widget-lancelot
6181   plasma-widgets-addons
6182   plasma-widgets-workspace
6183   polkit-kde-1
6184   ruby1.8
6185   systemsettings
6186   update-notifier-common
6187 </p></blockquote>
6188
6189 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
6190 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
6191 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
6192 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
6193
6194       </div>
6195       <div class="tags">
6196
6197
6198         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>.
6199
6200
6201       </div>
6202     </div>
6203     <div class="padding"></div>
6204
6205     <div class="entry">
6206       <div class="title">
6207         <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>
6208       </div>
6209       <div class="date">
6210         22nd November 2010
6211       </div>
6212       <div class="body">
6213         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
6214 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
6215 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
6216 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
6217 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
6218 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
6219 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
6220 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
6221 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
6222
6223 <p>I found
6224 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
6225 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
6226 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
6227 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
6228 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
6229 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
6230
6231 <pre>
6232 #!/bin/sh
6233
6234 # Based on
6235 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
6236
6237 set -e
6238 set -x
6239
6240 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
6241     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
6242     exit 1
6243 else
6244     host="$1"
6245 fi
6246
6247 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
6248     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
6249     exit 1
6250 fi
6251
6252 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
6253 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6254 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6255 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
6256
6257 img=$host.img
6258 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
6259 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
6260
6261 parted $img mklabel msdos
6262 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
6263 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
6264 parted $img set 1 boot on
6265
6266 modprobe dm-mod
6267 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
6268 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
6269
6270 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
6271 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
6272 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
6273
6274 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
6275 losetup -d /dev/loop0
6276 </pre>
6277
6278 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6279 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6280
6281 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6282 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6283 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6284 seem to work just fine.</p>
6285
6286       </div>
6287       <div class="tags">
6288
6289
6290         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>.
6291
6292
6293       </div>
6294     </div>
6295     <div class="padding"></div>
6296
6297     <div class="entry">
6298       <div class="title">
6299         <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>
6300       </div>
6301       <div class="date">
6302         20th November 2010
6303       </div>
6304       <div class="body">
6305         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6306 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6307 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6308 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6309
6310 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6311 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6312 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6313
6314 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6315
6316 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6317
6318 <blockquote><p>
6319   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6320   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6321   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6322   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6323   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6324   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6325   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6326   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6327   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6328   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6329   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6330   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6331   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6332   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6333   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6334   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6335   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6336   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6337   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6338   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6339   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6340   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6341   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6342   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6343   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6344   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6345   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6346   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6347   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6348   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6349   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6350   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6351   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6352   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6353   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6354   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6355   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6356   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6357   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6358   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6359   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6360   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6361   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6362   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6363   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6364   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6365   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6366   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6367   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6368   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6369   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6370   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6371   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6372   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6373   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6374   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6375   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6376   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6377   zip
6378 </p></blockquote>
6379
6380 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6381
6382 <blockquote><p>
6383   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6384   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6385   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6386   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6387   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6388   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6389   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6390   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6391   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6392   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6393   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6394   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6395   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6396   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6397   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6398   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6399   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6400   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6401   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6402   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6403   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6404   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6405   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6406   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6407   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6408   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6409   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6410   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6411   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6412 </p></blockquote>
6413
6414 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6415
6416 <blockquote><p>
6417   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6418 </p></blockquote>
6419
6420 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6421
6422 <blockquote><p>
6423 [nothing]
6424 </p></blockquote>
6425
6426 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6427
6428 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6429
6430 <blockquote><p>
6431   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6432   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6433   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6434   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6435   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6436   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6437   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6438   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6439   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6440   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6441   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6442   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6443   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6444   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6445   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6446   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6447   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6448   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6449   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6450   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6451   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6452   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6453   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6454   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6455   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6456   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6457   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6458   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6459   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6460   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6461 </p></blockquote>
6462
6463 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6464
6465 <blockquote><p>
6466   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6467   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6468   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6469   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6470   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6471   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6472   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6473   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6474   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6475   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6476   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6477   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6478   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6479   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6480   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6481   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6482   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6483   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6484   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6485   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6486   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6487   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6488   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6489   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6490   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6491   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6492   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6493   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6494   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6495   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6496   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6497   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6498   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6499 </p></blockquote>
6500
6501 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6502
6503 <blockquote><p>
6504   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6505   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6506   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6507   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6508   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6509   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6510   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6511 </p></blockquote>
6512
6513 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6514
6515 <blockquote><p>
6516   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6517 </p></blockquote>
6518
6519       </div>
6520       <div class="tags">
6521
6522
6523         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>.
6524
6525
6526       </div>
6527     </div>
6528     <div class="padding"></div>
6529
6530     <div class="entry">
6531       <div class="title">
6532         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6533       </div>
6534       <div class="date">
6535         20th November 2010
6536       </div>
6537       <div class="body">
6538         <p>Answering
6539 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6540 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6541 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6542 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6543 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6544 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6545 releases out more often.</p>
6546
6547 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6548 I have considered setting up a <a
6549 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6550 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6551 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6552 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6553 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6554 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6555 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6556 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6557 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6558 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6559 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6560 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6561
6562       </div>
6563       <div class="tags">
6564
6565
6566         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>.
6567
6568
6569       </div>
6570     </div>
6571     <div class="padding"></div>
6572
6573     <div class="entry">
6574       <div class="title">
6575         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6576       </div>
6577       <div class="date">
6578          9th November 2010
6579       </div>
6580       <div class="body">
6581         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6582
6583 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6584 3D linked in from
6585 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6586 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6587
6588       </div>
6589       <div class="tags">
6590
6591
6592         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>.
6593
6594
6595       </div>
6596     </div>
6597     <div class="padding"></div>
6598
6599     <div class="entry">
6600       <div class="title">
6601         <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>
6602       </div>
6603       <div class="date">
6604          7th November 2010
6605       </div>
6606       <div class="body">
6607         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
6608 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
6609 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
6610 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
6611 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
6612 working using this DVD.</p>
6613
6614 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
6615 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
6616 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
6617 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
6618 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
6619 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
6620 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
6621
6622 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
6623 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
6624 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
6625 Debian archive.</p>
6626
6627 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
6628 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
6629 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
6630 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
6631 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
6632 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
6633 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
6634 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
6635 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
6636 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
6637 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
6638 free X driver should work.</p>
6639
6640 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
6641 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
6642 DVD more useful again.</p>
6643
6644       </div>
6645       <div class="tags">
6646
6647
6648         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>.
6649
6650
6651       </div>
6652     </div>
6653     <div class="padding"></div>
6654
6655     <div class="entry">
6656       <div class="title">
6657         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6658       </div>
6659       <div class="date">
6660         24th October 2010
6661       </div>
6662       <div class="body">
6663         <p>Some updates.</p>
6664
6665 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6666 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6667 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6668 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6669 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6670 :)</p>
6671
6672 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6673 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6674 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6675 It is called
6676 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6677 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6678 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6679 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6680 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6681 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6682
6683 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6684 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6685 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6686 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6687 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6688 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6689 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6690 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6691 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6692 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6693
6694       </div>
6695       <div class="tags">
6696
6697
6698         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>.
6699
6700
6701       </div>
6702     </div>
6703     <div class="padding"></div>
6704
6705     <div class="entry">
6706       <div class="title">
6707         <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>
6708       </div>
6709       <div class="date">
6710         19th October 2010
6711       </div>
6712       <div class="body">
6713         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
6714 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
6715 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
6716 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
6717 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
6718 AVM2 flash files.</p>
6719
6720 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
6721 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
6722 following text:</P>
6723
6724 <p><blockquote>
6725
6726   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
6727   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
6728
6729   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
6730
6731   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
6732
6733   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
6734   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
6735   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
6736   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
6737   days. The project web page is available from
6738   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
6739   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
6740   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
6741
6742   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
6743   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
6744   to get this to happen.</p>
6745
6746   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
6747   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
6748
6749 </blockquote></p>
6750
6751 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
6752 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
6753 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
6754 :)</p>
6755
6756       </div>
6757       <div class="tags">
6758
6759
6760         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>.
6761
6762
6763       </div>
6764     </div>
6765     <div class="padding"></div>
6766
6767     <div class="entry">
6768       <div class="title">
6769         <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>
6770       </div>
6771       <div class="date">
6772          9th October 2010
6773       </div>
6774       <div class="body">
6775         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
6776 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
6777 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
6778 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
6779 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
6780 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
6781 robots.</p>
6782
6783 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
6784 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
6785 a few less important features too.</p>
6786
6787 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
6788 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
6789 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
6790 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
6791
6792 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
6793 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
6794 source or binary package:</p>
6795
6796 <p><ul>
6797 <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>
6798 <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>
6799 <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>
6800 </ul></p>
6801
6802 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
6803 please let me know.</p>
6804
6805       </div>
6806       <div class="tags">
6807
6808
6809         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>.
6810
6811
6812       </div>
6813     </div>
6814     <div class="padding"></div>
6815
6816     <div class="entry">
6817       <div class="title">
6818         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
6819       </div>
6820       <div class="date">
6821          3rd October 2010
6822       </div>
6823       <div class="body">
6824         <p><ul>
6825
6826 <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
6827 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
6828
6829 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
6830 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
6831 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
6832
6833 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
6834 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
6835 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
6836 simple setup.
6837
6838 </ul></p>
6839
6840       </div>
6841       <div class="tags">
6842
6843
6844         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>.
6845
6846
6847       </div>
6848     </div>
6849     <div class="padding"></div>
6850
6851     <div class="entry">
6852       <div class="title">
6853         <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>
6854       </div>
6855       <div class="date">
6856          9th September 2010
6857       </div>
6858       <div class="body">
6859         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
6860 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
6861 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
6862 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
6863 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
6864 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
6865 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
6866 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
6867 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
6868
6869 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
6870 written:</p>
6871
6872 <blockquote>
6873 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
6874 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
6875 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
6876 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
6877 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
6878
6879 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
6880 standard.</p>
6881 </blockquote>
6882
6883 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
6884 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
6885 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
6886 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
6887
6888 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
6889 read
6890 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
6891 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
6892 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
6893 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
6894 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
6895 the issue.  The solution is to support the
6896 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
6897 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
6898 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
6899
6900       </div>
6901       <div class="tags">
6902
6903
6904         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>.
6905
6906
6907       </div>
6908     </div>
6909     <div class="padding"></div>
6910
6911     <div class="entry">
6912       <div class="title">
6913         <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>
6914       </div>
6915       <div class="date">
6916          4th September 2010
6917       </div>
6918       <div class="body">
6919         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6920 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6921 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6922 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6923 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6924 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6925 installed.</p>
6926
6927 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6928 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6929 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6930 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6931 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6932 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6933 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6934 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6935 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6936
6937 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6938 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6939 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6940 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6941 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6942 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6943 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6944 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6945 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6946 pages they want to visit.</p>
6947
6948 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6949 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6950 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6951 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6952 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6953 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6954 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6955 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6956 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6957 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6958 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6959
6960       </div>
6961       <div class="tags">
6962
6963
6964         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>.
6965
6966
6967       </div>
6968     </div>
6969     <div class="padding"></div>
6970
6971     <div class="entry">
6972       <div class="title">
6973         <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>
6974       </div>
6975       <div class="date">
6976          1st September 2010
6977       </div>
6978       <div class="body">
6979         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
6980 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
6981 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
6982 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
6983 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
6984 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
6985 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
6986 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
6987 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
6988 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
6989 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
6990 drive around.</p>
6991
6992 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
6993 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
6994
6995 <p><pre>
6996 use Spykee;
6997 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
6998 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
6999 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
7000 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
7001 $spykee->left();
7002 sleep 2;
7003 $spykee->right();
7004 sleep 2;
7005 $spykee->forward();
7006 sleep 2;
7007 $spykee->back();
7008 sleep 2;
7009 $spykee->stop();
7010 </pre></p>
7011
7012 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
7013 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
7014 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
7015 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
7016 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
7017 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
7018 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
7019 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
7020 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
7021 going. :).</p>
7022
7023 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
7024 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
7025 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
7026 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
7027
7028       </div>
7029       <div class="tags">
7030
7031
7032         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>.
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/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
7042       </div>
7043       <div class="date">
7044         30th August 2010
7045       </div>
7046       <div class="body">
7047         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
7048 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
7049 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
7050 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
7051 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
7052 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
7053 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
7054
7055 <pre>
7056 % ln foo bar
7057 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
7058 %
7059 </pre>
7060
7061 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
7062 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
7063 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
7064 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
7065 nevertheless. :)</p>
7066
7067 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
7068 git from
7069 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
7070
7071       </div>
7072       <div class="tags">
7073
7074
7075         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>.
7076
7077
7078       </div>
7079     </div>
7080     <div class="padding"></div>
7081
7082     <div class="entry">
7083       <div class="title">
7084         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
7085       </div>
7086       <div class="date">
7087         26th August 2010
7088       </div>
7089       <div class="body">
7090         <p>My file system sematics program
7091 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
7092 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
7093 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
7094 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
7095 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
7096 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
7097 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
7098 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
7099 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
7100 script:</p>
7101
7102 <pre>
7103 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
7104   mode_t retval = 0;
7105   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
7106   if (-1 != fd) {
7107     unlink(name);
7108     struct stat statbuf;
7109     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
7110       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
7111     }
7112     close(fd);
7113   }
7114   return retval;
7115 }
7116
7117 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
7118 int test_umask(void) {
7119   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
7120
7121   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
7122   mode_t newmode;
7123   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
7124     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
7125            newmode);
7126   }
7127   umask(007);
7128   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
7129     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
7130            newmode);
7131   }
7132
7133   umask (orig_umask);
7134   return 0;
7135 }
7136
7137 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
7138   [...]
7139   test_umask();
7140   return 0;
7141 }
7142 </pre>
7143
7144 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
7145
7146 <pre>
7147 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
7148 info: testing symlink creation
7149 info: testing subdirectory creation
7150 info: testing fcntl locking
7151   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
7152   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
7153   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
7154   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
7155   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
7156   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
7157 info: testing umask effect on file creation
7158 </pre>
7159
7160 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
7161 result:</p>
7162
7163 <pre>
7164 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
7165 info: testing symlink creation
7166 info: testing subdirectory creation
7167 info: testing fcntl locking
7168   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
7169   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
7170   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
7171   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
7172   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
7173   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
7174 info: testing umask effect on file creation
7175   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
7176   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
7177 </pre>
7178
7179 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
7180 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
7181 directory.</p>
7182
7183 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
7184 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
7185
7186 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
7187 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
7188 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
7189
7190       </div>
7191       <div class="tags">
7192
7193
7194         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>.
7195
7196
7197       </div>
7198     </div>
7199     <div class="padding"></div>
7200
7201     <div class="entry">
7202       <div class="title">
7203         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
7204       </div>
7205       <div class="date">
7206         15th August 2010
7207       </div>
7208       <div class="body">
7209         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
7210 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
7211 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
7212 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
7213 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
7214 long time.</p>
7215
7216       </div>
7217       <div class="tags">
7218
7219
7220         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>.
7221
7222
7223       </div>
7224     </div>
7225     <div class="padding"></div>
7226
7227     <div class="entry">
7228       <div class="title">
7229         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
7230       </div>
7231       <div class="date">
7232          9th August 2010
7233       </div>
7234       <div class="body">
7235         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
7236 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
7237 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
7238 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
7239 generated configuration.</p>
7240
7241 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
7242 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
7243 without any manual configuration.</p>
7244
7245 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
7246 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
7247 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
7248 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
7249 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
7250 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
7251 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
7252 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
7253 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
7254 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
7255 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
7256 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
7257 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
7258 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
7259 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
7260 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
7261 use.</p>
7262
7263 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
7264 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
7265 working properly out of the box:</p>
7266
7267 <ul>
7268 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
7269 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
7270 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
7271 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
7272 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
7273 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
7274 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
7275 </ul>
7276
7277 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
7278
7279 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
7280 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
7281 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
7282 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
7283 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
7284
7285 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
7286 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
7287 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
7288 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
7289 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
7290 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
7291 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
7292 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
7293
7294 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
7295 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
7296 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
7297 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
7298 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
7299 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
7300 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
7301 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
7302 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
7303 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
7304 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
7305 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
7306 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
7307 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
7308 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
7309 current DNS domain is used.</p>
7310
7311 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
7312 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
7313 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
7314 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
7315 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
7316 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
7317 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
7318 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
7319 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
7320 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
7321 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
7322 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
7323 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
7324
7325 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
7326 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
7327 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
7328 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
7329 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
7330 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
7331 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
7332 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
7333 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
7334 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
7335 do for now. :)</p>
7336
7337 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
7338 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
7339 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
7340 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
7341 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
7342 yet.</p>
7343
7344 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
7345 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7346
7347 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
7348 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
7349 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
7350 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
7351
7352       </div>
7353       <div class="tags">
7354
7355
7356         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>.
7357
7358
7359       </div>
7360     </div>
7361     <div class="padding"></div>
7362
7363     <div class="entry">
7364       <div class="title">
7365         <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>
7366       </div>
7367       <div class="date">
7368          8th August 2010
7369       </div>
7370       <div class="body">
7371         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
7372 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
7373 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
7374 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
7375 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
7376 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
7377 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
7378
7379 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
7380 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
7381 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
7382 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
7383 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
7384 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
7385 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
7386
7387 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
7388 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
7389 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
7390 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
7391 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
7392
7393 <pre>
7394 /*
7395  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
7396  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
7397  * directory.
7398  * License: GPL v2 or later
7399  *
7400  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
7401  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
7402 */
7403
7404 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
7405 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
7406 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
7407
7408 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
7409
7410 #include &lt;errno.h>
7411 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
7412 #include &lt;stdio.h>
7413 #include &lt;string.h>
7414 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
7415 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
7416 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
7417 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
7418 #include &lt;unistd.h>
7419
7420 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
7421 /*
7422  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
7423  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
7424  * below.
7425  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
7426  */
7427 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
7428 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
7429   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
7430 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
7431   char *zErrMsg;
7432   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
7433   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
7434   unlink(name);
7435   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
7436   if( rc ){
7437     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
7438     sqlite3_close(db);
7439     return -1;
7440   }
7441
7442   /* create tables */
7443   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
7444   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
7445     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
7446     sqlite3_close(db);
7447     return -1;
7448   }
7449   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
7450   sqlite3_close(db);
7451   return 0;
7452 }
7453 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
7454
7455 /*
7456  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
7457  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
7458  * done in the sqlite3 library.
7459  * See also
7460  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
7461  * POSIX specification
7462  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
7463  */
7464 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
7465   struct flock fl;
7466   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
7467   unlink(name);
7468   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
7469   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
7470
7471   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
7472   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
7473   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
7474   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
7475   fl.l_len    = 1;
7476   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
7477   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7478
7479   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
7480   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
7481   fl.l_len    = 510;
7482   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
7483   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7484
7485   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
7486   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
7487   fl.l_len    = 1;
7488   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
7489   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7490
7491   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
7492   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
7493   fl.l_len    = 1;
7494   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
7495   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7496
7497   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
7498   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
7499   fl.l_len    = 510;
7500   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7501
7502   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
7503   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
7504   fl.l_len    = 2;
7505   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
7506   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7507
7508   close(fd);
7509   return 0;
7510 }
7511
7512 /*
7513  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
7514  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
7515  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
7516  * slowing down file operations.
7517  */
7518 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
7519 #define LEVELS 5
7520   char *path = strdup("test");
7521   char *dirs[LEVELS];
7522   int level;
7523   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
7524   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
7525     char *newpath = NULL;
7526     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
7527       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
7528              path, strerror(errno));
7529       break;
7530     }
7531     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
7532     free(path);
7533     path = newpath;
7534   }
7535   return 0;
7536 }
7537
7538 /*
7539  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
7540  * KDE.
7541  */
7542 int test_symlinks(void) {
7543   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
7544   unlink("symlink");
7545   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
7546     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
7547   return 0;
7548 }
7549
7550 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
7551   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
7552   test_symlinks();
7553   test_subdirectory_creation();
7554 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
7555   test_sqlite_open();
7556 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
7557   test_gcompris_locking();
7558   return 0;
7559 }
7560 </pre>
7561
7562 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
7563 this:</p>
7564
7565 <pre>
7566 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
7567 info: testing symlink creation
7568 info: testing subdirectory creation
7569 info: sqlite worked
7570 info: testing fcntl locking
7571   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
7572   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
7573   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
7574   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
7575   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
7576   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
7577 </pre>
7578
7579 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
7580 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
7581 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
7582 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
7583 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
7584 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
7585 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
7586 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
7587
7588 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
7589 it. :)</p>
7590
7591 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
7592 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
7593 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
7594
7595       </div>
7596       <div class="tags">
7597
7598
7599         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>.
7600
7601
7602       </div>
7603     </div>
7604     <div class="padding"></div>
7605
7606     <div class="entry">
7607       <div class="title">
7608         <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>
7609       </div>
7610       <div class="date">
7611          7th August 2010
7612       </div>
7613       <div class="body">
7614         <p>A few days ago, I
7615 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
7616 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
7617 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
7618 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
7619 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
7620 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
7621 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
7622 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
7623 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
7624
7625 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
7626 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
7627 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
7628 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
7629 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
7630 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
7631 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
7632 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
7633 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
7634 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
7635 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
7636 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
7637 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
7638 gave it a IP address.</p>
7639
7640 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
7641 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
7642 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
7643 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
7644 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
7645 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
7646 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
7647 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
7648
7649 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
7650 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
7651 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
7652 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
7653 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
7654 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
7655
7656 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
7657 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
7658 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
7659 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
7660 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
7661 with UID and GID values.</p>
7662
7663 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
7664 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7665
7666       </div>
7667       <div class="tags">
7668
7669
7670         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>.
7671
7672
7673       </div>
7674     </div>
7675     <div class="padding"></div>
7676
7677     <div class="entry">
7678       <div class="title">
7679         <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>
7680       </div>
7681       <div class="date">
7682          3rd August 2010
7683       </div>
7684       <div class="body">
7685         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
7686 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
7687 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
7688 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
7689 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
7690 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
7691 servers.</p>
7692
7693 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
7694 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
7695 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
7696 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
7697 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
7698 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
7699 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
7700 .uio.no.</p>
7701
7702 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
7703 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
7704 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
7705 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
7706 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
7707 university servers.</p>
7708
7709 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
7710 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
7711 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
7712 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
7713 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
7714 uses.</p>
7715
7716       </div>
7717       <div class="tags">
7718
7719
7720         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>.
7721
7722
7723       </div>
7724     </div>
7725     <div class="padding"></div>
7726
7727     <div class="entry">
7728       <div class="title">
7729         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
7730       </div>
7731       <div class="date">
7732         27th July 2010
7733       </div>
7734       <div class="body">
7735         <p>I discovered this while doing
7736 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
7737 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
7738 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
7739 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
7740 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
7741
7742 <p>An example is from todays
7743 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
7744 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
7745 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
7746 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
7747 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
7748 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
7749 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
7750
7751 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
7752
7753 <blockquote><pre>
7754 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
7755  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
7756   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
7757 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
7758  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
7759 </pre></blockquote>
7760
7761 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
7762 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
7763 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
7764 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
7765 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
7766 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
7767 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
7768 of dependency loops.</p>
7769
7770 <p>Thanks to
7771 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
7772 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
7773 dependencies
7774 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
7775 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
7776
7777 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
7778 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
7779 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
7780 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
7781 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
7782 it.</p>
7783
7784       </div>
7785       <div class="tags">
7786
7787
7788         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>.
7789
7790
7791       </div>
7792     </div>
7793     <div class="padding"></div>
7794
7795     <div class="entry">
7796       <div class="title">
7797         <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>
7798       </div>
7799       <div class="date">
7800         27th July 2010
7801       </div>
7802       <div class="body">
7803         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
7804 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
7805 completed.</p>
7806
7807 <blockquote>
7808 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
7809 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
7810 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
7811 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
7812 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
7813 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
7814 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
7815 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
7816
7817 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
7818 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
7819 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
7820
7821 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
7822 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
7823 much.</p>
7824
7825 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
7826
7827 <ul>
7828 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
7829 <ul>
7830   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
7831          combination with some new artwork
7832   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
7833   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
7834   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
7835   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
7836   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
7837   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
7838   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
7839   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
7840   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
7841 </ul></li>
7842 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
7843     Enabled for:
7844 <ul>
7845   <li>PAM
7846   <li>LDAP
7847   <li>IMAP
7848   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
7849 </ul>
7850 </li>
7851 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
7852 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
7853     fetched from LDAP.</li>
7854 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
7855 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
7856 </ul>
7857 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
7858
7859 <ul>
7860 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
7861     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
7862     for testing.</li>
7863 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
7864     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
7865     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
7866 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
7867 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
7868 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
7869 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
7870     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
7871 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
7872     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
7873     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
7874 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
7875     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
7876     and help out with translations.</li>
7877 </ul>
7878
7879 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
7880
7881 <ul>
7882 <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>
7883 <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>
7884 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
7885 </ul>
7886 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
7887
7888 <ul>
7889 <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>
7890 <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>
7891 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
7892 </ul>
7893
7894 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
7895 get closer to the final release.</p>
7896
7897 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
7898
7899 <ul>
7900 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
7901 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
7902 </ul>
7903
7904 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
7905 <ul>
7906 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
7907 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
7908 </ul>
7909 <p>How to report bugs:
7910 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
7911
7912 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
7913 </blockquote>
7914
7915       </div>
7916       <div class="tags">
7917
7918
7919         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>.
7920
7921
7922       </div>
7923     </div>
7924     <div class="padding"></div>
7925
7926     <div class="entry">
7927       <div class="title">
7928         <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>
7929       </div>
7930       <div class="date">
7931         25th July 2010
7932       </div>
7933       <div class="body">
7934         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
7935 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
7936 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
7937 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
7938 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
7939
7940 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
7941 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
7942 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
7943 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
7944 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
7945 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
7946 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
7947
7948 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
7949 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
7950 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
7951 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
7952 up. :)</p>
7953
7954 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
7955 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
7956 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
7957
7958 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
7959 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
7960 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
7961 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
7962 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
7963 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
7964 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
7965 release another day.</p>
7966
7967 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
7968 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7969
7970       </div>
7971       <div class="tags">
7972
7973
7974         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>.
7975
7976
7977       </div>
7978     </div>
7979     <div class="padding"></div>
7980
7981     <div class="entry">
7982       <div class="title">
7983         <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>
7984       </div>
7985       <div class="date">
7986         18th July 2010
7987       </div>
7988       <div class="body">
7989         <p>Thanks to
7990 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
7991 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
7992 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
7993 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
7994 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
7995 only available from the development server, until more experience is
7996 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
7997
7998 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
7999 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
8000 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
8001 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
8002 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
8003 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
8004 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
8005
8006       </div>
8007       <div class="tags">
8008
8009
8010         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>.
8011
8012
8013       </div>
8014     </div>
8015     <div class="padding"></div>
8016
8017     <div class="entry">
8018       <div class="title">
8019         <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>
8020       </div>
8021       <div class="date">
8022         17th July 2010
8023       </div>
8024       <div class="body">
8025         <p>This is a
8026 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
8027 on my
8028 <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
8029 work</a> on
8030 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
8031 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
8032
8033 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
8034 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
8035 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
8036 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
8037
8038 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
8039 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
8040 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
8041
8042 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
8043
8044 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
8045 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
8046 the web.
8047
8048 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
8049 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
8050 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
8051 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
8052 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
8053 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
8054
8055 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
8056 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
8057 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
8058 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
8059 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
8060 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
8061 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
8062 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
8063 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
8064 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
8065 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
8066 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
8067 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
8068 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
8069 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
8070 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
8071
8072 <blockquote><pre>
8073 ldapsearch -h ldap \
8074   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
8075   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
8076   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
8077   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
8078   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
8079   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
8080
8081 ldapsearch -h ldap \
8082   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
8083   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
8084   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
8085   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
8086   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
8087 </pre></blockquote>
8088
8089 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
8090 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
8091 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
8092 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8093 also exist.</p>
8094
8095 <blockquote><pre>
8096 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8097 objectclass: top
8098 objectclass: dnsdomain
8099 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8100 dc: tjener
8101 arecord: 10.0.2.2
8102 associateddomain: tjener.intern
8103
8104 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8105 objectclass: top
8106 objectclass: dnsdomain2
8107 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8108 dc: 2
8109 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
8110 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
8111 </pre></blockquote>
8112
8113 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
8114 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
8115 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
8116 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
8117 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
8118 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
8119 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
8120 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
8121 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
8122 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
8123 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
8124 instead.</p>
8125
8126 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
8127 like this:</p>
8128
8129 <blockquote><pre>
8130 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
8131   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
8132   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
8133   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
8134   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
8135   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
8136
8137 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
8138   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
8139 </pre></blockquote>
8140
8141 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
8142 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
8143 reverse lookups.</p>
8144
8145 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
8146 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
8147 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
8148 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
8149
8150 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
8151 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
8152 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
8153
8154 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
8155 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
8156 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
8157 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
8158 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
8159
8160 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
8161 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
8162 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
8163 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
8164 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
8165
8166 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
8167 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
8168 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
8169 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
8170 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
8171 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
8172
8173 <blockquote><pre>
8174 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
8175     SUP top
8176     AUXILIARY
8177     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
8178           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
8179           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
8180           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
8181           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
8182     ))
8183 </pre></blockquote>
8184
8185 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
8186 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
8187 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
8188 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
8189 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
8190 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
8191
8192 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
8193
8194 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
8195 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
8196 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
8197 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
8198 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
8199
8200 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
8201 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
8202 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
8203 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
8204
8205 <blockquote><pre>
8206 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
8207 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
8208 </pre></blockquote>
8209
8210 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
8211 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
8212 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
8213 search result is this entry:</p>
8214
8215 <blockquote><pre>
8216 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8217 cn: dhcp
8218 objectClass: top
8219 objectClass: dhcpServer
8220 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8221 </pre></blockquote>
8222
8223 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
8224 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
8225 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
8226 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
8227 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
8228 The search result is this entry:</p>
8229
8230 <blockquote><pre>
8231 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8232 cn: DHCP Config
8233 objectClass: top
8234 objectClass: dhcpService
8235 objectClass: dhcpOptions
8236 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8237 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
8238 dhcpStatements: authoritative
8239 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
8240 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
8241 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
8242 </pre></blockquote>
8243
8244 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
8245 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
8246 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
8247 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
8248 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
8249 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
8250 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
8251 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
8252 related computer objects.</p>
8253
8254 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
8255 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
8256 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
8257 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
8258 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
8259 like:</p>
8260
8261 <blockquote><pre>
8262 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8263 cn: hostname
8264 objectClass: top
8265 objectClass: dhcpHost
8266 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
8267 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
8268 </pre></blockquote>
8269
8270 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
8271 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
8272 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
8273 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
8274 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
8275 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
8276 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
8277 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
8278 structural object class.
8279
8280 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
8281
8282 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
8283 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
8284 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
8285 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
8286 in the configuration.</p>
8287
8288 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
8289 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
8290 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
8291 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
8292 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
8293 structure.</p>
8294
8295 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
8296 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
8297
8298 <blockquote><pre>
8299 ou=services
8300   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
8301     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
8302     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
8303       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
8304         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
8305     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
8306       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
8307         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
8308     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
8309       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
8310 </pre></blockquote>
8311
8312 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
8313 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
8314 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
8315 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
8316
8317 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
8318 like this:</p>
8319
8320 <blockquote><pre>
8321 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8322 dc: hostname
8323 objectClass: top
8324 objectClass: dhcpHost
8325 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8326 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
8327 associateddomain: hostname.intern
8328 arecord: 10.11.12.13
8329 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
8330 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
8331 </pre></blockquote>
8332
8333 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
8334 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
8335 auxiliary object class.</p>
8336
8337       </div>
8338       <div class="tags">
8339
8340
8341         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>.
8342
8343
8344       </div>
8345     </div>
8346     <div class="padding"></div>
8347
8348     <div class="entry">
8349       <div class="title">
8350         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
8351       </div>
8352       <div class="date">
8353         14th July 2010
8354       </div>
8355       <div class="body">
8356         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
8357 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
8358 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
8359 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
8360 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
8361
8362 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
8363 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
8364
8365 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
8366 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
8367 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
8368 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
8369 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
8370 to a slave DNS server.</p>
8371
8372 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
8373 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
8374 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
8375 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
8376 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
8377 seem to work.</p>
8378
8379 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
8380 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
8381 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
8382 this:</p>
8383
8384 <blockquote><pre>
8385   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8386   cn: hostname
8387   objectClass: dhcphost
8388   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8389   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
8390   associateddomain: hostname.intern
8391   arecord: 10.11.12.13
8392   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
8393   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
8394   ldapconfigsound: Y
8395 </pre></blockquote>
8396
8397 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
8398 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
8399 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
8400 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
8401
8402 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
8403 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
8404 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
8405 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
8406 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
8407 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
8408 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
8409 might be a good place to put it.</p>
8410
8411 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8412 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8413
8414       </div>
8415       <div class="tags">
8416
8417
8418         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>.
8419
8420
8421       </div>
8422     </div>
8423     <div class="padding"></div>
8424
8425     <div class="entry">
8426       <div class="title">
8427         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
8428       </div>
8429       <div class="date">
8430         11th July 2010
8431       </div>
8432       <div class="body">
8433         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
8434 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
8435 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
8436 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
8437
8438 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
8439 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
8440 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
8441 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
8442 LTSP clients.</p>
8443
8444 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
8445 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
8446 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
8447
8448 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
8449 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
8450 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
8451
8452 <blockquote><pre>
8453 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
8454 #
8455 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
8456 #
8457 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
8458 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
8459 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
8460 #
8461 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
8462 # existence of attribute names.
8463 #
8464 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
8465 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
8466 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
8467 #
8468 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
8469 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
8470 #
8471 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
8472 #     SUP top
8473 #     AUXILIARY
8474 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
8475
8476 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
8477 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
8478     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
8479     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
8480         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
8481         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
8482             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
8483             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
8484             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
8485             # bass value on to clients
8486             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
8487         done
8488     done
8489 fi
8490 </pre></blockquote>
8491
8492 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
8493 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
8494 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
8495 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
8496 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
8497
8498 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8499 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8500
8501 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
8502 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
8503 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
8504 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
8505 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
8506 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
8507
8508       </div>
8509       <div class="tags">
8510
8511
8512         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>.
8513
8514
8515       </div>
8516     </div>
8517     <div class="padding"></div>
8518
8519     <div class="entry">
8520       <div class="title">
8521         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
8522       </div>
8523       <div class="date">
8524          9th July 2010
8525       </div>
8526       <div class="body">
8527         <p>Since
8528 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
8529 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
8530 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
8531 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
8532 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
8533 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
8534 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
8535 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
8536 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
8537 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
8538 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
8539 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
8540 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
8541
8542       </div>
8543       <div class="tags">
8544
8545
8546         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>.
8547
8548
8549       </div>
8550     </div>
8551     <div class="padding"></div>
8552
8553     <div class="entry">
8554       <div class="title">
8555         <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>
8556       </div>
8557       <div class="date">
8558          3rd July 2010
8559       </div>
8560       <div class="body">
8561         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
8562 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
8563 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
8564 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
8565 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
8566 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
8567 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
8568 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
8569
8570 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
8571 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
8572 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
8573 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
8574 publish the difference.</p>
8575
8576 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8577
8578 <blockquote><p>
8579   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8580   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
8581   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
8582   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
8583   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
8584   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
8585   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
8586   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
8587 </p></blockquote>
8588
8589 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8590
8591 <blockquote><p>
8592   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
8593   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
8594   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
8595   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
8596   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
8597   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
8598   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
8599   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
8600   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
8601   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
8602   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
8603   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
8604   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
8605   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
8606   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
8607   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
8608   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
8609   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
8610   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
8611   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
8612 </p></blockquote>
8613
8614 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8615
8616 <blockquote><p>
8617   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
8618   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
8619   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8620   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8621   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
8622   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
8623   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
8624   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8625   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8626   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8627   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8628   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
8629   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
8630   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
8631   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
8632   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
8633   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
8634   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
8635   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
8636   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
8637   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
8638 </p></blockquote>
8639
8640 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8641
8642 <blockquote><p>
8643   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
8644   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
8645   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
8646 </p></blockquote>
8647
8648 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
8649 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
8650 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
8651 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
8652 the difference somewhat.
8653
8654       </div>
8655       <div class="tags">
8656
8657
8658         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>.
8659
8660
8661       </div>
8662     </div>
8663     <div class="padding"></div>
8664
8665     <div class="entry">
8666       <div class="title">
8667         <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>
8668       </div>
8669       <div class="date">
8670          1st July 2010
8671       </div>
8672       <div class="body">
8673         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
8674 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
8675 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
8676 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
8677 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
8678 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
8679 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
8680 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
8681 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
8682
8683 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
8684
8685 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
8686 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
8687 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
8688 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
8689 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
8690 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
8691 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
8692 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
8693 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
8694 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
8695 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
8696 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
8697 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
8698 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
8699 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
8700
8701 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
8702
8703 <blockquote><pre>
8704 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
8705 </pre></blockquote>
8706
8707 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
8708 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
8709 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
8710 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
8711 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
8712 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
8713 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
8714 on how to get this working.</p>
8715
8716 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
8717 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
8718 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
8719 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
8720 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
8721 instructions I found in the
8722 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
8723 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
8724
8725 <blockquote><pre>
8726         debug-level             0
8727         reload-count            unlimited
8728         paranoia                no
8729
8730         enable-cache            passwd          yes
8731         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
8732         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
8733         suggested-size          passwd          211
8734         check-files             passwd          yes
8735         persistent              passwd          yes
8736         shared                  passwd          yes
8737         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
8738         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
8739
8740         enable-cache            group           yes
8741         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
8742         negative-time-to-live   group           20
8743         suggested-size          group           211
8744         check-files             group           yes
8745         persistent              group           yes
8746         shared                  group           yes
8747         max-db-size             group           33554432
8748         auto-propagate          group           yes
8749
8750         enable-cache            hosts           no
8751         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
8752         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
8753         suggested-size          hosts           211
8754         check-files             hosts           yes
8755         persistent              hosts           yes
8756         shared                  hosts           yes
8757         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
8758
8759         enable-cache            services        yes
8760         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
8761         negative-time-to-live   services        20
8762         suggested-size          services        211
8763         check-files             services        yes
8764         persistent              services        yes
8765         shared                  services        yes
8766         max-db-size             services        33554432
8767 </pre></blockquote>
8768
8769 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
8770 automatically like the one provided in
8771 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
8772 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
8773 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
8774 look like this:</p>
8775
8776 <blockquote><pre>
8777 passwd:         files ldap
8778 group:          files ldap
8779 shadow:         files ldap
8780 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
8781 networks:       files
8782 protocols:      files
8783 services:       files
8784 ethers:         files
8785 rpc:            files
8786 netgroup:       files ldap
8787 </pre></blockquote>
8788
8789 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
8790 shadow and netgroup.</p>
8791
8792 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
8793 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
8794 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
8795 attributes cached.
8796
8797 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
8798   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
8799
8800 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
8801 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
8802 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
8803 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
8804 discovered sssd.</p>
8805
8806 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
8807
8808 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
8809 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
8810 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
8811 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
8812 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
8813 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
8814 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
8815 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
8816 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
8817 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
8818 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
8819 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
8820 version 1.2 is now in testing.
8821
8822 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
8823 roaming setup I want</p>
8824
8825 <blockquote><pre>
8826 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
8827 </pre></blockquote>
8828
8829 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
8830 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
8831
8832 <blockquote><pre>
8833 [sssd]
8834 config_file_version = 2
8835 reconnection_retries = 3
8836 sbus_timeout = 30
8837 services = nss, pam
8838 domains = INTERN
8839
8840 [nss]
8841 filter_groups = root
8842 filter_users = root
8843 reconnection_retries = 3
8844
8845 [pam]
8846 reconnection_retries = 3
8847
8848 [domain/INTERN]
8849 enumerate = false
8850 cache_credentials = true
8851
8852 id_provider = ldap
8853 auth_provider = ldap
8854 chpass_provider = ldap
8855
8856 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
8857 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8858 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
8859 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
8860 </pre></blockquote>
8861
8862 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
8863 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
8864
8865 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
8866 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
8867 modify it manually.</p>
8868
8869 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8870 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8871
8872       </div>
8873       <div class="tags">
8874
8875
8876         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>.
8877
8878
8879       </div>
8880     </div>
8881     <div class="padding"></div>
8882
8883     <div class="entry">
8884       <div class="title">
8885         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
8886       </div>
8887       <div class="date">
8888         28th June 2010
8889       </div>
8890       <div class="body">
8891         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
8892 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
8893 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
8894 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
8895 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
8896 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
8897 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
8898 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
8899 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
8900 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
8901
8902 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
8903 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
8904 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
8905 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
8906 released.</p>
8907
8908 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
8909 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
8910 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
8911 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
8912
8913 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
8914 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8915
8916 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
8917 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
8918 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
8919 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
8920 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
8921
8922       </div>
8923       <div class="tags">
8924
8925
8926         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>.
8927
8928
8929       </div>
8930     </div>
8931     <div class="padding"></div>
8932
8933     <div class="entry">
8934       <div class="title">
8935         <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>
8936       </div>
8937       <div class="date">
8938         24th June 2010
8939       </div>
8940       <div class="body">
8941         <p>A while back, I
8942 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
8943 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
8944 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
8945 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
8946
8947 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
8948 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
8949 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
8950 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
8951
8952 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
8953 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
8954 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
8955 Debian Edu.</p>
8956
8957 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
8958 the
8959 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
8960 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
8961 available today from IETF.</p>
8962
8963 <pre>
8964 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
8965 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
8966 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
8967  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
8968         NAME 'dhcpHost'
8969         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
8970 -       SUP top
8971 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
8972         MUST cn
8973         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
8974         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
8975 </pre>
8976
8977 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
8978 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
8979 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
8980
8981 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8982 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8983
8984       </div>
8985       <div class="tags">
8986
8987
8988         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>.
8989
8990
8991       </div>
8992     </div>
8993     <div class="padding"></div>
8994
8995     <div class="entry">
8996       <div class="title">
8997         <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>
8998       </div>
8999       <div class="date">
9000         16th June 2010
9001       </div>
9002       <div class="body">
9003         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
9004 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
9005 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
9006 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
9007 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
9008 this:
9009
9010 <blockquote><pre>
9011 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9012 tasksel --new-install
9013 </pre></blockquote>
9014
9015 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
9016 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
9017 any output what so ever.
9018
9019 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
9020 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
9021 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
9022 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
9023 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
9024 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
9025 code like this:
9026
9027 <blockquote><pre>
9028 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9029 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
9030 $cmd
9031 </pre></blockquote>
9032
9033 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
9034 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
9035 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
9036 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
9037 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
9038 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
9039 installation.</p>
9040
9041 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
9042 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
9043 like this.</p>
9044
9045       </div>
9046       <div class="tags">
9047
9048
9049         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>.
9050
9051
9052       </div>
9053     </div>
9054     <div class="padding"></div>
9055
9056     <div class="entry">
9057       <div class="title">
9058         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
9059       </div>
9060       <div class="date">
9061         13th June 2010
9062       </div>
9063       <div class="body">
9064         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
9065 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
9066 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
9067 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
9068 pages.</p>
9069
9070 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
9071 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
9072 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
9073 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
9074 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
9075 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
9076 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
9077 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
9078 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
9079 see how the project is doing.</p>
9080
9081 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
9082 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
9083 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
9084 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
9085 Windows.  This is great.</p>
9086
9087       </div>
9088       <div class="tags">
9089
9090
9091         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>.
9092
9093
9094       </div>
9095     </div>
9096     <div class="padding"></div>
9097
9098     <div class="entry">
9099       <div class="title">
9100         <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>
9101       </div>
9102       <div class="date">
9103         13th June 2010
9104       </div>
9105       <div class="body">
9106         <p>My
9107 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
9108 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
9109 finally made the upgrade logs available from
9110 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
9111 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
9112 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
9113 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
9114
9115 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
9116 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
9117 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
9118 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
9119 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
9120 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
9121 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
9122 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
9123
9124 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
9125 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
9126 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
9127 too surprising.</p>
9128
9129 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
9130 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
9131 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
9132 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
9133 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
9134 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
9135 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
9136 continue.</p>
9137
9138 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
9139 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
9140   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
9141   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
9142   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
9143   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
9144   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
9145   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9146   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9147   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
9148   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
9149   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
9150   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
9151   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9152   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9153   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9154   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9155   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9156   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
9157   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
9158   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
9159   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
9160   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
9161   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
9162   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
9163   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
9164   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
9165   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
9166   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
9167   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
9168
9169 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
9170
9171 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
9172   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
9173   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
9174   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
9175   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
9176   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
9177   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
9178   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
9179   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
9180   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
9181   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
9182   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
9183   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
9184   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
9185   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
9186   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
9187   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
9188   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
9189   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
9190   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
9191   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
9192   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
9193   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
9194   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
9195   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
9196   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
9197   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
9198   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
9199   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
9200   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9201   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
9202   zip</p>
9203
9204 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
9205
9206 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
9207   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
9208   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
9209   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
9210   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
9211   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
9212   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9213   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9214   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
9215   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
9216   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
9217   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
9218   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9219   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9220   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9221   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9222   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9223   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
9224   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
9225   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
9226   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
9227   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
9228   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
9229   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
9230   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
9231   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
9232   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
9233   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
9234
9235 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
9236 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
9237   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
9238   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
9239   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
9240   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
9241   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
9242   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
9243   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
9244   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
9245   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
9246   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
9247   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
9248   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
9249   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
9250   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
9251   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
9252   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
9253   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
9254   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
9255   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
9256   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
9257   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
9258   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
9259   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
9260   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
9261   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
9262   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
9263   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
9264   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
9265   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
9266   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
9267   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
9268   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
9269   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
9270   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9271   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
9272   xulrunner-1.9</p>
9273
9274
9275       </div>
9276       <div class="tags">
9277
9278
9279         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>.
9280
9281
9282       </div>
9283     </div>
9284     <div class="padding"></div>
9285
9286     <div class="entry">
9287       <div class="title">
9288         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
9289       </div>
9290       <div class="date">
9291         11th June 2010
9292       </div>
9293       <div class="body">
9294         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
9295 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
9296 have been discovered and reported in the process
9297 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
9298 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
9299 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
9300 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
9301 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
9302
9303 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
9304 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
9305 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
9306 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
9307 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
9308 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
9309
9310 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
9311 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
9312 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
9313 is created.  The bug report
9314 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
9315 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
9316 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
9317 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
9318 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
9319 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
9320 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
9321 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
9322 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
9323 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
9324 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
9325 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
9326 Debian Squeeze.</p>
9327
9328 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
9329 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
9330 trick:</p>
9331
9332 <blockquote><pre>
9333 #!/bin/sh
9334 set -ex
9335
9336 if [ "$1" ] ; then
9337     desktop=$1
9338 else
9339     desktop=gnome
9340 fi
9341
9342 from=lenny
9343 to=squeeze
9344
9345 exec &lt; /dev/null
9346 unset LANG
9347 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
9348 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
9349 fuser -mv .
9350 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
9351 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
9352 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
9353 #!/bin/sh
9354 exit 101
9355 EOF
9356 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
9357 exit_cleanup() {
9358     umount $tmpdir/proc
9359 }
9360 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
9361 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
9362 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
9363
9364 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
9365
9366 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
9367 # to return the correct answers.
9368 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
9369     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
9370
9371 # Include the desktop and laptop task
9372 for test in desktop laptop ; do
9373     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
9374 #!/bin/sh
9375 exit 2
9376 EOF
9377     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
9378 done
9379
9380 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9381 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
9382 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
9383 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
9384
9385 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
9386 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
9387 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
9388 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
9389 fuser -mv
9390 </pre></blockquote>
9391
9392 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
9393 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
9394 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
9395 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
9396 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
9397 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
9398
9399 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
9400 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
9401 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
9402 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
9403 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
9404 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
9405 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
9406
9407 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
9408 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
9409 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
9410 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
9411 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
9412 packages.</p>
9413
9414       </div>
9415       <div class="tags">
9416
9417
9418         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>.
9419
9420
9421       </div>
9422     </div>
9423     <div class="padding"></div>
9424
9425     <div class="entry">
9426       <div class="title">
9427         <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>
9428       </div>
9429       <div class="date">
9430          6th June 2010
9431       </div>
9432       <div class="body">
9433         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
9434 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
9435 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
9436 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
9437 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
9438 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
9439 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
9440
9441 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
9442 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
9443 COLUMNS):</p>
9444
9445 <blockquote><pre>
9446 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
9447 previous=N
9448 PREVLEVEL=
9449 RUNLEVEL=
9450 runlevel=S
9451 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
9452 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
9453 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
9454 </pre></blockquote>
9455
9456 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
9457 script.</p>
9458
9459 <blockquote><pre>
9460 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
9461 previous=N
9462 PREVLEVEL=N
9463 RUNLEVEL=S
9464 runlevel=S
9465 </pre></blockquote>
9466
9467 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
9468 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
9469 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
9470
9471 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
9472 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
9473 choice.</p>
9474
9475       </div>
9476       <div class="tags">
9477
9478
9479         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>.
9480
9481
9482       </div>
9483     </div>
9484     <div class="padding"></div>
9485
9486     <div class="entry">
9487       <div class="title">
9488         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
9489       </div>
9490       <div class="date">
9491          6th June 2010
9492       </div>
9493       <div class="body">
9494         <p>Via the
9495 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
9496 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
9497 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
9498 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
9499 following the standards wars of today.</p>
9500
9501       </div>
9502       <div class="tags">
9503
9504
9505         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>.
9506
9507
9508       </div>
9509     </div>
9510     <div class="padding"></div>
9511
9512     <div class="entry">
9513       <div class="title">
9514         <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>
9515       </div>
9516       <div class="date">
9517          3rd June 2010
9518       </div>
9519       <div class="body">
9520         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
9521 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
9522 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
9523 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
9524 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
9525
9526 <blockquote><pre>
9527 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
9528   vendor                    count
9529   Dell Computer Corporation     1
9530     PowerEdge 1750              1
9531   IBM                           1
9532     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
9533   Intel                         2
9534   [no-dmi-info]                 3
9535 maintainer:~#
9536 </pre></blockquote>
9537
9538 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
9539 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
9540 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
9541 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
9542 option to list the individual machines.</p>
9543
9544 <p>A larger list is
9545 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
9546 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
9547 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
9548 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
9549 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
9550 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
9551 collector.</p>
9552
9553       </div>
9554       <div class="tags">
9555
9556
9557         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>.
9558
9559
9560       </div>
9561     </div>
9562     <div class="padding"></div>
9563
9564     <div class="entry">
9565       <div class="title">
9566         <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>
9567       </div>
9568       <div class="date">
9569          1st June 2010
9570       </div>
9571       <div class="body">
9572         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
9573 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
9574 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
9575 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
9576 wait.</p>
9577
9578 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
9579 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
9580 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
9581 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
9582 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
9583 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
9584
9585 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
9586 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
9587 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
9588 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
9589 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
9590 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
9591 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
9592 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
9593
9594 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
9595
9596       </div>
9597       <div class="tags">
9598
9599
9600         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>.
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/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
9610       </div>
9611       <div class="date">
9612         27th May 2010
9613       </div>
9614       <div class="body">
9615         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
9616 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
9617 issues are known and should be solved:
9618
9619 <p><ul>
9620
9621 <li>The wicd package seen to
9622 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
9623 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
9624 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
9625 seem to be on the case.</li>
9626
9627 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
9628 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
9629 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
9630 maintainer is on the case.</li>
9631
9632 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
9633 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
9634 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
9635 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
9636 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
9637 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
9638 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
9639 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
9640
9641 </ul></p>
9642
9643 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
9644 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
9645 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
9646 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
9647
9648 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
9649 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
9650 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
9651 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
9652
9653 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
9654
9655       </div>
9656       <div class="tags">
9657
9658
9659         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>.
9660
9661
9662       </div>
9663     </div>
9664     <div class="padding"></div>
9665
9666     <div class="entry">
9667       <div class="title">
9668         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
9669       </div>
9670       <div class="date">
9671         22nd May 2010
9672       </div>
9673       <div class="body">
9674         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
9675 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
9676 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
9677 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
9678
9679 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
9680 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
9681 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
9682 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
9683 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
9684 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
9685 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
9686 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
9687 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
9688 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
9689 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
9690 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
9691 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
9692 going to work.</p>
9693
9694 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
9695 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
9696 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
9697 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
9698 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
9699 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
9700 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
9701 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
9702 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
9703 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
9704 Edu.</p>
9705
9706 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
9707 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
9708 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
9709 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
9710 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
9711 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
9712
9713 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
9714 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
9715
9716       </div>
9717       <div class="tags">
9718
9719
9720         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>.
9721
9722
9723       </div>
9724     </div>
9725     <div class="padding"></div>
9726
9727     <div class="entry">
9728       <div class="title">
9729         <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>
9730       </div>
9731       <div class="date">
9732         19th May 2010
9733       </div>
9734       <div class="body">
9735         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
9736 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
9737 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
9738 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
9739 into unstable.  The
9740 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
9741 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
9742 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
9743 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
9744 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
9745 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
9746 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
9747
9748 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
9749 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
9750 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
9751 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
9752 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
9753 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
9754 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
9755 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
9756
9757 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
9758 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
9759 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
9760 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
9761 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
9762 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
9763 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
9764
9765 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
9766 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
9767 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
9768 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
9769 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
9770 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
9771 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
9772 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
9773 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
9774 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
9775 on the home directory servers.</p>
9776
9777 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
9778 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
9779 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
9780 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
9781 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
9782 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
9783
9784 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9785 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9786
9787       </div>
9788       <div class="tags">
9789
9790
9791         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>.
9792
9793
9794       </div>
9795     </div>
9796     <div class="padding"></div>
9797
9798     <div class="entry">
9799       <div class="title">
9800         <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>
9801       </div>
9802       <div class="date">
9803         14th May 2010
9804       </div>
9805       <div class="body">
9806         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
9807 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
9808 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
9809 expected, if I am to believe the
9810 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
9811 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
9812 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
9813 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
9814 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
9815 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
9816 version.</p>
9817
9818 More information about
9819 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
9820 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
9821 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
9822 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
9823
9824 <blockquote><pre>
9825 CONCURRENCY=none
9826 </pre></blockquote>
9827
9828 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
9829 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
9830 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
9831 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
9832
9833       </div>
9834       <div class="tags">
9835
9836
9837         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>.
9838
9839
9840       </div>
9841     </div>
9842     <div class="padding"></div>
9843
9844     <div class="entry">
9845       <div class="title">
9846         <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>
9847       </div>
9848       <div class="date">
9849         14th May 2010
9850       </div>
9851       <div class="body">
9852         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
9853 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
9854 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
9855 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
9856 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
9857 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
9858 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
9859 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
9860
9861 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
9862 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
9863 this on the collector host:</p>
9864
9865 <blockquote><pre>
9866 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
9867 </pre></blockquote>
9868
9869 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
9870 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
9871
9872 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
9873 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
9874 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
9875 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
9876 written yet.</p>
9877
9878       </div>
9879       <div class="tags">
9880
9881
9882         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>.
9883
9884
9885       </div>
9886     </div>
9887     <div class="padding"></div>
9888
9889     <div class="entry">
9890       <div class="title">
9891         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
9892       </div>
9893       <div class="date">
9894         13th May 2010
9895       </div>
9896       <div class="body">
9897         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
9898 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
9899 has been
9900 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
9901
9902 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
9903 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
9904 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
9905 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
9906 based boot system.  Tollef is
9907 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
9908 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
9909 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
9910 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
9911 at the moment do not.</p>
9912
9913 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
9914 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
9915 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
9916 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
9917 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
9918 way forward.</p>
9919
9920 <p>In the mean time, based on the
9921 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
9922 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
9923 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
9924 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
9925 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
9926 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
9927 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
9928 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
9929
9930       </div>
9931       <div class="tags">
9932
9933
9934         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>.
9935
9936
9937       </div>
9938     </div>
9939     <div class="padding"></div>
9940
9941     <div class="entry">
9942       <div class="title">
9943         <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>
9944       </div>
9945       <div class="date">
9946          6th May 2010
9947       </div>
9948       <div class="body">
9949         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
9950 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
9951 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
9952 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
9953 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
9954 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
9955 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
9956
9957 <blockquote><pre>
9958 CONCURRENCY=makefile
9959 </pre></blockquote>
9960
9961 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
9962 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
9963 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
9964 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
9965 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
9966 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
9967 make this happen.</p>
9968
9969 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
9970 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
9971 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
9972 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
9973 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
9974
9975 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
9976 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
9977 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
9978 fix the remaining issues.</p>
9979
9980 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
9981 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
9982 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
9983 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
9984
9985       </div>
9986       <div class="tags">
9987
9988
9989         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>.
9990
9991
9992       </div>
9993     </div>
9994     <div class="padding"></div>
9995
9996     <div class="entry">
9997       <div class="title">
9998         <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>
9999       </div>
10000       <div class="date">
10001          2nd May 2010
10002       </div>
10003       <div class="body">
10004         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
10005 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
10006 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
10007
10008 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
10009 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
10010 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
10011 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
10012 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
10013
10014 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
10015 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
10016
10017 <blockquote><pre>
10018 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
10019 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
10020 Password expires                                        : never
10021 Password inactive                                       : never
10022 Account expires                                         : never
10023 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
10024 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
10025 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
10026 root@tjener:~#
10027 </pre></blockquote>
10028
10029 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
10030 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
10031 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
10032 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
10033 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
10034 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
10035
10036 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
10037 intended:</p>
10038
10039 <blockquote><pre>
10040 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
10041 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
10042 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
10043 Password expires                                        : never
10044 Password inactive                                       : never
10045 Account expires                                         : never
10046 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
10047 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
10048 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
10049 root@tjener:~#
10050 </pre></blockquote>
10051
10052 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
10053 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
10054 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
10055
10056 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
10057 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
10058
10059 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
10060 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10061
10062 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
10063 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
10064 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
10065 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
10066 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
10067 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
10068 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
10069
10070 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
10071 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
10072 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
10073 change.</p>
10074
10075       </div>
10076       <div class="tags">
10077
10078
10079         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>.
10080
10081
10082       </div>
10083     </div>
10084     <div class="padding"></div>
10085
10086     <div class="entry">
10087       <div class="title">
10088         <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>
10089       </div>
10090       <div class="date">
10091         28th April 2010
10092       </div>
10093       <div class="body">
10094         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
10095 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
10096 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
10097 and go.</p>
10098
10099 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
10100 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
10101 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
10102 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
10103
10104 <ul>
10105
10106  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
10107    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
10108    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
10109    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
10110    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
10111    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
10112    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
10113    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
10114    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
10115    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
10116    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
10117    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
10118
10119  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
10120    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
10121    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
10122    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
10123    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
10124    or the Fedora developed
10125    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
10126    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
10127
10128  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
10129    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
10130    directory, using unison.</li>
10131
10132  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
10133    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
10134    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
10135    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
10136    implemented.</li>
10137
10138  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
10139    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
10140
10141  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
10142    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
10143    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
10144
10145 </ul>
10146
10147 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
10148 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
10149 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
10150 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
10151 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
10152 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
10153 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
10154 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
10155 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
10156
10157 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10158 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10159
10160       </div>
10161       <div class="tags">
10162
10163
10164         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>.
10165
10166
10167       </div>
10168     </div>
10169     <div class="padding"></div>
10170
10171     <div class="entry">
10172       <div class="title">
10173         <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>
10174       </div>
10175       <div class="date">
10176         19th April 2010
10177       </div>
10178       <div class="body">
10179         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
10180 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
10181 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
10182 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
10183 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
10184 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
10185 restrictions on the web, for example from
10186 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
10187 epub-version from
10188 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
10189 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
10190 strongly recommend this book.</p>
10191
10192       </div>
10193       <div class="tags">
10194
10195
10196         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>.
10197
10198
10199       </div>
10200     </div>
10201     <div class="padding"></div>
10202
10203     <div class="entry">
10204       <div class="title">
10205         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
10206       </div>
10207       <div class="date">
10208         14th April 2010
10209       </div>
10210       <div class="body">
10211         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
10212 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
10213 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
10214 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
10215 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
10216 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
10217 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
10218 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
10219 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
10220
10221 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
10222 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
10223 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
10224 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
10225 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
10226
10227 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
10228 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
10229
10230 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
10231 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
10232 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
10233 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
10234 to work properly.</p>
10235
10236 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
10237 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
10238 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
10239 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
10240 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
10241 time.</p>
10242
10243 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
10244 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
10245 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
10246 up in a few days.</p>
10247
10248       </div>
10249       <div class="tags">
10250
10251
10252         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>.
10253
10254
10255       </div>
10256     </div>
10257     <div class="padding"></div>
10258
10259     <div class="entry">
10260       <div class="title">
10261         <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>
10262       </div>
10263       <div class="date">
10264          6th March 2010
10265       </div>
10266       <div class="body">
10267         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
10268 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
10269 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
10270 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
10271 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
10272 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
10273
10274 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
10275 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
10276 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
10277 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
10278
10279 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
10280 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
10281 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
10282 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
10283 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
10284 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
10285
10286       </div>
10287       <div class="tags">
10288
10289
10290         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>.
10291
10292
10293       </div>
10294     </div>
10295     <div class="padding"></div>
10296
10297     <div class="entry">
10298       <div class="title">
10299         <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>
10300       </div>
10301       <div class="date">
10302         11th February 2010
10303       </div>
10304       <div class="body">
10305         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
10306 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
10307 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
10308 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
10309 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
10310 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
10311 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
10312
10313 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
10314
10315 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
10316 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
10317 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
10318 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
10319
10320       </div>
10321       <div class="tags">
10322
10323
10324         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>.
10325
10326
10327       </div>
10328     </div>
10329     <div class="padding"></div>
10330
10331     <div class="entry">
10332       <div class="title">
10333         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
10334       </div>
10335       <div class="date">
10336         27th January 2010
10337       </div>
10338       <div class="body">
10339         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
10340 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
10341 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
10342 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
10343 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
10344 further.</p>
10345
10346 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
10347 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
10348 configured to be a server for the
10349 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
10350 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
10351 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
10352 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
10353 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
10354 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
10355 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
10356 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
10357 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
10358 and Nagios configuration.</p>
10359
10360 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
10361 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
10362 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
10363 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
10364
10365 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
10366 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
10367 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
10368 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
10369 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
10370 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
10371 the machine.</p>
10372
10373 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
10374 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
10375 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
10376 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
10377
10378 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
10379 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
10380 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
10381 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
10382 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
10383 everything is taken care of.</p>
10384
10385       </div>
10386       <div class="tags">
10387
10388
10389         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>.
10390
10391
10392       </div>
10393     </div>
10394     <div class="padding"></div>
10395
10396     <div class="entry">
10397       <div class="title">
10398         <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>
10399       </div>
10400       <div class="date">
10401         12th August 2009
10402       </div>
10403       <div class="body">
10404         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
10405 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
10406 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
10407 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
10408
10409 <table>
10410 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
10411 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
10412 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
10413 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
10414 </table>
10415
10416 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
10417 got these numbers:</p>
10418
10419 <table>
10420 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
10421 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
10422 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
10423 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
10424 </table>
10425
10426 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
10427
10428 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
10429 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
10430 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
10431 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
10432 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
10433
10434
10435 <table>
10436 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
10437 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
10438 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
10439 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
10440 </table>
10441
10442 <p>And with 'site:no':
10443
10444 <table>
10445 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
10446 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
10447 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
10448 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
10449 </table>
10450
10451 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
10452 numbers.</p>
10453
10454       </div>
10455       <div class="tags">
10456
10457
10458         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>.
10459
10460
10461       </div>
10462     </div>
10463     <div class="padding"></div>
10464
10465     <div class="entry">
10466       <div class="title">
10467         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
10468       </div>
10469       <div class="date">
10470          8th August 2009
10471       </div>
10472       <div class="body">
10473         <p>According to <a
10474 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
10475 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
10476 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
10477 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
10478 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
10479 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
10480 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
10481 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
10482 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
10483 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
10484
10485 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
10486 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
10487 seminar this autumn.</p>
10488
10489       </div>
10490       <div class="tags">
10491
10492
10493         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>.
10494
10495
10496       </div>
10497     </div>
10498     <div class="padding"></div>
10499
10500     <div class="entry">
10501       <div class="title">
10502         <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>
10503       </div>
10504       <div class="date">
10505         27th July 2009
10506       </div>
10507       <div class="body">
10508         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
10509 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
10510 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
10511 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
10512 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
10513 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
10514 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
10515
10516 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
10517 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
10518 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
10519
10520       </div>
10521       <div class="tags">
10522
10523
10524         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>.
10525
10526
10527       </div>
10528     </div>
10529     <div class="padding"></div>
10530
10531     <div class="entry">
10532       <div class="title">
10533         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
10534       </div>
10535       <div class="date">
10536         22nd July 2009
10537       </div>
10538       <div class="body">
10539         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
10540 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
10541 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
10542 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
10543 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
10544 the package up to date.</p>
10545
10546 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
10547 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
10548 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
10549 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
10550 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
10551 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
10552 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
10553 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
10554 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
10555 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
10556 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
10557 working on the future release.</p>
10558
10559 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
10560 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
10561
10562       </div>
10563       <div class="tags">
10564
10565
10566         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>.
10567
10568
10569       </div>
10570     </div>
10571     <div class="padding"></div>
10572
10573     <div class="entry">
10574       <div class="title">
10575         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
10576       </div>
10577       <div class="date">
10578         24th June 2009
10579       </div>
10580       <div class="body">
10581         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
10582 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
10583 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
10584 funded
10585 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
10586 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
10587 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
10588 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
10589 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
10590 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
10591
10592 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
10593 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
10594 boot:</p>
10595
10596 <ul>
10597
10598 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
10599
10600 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
10601    clock is in UTC.</li>
10602
10603 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
10604    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10605    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
10606
10607 </ul>
10608
10609 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
10610 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
10611 Villegas</a>.
10612
10613 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
10614 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
10615 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
10616 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
10617 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
10618 using this.</p>
10619
10620 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
10621 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
10622 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
10623 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
10624 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
10625 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
10626 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
10627
10628       </div>
10629       <div class="tags">
10630
10631
10632         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>.
10633
10634
10635       </div>
10636     </div>
10637     <div class="padding"></div>
10638
10639     <div class="entry">
10640       <div class="title">
10641         <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>
10642       </div>
10643       <div class="date">
10644          2nd May 2009
10645       </div>
10646       <div class="body">
10647         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
10648 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
10649 do not yet know them.</p>
10650
10651 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
10652 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
10653 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
10654 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
10655 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
10656 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
10657 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
10658 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
10659 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
10660 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
10661 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
10662
10663 <p>The second one is
10664 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
10665 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
10666 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
10667 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
10668 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
10669 and the company behind it is running
10670 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
10671 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
10672 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
10673 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
10674 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
10675 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
10676 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
10677 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
10678
10679 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
10680 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
10681 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
10682 surrounded by today.</p>
10683
10684       </div>
10685       <div class="tags">
10686
10687
10688         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>.
10689
10690
10691       </div>
10692     </div>
10693     <div class="padding"></div>
10694
10695     <div class="entry">
10696       <div class="title">
10697         <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>
10698       </div>
10699       <div class="date">
10700         28th April 2009
10701       </div>
10702       <div class="body">
10703         <p>Julien Blache
10704 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
10705 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
10706 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
10707 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
10708 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
10709 properties.</p>
10710
10711       </div>
10712       <div class="tags">
10713
10714
10715         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>.
10716
10717
10718       </div>
10719     </div>
10720     <div class="padding"></div>
10721
10722     <div class="entry">
10723       <div class="title">
10724         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
10725       </div>
10726       <div class="date">
10727          5th April 2009
10728       </div>
10729       <div class="body">
10730         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
10731 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
10732 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
10733 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
10734 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
10735 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
10736 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
10737 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
10738
10739 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
10740 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
10741 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
10742   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
10743   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
10744
10745 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
10746 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
10747 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
10748 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
10749
10750 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
10751 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
10752 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
10753 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
10754
10755 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
10756 set -e
10757 URL="$1"
10758 SAVEFILE="$2"
10759 DURATION="$3"
10760 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
10761   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
10762   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
10763 pid=$!
10764 sleep $DURATION
10765 kill $pid
10766 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
10767
10768       </div>
10769       <div class="tags">
10770
10771
10772         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>.
10773
10774
10775       </div>
10776     </div>
10777     <div class="padding"></div>
10778
10779     <div class="entry">
10780       <div class="title">
10781         <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>
10782       </div>
10783       <div class="date">
10784         30th March 2009
10785       </div>
10786       <div class="body">
10787         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
10788 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
10789 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
10790 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
10791 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
10792 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
10793 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
10794 application.</p>
10795
10796 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
10797 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
10798 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
10799 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
10800 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
10801 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
10802 blocked from doing so.</p>
10803
10804 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
10805 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
10806 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
10807 requirements change.</p>
10808
10809 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
10810 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
10811 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
10812
10813       </div>
10814       <div class="tags">
10815
10816
10817         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>.
10818
10819
10820       </div>
10821     </div>
10822     <div class="padding"></div>
10823
10824     <div class="entry">
10825       <div class="title">
10826         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
10827       </div>
10828       <div class="date">
10829         29th March 2009
10830       </div>
10831       <div class="body">
10832         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
10833 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
10834 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
10835 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
10836 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
10837 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
10838 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
10839 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
10840 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
10841 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
10842 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
10843 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
10844 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
10845 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
10846 now. :)</p>
10847
10848       </div>
10849       <div class="tags">
10850
10851
10852         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>.
10853
10854
10855       </div>
10856     </div>
10857     <div class="padding"></div>
10858
10859     <div class="entry">
10860       <div class="title">
10861         <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>
10862       </div>
10863       <div class="date">
10864         29th March 2009
10865       </div>
10866       <div class="body">
10867         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
10868 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
10869 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
10870 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
10871 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
10872 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
10873
10874 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
10875 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
10876 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
10877 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
10878 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
10879 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
10880 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
10881 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
10882 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
10883 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
10884 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
10885 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
10886 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
10887
10888 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
10889 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
10890 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
10891 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
10892
10893 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
10894 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
10895
10896 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
10897 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
10898 new IETF work group?</p>
10899
10900       </div>
10901       <div class="tags">
10902
10903
10904         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>.
10905
10906
10907       </div>
10908     </div>
10909     <div class="padding"></div>
10910
10911     <div class="entry">
10912       <div class="title">
10913         <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>
10914       </div>
10915       <div class="date">
10916         28th February 2009
10917       </div>
10918       <div class="body">
10919         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
10920 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
10921 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
10922 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
10923 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
10924 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
10925 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
10926 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
10927 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
10928 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
10929 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
10930 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
10931 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
10932 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
10933 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
10934 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
10935 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
10936 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
10937 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
10938 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
10939 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
10940 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
10941 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
10942 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
10943 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
10944 machine.</p>
10945
10946 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
10947 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
10948 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
10949 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
10950 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
10951 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
10952 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
10953
10954 <pre>
10955 use LWP::Simple;
10956 use POSIX;
10957 use WWW::Mechanize;
10958 use Date::Parse;
10959 [...]
10960 sub get_support_info {
10961     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
10962     my $str;
10963
10964     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
10965         # fetch website from Dell support
10966         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";
10967         my $webpage = get($url);
10968         return undef unless ($webpage);
10969
10970         my $daysleft = -1;
10971         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
10972         foreach my $line (@lines) {
10973             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
10974             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
10975             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
10976
10977             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
10978             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
10979             my $lastend = "";
10980             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
10981                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
10982
10983                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
10984                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
10985                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
10986                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
10987                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
10988                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
10989                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
10990             }
10991             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
10992             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
10993                 if ($lastend lt $today);
10994         }
10995     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
10996         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
10997         my $url =
10998             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
10999         $mech->get($url);
11000         my $fields = {
11001             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
11002             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
11003             'country' => 'NO',
11004             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
11005             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
11006         };
11007         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
11008                             fields      => $fields );
11009         # Next step is screen scraping
11010         my $content = $mech->content();
11011
11012         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
11013         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
11014         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
11015         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
11016
11017         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
11018
11019         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
11020             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
11021                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
11022             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
11023             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
11024                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
11025             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
11026                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
11027
11028             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
11029
11030             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
11031                 if ($end lt $today);
11032         }
11033     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
11034         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
11035         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
11036         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
11037             my $content =
11038                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
11039             if ($content) {
11040                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
11041                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
11042                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
11043                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
11044
11045                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
11046                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
11047
11048                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
11049
11050                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
11051                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
11052                     if ($end lt $today);
11053             }
11054         }
11055     }
11056     return $str;
11057 }
11058 </pre>
11059
11060 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
11061 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
11062 from dmidecode.</p>
11063
11064 <pre>
11065 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
11066                        "447707-B21");
11067 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
11068 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
11069                        "1234567");
11070 </pre>
11071
11072 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
11073 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
11074
11075 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
11076 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
11077 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
11078 do so.</p>
11079
11080       </div>
11081       <div class="tags">
11082
11083
11084         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>.
11085
11086
11087       </div>
11088     </div>
11089     <div class="padding"></div>
11090
11091     <div class="entry">
11092       <div class="title">
11093         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
11094       </div>
11095       <div class="date">
11096         20th February 2009
11097       </div>
11098       <div class="body">
11099         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
11100 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
11101 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
11102 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
11103 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
11104 the "missing" computer.</p>
11105
11106 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
11107 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
11108 code blocks as defined in the
11109 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
11110 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
11111 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
11112 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
11113 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
11114 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
11115 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
11116 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
11117 codes.</p>
11118
11119 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
11120 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
11121 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
11122 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
11123 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
11124 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
11125
11126 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
11127 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
11128 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
11129 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
11130 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
11131 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
11132 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
11133 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
11134 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
11135 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
11136
11137 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
11138 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
11139 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
11140
11141       </div>
11142       <div class="tags">
11143
11144
11145         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>.
11146
11147
11148       </div>
11149     </div>
11150     <div class="padding"></div>
11151
11152     <div class="entry">
11153       <div class="title">
11154         <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>
11155       </div>
11156       <div class="date">
11157         17th January 2009
11158       </div>
11159       <div class="body">
11160         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
11161 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
11162 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
11163 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
11164 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
11165 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
11166 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
11167 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
11168 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
11169 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
11170 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
11171 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
11172 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
11173 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
11174
11175 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
11176 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
11177 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
11178 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
11179 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
11180 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
11181 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
11182 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
11183 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
11184 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
11185 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
11186 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
11187 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
11188 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
11189 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
11190 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
11191 playing when the download is done.</p>
11192
11193 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
11194 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
11195 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
11196 too.</p>
11197
11198 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
11199 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
11200 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
11201 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
11202
11203       </div>
11204       <div class="tags">
11205
11206
11207         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>.
11208
11209
11210       </div>
11211     </div>
11212     <div class="padding"></div>
11213
11214     <div class="entry">
11215       <div class="title">
11216         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
11217       </div>
11218       <div class="date">
11219         28th December 2008
11220       </div>
11221       <div class="body">
11222         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
11223 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
11224 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
11225 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
11226 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
11227 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
11228 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
11229 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
11230 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
11231 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
11232 source, sink and mixer applications and
11233 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
11234 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
11235 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
11236 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
11237 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
11238 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
11239 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
11240 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
11241 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
11242
11243 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
11244 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
11245 larger stick as well.</p>
11246
11247       </div>
11248       <div class="tags">
11249
11250
11251         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>.
11252
11253
11254       </div>
11255     </div>
11256     <div class="padding"></div>
11257
11258     <div class="entry">
11259       <div class="title">
11260         <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>
11261       </div>
11262       <div class="date">
11263          7th December 2008
11264       </div>
11265       <div class="body">
11266         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
11267 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
11268 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
11269 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
11270 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
11271 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
11272 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
11273 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
11274
11275 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
11276 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
11277 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
11278 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
11279 of these cards.</p>
11280
11281       </div>
11282       <div class="tags">
11283
11284
11285         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>.
11286
11287
11288       </div>
11289     </div>
11290     <div class="padding"></div>
11291
11292     <div class="entry">
11293       <div class="title">
11294         <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>
11295       </div>
11296       <div class="date">
11297         25th November 2008
11298       </div>
11299       <div class="body">
11300         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
11301 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
11302 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
11303 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
11304 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
11305 notes are available on
11306 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
11307 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
11308 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
11309 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
11310 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
11311 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
11312 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
11313 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
11314 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
11315
11316 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
11317 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
11318
11319       </div>
11320       <div class="tags">
11321
11322
11323         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>.
11324
11325
11326       </div>
11327     </div>
11328     <div class="padding"></div>
11329
11330     <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>
11331     <div id="sidebar">
11332
11333
11334
11335 <h2>Archive</h2>
11336 <ul>
11337
11338 <li>2012
11339 <ul>
11340
11341 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
11342
11343 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
11344
11345 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
11346
11347 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
11348
11349 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
11350
11351 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
11352
11353 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
11354
11355 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (5)</a></li>
11356
11357 </ul></li>
11358
11359 <li>2011
11360 <ul>
11361
11362 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
11363
11364 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
11365
11366 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
11367
11368 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
11369
11370 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
11371
11372 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
11373
11374 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
11375
11376 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
11377
11378 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
11379
11380 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
11381
11382 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
11383
11384 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
11385
11386 </ul></li>
11387
11388 <li>2010
11389 <ul>
11390
11391 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
11392
11393 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
11394
11395 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
11396
11397 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
11398
11399 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
11400
11401 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
11402
11403 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
11404
11405 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
11406
11407 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
11408
11409 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
11410
11411 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
11412
11413 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
11414
11415 </ul></li>
11416
11417 <li>2009
11418 <ul>
11419
11420 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
11421
11422 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
11423
11424 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
11425
11426 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
11427
11428 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
11429
11430 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
11431
11432 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
11433
11434 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
11435
11436 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
11437
11438 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
11439
11440 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
11441
11442 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
11443
11444 </ul></li>
11445
11446 <li>2008
11447 <ul>
11448
11449 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
11450
11451 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
11452
11453 </ul></li>
11454
11455 </ul>
11456
11457
11458
11459 <h2>Tags</h2>
11460 <ul>
11461
11462  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
11463
11464  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
11465
11466  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
11467
11468  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (2)</a></li>
11469
11470  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
11471
11472  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
11473
11474  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (56)</a></li>
11475
11476  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (111)</a></li>
11477
11478  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (9)</a></li>
11479
11480  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (6)</a></li>
11481
11482  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
11483
11484  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (147)</a></li>
11485
11486  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (17)</a></li>
11487
11488  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
11489
11490  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (7)</a></li>
11491
11492  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (6)</a></li>
11493
11494  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (30)</a></li>
11495
11496  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (16)</a></li>
11497
11498  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
11499
11500  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (4)</a></li>
11501
11502  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
11503
11504  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (22)</a></li>
11505
11506  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (192)</a></li>
11507
11508  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (142)</a></li>
11509
11510  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (4)</a></li>
11511
11512  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
11513
11514  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (34)</a></li>
11515
11516  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (48)</a></li>
11517
11518  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
11519
11520  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
11521
11522  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
11523
11524  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (4)</a></li>
11525
11526  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
11527
11528  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
11529
11530  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
11531
11532  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (23)</a></li>
11533
11534  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
11535
11536  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (1)</a></li>
11537
11538  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (37)</a></li>
11539
11540  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (1)</a></li>
11541
11542  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (4)</a></li>
11543
11544  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (10)</a></li>
11545
11546  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (6)</a></li>
11547
11548  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (32)</a></li>
11549
11550  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (1)</a></li>
11551
11552  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (25)</a></li>
11553
11554 </ul>
11555
11556
11557     </div>
11558     <p style="text-align: right">
11559  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4</a>
11560 </p>
11561
11562   </body>
11563 </html>