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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/Public_Trusted_Timestamping_services_for_everyone.html">Public Trusted Timestamping services for everyone</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         25th March 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>Did you ever need to store logs or other files in a way that would
  32 allow it to be used as evidence in court, and needed a way to
  33 demonstrate without reasonable doubt that the file had not been
  34 changed since it was created?  Or, did you ever need to document that
  35 a given document was received at some point in time, like some
  36 archived document or the answer to an exam, and not changed after it
  37 was received?  The problem in these settings is to remove the need to
  38 trust yourself and your computers, while still being able to prove
  39 that a file is the same as it was at some given time in the past.</p>
  40
  41 <p>A solution to these problems is to have a trusted third party
  42 "stamp" the document and verify that at some given time the document
  43 looked a given way.  Such
  44 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notarius">notarius</a> service
  45 have been around for thousands of years, and its digital equivalent is
  46 called a
  47 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping">trusted
  48 timestamping service</a>.  <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">The Internet
  49 Engineering Task Force</a> standardised how such service could work a
  50 few years ago as <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3161">RFC
  51 3161</a>.  The mechanism is simple.  Create a hash of the file in
  52 question, send it to a trusted third party which add a time stamp to
  53 the hash and sign the result with its private key, and send back the
  54 signed hash + timestamp.  Both email, FTP and HTTP can be used to
  55 request such signature, depending on what is provided by the service
  56 used. Anyone with the document and the signature can then verify that
  57 the document matches the signature by creating their own hash and
  58 checking the signature using the trusted third party public key.
  59 There are several commercial services around providing such
  60 timestamping.  A quick search for
  61 "<a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rfc+3161+service">rfc 3161
  62 service</a>" pointed me to at least
  63 <a href="https://www.digistamp.com/technical/how-a-digital-time-stamp-works/">DigiStamp</a>,
  64 <a href="http://www.quovadisglobal.co.uk/CertificateServices/SigningServices/TimeStamp.aspx">Quo
  65 Vadis</a>,
  66 <a href="https://www.globalsign.com/timestamp-service/">Global Sign</a>
  67 and <a href="http://www.globaltrustfinder.com/TSADefault.aspx">Global
  68 Trust Finder</a>.  The system work as long as the private key of the
  69 trusted third party is not compromised.</p>
  70
  71 <p>But as far as I can tell, there are very few public trusted
  72 timestamp services available for everyone.  I've been looking for one
  73 for a while now. But yesterday I found one over at
  74 <a href="https://www.pki.dfn.de/zeitstempeldienst/">Deutches
  75 Forschungsnetz</a> mentioned in
  76 <a href="http://www.d-mueller.de/blog/dealing-with-trusted-timestamps-in-php-rfc-3161/">a
  77 blog by David Müller</a>.  I then found a good recipe on how to use
  78 over at the
  79 <a href="http://www.rz.uni-greifswald.de/support/dfn-pki-zertifikate/zeitstempeldienst.html">University
  80 of Greifswald</a>.</p>
  81
  82 <p><a href="http://www.openssl.org/">The OpenSSL library</a> contain
  83 both server and tools to use and set up your own signing service.  See
  84 the ts(1SSL), tsget(1SSL) manual pages for more details.  The
  85 following shell script demonstrate how to extract a signed timestamp
  86 for any file on the disk in a Debian environment:</p>
  87
  88 <p><blockquote><pre>
  89 #!/bin/sh
  90 set -e
  91 url="http://zeitstempel.dfn.de"
  92 caurl="https://pki.pca.dfn.de/global-services-ca/pub/cacert/chain.txt"
  93 reqfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsq)
  94 resfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsr)
  95 cafile=chain.txt
  96 if [ ! -f $cafile ] ; then
  97     wget -O $cafile "$caurl"
  98 fi
  99 openssl ts -query -data "$1" -cert | tee "$reqfile" \
 100     | /usr/lib/ssl/misc/tsget -h "$url" -o "$resfile"
 101 openssl ts -reply -in "$resfile" -text 1>&2
 102 openssl ts -verify -data "$1" -in "$resfile" -CAfile "$cafile" 1>&2
 103 base64 < "$resfile"
 104 rm "$reqfile" "$resfile"
 105 </pre></blockquote></p>
 106
 107 <p>The argument to the script is the file to timestamp, and the output
 108 is a base64 encoded version of the signature to STDOUT and details
 109 about the signature to STDERR.  Note that due to
 110 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=742553">a bug
 111 in the tsget script</a>, you might need to modify the included script
 112 and remove the last line.  Or just write your own HTTP uploader using
 113 curl. :) Now you too can prove and verify that files have not been
 114 changed.</p>
 115
 116 <p>But the Internet need more public trusted timestamp services.
 117 Perhaps something for <a href="http://www.uninett.no/">Uninett</a> or
 118 my work place the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
 119 to set up?</p>
 120
 121       </div>
 122       <div class="tags">
 123
 124
 125         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 126
 127
 128       </div>
 129     </div>
 130     <div class="padding"></div>
 131
 132     <div class="entry">
 133       <div class="title">
 134         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Video_DVD_reader_library___python_dvdvideo___nice_free_software.html">Video DVD reader library / python-dvdvideo - nice free software</a>
 135       </div>
 136       <div class="date">
 137         21st March 2014
 138       </div>
 139       <div class="body">
 140         <p>Keeping your DVD collection safe from scratches and curious
 141 children fingers while still having it available when you want to see a
 142 movie is not straight forward.  My preferred method at the moment is
 143 to store a full copy of the ISO on a hard drive, and use VLC, Popcorn
 144 Hour or other useful players to view the resulting file.  This way the
 145 subtitles and bonus material are still available and using the ISO is
 146 just like inserting the original DVD record in the DVD player.</p>
 147
 148 <p>Earlier I used dd for taking security copies, but it do not handle
 149 DVDs giving read errors (which are quite a few of them).  I've also
 150 tried using
 151 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">dvdbackup
 152 and genisoimage</a>, but these days I use the marvellous python library
 153 and program
 154 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">python-dvdvideo</a>
 155 written by Bastian Blank.  It is
 156 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/python-dvdvideo.html">in Debian
 157 already</a> and the binary package name is python3-dvdvideo. Instead
 158 of trying to read every block from the DVD, it parses the file
 159 structure and figure out which block on the DVD is actually in used,
 160 and only read those blocks from the DVD.  This work surprisingly well,
 161 and I have been able to almost backup my entire DVD collection using
 162 this method.</p> So far, python-dvdvideo have failed on between 10 and
 163 20 DVDs, which is a small fraction of my collection.  The most common
 164 problem is
 165 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720831">DVDs
 166 using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8 characters</a>, which according to
 167 Bastian is against the DVD specification (and seem to cause some
 168 players to fail too).  A rarer problem is what seem to be inconsistent
 169 DVD structures, as the python library
 170 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=723079">claim
 171 there is a overlap between objects</a>.  An equally rare problem claim
 172 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=741878">some
 173 value is out of range</a>.  No idea what is going on there.  I wish I
 174 knew enough about the DVD format to fix these, to ensure my movie
 175 collection will stay with me in the future.</p>
 176
 177 <p>So, if you need to keep your DVDs safe, back them up using
 178 python-dvdvideo. :)</p>
 179
 180       </div>
 181       <div class="tags">
 182
 183
 184         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 185
 186
 187       </div>
 188     </div>
 189     <div class="padding"></div>
 190
 191     <div class="entry">
 192       <div class="title">
 193         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
 194       </div>
 195       <div class="date">
 196         14th March 2014
 197       </div>
 198       <div class="body">
 199         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
 200 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
 201 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
 202 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
 203 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
 204 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
 205 release (0.2).</p>
 206
 207 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
 208 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
 209 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
 210 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
 211 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
 212 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
 213 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
 214 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
 215 and build using
 216 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
 217 with a user with sudo access to become root:
 218
 219 <pre>
 220 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
 221   freedom-maker
 222 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
 223   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
 224   u-boot-tools
 225 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
 226 </pre>
 227
 228 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
 229 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
 230 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
 231 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
 232 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
 233 kpartx call.</p>
 234
 235 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
 236 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
 237 the preseed values:</p>
 238
 239 <pre>
 240 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
 241 </pre>
 242
 243 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
 244 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
 245 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
 246 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
 247 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
 248 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
 249
 250 Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
 251 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
 252 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
 253 irc.debian.org)</a> and
 254 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 255 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 256
 257       </div>
 258       <div class="tags">
 259
 260
 261         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 262
 263
 264       </div>
 265     </div>
 266     <div class="padding"></div>
 267
 268     <div class="entry">
 269       <div class="title">
 270         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_add_extra_storage_servers_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">How to add extra storage servers in Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
 271       </div>
 272       <div class="date">
 273         12th March 2014
 274       </div>
 275       <div class="body">
 276         <p>On larger sites, it is useful to use a dedicated storage server for
 277 storing user home directories and data.  The design for handling this
 278 in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, is
 279 to update the automount rules in LDAP and let the automount daemon on
 280 the clients take care of the rest.  I was reminded about the need to
 281 document this better when one of the customers of
 282 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a>, where I am
 283 on the board of directors, asked about how to do this.  The steps to
 284 get this working are the following:</p>
 285
 286 <p><ol>
 287
 288 <li>Add new storage server in DNS.  I use nas-server.intern as the
 289 example host here.</li>
 290
 291 <li>Add automoun LDAP information about this server in LDAP, to allow
 292 all clients to automatically mount it on reqeust.</li>
 293
 294 <li>Add the relevant entries in tjener.intern:/etc/fstab, because
 295 tjener.intern do not use automount to avoid mounting loops.</li>
 296
 297 </ol></p>
 298
 299 <p>DNS entries are added in GOsa², and not described here.  Follow the
 300 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/GettingStarted">instructions
 301 in the manual</a> (Machine Management with GOsa² in section Getting
 302 started).</p>
 303
 304 <p>Ensure that the NFS export points on the server are exported to the
 305 relevant subnets or machines:</p>
 306
 307 <p><blockquote><pre>
 308 root@tjener:~# showmount -e nas-server
 309 Export list for nas-server:
 310 /storage         10.0.0.0/8
 311 root@tjener:~#
 312 </pre></blockquote></p>
 313
 314 <p>Here everything on the backbone network is granted access to the
 315 /storage export.  With NFSv3 it is slightly better to limit it to
 316 netgroup membership or single IP addresses to have some limits on the
 317 NFS access.</p>
 318
 319 <p>The next step is to update LDAP.  This can not be done using GOsa²,
 320 because it lack a module for automount.  Instead, use ldapvi and add
 321 the required LDAP objects using an editor.</p>
 322
 323 <p><blockquote><pre>
 324 ldapvi --ldap-conf -ZD '(cn=admin)' -b ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
 325 </pre></blockquote></p>
 326
 327 <p>When the editor show up, add the following LDAP objects at the
 328 bottom of the document.  The "/&" part in the last LDAP object is a
 329 wild card matching everything the nas-server exports, removing the
 330 need to list individual mount points in LDAP.</p>
 331
 332 <p><blockquote><pre>
 333 add cn=nas-server,ou=auto.skole,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
 334 objectClass: automount
 335 cn: nas-server
 336 automountInformation: -fstype=autofs --timeout=60 ldap:ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
 337
 338 add ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
 339 objectClass: top
 340 objectClass: automountMap
 341 ou: auto.nas-server
 342
 343 add cn=/,ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
 344 objectClass: automount
 345 cn: /
 346 automountInformation: -fstype=nfs,tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,intr,hard,nodev,nosuid,noatime nas-server.intern:/&
 347 </pre></blockquote></p>
 348
 349 <p>The last step to remember is to mount the relevant mount points in
 350 tjener.intern by adding them to /etc/fstab, creating the mount
 351 directories using mkdir and running "mount -a" to mount them.</p>
 352
 353 <p>When this is done, your users should be able to access the files on
 354 the storage server directly by just visiting the
 355 /tjener/nas-server/storage/ directory using any application on any
 356 workstation, LTSP client or LTSP server.</p>
 357
 358       </div>
 359       <div class="tags">
 360
 361
 362         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>.
 363
 364
 365       </div>
 366     </div>
 367     <div class="padding"></div>
 368
 369     <div class="entry">
 370       <div class="title">
 371         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
 372       </div>
 373       <div class="date">
 374         22nd February 2014
 375       </div>
 376       <div class="body">
 377         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
 378 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
 379 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
 380 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
 381 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
 382 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
 383 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
 384 proper home since then.</p>
 385
 386 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
 387 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
 388 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
 389 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
 390 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
 391
 392 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
 393 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
 394 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
 395 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
 396 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
 397 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
 398 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
 399 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
 400 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
 401
 402       </div>
 403       <div class="tags">
 404
 405
 406         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>.
 407
 408
 409       </div>
 410     </div>
 411     <div class="padding"></div>
 412
 413     <div class="entry">
 414       <div class="title">
 415         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
 416       </div>
 417       <div class="date">
 418          3rd February 2014
 419       </div>
 420       <div class="body">
 421         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
 422 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
 423 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
 424 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
 425 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
 426 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
 427 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
 428 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
 429 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
 430
 431 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
 432 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
 433 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
 434 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
 435 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
 436 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
 437
 438 <p><blockquote><pre>
 439 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
 440 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
 441 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
 442 dhclient /dev/eth0
 443 </pre></blockquote></p>
 444
 445 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
 446 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
 447 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
 448
 449 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
 450 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
 451 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
 452 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
 453 side.</p>
 454
 455 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
 456 stuff:</p>
 457
 458 <p><blockquote><pre>
 459 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
 460 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
 461 EOF
 462 apt-get update
 463 apt-get dist-upgrade
 464 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
 465     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
 466 update-alternatives --config runsystem
 467 </pre></blockquote></p>
 468
 469 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
 470 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
 471 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
 472 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
 473 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
 474 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
 475 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
 476 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
 477 ssh instead.
 478
 479 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
 480 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
 481 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
 482 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
 483 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
 484 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
 485
 486 <p><blockquote><pre>
 487 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
 488 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
 489 EOF
 490 </pre></blockquote></p>
 491
 492 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
 493 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
 494 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
 495 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
 496
 497 <p><blockquote><pre>
 498 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
 499 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
 500 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
 501 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
 502 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
 503 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
 504 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
 505 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
 506 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
 507 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
 508 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
 509 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
 510 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
 511 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
 512 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
 513 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
 514 #
 515 </pre></blockquote></p>
 516
 517 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
 518 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
 519 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
 520 command line stuff.<p>
 521
 522       </div>
 523       <div class="tags">
 524
 525
 526         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>.
 527
 528
 529       </div>
 530     </div>
 531     <div class="padding"></div>
 532
 533     <div class="entry">
 534       <div class="title">
 535         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_fist_full_of_non_anonymous_Bitcoins.html">A fist full of non-anonymous Bitcoins</a>
 536       </div>
 537       <div class="date">
 538         29th January 2014
 539       </div>
 540       <div class="body">
 541         <p>Bitcoin is a incredible use of peer to peer communication and
 542 encryption, allowing direct and immediate money transfer without any
 543 central control.  It is sometimes claimed to be ideal for illegal
 544 activity, which I believe is quite a long way from the truth.  At least
 545 I would not conduct illegal money transfers using a system where the
 546 details of every transaction are kept forever.  This point is
 547 investigated in
 548 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">USENIX ;login:</a>
 549 from December 2013, in the article
 550 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/03_meiklejohn-online.pdf">A
 551 Fistful of Bitcoins - Characterizing Payments Among Men with No
 552 Names</a>" by Sarah Meiklejohn, Marjori Pomarole,Grant Jordan, Kirill
 553 Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker, and Stefan Savage.  They
 554 analyse the transaction log in the Bitcoin system, using it to find
 555 addresses belong to individuals and organisations and follow the flow
 556 of money from both Bitcoin theft and trades on Silk Road to where the
 557 money end up.  This is how they wrap up their article:</p>
 558
 559 <p><blockquote>
 560 <p>"To demonstrate the usefulness of this type of analysis, we turned
 561 our attention to criminal activity. In the Bitcoin economy, criminal
 562 activity can appear in a number of forms, such as dealing drugs on
 563 Silk Road or simply stealing someone else’s bitcoins. We followed the
 564 flow of bitcoins out of Silk Road (in particular, from one notorious
 565 address) and from a number of highly publicized thefts to see whether
 566 we could track the bitcoins to known services. Although some of the
 567 thieves attempted to use sophisticated mixing techniques (or possibly
 568 mix services) to obscure the flow of bitcoins, for the most part
 569 tracking the bitcoins was quite straightforward, and we ultimately saw
 570 large quantities of bitcoins flow to a variety of exchanges directly
 571 from the point of theft (or the withdrawal from Silk Road).</p>
 572
 573 <p>As acknowledged above, following stolen bitcoins to the point at
 574 which they are deposited into an exchange does not in itself identify
 575 the thief; however, it does enable further de-anonymization in the
 576 case in which certain agencies can determine (through, for example,
 577 subpoena power) the real-world owner of the account into which the
 578 stolen bitcoins were deposited.  Because such exchanges seem to serve
 579 as chokepoints into and out of the Bitcoin economy (i.e., there are
 580 few alternative ways to cash out), we conclude that using Bitcoin for
 581 money laundering or other illicit purposes does not (at least at
 582 present) seem to be particularly attractive."</p>
 583 </blockquote><p>
 584
 585 <p>These researches are not the first to analyse the Bitcoin
 586 transaction log.  The 2011 paper
 587 "<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4524">An Analysis of Anonymity in
 588 the Bitcoin System</A>" by Fergal Reid and Martin Harrigan is
 589 summarized like this:</p>
 590
 591 <p><blockquote>
 592 "Anonymity in Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic currency system, is a
 593 complicated issue. Within the system, users are identified by
 594 public-keys only. An attacker wishing to de-anonymize its users will
 595 attempt to construct the one-to-many mapping between users and
 596 public-keys and associate information external to the system with the
 597 users. Bitcoin tries to prevent this attack by storing the mapping of
 598 a user to his or her public-keys on that user's node only and by
 599 allowing each user to generate as many public-keys as required. In
 600 this chapter we consider the topological structure of two networks
 601 derived from Bitcoin's public transaction history. We show that the
 602 two networks have a non-trivial topological structure, provide
 603 complementary views of the Bitcoin system and have implications for
 604 anonymity. We combine these structures with external information and
 605 techniques such as context discovery and flow analysis to investigate
 606 an alleged theft of Bitcoins, which, at the time of the theft, had a
 607 market value of approximately half a million U.S. dollars."
 608 </blockquote></p>
 609
 610 <p>I hope these references can help kill the urban myth that Bitcoin
 611 is anonymous.  It isn't really a good fit for illegal activites.  Use
 612 cash if you need to stay anonymous, at least until regular DNA
 613 sampling of notes and coins become the norm. :)</p>
 614
 615 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 616 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 617 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 618
 619       </div>
 620       <div class="tags">
 621
 622
 623         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 624
 625
 626       </div>
 627     </div>
 628     <div class="padding"></div>
 629
 630     <div class="entry">
 631       <div class="title">
 632         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
 633       </div>
 634       <div class="date">
 635         14th January 2014
 636       </div>
 637       <div class="body">
 638         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
 639 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
 640 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
 641 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
 642 the source.  The company behind it provide
 643 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
 644 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
 645 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
 646 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
 647 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
 648 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
 649 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
 650 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
 651 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
 652 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
 653 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
 654 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
 655 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
 656 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
 657 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
 658 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
 659 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
 660 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
 661 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
 662
 663 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
 664
 665 <ul>
 666
 667   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
 668   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
 669   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
 670
 671 </ul>
 672
 673 <p>You can
 674 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
 675 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
 676 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
 677 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
 678 include a test suite check.</p>
 679
 680       </div>
 681       <div class="tags">
 682
 683
 684         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 685
 686
 687       </div>
 688     </div>
 689     <div class="padding"></div>
 690
 691     <div class="entry">
 692       <div class="title">
 693         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html">Debian Edu interview: Dominik George</a>
 694       </div>
 695       <div class="date">
 696         25th December 2013
 697       </div>
 698       <div class="body">
 699         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 700 project</a> consist of both newcomers and old timers, and this time I
 701 was able to get an interview with a newcomer in the project who showed
 702 up on the IRC channel a few weeks ago to let us know about his
 703 successful installation of Debian Edu Wheezy in his School.  Say hello
 704 to <a href="https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/Natureshadow">Dominik
 705 George</a>.</p>
 706
 707 <!-- http://www.dominik-george.de/images/foto.jpg -->
 708
 709 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 710
 711 <p>I am a 23 year-old student from Germany who has spent half of his
 712 life with open source. In "real life", I am, as already mentioned, a
 713 student in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
 714 Information Technologies and Anglistics. Due to my (only partially
 715 voluntary) huge engagement in the open source world, these things are
 716 a bit vacant right now however.</p>
 717
 718 <p>I also have been working as a project teacher at a Gymasnium
 719 (public school) for various years now. I took up that work some time
 720 around 2005 when still attending that school myself and have continued
 721 it until today. I also had been running the (kind of very advanced)
 722 network of that school together with a team of very interested and
 723 talented students in the age of 11 to 15 years, who took the chance to
 724 learn a lot about open source and networking before I left the school
 725 to help building another school's informational education concept from
 726 scratch.</p>
 727
 728 <p>That said, one might see me as a kind of "glue" between school kids
 729 and the elderly of teachers as well as between the open source
 730 ecosystem and the (even more complex) educational ecosystem.</p>
 731
 732 <p>When I am not busy with open source or education, I like Geocaching
 733 and cycling.</p>
 734
 735 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
 736 project?</strong></p>
 737
 738 <p>I think that happened some time around 2009 when I first attended
 739 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">FrOSCon</a> and visited the project
 740 booth. I think I wasn't too interested back then because I used to
 741 have an attitude of disliking software that does too much stuff on its
 742 own. Maybe I was too inexperienced to realise the upsides of an
 743 "out-of-the-box" solution ;).</p>
 744
 745 <p>The first time I actively talked to Skolelinux people was at
 746 <a href="http://www.openrheinruhr.de">OpenRheinRuhr</a> 2011 when the
 747 BiscuIT project, a home-grewn software used by my school for various
 748 really cool things from timetables and class contact lists to lunch
 749 ordering, student ID card printing and project elections first got to
 750 a stage where it could have been published. I asked the Skolelinux
 751 guys running the booth if the project were interested in it and gave a
 752 small demonstration, but there wasn't any real feedback and the guys
 753 seemed rather uninterested.</p>
 754
 755 <p>After I left the school where I developed the software, it got
 756 mostly lost, but I am now reimplementing it for my new school. I have
 757 reusability and compatibility in mind, and I hop there will be a new
 758 basis for contributing it to the Skolelinux project ;)!</p>
 759
 760 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 761 Edu?</strong></p>
 762
 763 <p>The most important advantage seems to be that it "just
 764 works". After overcoming some minor (but still very annoying) glitches
 765 in the installer, I got a fully functional, working school network,
 766 without the month-long hassle I experienced when setting all that up
 767 from scratch in earlier years. And above that, it rocked - I didn't
 768 have any real hardware at hand, because the school was just founded
 769 and has no money whatsoever, so I installed a combined server (main
 770 server, terminal services and workstation) in a VM on my personal
 771 notebook, bridging the LTSP network interface to the ethernet port,
 772 and then PXE-booted the Windows notebooks that were lying around from
 773 it. I could use 8 clients without any performance issues, by using a
 774 tiny little VM on a tiny little notebook. I think that's enough to say
 775 that it rocks!</p>
 776
 777 <p>Secondly, there are marketing reasons. Life's bad, and so no
 778 politician will ever permit a setup described as "Debian, an universal
 779 operating system, with some really cool educational tools" while they
 780 will be jsut fine with "Skolelinux, a single-purpose solution for your
 781 school network", even if both turn out to be the very same thing (yes,
 782 this is unfair towards the Skolelinux project, and must not be taken
 783 too seriously - you get the idea, anyway).</p>
 784
 785 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 786 Edu?</strong></p>
 787
 788 <p>I have not been involved with Skolelinux long enough to really
 789 answer this question in a fair way. Thus, please allow me to put it in
 790 other words: "What do you expect from Skolelinux to keep liking it?" I
 791 can list a few points about that:</p>
 792
 793 <ul>
 794
 795  <li>always strive to get all things integrated into Debian upstream
 796  <li>be open to discussion about changes and the like, even with newcomers
 797  <li>be helpful at being helpful ;)
 798
 799 </ul>
 800
 801 <p>I'm really sorry I cannot say much more about that :(!</p>
 802
 803 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 804
 805 <p>First of all, all software I use is free and open. I have abandoned
 806 all non-free software (except for firmware on my darned phone) this
 807 year.</p>
 808
 809 <p>I run Debian GNU/Linux on all PC systems I use. On that, I mostly
 810 run text tools. I use
 811 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm">mksh</a> as shell,
 812 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm">jupp</a> as very advanced
 813 text editor (I even got the developer to help me write a script/macro
 814 based full-featured student management software with the two),
 815 <a href="http://mcabber.com/">mcabber</a> for XMPP and
 816 <a href="http://www.irssi.org/">irssi</a> for IRC. For that overly
 817 coloured world called the WWW, I use
 818 <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Iceweasel
 819 (Firefox)</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a> for
 820 e-mail.</p>
 821
 822 <p>However, while I am personally aware of the fact that text tools
 823 are more efficient and powerful than anything else, I also use (or at
 824 least operate) some tools that are suitable to bring open source to
 825 kids. One of these things is <a href="http://jappix.org/">Jappix</a>,
 826 which I already introduced to some kids even before they got aware of
 827 Facebook, making them see for themselves that they do not need
 828 Facebook now ;).</p>
 829
 830 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 831 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 832
 833 <p>Well, that's a two-sided thing. One side is what I believe, and one
 834 side is what I have experienced.</p>
 835
 836 <p>I believe that the right strategy is showing them the benefits. But
 837 that won't work out as long as the acceptance of free alternatives
 838 grows globally. What I mean is that if all the kids are almost forced
 839 to use Windows, Facebook, Skype, you name it at home, they will not
 840 see why they would want to use alternatives at school. I have seen
 841 students take seat in front of a fully-functional, modern Debian
 842 desktop that could do anything their Windows at home could do, and
 843 they jsut refused to use it because "Linux sucks". It is something
 844 that makes the council of our city spend around 600000 € to buy
 845 software - not including hardware, mind you - for operating school
 846 networks, and for installing a system that, as has been proved, does
 847 not work. For those of you readers who are good at maths, have you
 848 already found out how many lives could have been saved with that money
 849 if we had instead used it to bring education to parts of the world
 850 that need it? I have, and found it to be nothing less dramatic than
 851 plain criminal.</p>
 852
 853 <p>That said, the only feasible way appears to be the bottom up
 854 method. We have to bring free software to kids and parents. I have
 855 founded an association named
 856 <a href="https://www.teckids.org">Teckids</a> here in Germany that does
 857 just that. We organise several events for kids and adolescents in the
 858 area of free and open source software, for example the
 859 <a href="http://kids.froscon.org">FrogLabs</a>, which share staff with
 860 Teckids and are the youth programme of
 861 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">the Free and Open Source Software
 862 Conference (FrOSCon)</a>. We do a lot more than most other conferences
 863 - this year, we first offered the FrogLabs as a holiday camp for kids
 864 aged 10 to 16. It was a huge success, with approx. 30 kids taking part
 865 and learning with and about free software through a whole weekend. All
 866 of us had a lot of fun, and the results were really exciting.</p>
 867
 868 <p>Apart from that, we are preparing a campaign that is supposed to bring
 869 the message of free alternatives to stuff kids use every day to them and
 870 their parents, e.g. the use of Jabber / Jappix instead of Facebook and
 871 Skype. To make that possible, we are planning to get together a team of
 872 clever kids who understand very well what their peers need and can bring
 873 it across to them. So we will have a peer-driven network of adolescents
 874 who teach each other and collect feedback from the community of minors.
 875 We then take that feedback and our own experience to work closely with
 876 open source projects, such as Skolelinux or Jappix, at improving their
 877 software in a way that makes it more and more attractive for the target
 878 group. At least I hope that we will have good cooperation with
 879 Skolelinux in the future ;)!</p>
 880
 881 <p>So in conclusion, what I believe is that, if it weren't for the world
 882 being so bad, it should be very clear to the political decision makers
 883 that the only way to go nowadays is free software for various reasons,
 884 but I have learnt that the only way that seems to work is bottom up.</p>
 885
 886 <!--
 887
 888 >  * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
 889
 890 That's probably the hardest question of them all, as I do not know the
 891 community. However, I would be willing to do the following:
 892
 893  <li>Run an interview with a German headteacher who is very open to
 894    free software, and also prefers it, but cannot really use it because
 895    of the decision makers above;
 896  <li>Run interviews with some kids, both with and without previous
 897    knowledge about free software
 898
 899 If that is wanted, just let me know ;).
 900
 901 -->
 902
 903       </div>
 904       <div class="tags">
 905
 906
 907         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>.
 908
 909
 910       </div>
 911     </div>
 912     <div class="padding"></div>
 913
 914     <div class="entry">
 915       <div class="title">
 916         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html">Debian Edu interview: Klaus Knopper</a>
 917       </div>
 918       <div class="date">
 919          6th December 2013
 920       </div>
 921       <div class="body">
 922         <p>It has been a while since I managed to publish the last interview,
 923 but the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
 924 Skolelinux</a> community is still going strong, and yesterday we even
 925 had a new school administrator show up on
 926 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a> to share
 927 his success story with installing Debian Edu at their school.  This
 928 time I have been able to get some helpful comments from the creator of
 929 Knoppix, Klaus Knopper, who was involved in a Skolelinux project in
 930 Germany a few years ago.</p>
 931
 932 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 933
 934 <p>I am Klaus Knopper.  I have a master degree in electrical
 935 engineering, and is currently professor in information management at
 936 the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
 937 freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.</p>
 938
 939 <p>All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
 940 from teaching, I'm also conducting some more or less experimental
 941 projects like the <a href="http://www.knoppix.org">Knoppix GNU/Linux live
 942 system</a> (Debian-based like Skolelinux),
 943 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html">ADRIANE</a>
 944 (a blind-friendly talking desktop system) and
 945 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/linbo/index-en.html">LINBO</a>
 946 (Linux-based network boot console, a fast remote install and repair
 947 system supporting various operating systems).</p>
 948
 949 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
 950 project?</strong></p>
 951
 952 <p>The credit for this have to go to Kurt Gramlich, who is the German
 953 coordinator for Skolelinux.  We were looking for an all-in-one open
 954 source community-supported distribution for schools, and Kurt
 955 introduced us to Skolelinux for this purpose.</p>
 956
 957 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 958 Edu?</strong></p>
 959
 960 <ul>
 961   <li>Quick installation,</li>
 962   <li>works (almost) out of the box,</li>
 963   <li>contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,</li>
 964   <li>is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
 965     single company,</li>
 966   <li>has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
 967     experience and problem solutions.</li>
 968 </ul>
 969
 970 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 971 Edu?</strong></p>
 972
 973 <ul>
 974   <li>Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to
 975   the next version.  Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to
 976   a new version means a full new installation from scratch to get it
 977   working again reliably.
 978
 979   <li>Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a
 980   little outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or
 981   similar educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing
 982   as their base.
 983
 984   <li>Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
 985   configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is
 986   not always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network
 987   configuration is actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux
 988   and not easy to change, so schools sometimes have to change their
 989   network configuration to make it "Skolelinux-compatible".
 990
 991   <li>Some proposed extensions, which were made available as
 992   contribution, like secure examination mode and lecture material
 993   distribution and collection, were not accepted into the mainline
 994   Skolelinux development and are now not easy to maintain in the
 995   future because of Skolelinux somewhat undeterministic update
 996   schemes.</li>
 997
 998   <li>Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers
 999   compared to Debian.</li>
1000
1001 </ul>
1002
1003 <p>For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
1004 rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
1005 Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
1006 upgradeable without reinstallation.</p>
1007
1008 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1009
1010 <p>GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
1011 programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
1012 occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
1013 programming languages for teaching.</p>
1014
1015 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1016 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1017
1018 <p>Strong arguments are</p>
1019
1020 <ul>
1021
1022   <li>Knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
1023     teaching and learning.</li>
1024
1025   <li>Students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
1026     home, and at their working place without running into license or
1027     conversion problems.</li>
1028
1029   <li>Closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
1030     than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
1031     customers to certain products.  But teachers need to teach
1032     science, not products.</li>
1033
1034   <li>If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
1035     would you need proprietary software for?</li>
1036
1037 </ul>
1038
1039       </div>
1040       <div class="tags">
1041
1042
1043         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>.
1044
1045
1046       </div>
1047     </div>
1048     <div class="padding"></div>
1049
1050     <div class="entry">
1051       <div class="title">
1052         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle__a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo__take_shape.html">Dugnadsnett for alle, a wireless community network in Oslo, take shape</a>
1053       </div>
1054       <div class="date">
1055         30th November 2013
1056       </div>
1057       <div class="body">
1058         <p>If you want the ability to electronically communicate directly with
1059 your neighbors and friends using a network controlled by your peers in
1060 stead of centrally controlled by a few corporations, or would like to
1061 experiment with interesting network technology, the
1062 <a href="http://www.dugnadsnett.no/">Dugnasnett for alle i Oslo</a>
1063 might be project for you.  39 mesh nodes are currently being planned,
1064 in the freshly started initiative from NUUG and Hackeriet to create a
1065 wireless community network.  The work is inspired by
1066 <a href="http://freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a>,
1067 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan
1068 Network</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roofnet">Roofnet</a>
1069 and other successful mesh networks around the globe.  Two days ago we
1070 held a workshop to try to get people started on setting up their own
1071 mesh node, and there we decided to create a new mailing list
1072 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/dugnadsnett">dugnadsnett
1073 (at) nuug.no</a> and IRC channel
1074 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#dugnadsnett.no">#dugnadsnett.no</a> to
1075 coordinate the work.  See also the NUUG blog post
1076 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/E_postliste_og_IRC_kanal_for_Dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">announcing
1077 the mailing list and IRC channel</a>.</p>
1078
1079       </div>
1080       <div class="tags">
1081
1082
1083         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
1084
1085
1086       </div>
1087     </div>
1088     <div class="padding"></div>
1089
1090     <div class="entry">
1091       <div class="title">
1092         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
1093       </div>
1094       <div class="date">
1095         24th November 2013
1096       </div>
1097       <div class="body">
1098         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1099 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1100 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1101 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1102 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
1103 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1104 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
1105 is working on.  I checked the
1106 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
1107 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
1108 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
1109 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1110 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1111 These are the release notes:</p>
1112
1113 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
1114
1115 <ul>
1116
1117   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1118    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1119    up.</li>
1120
1121   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
1122
1123   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1124    Matthias Klose.</li>
1125
1126   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1127    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
1128
1129   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1130    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
1131    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
1132
1133 </ul>
1134
1135 <p>You can
1136 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1137 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1138 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1139 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1140 include a testsuite check.</p>
1141
1142       </div>
1143       <div class="tags">
1144
1145
1146         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1147
1148
1149       </div>
1150     </div>
1151     <div class="padding"></div>
1152
1153     <div class="entry">
1154       <div class="title">
1155         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/All_drones_should_be_radio_marked_with_what_they_do_and_who_they_belong_to.html">All drones should be radio marked with what they do and who they belong to</a>
1156       </div>
1157       <div class="date">
1158         21st November 2013
1159       </div>
1160       <div class="body">
1161         <p>Drones, flying robots, are getting more and more popular.  The most
1162 know ones are the killer drones used by some government to murder
1163 people they do not like without giving them the chance of a fair
1164 trial, but the technology have many good uses too, from mapping and
1165 forest maintenance to photography and search and rescue.  I am sure it
1166 is just a question of time before "bad drones" are in the hands of
1167 private enterprises and not only state criminals but petty criminals
1168 too.  The drone technology is very useful and very dangerous.  To have
1169 some control over the use of drones, I agree with Daniel Suarez in his
1170 TED talk
1171 "<a href="https://archive.org/details/DanielSuarez_2013G">The kill
1172 decision shouldn't belong to a robot</a>", where he suggested this
1173 little gem to keep the good while limiting the bad use of drones:</p>
1174
1175 <blockquote>
1176
1177 <p>Each robot and drone should have a cryptographically signed
1178 I.D. burned in at the factory that can be used to track its movement
1179 through public spaces. We have license plates on cars, tail numbers on
1180 aircraft. This is no different. And every citizen should be able to
1181 download an app that shows the population of drones and autonomous
1182 vehicles moving through public spaces around them, both right now and
1183 historically. And civic leaders should deploy sensors and civic drones
1184 to detect rogue drones, and instead of sending killer drones of their
1185 own up to shoot them down, they should notify humans to their
1186 presence. And in certain very high-security areas, perhaps civic
1187 drones would snare them and drag them off to a bomb disposal facility.</p>
1188
1189 <p>But notice, this is more an immune system than a weapons system. It
1190 would allow us to avail ourselves of the use of autonomous vehicles
1191 and drones while still preserving our open, civil society.</p>
1192
1193 </blockquote>
1194
1195 <p>The key is that <em>every citizen</em> should be able to read the
1196 radio beacons sent from the drones in the area, to be able to check
1197 both the government and others use of drones.  For such control to be
1198 effective, everyone must be able to do it.  What should such beacon
1199 contain?  At least formal owner, purpose, contact information and GPS
1200 location.  Probably also the origin and target position of the current
1201 flight.  And perhaps some registration number to be able to look up
1202 the drone in a central database tracking their movement.  Robots
1203 should not have privacy.  It is people who need privacy.</p>
1204
1205       </div>
1206       <div class="tags">
1207
1208
1209         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1210
1211
1212       </div>
1213     </div>
1214     <div class="padding"></div>
1215
1216     <div class="entry">
1217       <div class="title">
1218         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo_.html">Lets make a wireless community network in Oslo!</a>
1219       </div>
1220       <div class="date">
1221         13th November 2013
1222       </div>
1223       <div class="body">
1224         <p>Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced
1225 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Bli_med___bygge_dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">our
1226 plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in
1227 Oslo</a>.  The workshop to help people get started will take place
1228 Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of
1229 people joining forces to make this happen.  We have
1230 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/oslo-nodes.geojson">9
1231 locations plotted on the map</a>, but we will need more before we have
1232 a connected mesh spread across Oslo.  If this sound interesting to
1233 you, please join us at the workshop.  If you are too impatient to wait
1234 15 days, please join us on the IRC channel
1235 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
1236 right away. :)</p>
1237
1238       </div>
1239       <div class="tags">
1240
1241
1242         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
1243
1244
1245       </div>
1246     </div>
1247     <div class="padding"></div>
1248
1249     <div class="entry">
1250       <div class="title">
1251         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Running_TP_Link_MR3040_as_a_batman_adv_mesh_node_using_openwrt.html">Running TP-Link MR3040 as a batman-adv mesh node using openwrt</a>
1252       </div>
1253       <div class="date">
1254         10th November 2013
1255       </div>
1256       <div class="body">
1257         <p>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
1258 use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
1259 bought arrived on Friday.  Here are my notes on how to set up the
1260 MR3040 as a mesh node using
1261 <a href="http://www.openwrt.org/">OpenWrt</a>.</p>
1262
1263 <p>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
1264 <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040">TL-MR3040</a>,
1265 and downloaded
1266 <a href="http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin">the
1267 recommended firmware image</a>
1268 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
1269 uploaded it into the original web interface.  The flashing went fine,
1270 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port.  After
1271 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
1272 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.</p>
1273
1274 <p>I started off by reading the instructions from
1275 <a href="http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine's_Research">Wireless
1276 Africa</a>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
1277 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
1278 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config">using
1279 batman-adv on OpenWrt</a>.  A small snag was the fact that the
1280 <tt>opkg install kmod-batman-adv</tt> command did not work as it
1281 should.  The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
1282 dependency crc16 was not already loaded.  I
1283 <a href="https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14452">reported the bug</a> to
1284 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon.  But the problem
1285 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
1286 seem to work when booting from scratch.</p>
1287
1288 <p>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/.  I did not bridge
1289 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
1290 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
1291 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
1292 them:</p>
1293
1294 <p><tt>/etc/config/network</tt></p>
1295
1296 <pre>
1297
1298 config interface 'loopback'
1299         option ifname 'lo'
1300         option proto 'static'
1301         option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
1302         option netmask '255.0.0.0'
1303
1304 config globals 'globals'
1305         option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
1306
1307 config interface 'lan'
1308         option ifname 'eth0'
1309         option type 'bridge'
1310         option proto 'dhcp'
1311         option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
1312         option netmask '255.255.255.0'
1313         option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
1314         option ip6assign '60'
1315
1316 config interface 'mesh'
1317         option ifname 'adhoc0'
1318         option mtu '1528'
1319         option proto 'batadv'
1320         option mesh 'bat0'
1321 </pre>
1322
1323 <p><tt>/etc/config/wireless</tt></p>
1324 <pre>
1325
1326 config wifi-device 'radio0'
1327         option type 'mac80211'
1328         option channel '11'
1329         option hwmode '11ng'
1330         option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
1331         option htmode 'HT20'
1332         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
1333         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
1334         list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
1335         list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
1336         option disabled '0'
1337
1338 config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
1339         option device 'radio0'
1340         option ifname 'adhoc0'
1341         option network 'mesh'
1342         option encryption 'none'
1343         option mode 'adhoc'
1344         option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
1345         option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
1346 </pre>
1347 <p><tt>/etc/config/batman-adv</tt></p>
1348 <pre>
1349
1350 config 'mesh' 'bat0'
1351         option interfaces 'adhoc0'
1352         option 'aggregated_ogms'
1353         option 'ap_isolation'
1354         option 'bonding'
1355         option 'fragmentation'
1356         option 'gw_bandwidth'
1357         option 'gw_mode'
1358         option 'gw_sel_class'
1359         option 'log_level'
1360         option 'orig_interval'
1361         option 'vis_mode'
1362         option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
1363         option 'distributed_arp_table'
1364         option 'network_coding'
1365         option 'hop_penalty'
1366
1367 # yet another batX instance
1368 # config 'mesh' 'bat5'
1369 #       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
1370 </pre>
1371
1372 <p>The mesh node is now operational.  I have yet to test its range,
1373 but I hope it is good.  I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box
1374 still wrapped up in plastic.</p>
1375
1376       </div>
1377       <div class="tags">
1378
1379
1380         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
1381
1382
1383       </div>
1384     </div>
1385     <div class="padding"></div>
1386
1387     <div class="entry">
1388       <div class="title">
1389         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
1390       </div>
1391       <div class="date">
1392          2nd November 2013
1393       </div>
1394       <div class="body">
1395         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1396 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
1397 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1398 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1399 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
1400
1401 <p><pre>
1402 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1403 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
1404 # Provides:          rsyslog
1405 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
1406 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
1407 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
1408 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
1409 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
1410 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1411 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1412 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1413 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
1414 ### END INIT INFO
1415 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
1416 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1417 </pre></p>
1418
1419 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1420 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
1421 info/comments.</p>
1422
1423 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
1424 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1425
1426 <p><pre>
1427 #!/bin/sh
1428
1429 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1430 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
1431 # and status_of_proc is working.
1432 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1433
1434 #
1435 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1436
1437 #
1438 do_start()
1439 {
1440         # Return
1441         #   0 if daemon has been started
1442         #   1 if daemon was already running
1443         #   2 if daemon could not be started
1444         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
1445                 || return 1
1446         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1447                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
1448                 || return 2
1449         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1450         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1451         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1452 }
1453
1454 #
1455 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1456 #
1457 do_stop()
1458 {
1459         # Return
1460         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
1461         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
1462         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
1463         #   other if a failure occurred
1464         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1465         RETVAL="$?"
1466         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
1467         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1468         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1469         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1470         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1471         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
1472         # sleep for some time.
1473         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
1474         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
1475         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1476         rm -f $PIDFILE
1477         return "$RETVAL"
1478 }
1479
1480 #
1481 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1482 #
1483 do_reload() {
1484         #
1485         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
1486         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
1487         # then implement that here.
1488         #
1489         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1490         return 0
1491 }
1492
1493 SCRIPTNAME=$1
1494 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
1495 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
1496 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
1497     script="$1"
1498     shift
1499     . $script
1500 else
1501     exit 0
1502 fi
1503
1504 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
1505 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
1506
1507 # Exit if the package is not installed
1508 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
1509
1510 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
1511 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
1512
1513 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
1514 . /lib/init/vars.sh
1515
1516 case "$1" in
1517   start)
1518         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
1519         do_start
1520         case "$?" in
1521                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1522                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1523         esac
1524         ;;
1525   stop)
1526         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
1527         do_stop
1528         case "$?" in
1529                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1530                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1531         esac
1532         ;;
1533   status)
1534         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
1535         ;;
1536   #reload|force-reload)
1537         #
1538         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
1539         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
1540         #
1541         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
1542         #do_reload
1543         #log_end_msg $?
1544         #;;
1545   restart|force-reload)
1546         #
1547         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
1548         # 'force-reload' alias
1549         #
1550         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
1551         do_stop
1552         case "$?" in
1553           0|1)
1554                 do_start
1555                 case "$?" in
1556                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
1557                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
1558                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
1559                 esac
1560                 ;;
1561           *)
1562                 # Failed to stop
1563                 log_end_msg 1
1564                 ;;
1565         esac
1566         ;;
1567   *)
1568         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
1569         exit 3
1570         ;;
1571 esac
1572
1573 :
1574 </pre></p>
1575
1576 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
1577 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
1578 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
1579 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
1580
1581 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
1582 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
1583 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
1584 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
1585 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
1586
1587       </div>
1588       <div class="tags">
1589
1590
1591         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>.
1592
1593
1594       </div>
1595     </div>
1596     <div class="padding"></div>
1597
1598     <div class="entry">
1599       <div class="title">
1600         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
1601       </div>
1602       <div class="date">
1603          1st November 2013
1604       </div>
1605       <div class="body">
1606         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
1607 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
1608 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
1609 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
1610 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
1611 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
1612 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
1613 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
1614 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
1615 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
1616 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
1617 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
1618
1619 <p>The source is now available from
1620 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
1621
1622       </div>
1623       <div class="tags">
1624
1625
1626         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>.
1627
1628
1629       </div>
1630     </div>
1631     <div class="padding"></div>
1632
1633     <div class="entry">
1634       <div class="title">
1635         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
1636       </div>
1637       <div class="date">
1638         27th October 2013
1639       </div>
1640       <div class="body">
1641         <p>The
1642 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
1643 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
1644 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
1645 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
1646 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
1647 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
1648 of a plan to simplify the build system for
1649 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
1650 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
1651 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
1652 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
1653 Raspberry Pi.</p>
1654
1655 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
1656 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
1657 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
1658 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
1659 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
1660 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
1661 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
1662 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
1663 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
1664 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
1665 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
1666 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
1667 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
1668 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
1669 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
1670 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
1671 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
1672 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
1673 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
1674 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
1675 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
1676 available from
1677 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
1678 upstream project page</a>.</p>
1679
1680 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
1681 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
1682 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
1683 list:</p>
1684
1685 <p><pre>
1686 #!/bin/sh
1687 set -e # Exit on first error
1688 rootdir="$1"
1689 cd "$rootdir"
1690 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
1691 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
1692 EOF
1693 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
1694 # install a kernel somewhere too.
1695 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
1696     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1697 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1698 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
1699 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
1700 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
1701 </pre></p>
1702
1703 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
1704 to build the image:</p>
1705
1706 <pre>
1707 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
1708     --variant minbase \
1709     --arch armel \
1710     --distribution jessie \
1711     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
1712     --image test.img \
1713     --size 600M \
1714     --bootsize 64M \
1715     --boottype vfat \
1716     --log-level debug \
1717     --verbose \
1718     --no-kernel \
1719     --no-extlinux \
1720     --root-password raspberry \
1721     --hostname raspberrypi \
1722     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
1723     --customize `pwd`/customize \
1724     --package netbase \
1725     --package git-core \
1726     --package binutils \
1727     --package ca-certificates \
1728     --package wget \
1729     --package kmod
1730 </pre></p>
1731
1732 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
1733 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
1734 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
1735 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
1736 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
1737 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
1738 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
1739
1740 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
1741 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
1742 build dependency list.</p>
1743
1744 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
1745 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
1746 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
1747 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
1748
1749       </div>
1750       <div class="tags">
1751
1752
1753         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
1754
1755
1756       </div>
1757     </div>
1758     <div class="padding"></div>
1759
1760     <div class="entry">
1761       <div class="title">
1762         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</a>
1763       </div>
1764       <div class="date">
1765         21st October 2013
1766       </div>
1767       <div class="body">
1768         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
1769 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
1770 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
1771 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
1772 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
1773 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
1774 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
1775 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
1776
1777 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
1778 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
1779 instead, I started playing with a
1780 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
1781 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
1782 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
1783 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
1784 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
1785 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
1786 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
1787 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
1788 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
1789 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
1790 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
1791 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
1792 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
1793 every client on the local network.</p>
1794
1795 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
1796 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
1797 and a script
1798 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
1799 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
1800 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
1801 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
1802 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
1803 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
1804 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
1805 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
1806 support.</p>
1807
1808 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
1809 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
1810
1811 <p><pre>
1812 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
1813     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
1814 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
1815 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
1816 %
1817 </pre></p>
1818
1819 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
1820 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
1821 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
1822 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
1823 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
1824 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
1825
1826 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
1827 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
1828 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
1829
1830 <p><table>
1831
1832 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
1833 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
1834 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
1835 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
1836 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
1837 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
1838
1839 </table></p>
1840
1841 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
1842 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
1843 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
1844 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
1845 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
1846 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
1847 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
1848
1849       </div>
1850       <div class="tags">
1851
1852
1853         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
1854
1855
1856       </div>
1857     </div>
1858     <div class="padding"></div>
1859
1860     <div class="entry">
1861       <div class="title">
1862         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html">Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github</a>
1863       </div>
1864       <div class="date">
1865         19th October 2013
1866       </div>
1867       <div class="body">
1868         <p>Back in 2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
1869 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee">the Spykee robot</a>
1870 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
1871 web page.  Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
1872 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github.  If
1873 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
1874 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl">the
1875 libspykee-perl github repository</a>.</p>
1876
1877       </div>
1878       <div class="tags">
1879
1880
1881         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>.
1882
1883
1884       </div>
1885     </div>
1886     <div class="padding"></div>
1887
1888     <div class="entry">
1889       <div class="title">
1890         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
1891       </div>
1892       <div class="date">
1893         15th October 2013
1894       </div>
1895       <div class="body">
1896         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
1897 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
1898 these. :)</p>
1899
1900 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
1901 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
1902 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
1903 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
1904 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
1905 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
1906 hope you will to. :)</p>
1907
1908 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
1909 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
1910 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
1911 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
1912 donated.  Are you next?</p>
1913
1914 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
1915 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
1916 statement under the heading
1917 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
1918 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
1919 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
1920 too.</p>
1921
1922       </div>
1923       <div class="tags">
1924
1925
1926         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1927
1928
1929       </div>
1930     </div>
1931     <div class="padding"></div>
1932
1933     <div class="entry">
1934       <div class="title">
1935         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania</a>
1936       </div>
1937       <div class="date">
1938         11th October 2013
1939       </div>
1940       <div class="body">
1941         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
1942 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
1943 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
1944 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
1945 successful examples like
1946 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
1947 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
1948 (see
1949 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
1950 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
1951 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
1952 can be seen from their
1953 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
1954 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
1955 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
1956 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
1957 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
1958
1959 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
1960 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
1961 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
1962 my recent involvement in
1963 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
1964 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
1965 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
1966 when possible, given that most communication between people are
1967 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
1968 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
1969 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
1970 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
1971 important over the years.</p>
1972
1973 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
1974 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
1975 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
1976 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
1977 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
1978 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
1979 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
1980 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
1981 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
1982 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
1983 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
1984 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
1985 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
1986 speakers about this talk (from
1987 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
1988
1989 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
1990
1991 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
1992 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
1993 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
1994 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
1995 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
1996 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
1997 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
1998 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
1999 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
2000 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
2001 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
2002 that project (from
2003 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
2004
2005 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
2006
2007 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
2008 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
2009 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
2010 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
2011 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
2012 based community mesh networks.</p>
2013
2014 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
2015 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
2016 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
2017 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
2018 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
2019 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
2020 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
2021 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
2022 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
2023
2024 <p><table>
2025 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
2026 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
2027 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
2028 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
2029 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
2030 </table></p>
2031
2032 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
2033 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
2034 VillageTelco about
2035 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
2036 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
2037 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
2038 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
2039 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
2040 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
2041
2042 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
2043 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
2044 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
2045 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
2046
2047 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
2048 us on IRC, either channel
2049 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
2050 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
2051 irc.freenode.net.</p>
2052
2053 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
2054 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
2055 and Innovation called
2056 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
2057 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
2058 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
2059 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
2060 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
2061 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
2062 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
2063 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
2064
2065 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
2066 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
2067 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
2068 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
2069 mesh system.</p>
2070
2071       </div>
2072       <div class="tags">
2073
2074
2075         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
2076
2077
2078       </div>
2079     </div>
2080     <div class="padding"></div>
2081
2082     <div class="entry">
2083       <div class="title">
2084         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu 7.1 install and overview video from Marcelo Salvador</a>
2085       </div>
2086       <div class="date">
2087          8th October 2013
2088       </div>
2089       <div class="body">
2090         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
2091 Salvador had published a
2092 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
2093 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
2094 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
2095 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
2096 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
2097 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
2098 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
2099 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
2100 showing the <a href="http://www.zygotebody.com/">Zygote Body 3D model
2101 of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
2102 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
2103 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
2104 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
2105 computers without hard drives by installing one central
2106 <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP server</a>.</p>
2107
2108 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
2109
2110 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
2111
2112 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
2113 me know. :)</p>
2114
2115       </div>
2116       <div class="tags">
2117
2118
2119         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>.
2120
2121
2122       </div>
2123     </div>
2124     <div class="padding"></div>
2125
2126     <div class="entry">
2127       <div class="title">
2128         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
2129       </div>
2130       <div class="date">
2131         29th September 2013
2132       </div>
2133       <div class="body">
2134         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
2135 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
2136 complete announcement text can be found at
2137 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
2138 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
2139
2140 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
2141 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
2142 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
2143 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
2144
2145       </div>
2146       <div class="tags">
2147
2148
2149         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>.
2150
2151
2152       </div>
2153     </div>
2154     <div class="padding"></div>
2155
2156     <div class="entry">
2157       <div class="title">
2158         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
2159       </div>
2160       <div class="date">
2161         27th September 2013
2162       </div>
2163       <div class="body">
2164         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2165 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2166 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2167 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2168
2169 <ul>
2170
2171 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2172 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2173
2174 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2175 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2176
2177 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2178 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2179 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2180 (Youtube)</li>
2181
2182 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2183 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2184
2185 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2186 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2187
2188 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2189 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2190 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2191
2192 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2193 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2194 (Youtube)</li>
2195
2196 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2197 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2198
2199 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2200 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2201
2202 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2203 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2204 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2205
2206 </ul>
2207
2208 <p>A larger list is available from
2209 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2210 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2211
2212 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2213 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2214 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2215 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2216 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2217 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2218 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
2219 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
2220 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
2221 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2222 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2223
2224       </div>
2225       <div class="tags">
2226
2227
2228         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2229
2230
2231       </div>
2232     </div>
2233     <div class="padding"></div>
2234
2235     <div class="entry">
2236       <div class="title">
2237         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_and_probably_last_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Wheezy.html">Third and probably last beta release of Debian Edu Wheezy</a>
2238       </div>
2239       <div class="date">
2240         16th September 2013
2241       </div>
2242       <div class="body">
2243         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
2244 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
2245
2246 <blockquote>
2247 <p>Hi,</p>
2248
2249 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
2250 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2251 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
2252
2253 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
2254 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
2255 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
2256 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
2257
2258 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
2259 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
2260
2261 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
2262 compared to beta1:</p>
2263
2264 <ul>
2265
2266 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
2267 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
2268 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
2269 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
2270 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
2271 main server.</li>
2272 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
2273 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
2274 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
2275 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
2276 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
2277
2278 </ul>
2279
2280 <p>Where to get it:</p>
2281
2282 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2283
2284 <ul>
2285 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
2286 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
2287 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
2288 </ul>
2289
2290 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
2291
2292 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
2293 <ul>
2294 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
2295 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
2296 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
2297 </ul>
2298
2299 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
2300
2301 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
2302 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
2303 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
2304 as the other isos.</p>
2305
2306 <p>How to report bugs</p>
2307
2308 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
2309 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
2310
2311
2312 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
2313
2314 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
2315 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
2316 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
2317 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
2318 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
2319 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
2320 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
2321 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
2322 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
2323 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
2324 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
2325 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
2326 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2327
2328 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
2329 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
2330 Squeeze release.</p>
2331
2332 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
2333
2334 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
2335 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
2336 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
2337 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
2338 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
2339 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
2340 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
2341 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
2342 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
2343 directory.</p>
2344
2345
2346 <p>cheers,
2347 <br>        Holger</p>
2348 </blockquote>
2349
2350       </div>
2351       <div class="tags">
2352
2353
2354         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>.
2355
2356
2357       </div>
2358     </div>
2359     <div class="padding"></div>
2360
2361     <div class="entry">
2362       <div class="title">
2363         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
2364       </div>
2365       <div class="date">
2366         10th September 2013
2367       </div>
2368       <div class="body">
2369         <p>I was introduced to the
2370 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2371 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2372 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2373 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2374 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2375 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2376 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2377 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2378
2379 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2380 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2381 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2382 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2383 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2384
2385 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2386 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2387 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2388 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2389 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2390 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2391 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2392 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2393 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2394 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2395 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2396 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2397 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2398 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2399 missing in Debian).</p>
2400
2401 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2402 scripts
2403 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2404 and a administrative web interface
2405 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2406 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2407 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2408 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2409 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2410 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2411 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2412 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2413 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2414 this is really working yet, see
2415 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2416 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2417 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2418 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2419 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2420 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2421 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2422
2423 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2424 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2425 at.</p>
2426
2427 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2428
2429 <ol>
2430
2431 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2432 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2433 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2434 to the Debian installer:<p>
2435 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2436
2437 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2438 install on.</li>
2439
2440 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2441 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2442
2443 </ol>
2444
2445 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2446
2447 <ol>
2448
2449 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2450 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2451 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2452 <pre>
2453 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2454 </pre></li>
2455 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2456 <pre>
2457 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2458    apt-key add -
2459 apt-get update
2460 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2461 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2462 </pre></li>
2463 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2464
2465 </ol>
2466
2467 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2468 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2469 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2470 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2471 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2472
2473 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2474 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2475 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2476 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2477
2478 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2479 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2480 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2481 irc.debian.org and the
2482 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2483 mailing list</a>.</p>
2484
2485 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2486 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2487 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2488 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2489 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2490 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2491
2492       </div>
2493       <div class="tags">
2494
2495
2496         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2497
2498
2499       </div>
2500     </div>
2501     <div class="padding"></div>
2502
2503     <div class="entry">
2504       <div class="title">
2505         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_release__beta_1__of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second beta release (beta 1) of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
2506       </div>
2507       <div class="date">
2508         22nd August 2013
2509       </div>
2510       <div class="body">
2511         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
2512 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
2513 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
2514
2515 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
2516
2517 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2518 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2519
2520 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2521
2522 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2523 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2524 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2525 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
2526 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2527 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2528 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2529 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
2530 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
2531 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
2532 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
2533 desktop contains
2534 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
2535 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
2536 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
2537 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2538
2539 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
2540 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
2541 release.</p>
2542
2543 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
2544 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
2545 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
2546 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
2547 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
2548 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
2549 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
2550 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
2551 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
2552 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
2553 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
2554
2555 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2556
2557 <ul>
2558
2559 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
2560     work also without a attached tty.</li>
2561 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
2562     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
2563     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
2564     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
2565     required).</li>
2566
2567 </ul>
2568
2569 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2570
2571 <ul>
2572
2573 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
2574 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
2575 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
2576 stick ISO image.</li>
2577 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
2578 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
2579 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
2580     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
2581     cope with this.</li>
2582 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
2583 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
2584     empty password hashes.</li>
2585 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
2586     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
2587     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
2588
2589 </ul>
2590
2591 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2592
2593 <ul>
2594
2595 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
2596     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
2597 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
2598     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
2599
2600 </ul>
2601
2602 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2603
2604 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2605
2606 <ul>
2607
2608 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
2609
2610 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
2611
2612 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
2613
2614 </ul>
2615
2616 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
2617 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
2618
2619 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
2620
2621 <ul>
2622
2623 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
2624 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
2625 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
2626
2627 </ul>
2628
2629 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
2630 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
2631
2632
2633 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2634
2635 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
2636
2637       </div>
2638       <div class="tags">
2639
2640
2641         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>.
2642
2643
2644       </div>
2645     </div>
2646     <div class="padding"></div>
2647
2648     <div class="entry">
2649       <div class="title">
2650         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
2651       </div>
2652       <div class="date">
2653         18th August 2013
2654       </div>
2655       <div class="body">
2656         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2657 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2658 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2659 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2660 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2661 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2662 currently on the disk.</p>
2663
2664 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2665 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
2666 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2667 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2668 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2669 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2670 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2671 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2672 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2673 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2674 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2675 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2676 the broken disks.</p>
2677
2678       </div>
2679       <div class="tags">
2680
2681
2682         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>.
2683
2684
2685       </div>
2686     </div>
2687     <div class="padding"></div>
2688
2689     <div class="entry">
2690       <div class="title">
2691         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/90_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">90 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a>
2692       </div>
2693       <div class="date">
2694          2nd August 2013
2695       </div>
2696       <div class="body">
2697         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
2698 have worked on a Norwegian
2699 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
2700 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
2701 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
2702 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
2703 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
2704 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
2705 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
2706 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
2707 progress of the translation:</p>
2708
2709 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
2710
2711 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
2712 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
2713 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
2714 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
2715 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
2716 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
2717 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
2718 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
2719 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
2720 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
2721 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
2722
2723 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
2724 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
2725 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
2726 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
2727 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
2728 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
2729 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
2730 project files currently available from
2731 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
2732
2733 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
2734 the updated
2735 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
2736 and
2737 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
2738 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
2739 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
2740 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
2741
2742       </div>
2743       <div class="tags">
2744
2745
2746         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>.
2747
2748
2749       </div>
2750     </div>
2751     <div class="padding"></div>
2752
2753     <div class="entry">
2754       <div class="title">
2755         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First beta release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
2756       </div>
2757       <div class="date">
2758         27th July 2013
2759       </div>
2760       <div class="body">
2761         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
2762 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
2763
2764 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
2765 2013-07-27</strong></p>
2766
2767 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2768 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2769
2770 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2771
2772 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2773 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2774 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2775 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
2776 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2777 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2778 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2779 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
2780 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
2781 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
2782 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
2783 desktop contains
2784 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
2785 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
2786 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
2787 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2788
2789 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
2790 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
2791 Squeeze release.</p>
2792
2793 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
2794 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
2795 release.</p>
2796
2797 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2798
2799 <ul>
2800
2801 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
2802    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
2803 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
2804    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
2805    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
2806    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
2807    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
2808 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
2809 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
2810 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
2811    crash bugs.</li>
2812
2813 </ul>
2814
2815 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2816
2817 <ul>
2818
2819 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
2820    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
2821 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
2822    netinst CD.</li>
2823 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
2824    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
2825 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
2826    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
2827    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
2828 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
2829    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
2830    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
2831 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
2832    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
2833    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
2834 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
2835    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
2836 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
2837
2838 </ul>
2839
2840 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2841
2842 <ul>
2843
2844 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
2845 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
2846     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
2847 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
2848
2849 </ul>
2850
2851 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2852
2853 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2854
2855 <ul>
2856
2857 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
2858
2859 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
2860
2861 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
2862
2863 </ul>
2864
2865 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
2866 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
2867
2868 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
2869
2870 <ul>
2871
2872 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
2873 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
2874 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
2875
2876 </ul>
2877
2878 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
2879 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
2880
2881
2882 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2883
2884 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
2885
2886       </div>
2887       <div class="tags">
2888
2889
2890         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>.
2891
2892
2893       </div>
2894     </div>
2895     <div class="padding"></div>
2896
2897     <div class="entry">
2898       <div class="title">
2899         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
2900       </div>
2901       <div class="date">
2902         17th July 2013
2903       </div>
2904       <div class="body">
2905         <p>Today I switched to
2906 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2907 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2908 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2909 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
2910 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2911 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2912 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2913 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2914 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2915 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2916 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2917 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2918 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2919 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2920 station from now on.</p>
2921
2922 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2923 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2924 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2925 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2926 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2927 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2928 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2929 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2930 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2931 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2932 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2933 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2934
2935 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2936 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2937 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2938 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2939 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2940 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2941 parameters are tuned:</p>
2942
2943 <ul>
2944
2945 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2946     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2947
2948 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2949     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2950     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2951
2952 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2953     systems.</li>
2954
2955 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2956     /etc/fstab.</li>
2957
2958 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2959
2960 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2961     cron.daily).</li>
2962
2963 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2964     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2965
2966 </ul>
2967
2968 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2969 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2970 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2971 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2972 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2973 from getting the data on the disk (see
2974 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2975 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2976 right thing to do.</p>
2977
2978 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2979 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2980 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2981
2982 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2983 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2984 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2985 instead of during my work.</p>
2986
2987 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2988 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2989
2990 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2991 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2992 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2993
2994 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2995 there.</p>
2996
2997 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2998 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2999 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
3000 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
3001 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
3002 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
3003 back.</p>
3004
3005       </div>
3006       <div class="tags">
3007
3008
3009         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>.
3010
3011
3012       </div>
3013     </div>
3014     <div class="padding"></div>
3015
3016     <div class="entry">
3017       <div class="title">
3018         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
3019       </div>
3020       <div class="date">
3021         10th July 2013
3022       </div>
3023       <div class="body">
3024         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
3025 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
3026 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
3027 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
3028 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
3029 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
3030 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
3031 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
3032
3033 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
3034 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
3035 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
3036 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
3037 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
3038 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
3039 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
3040 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
3041 lock up when I download a new
3042 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
3043 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
3044 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
3045
3046 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3047 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
3048 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3049 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
3050 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3051 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3052
3053 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3054 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
3055 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3056 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
3057 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3058 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3059
3060 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
3061 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
3062 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
3063 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
3064 exist).</p>
3065
3066       </div>
3067       <div class="tags">
3068
3069
3070         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>.
3071
3072
3073       </div>
3074     </div>
3075     <div class="padding"></div>
3076
3077     <div class="entry">
3078       <div class="title">
3079         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
3080       </div>
3081       <div class="date">
3082          9th July 2013
3083       </div>
3084       <div class="body">
3085         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
3086 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
3087 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
3088 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
3089 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3090 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
3091 Bitraf</a>.</p>
3092
3093 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
3094 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
3095 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
3096 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
3097 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
3098
3099       </div>
3100       <div class="tags">
3101
3102
3103         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>.
3104
3105
3106       </div>
3107     </div>
3108     <div class="padding"></div>
3109
3110     <div class="entry">
3111       <div class="title">
3112         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
3113       </div>
3114       <div class="date">
3115          5th July 2013
3116       </div>
3117       <div class="body">
3118         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
3119 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
3120 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
3121 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
3122 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
3123 ended up picking a
3124 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
3125 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
3126 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
3127 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
3128 on that below.</p>
3129
3130 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3131 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3132 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3133 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3134 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3135 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
3136 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
3137 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
3138 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
3139
3140 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
3141 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
3142 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
3143 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
3144 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
3145 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
3146 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
3147
3148 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
3149 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
3150
3151 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
3152 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
3153 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
3154 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
3155 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
3156 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
3157 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
3158 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
3159 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
3160 kernel developers as
3161 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
3162 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
3163 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
3164 Lenovo forums, both for
3165 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
3166 2012-11-10</a> and for
3167 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
3168 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
3169 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
3170 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
3171 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
3172 There is even a
3173 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
3174 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
3175 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
3176
3177 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
3178 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
3179 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
3180 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
3181 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
3182 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
3183 fixed. :)</p>
3184
3185       </div>
3186       <div class="tags">
3187
3188
3189         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>.
3190
3191
3192       </div>
3193     </div>
3194     <div class="padding"></div>
3195
3196     <div class="entry">
3197       <div class="title">
3198         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
3199       </div>
3200       <div class="date">
3201          4th July 2013
3202       </div>
3203       <div class="body">
3204         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
3205 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
3206 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
3207 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
3208 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
3209 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
3210 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
3211 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
3212 with an expencive door stop.</p>
3213
3214 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3215 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3216 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3217 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3218 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3219 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
3220 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
3221
3222 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
3223 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
3224 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
3225 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
3226 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
3227 new laptop now. :)</p>
3228
3229 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
3230
3231       </div>
3232       <div class="tags">
3233
3234
3235         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>.
3236
3237
3238       </div>
3239     </div>
3240     <div class="padding"></div>
3241
3242     <div class="entry">
3243       <div class="title">
3244         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fourth_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Fourth alpha release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
3245       </div>
3246       <div class="date">
3247          3rd July 2013
3248       </div>
3249       <div class="body">
3250         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
3251 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
3252
3253 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
3254 2013-07-03</strong></p>
3255
3256 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3257 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
3258
3259 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
3260
3261 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
3262 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
3263 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
3264 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
3265 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
3266 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
3267 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
3268 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
3269 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
3270 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
3271 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
3272 desktop contains
3273 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
3274 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
3275 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
3276 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
3277
3278 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
3279 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
3280 Squeeze release.</p>
3281
3282 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
3283 <ul>
3284   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
3285   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
3286     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
3287     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
3288   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
3289     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
3290     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
3291   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
3292     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
3293     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
3294     too.</li>
3295   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
3296     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
3297 </ul>
3298 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
3299 <ul>
3300   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
3301   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
3302   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
3303     up for some language options.</li>
3304   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
3305   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
3306   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
3307     d-i is doing it.</li>
3308   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
3309     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
3310   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
3311     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
3312     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
3313   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
3314     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
3315   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
3316   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
3317     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
3318   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
3319     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
3320 </ul>
3321 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
3322 <ul>
3323   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
3324     available yet (698840).</li>
3325   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
3326 </ul>
3327 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
3328
3329 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
3330 <ul>
3331   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
3332   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
3333   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
3334 </ul>
3335
3336 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
3337 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
3338
3339 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
3340 <ul>
3341   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
3342   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
3343   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
3344 </ul>
3345
3346 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
3347 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
3348
3349 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
3350
3351 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
3352
3353       </div>
3354       <div class="tags">
3355
3356
3357         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>.
3358
3359
3360       </div>
3361     </div>
3362     <div class="padding"></div>
3363
3364     <div class="entry">
3365       <div class="title">
3366         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
3367       </div>
3368       <div class="date">
3369         25th June 2013
3370       </div>
3371       <div class="body">
3372         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
3373 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
3374 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
3375 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
3376 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
3377 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
3378 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
3379 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
3380 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
3381 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
3382 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
3383
3384 <p><pre>
3385 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3386 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
3387 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
3388 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
3389 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
3390 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
3391 firmware-ipw2x00
3392 firmware-ipw2x00
3393 Preconfiguring packages ...
3394 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
3395 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
3396 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
3397 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
3398 #
3399 </pre></p>
3400
3401 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
3402 printed instead:</p>
3403
3404 <p><pre>
3405 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3406 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3407 #
3408 </pre></p>
3409
3410 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
3411 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
3412
3413 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
3414 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
3415 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
3416 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
3417 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
3418 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
3419 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
3420 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
3421 machine.</p>
3422
3423 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
3424 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
3425 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
3426 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
3427 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
3428 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
3429
3430       </div>
3431       <div class="tags">
3432
3433
3434         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3435
3436
3437       </div>
3438     </div>
3439     <div class="padding"></div>
3440
3441     <div class="entry">
3442       <div class="title">
3443         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html">The value of a good distro wide test suite...</a>
3444       </div>
3445       <div class="date">
3446         22nd June 2013
3447       </div>
3448       <div class="body">
3449         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3450 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
3451 which check that services are running, working, and return the
3452 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
3453 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
3454 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
3455 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
3456 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
3457 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
3458
3459 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
3460 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
3461 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
3462 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
3463 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
3464 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
3465 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
3466 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
3467 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
3468 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
3469 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
3470 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
3471 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
3472 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
3473
3474 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
3475 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
3476 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
3477 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
3478 the problem.</p>
3479
3480 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
3481 please join us on
3482 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
3483 irc.debian.org</a> and the
3484 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
3485 list.</p>
3486
3487       </div>
3488       <div class="tags">
3489
3490
3491         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>.
3492
3493
3494       </div>
3495     </div>
3496     <div class="padding"></div>
3497
3498     <div class="entry">
3499       <div class="title">
3500         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
3501       </div>
3502       <div class="date">
3503         17th June 2013
3504       </div>
3505       <div class="body">
3506         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
3507 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
3508 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
3509 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
3510 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
3511 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
3512 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
3513 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
3514
3515 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3516
3517 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
3518 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
3519 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
3520 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
3521 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
3522 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
3523 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
3524 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
3525 field.</p>
3526
3527 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
3528 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
3529 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
3530 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
3531 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
3532 the only one we have in our country.</p>
3533
3534 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3535 project?</strong></p>
3536
3537 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
3538 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
3539 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
3540 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
3541 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
3542 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
3543 ways to contribute.</p>
3544
3545 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
3546 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
3547 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
3548 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
3549 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
3550 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
3551 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
3552 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
3553 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
3554 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
3555
3556 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3557 Edu?</strong></p>
3558
3559 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
3560 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
3561 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
3562 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
3563 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
3564 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
3565 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
3566 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
3567
3568 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
3569 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
3570 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
3571 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
3572 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
3573 project.</p>
3574
3575 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3576 Edu?</strong></p>
3577
3578 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
3579 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
3580 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
3581 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
3582 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
3583 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
3584 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
3585 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
3586 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
3587
3588 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
3589 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
3590 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
3591 on.</p>
3592
3593 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3594
3595 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
3596 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
3597 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
3598 Enlightenment project a lot!),
3599 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
3600 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
3601 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
3602 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
3603 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
3604
3605 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3606 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3607
3608 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
3609 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
3610 that:</p>
3611
3612 <ul>
3613
3614 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
3615
3616 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
3617     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
3618     of teenagers more?</li>
3619
3620 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
3621     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
3622     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
3623     them!)</li>
3624
3625 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
3626     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
3627     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
3628
3629 </ul>
3630
3631 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
3632 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
3633 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
3634 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
3635 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
3636
3637       </div>
3638       <div class="tags">
3639
3640
3641         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>.
3642
3643
3644       </div>
3645     </div>
3646     <div class="padding"></div>
3647
3648     <div class="entry">
3649       <div class="title">
3650         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
3651       </div>
3652       <div class="date">
3653         12th June 2013
3654       </div>
3655       <div class="body">
3656         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
3657 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3658 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
3659 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
3660 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
3661 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
3662
3663 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3664
3665 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
3666 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
3667 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
3668
3669 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
3670 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
3671 each other.</p>
3672
3673 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3674 project?</strong></p>
3675
3676 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
3677 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
3678 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
3679 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
3680 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
3681 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
3682 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
3683 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
3684 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
3685 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
3686 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
3687 we'll get there one day.</p>
3688
3689 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3690 Edu?</strong></p>
3691
3692 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
3693 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
3694 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
3695 very high quality work.</p>
3696
3697 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
3698 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
3699 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
3700 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
3701 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
3702
3703 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3704 Edu?</strong></p>
3705
3706 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
3707 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
3708 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
3709
3710 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
3711 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
3712 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
3713 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
3714 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
3715 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
3716 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
3717 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
3718 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
3719 currently.</p>
3720
3721 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
3722 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
3723 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
3724 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
3725 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
3726 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
3727 autonomous.</p>
3728
3729 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3730
3731 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
3732 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
3733 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
3734 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
3735 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
3736
3737 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
3738 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
3739 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
3740 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
3741 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
3742 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
3743 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
3744 X.</p>
3745
3746 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
3747 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
3748 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
3749 it :p)
3750
3751 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3752 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3753
3754 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
3755 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
3756 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
3757 that.</p>
3758
3759 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
3760 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
3761 advantage of that.</p>
3762
3763 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
3764 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
3765 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
3766 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
3767 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
3768 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
3769 best solution for them.</p>
3770
3771 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
3772 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
3773 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
3774
3775       </div>
3776       <div class="tags">
3777
3778
3779         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>.
3780
3781
3782       </div>
3783     </div>
3784     <div class="padding"></div>
3785
3786     <div class="entry">
3787       <div class="title">
3788         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
3789       </div>
3790       <div class="date">
3791         11th June 2013
3792       </div>
3793       <div class="body">
3794         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
3795 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
3796 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
3797 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
3798 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
3799 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
3800 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
3801 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
3802 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
3803 i915 driver used by the
3804 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3805 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
3806
3807 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
3808 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
3809 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
3810 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
3811 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
3812
3813 <pre>
3814 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
3815 update-initramfs -u -k all
3816 </pre>
3817
3818 <p>Since March 2012 there is
3819 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
3820 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
3821 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
3822 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
3823 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
3824 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
3825 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
3826 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
3827 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
3828 number.</p>
3829
3830 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
3831 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
3832
3833 <p><pre>
3834 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
3835     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
3836     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
3837  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
3838  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
3839     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
3840  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
3841     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
3842  Latency: 0
3843  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
3844  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
3845  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
3846  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
3847  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
3848  Capabilities: <access denied>
3849  Kernel driver in use: i915
3850 </pre></p>
3851
3852 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
3853
3854 <p><pre>
3855 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
3856        ...
3857         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
3858         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3859        ...
3860 }
3861 </pre></p>
3862
3863 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3864 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3865 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3866 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3867 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3868 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3869 yet shown up in
3870 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3871 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3872 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3873 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3874 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3875 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3876
3877 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3878 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3879 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3880 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3881 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3882 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3883 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3884 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3885 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3886 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3887 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3888 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3889
3890 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3891 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
3892 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
3893 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
3894 backlight.</p>
3895
3896       </div>
3897       <div class="tags">
3898
3899
3900         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>.
3901
3902
3903       </div>
3904     </div>
3905     <div class="padding"></div>
3906
3907     <div class="entry">
3908       <div class="title">
3909         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Third alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
3910       </div>
3911       <div class="date">
3912         10th June 2013
3913       </div>
3914       <div class="body">
3915         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
3916 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
3917
3918 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
3919 2013-06-10</strong></p>
3920
3921 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
3922 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
3923
3924 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
3925
3926 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
3927 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
3928 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
3929 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
3930 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
3931 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
3932 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
3933 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
3934 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
3935 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
3936 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
3937 desktop contains
3938 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
3939 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
3940 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
3941 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
3942
3943 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
3944 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
3945 Squeeze release.</p>
3946
3947 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
3948
3949 <ul>
3950
3951 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
3952 <li>Updated libxv (DSA-2674), libxvmc (DSA-2675), libxfixes (DSA-2676), libxrender (DSA-2677), mesa (DSA-2678), xserver-xorg-video-openchrome (DSA-2679), libxt (DSA-2680), libxcursor (DSA-2681), libxext (DSA-2682), libxi (DSA-2683), libxrandr (DSA-2684), libxp (DSA-2685), libxcb (DSA-2686), libfs (DSA-2687), libxres (DSA-2688), libxtst (DSA-2689), libxxf86dga (DSA-2690), libxinerama (DSA-2691), libxxf86vm (DSA-2692), libx11 (DSA-2693), chromium-browser (DSA-2695), gnutls26 (DSA-2697), wireshark (DSA-2700), krb5 (DSA-2701), telepathy-gabble (DSA-2702) and subversion (DSA-2703).
3953 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
3954 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
3955 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
3956
3957 </ul>
3958
3959 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
3960
3961 <ul>
3962
3963 <li>The subnet-change script is now able to change all files needing a change on the main-server when changing the IP network used.
3964 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
3965 <li>New Romanian translation.
3966 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
3967 <li>Fix roaming workstation setup (Closed in libpam-mklocaluser/0.8, libpam-mklocaluser/0.8~deb7u1: #706753: libpam-mklocaluser: Fail to create local user during first login).
3968 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
3969 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
3970 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
3971 <li>More testsuite tests.
3972 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
3973 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
3974
3975 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
3976 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
3977
3978 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
3979 them up with GOsa².</li>
3980
3981 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
3982
3983 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
3984 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
3985 entered password). </li>
3986
3987 </ul>
3988
3989 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
3990
3991 <ul>
3992
3993 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
3994
3995 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
3996 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
3997 missing import feature).</li>
3998
3999 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
4000
4001 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
4002 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
4003 unfixed.</li>
4004
4005 </ul>
4006
4007 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
4008
4009 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
4010
4011 <ul>
4012
4013 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
4014
4015 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
4016
4017 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
4018
4019 </ul>
4020
4021 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
4022 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
4023
4024 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
4025
4026 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
4027
4028       </div>
4029       <div class="tags">
4030
4031
4032         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>.
4033
4034
4035       </div>
4036     </div>
4037     <div class="padding"></div>
4038
4039     <div class="entry">
4040       <div class="title">
4041         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html">Is there a PHP expert in the building?  Debian Edu need help!</a>
4042       </div>
4043       <div class="date">
4044          5th June 2013
4045       </div>
4046       <div class="body">
4047         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
4048 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
4049 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
4050 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
4051 the project:
4052
4053 <ol>
4054
4055 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
4056   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
4057   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
4058   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
4059   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
4060
4061 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
4062   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
4063   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
4064   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
4065   #698840</a>.</li>
4066
4067 </ol>
4068
4069 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
4070 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
4071 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
4072
4073       </div>
4074       <div class="tags">
4075
4076
4077         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>.
4078
4079
4080       </div>
4081     </div>
4082     <div class="padding"></div>
4083
4084     <div class="entry">
4085       <div class="title">
4086         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
4087       </div>
4088       <div class="date">
4089          4th June 2013
4090       </div>
4091       <div class="body">
4092         <p>It has been a while since my last English
4093 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
4094 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
4095 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
4096 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
4097 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
4098
4099 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4100
4101 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
4102 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
4103 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
4104 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
4105
4106 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
4107 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
4108 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
4109
4110 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
4111 project?</strong></p>
4112
4113 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
4114 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
4115 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
4116 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
4117 manual.
4118
4119 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
4120 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
4121 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
4122 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
4123
4124 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
4125 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
4126 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
4127 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
4128 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
4129 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
4130 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
4131 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
4132 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
4133 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
4134
4135 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
4136 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
4137 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
4138 beautiful project.</p>
4139
4140 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
4141 Edu?</strong></p>
4142
4143 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
4144 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
4145 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
4146
4147 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
4148 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
4149 of educational free software.</p>
4150
4151 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
4152 Edu?</strong></p>
4153
4154 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
4155 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
4156 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
4157 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
4158 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
4159
4160 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
4161 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
4162 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
4163 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
4164 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
4165 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
4166 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
4167 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
4168
4169 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4170
4171 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
4172 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
4173 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
4174 also using the mathematical software
4175 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
4176 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
4177 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
4178
4179 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
4180 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
4181 statistics?</strong></p>
4182
4183 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
4184 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
4185 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
4186 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
4187
4188 <ul>
4189
4190 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
4191 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
4192 constructions in planar geometry
4193
4194 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
4195 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
4196 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
4197
4198 </ul>
4199
4200 <p>I like also
4201 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
4202 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
4203 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
4204
4205 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4206 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4207
4208 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
4209
4210 <ul>
4211
4212 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
4213
4214 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
4215     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
4216     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
4217
4218 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
4219
4220 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
4221     system.</li>
4222
4223 </ul>
4224
4225       </div>
4226       <div class="tags">
4227
4228
4229         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>.
4230
4231
4232       </div>
4233     </div>
4234     <div class="padding"></div>
4235
4236     <div class="entry">
4237       <div class="title">
4238         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">Educational applications included in Debian Edu / Skolelinux (the screenshot collection :-)</a>
4239       </div>
4240       <div class="date">
4241          1st June 2013
4242       </div>
4243       <div class="body">
4244         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4245 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
4246 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
4247 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
4248 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
4249 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
4250 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
4251 program.</p>
4252
4253 <!-- for f in $(debtags tagcat|grep field::|awk '{print $2}'); do   echo; echo "<p><strong>$f</strong></p>"; echo "<p>";   (     for p in $(debtags search --names "use::learning && interface::x11 && role::program && $f"); do img="<img src='http://screenshots.debian.net/thumbnail/$p' alt='$p'>"; if dpkg -s $p > /dev/null 2>&1; then           echo "<a href='http://packages.qa.debian.org/$p'>$img</a>"; fi;     done;   ) | LANG=C sort; echo "</p>"; done -->
4254
4255 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
4256 <p>
4257 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=audacity'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/audacity.png' alt='audacity'></a>
4258 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
4259 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=denemo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/denemo.png' alt='denemo'></a>
4260 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=freebirth'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/freebirth.png' alt='freebirth'></a>
4261 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4262 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gimp'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gimp.png' alt='gimp'></a>
4263 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=hydrogen'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/hydrogen.png' alt='hydrogen'></a>
4264 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lilypond'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lilypond.png' alt='lilypond'></a>
4265 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lmms'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lmms.png' alt='lmms'></a>
4266 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rosegarden'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rosegarden.png' alt='rosegarden'></a>
4267 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scribus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scribus.png' alt='scribus'></a>
4268 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=solfege'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/solfege.png' alt='solfege'></a>
4269 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stopmotion'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stopmotion.png' alt='stopmotion'></a>
4270 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxpaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxpaint.png' alt='tuxpaint'></a>
4271 </p>
4272
4273 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
4274 <p>
4275 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=celestia-gnome'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/celestia-gnome.png' alt='celestia-gnome'></a>
4276 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpredict'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gpredict.png' alt='gpredict'></a>
4277 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kstars'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kstars.png' alt='kstars'></a>
4278 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=planets'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/planets.png' alt='planets'></a>
4279 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stellarium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stellarium.png' alt='stellarium'></a>
4280 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
4281 </p>
4282
4283 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
4284 <p>
4285 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
4286 </p>
4287
4288 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
4289 <p>
4290 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=atomix'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/atomix.png' alt='atomix'></a>
4291 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=chemtool'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/chemtool.png' alt='chemtool'></a>
4292 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=easychem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/easychem.png' alt='easychem'></a>
4293 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gchempaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gchempaint.png' alt='gchempaint'></a>
4294 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gdis'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gdis.png' alt='gdis'></a>
4295 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ghemical'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ghemical.png' alt='ghemical'></a>
4296 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gperiodic'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gperiodic.png' alt='gperiodic'></a>
4297 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalzium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalzium.png' alt='kalzium'></a>
4298 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
4299 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
4300 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xdrawchem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xdrawchem.png' alt='xdrawchem'></a>
4301 </p>
4302
4303 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
4304 <p>
4305 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4306 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
4307 </p>
4308
4309 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
4310 <p>
4311 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kgeography'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kgeography.png' alt='kgeography'></a>
4312 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=marble'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/marble.png' alt='marble'></a>
4313 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
4314 </p>
4315
4316 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
4317 <p>
4318 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4319 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kanagram'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kanagram.png' alt='kanagram'></a>
4320 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=khangman'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/khangman.png' alt='khangman'></a>
4321 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=klettres'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/klettres.png' alt='klettres'></a>
4322 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=parley'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/parley.png' alt='parley'></a>
4323 </p>
4324
4325 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
4326 <p>
4327 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
4328 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=drgeo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/drgeo.png' alt='drgeo'></a>
4329 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4330 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geogebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/geogebra.png' alt='geogebra'></a>
4331 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
4332 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=grace'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/grace.png' alt='grace'></a>
4333 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphmonkey'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphmonkey.png' alt='graphmonkey'></a>
4334 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphthing'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphthing.png' alt='graphthing'></a>
4335 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalgebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalgebra.png' alt='kalgebra'></a>
4336 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kbruch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kbruch.png' alt='kbruch'></a>
4337 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kig'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kig.png' alt='kig'></a>
4338 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kmplot'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kmplot.png' alt='kmplot'></a>
4339 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=mathwar'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/mathwar.png' alt='mathwar'></a>
4340 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rocs'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rocs.png' alt='rocs'></a>
4341 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
4342 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxmath'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxmath.png' alt='tuxmath'></a>
4343 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xabacus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xabacus.png' alt='xabacus'></a>
4344 </p>
4345
4346 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
4347 <p>
4348 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4349 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=step'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/step.png' alt='step'></a>
4350 </p>
4351
4352 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
4353 <p>
4354 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=blinken'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/blinken.png' alt='blinken'></a>
4355 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=cgoban'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/cgoban.png' alt='cgoban'></a>
4356 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
4357 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4358 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnuchess'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnuchess.png' alt='gnuchess'></a>
4359 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnugo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnugo.png' alt='gnugo'></a>
4360 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gtans'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gtans.png' alt='gtans'></a>
4361 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ktouch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ktouch.png' alt='ktouch'></a>
4362 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=librecad'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/librecad.png' alt='librecad'></a>
4363 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
4364 </p>
4365
4366 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
4367 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
4368 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
4369 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
4370 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
4371 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
4372 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
4373
4374       </div>
4375       <div class="tags">
4376
4377
4378         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>.
4379
4380
4381       </div>
4382     </div>
4383     <div class="padding"></div>
4384
4385     <div class="entry">
4386       <div class="title">
4387         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
4388       </div>
4389       <div class="date">
4390         27th May 2013
4391       </div>
4392       <div class="body">
4393         <p>Two days ago, I asked
4394 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
4395 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
4396 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
4397 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
4398 and Windows 8.</p>
4399
4400 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
4401 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
4402 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
4403 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
4404 enough to tell.</p>
4405
4406 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
4407 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
4408 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
4409 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
4410 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
4411 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
4412 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
4413 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
4414 to follow.</p>
4415
4416 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
4417 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
4418 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
4419 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
4420 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
4421 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
4422 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
4423 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
4424
4425 <p>I've updated the
4426 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
4427 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
4428 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
4429 machine.</p>
4430
4431 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
4432 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
4433
4434       </div>
4435       <div class="tags">
4436
4437
4438         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>.
4439
4440
4441       </div>
4442     </div>
4443     <div class="padding"></div>
4444
4445     <div class="entry">
4446       <div class="title">
4447         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
4448       </div>
4449       <div class="date">
4450         25th May 2013
4451       </div>
4452       <div class="body">
4453         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
4454 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
4455 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
4456 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
4457 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
4458 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
4459
4460 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
4461 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
4462 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
4463 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
4464 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
4465 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
4466 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
4467 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
4468 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
4469 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
4470
4471 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
4472 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
4473 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
4474 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
4475 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
4476 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
4477
4478 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
4479 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
4480 on new Laptops?</p>
4481
4482       </div>
4483       <div class="tags">
4484
4485
4486         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>.
4487
4488
4489       </div>
4490     </div>
4491     <div class="padding"></div>
4492
4493     <div class="entry">
4494       <div class="title">
4495         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
4496       </div>
4497       <div class="date">
4498         17th May 2013
4499       </div>
4500       <div class="body">
4501         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
4502 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
4503 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
4504 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
4505 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
4506 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
4507 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
4508 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
4509 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
4510 donate some money</a>.
4511
4512 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
4513 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
4514 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
4515 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
4516 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
4517
4518 <p>The script,
4519 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
4520 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
4521 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
4522 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
4523
4524 <ol>
4525
4526 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
4527 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
4528 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
4529     our configuration.</li>
4530 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
4531     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
4532     according to the profile specified in the config above,
4533     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
4534 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
4535     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
4536 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
4537
4538 </ol>
4539
4540 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
4541 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
4542 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
4543 the needed packages.</p>
4544
4545 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
4546 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
4547 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
4548 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
4549 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
4550 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
4551
4552 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
4553 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
4554 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
4555
4556 <p><pre>
4557 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
4558 DESKTOP="lxde"
4559 </pre></p>
4560
4561 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
4562 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
4563 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
4564 boot.</p>
4565
4566       </div>
4567       <div class="tags">
4568
4569
4570         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>.
4571
4572
4573       </div>
4574     </div>
4575     <div class="padding"></div>
4576
4577     <div class="entry">
4578       <div class="title">
4579         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
4580       </div>
4581       <div class="date">
4582         14th May 2013
4583       </div>
4584       <div class="body">
4585         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4586 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
4587 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
4588
4589 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
4590 2013-05-14</strong></p>
4591
4592 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
4593 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
4594 codename "Wheezy".</p>
4595
4596 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4597
4598 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
4599 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
4600 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
4601 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
4602 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
4603 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
4604 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
4605 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
4606
4607 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
4608 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
4609 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
4610
4611 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4612 <ul>
4613   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
4614     default.</li>
4615   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
4616   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
4617   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
4618     ibus-anthy.</li>
4619 </ul>
4620
4621 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
4622 <ul>
4623
4624   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
4625     reliability improvements.</li>
4626   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
4627     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
4628   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
4629     problems.</li>
4630   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
4631     direct:// URL.</li>
4632   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
4633   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
4634   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
4635   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
4636     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
4637   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
4638     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
4639 </ul>
4640
4641 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
4642 <ul>
4643
4644   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
4645     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
4646     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
4647   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
4648   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
4649     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
4650   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
4651   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
4652   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
4653     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
4654   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
4655     password submission problem
4656     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
4657
4658 </ul>
4659
4660 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
4661
4662 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
4663 <ul>
4664
4665   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
4666   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
4667   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</li>
4668
4669 </ul>
4670
4671 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
4672
4673 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
4674
4675 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
4676
4677 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
4678
4679       </div>
4680       <div class="tags">
4681
4682
4683         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>.
4684
4685
4686       </div>
4687     </div>
4688     <div class="padding"></div>
4689
4690     <div class="entry">
4691       <div class="title">
4692         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
4693       </div>
4694       <div class="date">
4695         11th May 2013
4696       </div>
4697       <div class="body">
4698         <P>In January,
4699 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
4700 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
4701 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
4702 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
4703 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
4704 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
4705 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
4706 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
4707 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
4708 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
4709 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
4710 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
4711
4712 <p><table>
4713 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
4714 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
4715 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
4716 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
4717 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
4718 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
4719 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
4720 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
4721 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
4722 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
4723 </table></p>
4724
4725 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
4726 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
4727 available in experimental.</p>
4728
4729 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
4730 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
4731 for LEGO designers.</p>
4732
4733       </div>
4734       <div class="tags">
4735
4736
4737         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4738
4739
4740       </div>
4741     </div>
4742     <div class="padding"></div>
4743
4744     <div class="entry">
4745       <div class="title">
4746         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
4747       </div>
4748       <div class="date">
4749          5th May 2013
4750       </div>
4751       <div class="body">
4752         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
4753 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
4754 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
4755 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
4756 soon.</p>
4757
4758 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
4759 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
4760 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
4761 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
4762 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
4763 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
4764 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
4765 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
4766 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
4767 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
4768 Edu.</a>
4769
4770 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
4771 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
4772 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
4773 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
4774 follow.<p>
4775
4776       </div>
4777       <div class="tags">
4778
4779
4780         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>.
4781
4782
4783       </div>
4784     </div>
4785     <div class="padding"></div>
4786
4787     <div class="entry">
4788       <div class="title">
4789         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
4790       </div>
4791       <div class="date">
4792         26th April 2013
4793       </div>
4794       <div class="body">
4795         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
4796 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
4797 announcement:</p>
4798
4799 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
4800 2013-04-26</strong></p>
4801
4802 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
4803 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
4804
4805 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4806
4807 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
4808 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
4809 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
4810 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
4811 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
4812 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
4813 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
4814 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
4815 installed via the network.</p>
4816
4817 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
4818 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
4819 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
4820
4821 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4822
4823 <ul>
4824 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
4825   <ul>
4826      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
4827      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
4828          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
4829          manual.)</li>
4830      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
4831      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
4832      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
4833      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
4834      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
4835      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
4836      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
4837      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
4838      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
4839      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
4840      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
4841      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
4842          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
4843          manual</a> for more details.</li>
4844      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
4845          installation.</li>
4846      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
4847          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/releasenotes">release notes</a> and the <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation manual</a>.</li>
4848   </ul></li>
4849 </ul>
4850
4851 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
4852 <ul>
4853 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
4854     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
4855     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
4856 </ul>
4857
4858 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
4859 <ul>
4860 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
4861     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
4862     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
4863 </ul>
4864
4865 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
4866 <ul>
4867 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
4868     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
4869     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
4870 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
4871     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
4872     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
4873 </ul>
4874
4875 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
4876 <ul>
4877 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
4878     yet.</li>
4879 </ul>
4880
4881 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
4882
4883 <ul>
4884 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
4885     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
4886     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
4887 </ul>
4888
4889 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
4890
4891 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
4892 <ul>
4893 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
4894 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
4895 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
4896 </ul>
4897
4898 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
4899
4900 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
4901
4902 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
4903
4904 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
4905
4906       </div>
4907       <div class="tags">
4908
4909
4910         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>.
4911
4912
4913       </div>
4914     </div>
4915     <div class="padding"></div>
4916
4917     <div class="entry">
4918       <div class="title">
4919         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_developer_gathering_in_2013_take_place_in_Trondheim.html">First Debian Edu / Skolelinux developer gathering in 2013 take place in Trondheim</a>
4920       </div>
4921       <div class="date">
4922         16th April 2013
4923       </div>
4924       <div class="body">
4925         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
4926 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
4927 Details about the gathering can be found
4928 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
4929 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
4930 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
4931 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
4932 weekend.</p>
4933
4934 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
4935 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
4936 Edu release.</p>
4937
4938 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
4939
4940       </div>
4941       <div class="tags">
4942
4943
4944         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>.
4945
4946
4947       </div>
4948     </div>
4949     <div class="padding"></div>
4950
4951     <div class="entry">
4952       <div class="title">
4953         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
4954       </div>
4955       <div class="date">
4956          3rd April 2013
4957       </div>
4958       <div class="body">
4959         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
4960 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
4961 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
4962 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
4963
4964 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
4965 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
4966 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
4967 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
4968 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
4969 BTS. :)</p>
4970
4971       </div>
4972       <div class="tags">
4973
4974
4975         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4976
4977
4978       </div>
4979     </div>
4980     <div class="padding"></div>
4981
4982     <div class="entry">
4983       <div class="title">
4984         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Change_the_font__save_the_world__and_save_some_money_in_the_process_.html">Change the font, save the world (and save some money in the process)</a>
4985       </div>
4986       <div class="date">
4987         26th March 2013
4988       </div>
4989       <div class="body">
4990         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
4991 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
4992 font you use when printing.</p>
4993
4994 <p>Three years ago,
4995 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
4996 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
4997 changed their default front from
4998 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
4999 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
5000 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
5001 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
5002 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
5003 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
5004 prints.</p>
5005
5006 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
5007 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
5008 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
5009 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
5010 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
5011 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
5012 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
5013 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
5014 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
5015 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
5016 depend on the documents printed.</p>
5017
5018 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
5019 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
5020 and save some money in the process.</p>
5021
5022 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
5023 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
5024 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
5025 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
5026 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
5027 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
5028 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
5029 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
5030 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
5031
5032       </div>
5033       <div class="tags">
5034
5035
5036         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5037
5038
5039       </div>
5040     </div>
5041     <div class="padding"></div>
5042
5043     <div class="entry">
5044       <div class="title">
5045         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_a_short_story_using_docbook_for_PDF__HTML_and_EPUB.html">Typesetting a short story using docbook for PDF, HTML and EPUB</a>
5046       </div>
5047       <div class="date">
5048         24th March 2013
5049       </div>
5050       <div class="body">
5051         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
5052 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
5053 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
5054 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
5055 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
5056 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
5057 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
5058 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
5059 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
5060 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
5061 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
5062 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
5063
5064 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
5065 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
5066 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
5067 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
5068 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
5069 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
5070 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
5071 all I had to do was to use the
5072 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
5073 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
5074 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
5075 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
5076 xsltproc/fop (aka
5077 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
5078 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
5079 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
5080 technical detail.</p>
5081
5082 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
5083 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
5084 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
5085 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
5086 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
5087 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
5088
5089 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
5090 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
5091 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
5092 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
5093 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
5094 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
5095 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
5096 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
5097 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
5098
5099 <p><blockquote><pre>
5100 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
5101 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
5102   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
5103     &lt;hr/&gt;
5104   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
5105 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
5106 </pre></blockquote></p>
5107
5108 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
5109
5110 <p><blockquote><pre>
5111 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
5112 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
5113   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
5114     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
5115       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
5116     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
5117   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
5118 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
5119 </pre></blockquote></p>
5120
5121 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
5122 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
5123 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
5124 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
5125 enough.</p>
5126
5127 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
5128 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
5129 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
5130 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
5131 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
5132 look like this:</p>
5133
5134 <p><blockquote><pre>
5135 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
5136 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
5137   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
5138     &lt;br/&gt;
5139   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
5140 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
5141 </pre></blockquote></p>
5142
5143 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
5144
5145 <p><blockquote><pre>
5146 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
5147 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
5148   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
5149   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
5150     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
5151   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
5152 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
5153 </pre></blockquote></p>
5154
5155 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
5156 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
5157 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
5158 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
5159 page.</p>
5160
5161 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
5162 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
5163 github</a>
5164 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
5165 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
5166 days.</p>
5167
5168       </div>
5169       <div class="tags">
5170
5171
5172         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
5173
5174
5175       </div>
5176     </div>
5177     <div class="padding"></div>
5178
5179     <div class="entry">
5180       <div class="title">
5181         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_6_got_a_video_review_from_Pcwizz.html">Skolelinux 6 got a video review from Pcwizz</a>
5182       </div>
5183       <div class="date">
5184         17th March 2013
5185       </div>
5186       <div class="body">
5187         <p>Via
5188 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
5189 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
5190 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
5191 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
5192 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
5193 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
5194 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
5195
5196 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
5197 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
5198
5199 <blockquote>
5200 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
5201 </blockquote>
5202
5203 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
5204
5205 <blockquote>
5206 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
5207 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
5208 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
5209 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
5210 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
5211 </blockquote>
5212
5213 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
5214 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
5215 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
5216 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
5217
5218 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
5219 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
5220
5221 <blockquote>
5222 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
5223 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
5224 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
5225 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
5226 </blockquote>
5227
5228 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
5229 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
5230 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
5231 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
5232 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
5233
5234 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
5235 embedding:</p>
5236
5237 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
5238
5239       </div>
5240       <div class="tags">
5241
5242
5243         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>.
5244
5245
5246       </div>
5247     </div>
5248     <div class="padding"></div>
5249
5250     <div class="entry">
5251       <div class="title">
5252         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
5253       </div>
5254       <div class="date">
5255          8th March 2013
5256       </div>
5257       <div class="body">
5258         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
5259 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
5260 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
5261 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
5262 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
5263 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
5264 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
5265
5266 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
5267
5268 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
5269 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
5270
5271 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
5272 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
5273 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
5274 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
5275 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
5276 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
5277
5278 <p>Images are available for download at
5279 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
5280
5281 <p>md5sums:
5282 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
5283 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
5284 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
5285
5286 <p>sha1sums:
5287 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
5288 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
5289 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
5290
5291 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
5292
5293 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
5294 2013-03-03:</p>
5295
5296 <ul>
5297   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
5298   <ul>
5299         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
5300         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
5301   </ul></li>
5302   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
5303   <ul>
5304         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
5305         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
5306   </ul></li>
5307   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
5308      <ul>
5309         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
5310         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
5311         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
5312                 Closes: #664596</li>
5313         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
5314                 Closes: #664976</li>
5315         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
5316            <ul>
5317                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
5318                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
5319            </ul></li>
5320         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
5321            <ul>
5322                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
5323                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
5324                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
5325                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
5326                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
5327            </ul></li>
5328         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
5329     </ul>
5330   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
5331     <ul>
5332         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
5333     </ul></li>
5334 </ul>
5335
5336 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
5337 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
5338 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
5339 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
5340
5341 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
5342 mailinglist
5343 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
5344 </p></blockquote>
5345
5346 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
5347
5348       </div>
5349       <div class="tags">
5350
5351
5352         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>.
5353
5354
5355       </div>
5356     </div>
5357     <div class="padding"></div>
5358
5359     <div class="entry">
5360       <div class="title">
5361         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen___Complete_TV_station_organised_using_the_web.html">Frikanalen - Complete TV station organised using the web</a>
5362       </div>
5363       <div class="date">
5364          3rd March 2013
5365       </div>
5366       <div class="body">
5367         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
5368 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
5369 support using
5370 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
5371 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
5372 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
5373 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
5374 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
5375 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
5376 using the GNU LGPL, and
5377 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
5378
5379 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
5380 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
5381 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
5382 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
5383 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
5384 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
5385
5386 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
5387 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
5388 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
5389 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
5390 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
5391 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
5392 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
5393 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
5394 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
5395 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
5396 signal distribution is handled using
5397 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
5398 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
5399 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
5400 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
5401 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
5402 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
5403 them up a bit more first.</p>
5404
5405 <p>The development is coordinated on the
5406 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
5407 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
5408 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
5409 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
5410 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
5411 development.</p>
5412
5413       </div>
5414       <div class="tags">
5415
5416
5417         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5418
5419
5420       </div>
5421     </div>
5422     <div class="padding"></div>
5423
5424     <div class="entry">
5425       <div class="title">
5426         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dr__Richard_Stallman__founder_of_Free_Software_Foundation__give_a_talk_in_Oslo_March_1st_2013.html">Dr. Richard Stallman, founder of Free Software Foundation, give a talk in Oslo March 1st 2013</a>
5427       </div>
5428       <div class="date">
5429         27th February 2013
5430       </div>
5431       <div class="body">
5432         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
5433 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
5434 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
5435 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
5436 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
5437 (where I am the chair of the board) and
5438 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
5439 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
5440 GNU», with this description:
5441
5442 <p><blockquote>
5443 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
5444 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
5445 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
5446 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
5447 </blockquote></p>
5448
5449 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
5450 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
5451 am really curious how many will show up.  See
5452 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
5453 page</a> for the location details.</p>
5454
5455       </div>
5456       <div class="tags">
5457
5458
5459         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
5460
5461
5462       </div>
5463     </div>
5464     <div class="padding"></div>
5465
5466     <div class="entry">
5467       <div class="title">
5468         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikart___Free_Garmin_maps_for_European_countries_based_on_OpenStreetmap.html">Frikart - Free Garmin maps for European countries based on OpenStreetmap</a>
5469       </div>
5470       <div class="date">
5471         15th February 2013
5472       </div>
5473       <div class="body">
5474         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
5475 now a great source of free maps available from
5476 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
5477 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
5478 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
5479 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
5480 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
5481 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
5482 page for descriptions).</p>
5483
5484 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
5485 map you can just edit the
5486 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
5487 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
5488
5489       </div>
5490       <div class="tags">
5491
5492
5493         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>.
5494
5495
5496       </div>
5497     </div>
5498     <div class="padding"></div>
5499
5500     <div class="entry">
5501       <div class="title">
5502         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html">"Electronic" paper invoices - using vCard in a QR code</a>
5503       </div>
5504       <div class="date">
5505         12th February 2013
5506       </div>
5507       <div class="body">
5508         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
5509 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
5510 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
5511 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
5512 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
5513 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
5514 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
5515 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
5516 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
5517 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
5518 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
5519 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
5520 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
5521 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
5522 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
5523 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
5524
5525 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
5526 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
5527 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
5528 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
5529 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
5530 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
5531 fields:</p>
5532
5533 <p><pre>
5534 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
5535 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
5536 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
5537 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
5538 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
5539 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
5540 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
5541 </pre></p>
5542
5543 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
5544 answer regarding
5545 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
5546 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
5547 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
5548 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
5549
5550 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
5551
5552 <p><pre>
5553 BEGIN:VCARD
5554 VERSION:2.1
5555 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
5556 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
5557 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
5558 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
5559 REV:20130212T095000Z
5560 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
5561 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
5562 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
5563 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
5564 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
5565 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
5566 END:VCARD
5567 </pre></p>
5568
5569 <p>The resulting QR code created using
5570 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
5571 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
5572 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
5573 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
5574 system.</p>
5575
5576 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
5577
5578 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
5579 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
5580 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
5581 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
5582
5583 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
5584 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
5585
5586       </div>
5587       <div class="tags">
5588
5589
5590         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>.
5591
5592
5593       </div>
5594     </div>
5595     <div class="padding"></div>
5596
5597     <div class="entry">
5598       <div class="title">
5599         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sleep_until_morning___home_automation_for_the_kids.html">Sleep until morning - home automation for the kids</a>
5600       </div>
5601       <div class="date">
5602         10th February 2013
5603       </div>
5604       <div class="body">
5605         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
5606
5607 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
5608 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
5609 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
5610 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
5611 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
5612 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
5613 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
5614 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
5615 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
5616 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
5617 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
5618
5619 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
5620 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
5621 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
5622 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
5623 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
5624 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
5625 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
5626 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
5627 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
5628 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
5629 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
5630 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
5631 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
5632 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
5633 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
5634 ones own
5635 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
5636 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
5637 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
5638 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
5639 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
5640 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
5641 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
5642 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
5643 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
5644 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
5645 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
5646
5647 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
5648 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
5649 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
5650 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
5651 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
5652 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
5653
5654 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
5655 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
5656 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
5657
5658       </div>
5659       <div class="tags">
5660
5661
5662         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5663
5664
5665       </div>
5666     </div>
5667     <div class="padding"></div>
5668
5669     <div class="entry">
5670       <div class="title">
5671         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
5672       </div>
5673       <div class="date">
5674          2nd February 2013
5675       </div>
5676       <div class="body">
5677         <p>My
5678 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
5679 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
5680 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
5681 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
5682 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
5683 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
5684 version too.</p>
5685
5686 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
5687 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
5688 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
5689 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
5690 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
5691 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
5692 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
5693 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
5694
5695 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
5696 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
5697 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
5698 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
5699 it. :)</p>
5700
5701 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5702 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5703 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5704
5705       </div>
5706       <div class="tags">
5707
5708
5709         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>.
5710
5711
5712       </div>
5713     </div>
5714     <div class="padding"></div>
5715
5716     <div class="entry">
5717       <div class="title">
5718         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
5719       </div>
5720       <div class="date">
5721         22nd January 2013
5722       </div>
5723       <div class="body">
5724         <p>Yesterday, I
5725 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
5726 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
5727 pluggable hardware devices, which I
5728 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
5729 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
5730 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
5731 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
5732 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
5733 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
5734 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
5735 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
5736 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
5737 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
5738
5739 <pre>
5740 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
5741 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
5742 </pre>
5743
5744 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
5745 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
5746 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
5747 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
5748
5749 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
5750 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
5751 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
5752 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
5753 word.</p>
5754
5755 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
5756 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
5757 process.</p>
5758
5759 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
5760 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
5761
5762       </div>
5763       <div class="tags">
5764
5765
5766         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5767
5768
5769       </div>
5770     </div>
5771     <div class="padding"></div>
5772
5773     <div class="entry">
5774       <div class="title">
5775         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
5776       </div>
5777       <div class="date">
5778         21st January 2013
5779       </div>
5780       <div class="body">
5781         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
5782 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
5783 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
5784 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
5785 it, fetch the
5786 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
5787 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
5788 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
5789 autostart script.</p>
5790
5791 <p>The design is simple:</p>
5792
5793 <ul>
5794
5795 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
5796 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
5797
5798 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
5799 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
5800 initially did.</li>
5801
5802 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
5803 the APT database, a database
5804 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
5805 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
5806
5807 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
5808 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
5809 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
5810 package or packages.</li>
5811
5812 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
5813 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
5814
5815 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
5816 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
5817
5818 </ul>
5819
5820 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
5821 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
5822 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
5823 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
5824
5825 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
5826 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
5827 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
5828 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
5829 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
5830
5831 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
5832 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
5833 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
5834 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
5835 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
5836 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
5837 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
5838 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
5839
5840 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
5841 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
5842 '<tt>svn checkout
5843 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
5844 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
5845 devscripts package.</p>
5846
5847 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
5848 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
5849 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
5850 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
5851 instructions</a> for details.</p>
5852
5853       </div>
5854       <div class="tags">
5855
5856
5857         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5858
5859
5860       </div>
5861     </div>
5862     <div class="padding"></div>
5863
5864     <div class="entry">
5865       <div class="title">
5866         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
5867       </div>
5868       <div class="date">
5869         19th January 2013
5870       </div>
5871       <div class="body">
5872         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
5873 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
5874 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
5875 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
5876 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
5877 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
5878 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
5879 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
5880 not a durable solution.
5881
5882 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
5883 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
5884
5885 <ul>
5886
5887 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
5888   than A4).</li>
5889 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
5890 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
5891 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
5892 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
5893 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
5894 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
5895 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
5896 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
5897 size).</li>
5898 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
5899   X.org packages.</li>
5900 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
5901   the time).
5902
5903 </ul>
5904
5905 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
5906 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
5907 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
5908 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
5909 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
5910 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
5911 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
5912 still be useful.</p>
5913
5914 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
5915 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
5916 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
5917 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
5918 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
5919 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
5920
5921       </div>
5922       <div class="tags">
5923
5924
5925         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>.
5926
5927
5928       </div>
5929     </div>
5930     <div class="padding"></div>
5931
5932     <div class="entry">
5933       <div class="title">
5934         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
5935       </div>
5936       <div class="date">
5937         18th January 2013
5938       </div>
5939       <div class="body">
5940         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
5941 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
5942 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
5943 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
5944 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
5945 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
5946 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
5947
5948 <pre>
5949 #!/usr/bin/python
5950 import sys
5951 import apt
5952 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
5953     cache = apt.Cache()
5954     cache.open(None)
5955     thepkgs = []
5956     for pkg in cache:
5957         version = pkg.candidate
5958         if version is None:
5959             version = pkg.installed
5960         if version is None:
5961             continue
5962         record = version.record
5963         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
5964             continue
5965         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
5966         for t in mime_types:
5967             t = t.rstrip().strip()
5968             if t == mimetype:
5969                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
5970     return thepkgs
5971 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
5972 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
5973     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
5974 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
5975 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
5976     print "  %s" %pkg
5977 </pre>
5978
5979 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
5980
5981 <pre>
5982 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
5983 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
5984   gecko-mediaplayer
5985 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
5986 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
5987   browser-plugin-gnash
5988 %
5989 </pre>
5990
5991 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
5992 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
5993 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
5994 anyone working on adding it?</p>
5995
5996 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
5997 request for icweasel support for this feature is
5998 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
5999 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
6000 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
6001 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
6002
6003       </div>
6004       <div class="tags">
6005
6006
6007         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>.
6008
6009
6010       </div>
6011     </div>
6012     <div class="padding"></div>
6013
6014     <div class="entry">
6015       <div class="title">
6016         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
6017       </div>
6018       <div class="date">
6019         16th January 2013
6020       </div>
6021       <div class="body">
6022         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
6023 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
6024 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
6025 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
6026 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
6027 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
6028 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
6029 downloaded by the browser.</p>
6030
6031 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
6032 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
6033 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
6034 can be found on the
6035 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
6036 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
6037 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
6038 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
6039 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
6040
6041 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
6042
6043 <pre>
6044   count MIME type
6045   ----- -----------------------
6046      32 text/plain
6047      30 audio/mpeg
6048      29 image/png
6049      28 image/jpeg
6050      27 application/ogg
6051      26 audio/x-mp3
6052      25 image/tiff
6053      25 image/gif
6054      22 image/bmp
6055      22 audio/x-wav
6056      20 audio/x-flac
6057      19 audio/x-mpegurl
6058      18 video/x-ms-asf
6059      18 audio/x-musepack
6060      18 audio/x-mpeg
6061      18 application/x-ogg
6062      17 video/mpeg
6063      17 audio/x-scpls
6064      17 audio/ogg
6065      16 video/x-ms-wmv
6066 </pre>
6067
6068 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
6069
6070 <pre>
6071   count MIME type
6072   ----- -----------------------
6073      33 text/plain
6074      32 image/png
6075      32 image/jpeg
6076      29 audio/mpeg
6077      27 image/gif
6078      26 image/tiff
6079      26 application/ogg
6080      25 audio/x-mp3
6081      22 image/bmp
6082      21 audio/x-wav
6083      19 audio/x-mpegurl
6084      19 audio/x-mpeg
6085      18 video/mpeg
6086      18 audio/x-scpls
6087      18 audio/x-flac
6088      18 application/x-ogg
6089      17 video/x-ms-asf
6090      17 text/html
6091      17 audio/x-musepack
6092      16 image/x-xbitmap
6093 </pre>
6094
6095 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
6096
6097 <pre>
6098   count MIME type
6099   ----- -----------------------
6100      31 text/plain
6101      31 image/png
6102      31 image/jpeg
6103      29 audio/mpeg
6104      28 application/ogg
6105      27 image/gif
6106      26 image/tiff
6107      26 audio/x-mp3
6108      23 audio/x-wav
6109      22 image/bmp
6110      21 audio/x-flac
6111      20 audio/x-mpegurl
6112      19 audio/x-mpeg
6113      18 video/x-ms-asf
6114      18 video/mpeg
6115      18 audio/x-scpls
6116      18 application/x-ogg
6117      17 audio/x-musepack
6118      16 video/x-ms-wmv
6119      16 video/x-msvideo
6120 </pre>
6121
6122 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
6123 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
6124 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
6125 issues.</p>
6126
6127 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
6128 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
6129
6130       </div>
6131       <div class="tags">
6132
6133
6134         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>.
6135
6136
6137       </div>
6138     </div>
6139     <div class="padding"></div>
6140
6141     <div class="entry">
6142       <div class="title">
6143         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
6144       </div>
6145       <div class="date">
6146         15th January 2013
6147       </div>
6148       <div class="body">
6149         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
6150 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
6151 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
6152 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
6153 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
6154 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
6155 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
6156 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
6157 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
6158 packages.</p>
6159
6160 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
6161 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
6162 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
6163 modalias.</p>
6164
6165 <p><blockquote>
6166 Package: package-name
6167 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
6168 </blockquote></p>
6169
6170 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
6171 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
6172
6173 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
6174 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
6175
6176 <p><blockquote>
6177 Package: cheese
6178 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
6179 </blockquote></p>
6180
6181 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
6182 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
6183
6184 <p><blockquote>
6185 Package: pcmciautils
6186 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
6187 </blockquote></p>
6188
6189 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
6190 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
6191
6192 <p><blockquote>
6193 Package: colorhug-client
6194 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
6195 </blockquote></p>
6196
6197 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
6198 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
6199 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
6200
6201 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
6202 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
6203 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
6204 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
6205 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
6206 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
6207 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
6208 Raring.</p>
6209
6210 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
6211 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
6212 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
6213 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
6214 try the
6215 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
6216 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
6217 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
6218 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
6219
6220 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
6221 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
6222
6223 <p><blockquote>
6224 % ./hw-support-lookup
6225 <br>yubikey-personalization
6226 <br>%
6227 </blockquote></p>
6228
6229 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
6230 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
6231
6232 <p><blockquote>
6233 % ./hw-support-lookup
6234 <br>pcmciautils
6235 <br>%
6236 </blockquote></p>
6237
6238 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
6239 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
6240 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
6241
6242 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
6243 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
6244 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
6245 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
6246 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
6247 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
6248 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
6249 see if it work.</p>
6250
6251 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6252 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6253 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6254 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
6255
6256       </div>
6257       <div class="tags">
6258
6259
6260         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
6261
6262
6263       </div>
6264     </div>
6265     <div class="padding"></div>
6266
6267     <div class="entry">
6268       <div class="title">
6269         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
6270       </div>
6271       <div class="date">
6272         14th January 2013
6273       </div>
6274       <div class="body">
6275         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
6276 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
6277 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
6278 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
6279 in
6280 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
6281 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
6282
6283 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
6284
6285 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
6286 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
6287 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
6288 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
6289 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
6290 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
6291
6292 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
6293 this shell script:</p>
6294
6295 <pre>
6296 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
6297 </pre>
6298
6299 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
6300 using modinfo:</p>
6301
6302 <pre>
6303 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
6304 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
6305 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
6306 %
6307 </pre>
6308
6309 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
6310
6311 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
6312 Bridge memory controller:</p>
6313
6314 <p><blockquote>
6315 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
6316 </blockquote></p>
6317
6318 <p>This represent these values:</p>
6319
6320 <pre>
6321  v   00008086  (vendor)
6322  d   00002770  (device)
6323  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
6324  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
6325  bc  06        (bus class)
6326  sc  00        (bus subclass)
6327  i   00        (interface)
6328 </pre>
6329
6330 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
6331 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
6332 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
6333 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
6334
6335 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
6336 means.</p>
6337
6338 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
6339
6340 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
6341 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
6342
6343 <p><blockquote>
6344 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
6345 </blockquote></p>
6346
6347 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
6348
6349 <pre>
6350  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
6351  p    0001  (device product)
6352  d    0206  (bcddevice)
6353  dc     09  (device class)
6354  dsc    00  (device subclass)
6355  dp     00  (device protocol)
6356  ic     09  (interface class)
6357  isc    00  (interface subclass)
6358  ip     00  (interface protocol)
6359 </pre>
6360
6361 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
6362 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
6363 these alias entries show up:</p>
6364
6365 <p><blockquote>
6366 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
6367 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
6368 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
6369 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
6370 </blockquote></p>
6371
6372 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
6373 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
6374 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
6375
6376 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
6377
6378 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
6379 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
6380
6381 <p><blockquote>
6382 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6383 </blockquote></p>
6384
6385 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
6386
6387 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
6388
6389 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
6390 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
6391 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
6392
6393 <p><blockquote>
6394 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
6395 </blockquote></p>
6396
6397 <p>The values present are</p>
6398
6399 <pre>
6400  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
6401  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
6402  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
6403  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
6404  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
6405  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
6406  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
6407  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
6408  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
6409  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
6410  ct   10             (chassis type)
6411  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
6412 </pre>
6413
6414 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
6415 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
6416
6417 <pre>
6418   3 Desktop
6419   4 Low Profile Desktop
6420   5 Pizza Box
6421   6 Mini Tower
6422   7 Tower
6423   8 Portable
6424   9 Laptop
6425  10 Notebook
6426  11 Hand Held
6427  12 Docking Station
6428  13 All In One
6429  14 Sub Notebook
6430  15 Space-saving
6431  16 Lunch Box
6432  17 Main Server Chassis
6433  18 Expansion Chassis
6434  19 Sub Chassis
6435  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
6436  21 Peripheral Chassis
6437  22 RAID Chassis
6438  23 Rack Mount Chassis
6439  24 Sealed-case PC
6440  25 Multi-system
6441  26 CompactPCI
6442  27 AdvancedTCA
6443  28 Blade
6444  29 Blade Enclosing
6445 </pre>
6446
6447 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
6448 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
6449 claim it is a desktop.</p>
6450
6451 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
6452
6453 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
6454 test machine:</p>
6455
6456 <p><blockquote>
6457 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
6458 </blockquote></p>
6459
6460 <p>The values present are</p>
6461
6462 <pre>
6463   ty  01  (type)
6464   pr  00  (prototype)
6465   id  00  (id)
6466   ex  00  (extra)
6467 </pre>
6468
6469 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
6470 the valid values are.</p>
6471
6472 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
6473
6474 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
6475 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
6476 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
6477 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
6478 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
6479 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
6480 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
6481
6482 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
6483
6484 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
6485 one can use the following shell script:</p>
6486
6487 <pre>
6488   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
6489     echo "$id" ; \
6490     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
6491   done
6492 </pre>
6493
6494 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
6495 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
6496
6497 <pre>
6498   acpi:ACPI0003:
6499     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
6500   acpi:device:
6501   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
6502   acpi:IBM0068:
6503     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
6504     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
6505     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
6506     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
6507   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6508     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
6509     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
6510     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
6511   [...]
6512 </pre>
6513
6514 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6515 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6516 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6517 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
6518
6519 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
6520 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
6521 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
6522
6523       </div>
6524       <div class="tags">
6525
6526
6527         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
6528
6529
6530       </div>
6531     </div>
6532     <div class="padding"></div>
6533
6534     <div class="entry">
6535       <div class="title">
6536         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
6537       </div>
6538       <div class="date">
6539         10th January 2013
6540       </div>
6541       <div class="body">
6542         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
6543 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
6544 Launcher and updated the Debian package
6545 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
6546 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
6547 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
6548 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
6549 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
6550 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
6551 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
6552 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
6553 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
6554 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
6555 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
6556 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
6557 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
6558 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
6559 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
6560
6561       </div>
6562       <div class="tags">
6563
6564
6565         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
6566
6567
6568       </div>
6569     </div>
6570     <div class="padding"></div>
6571
6572     <div class="entry">
6573       <div class="title">
6574         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
6575       </div>
6576       <div class="date">
6577          9th January 2013
6578       </div>
6579       <div class="body">
6580         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
6581 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
6582 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
6583 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
6584 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
6585 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
6586 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
6587 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
6588 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
6589 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
6590 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
6591
6592 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
6593 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
6594 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
6595 simple:
6596
6597 <ul>
6598
6599 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
6600   starting when a user log in.</li>
6601
6602 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
6603   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
6604
6605 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
6606   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
6607   packages.</li>
6608
6609 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
6610   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
6611
6612 </ul>
6613
6614 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
6615 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
6616 discover database to find packages and
6617 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
6618 packages.</p>
6619
6620 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
6621 draft package is now checked into
6622 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
6623 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
6624 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
6625 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
6626 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
6627 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
6628 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
6629 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
6630 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
6631 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
6632 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
6633 because of the freeze).</p>
6634
6635 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
6636 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
6637 inserted):</p>
6638
6639 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
6640
6641 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
6642 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
6643 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
6644
6645 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
6646 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
6647 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
6648 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
6649 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
6650 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
6651 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
6652
6653 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
6654 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
6655 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
6656 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
6657 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
6658 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
6659 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
6660 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
6661 not be installed?</p>
6662
6663 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
6664 please send me an email. :)</p>
6665
6666       </div>
6667       <div class="tags">
6668
6669
6670         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
6671
6672
6673       </div>
6674     </div>
6675     <div class="padding"></div>
6676
6677     <div class="entry">
6678       <div class="title">
6679         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
6680       </div>
6681       <div class="date">
6682          2nd January 2013
6683       </div>
6684       <div class="body">
6685         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
6686 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
6687 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
6688 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
6689 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
6690 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
6691 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
6692 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
6693 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
6694 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
6695
6696 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
6697 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
6698 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
6699
6700       </div>
6701       <div class="tags">
6702
6703
6704         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
6705
6706
6707       </div>
6708     </div>
6709     <div class="padding"></div>
6710
6711     <div class="entry">
6712       <div class="title">
6713         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
6714       </div>
6715       <div class="date">
6716         28th December 2012
6717       </div>
6718       <div class="body">
6719         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
6720 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
6721 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
6722 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
6723 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
6724 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
6725 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
6726 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
6727 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
6728 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
6729 followed by many others. :)</p>
6730
6731 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
6732 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
6733 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
6734 you want to donate to the project.</p>
6735
6736       </div>
6737       <div class="tags">
6738
6739
6740         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>.
6741
6742
6743       </div>
6744     </div>
6745     <div class="padding"></div>
6746
6747     <div class="entry">
6748       <div class="title">
6749         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
6750       </div>
6751       <div class="date">
6752         25th December 2012
6753       </div>
6754       <div class="body">
6755         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
6756 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
6757
6758 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
6759 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
6760 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
6761 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
6762 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
6763 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
6764 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
6765 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
6766 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
6767 name.</p>
6768
6769 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
6770 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
6771 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
6772
6773 <blockquote><pre>
6774 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
6775 cd bitcoin
6776 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
6777 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
6778 </pre></blockquote>
6779
6780 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
6781 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
6782 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
6783 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
6784 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
6785 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
6786 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
6787 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
6788 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
6789
6790 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6791 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6792 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6793
6794       </div>
6795       <div class="tags">
6796
6797
6798         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>.
6799
6800
6801       </div>
6802     </div>
6803     <div class="padding"></div>
6804
6805     <div class="entry">
6806       <div class="title">
6807         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
6808       </div>
6809       <div class="date">
6810         21st December 2012
6811       </div>
6812       <div class="body">
6813         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
6814 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
6815 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
6816 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
6817 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
6818 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
6819 is now maintained by a
6820 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
6821 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
6822 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
6823 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
6824 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
6825 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
6826 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
6827 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
6828 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
6829 Corallo in a
6830 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
6831 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
6832 Debian package.</p>
6833
6834 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
6835 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
6836 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
6837 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
6838 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
6839 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
6840 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
6841 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
6842 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
6843 new version to unstable.
6844
6845 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
6846 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
6847 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
6848 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
6849 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
6850 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
6851 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
6852 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
6853 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
6854 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
6855 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
6856 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
6857 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
6858 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
6859 have not tested them.</p>
6860
6861 <p>My
6862 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
6863 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
6864 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
6865 years ago, as can be
6866 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
6867 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
6868 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
6869 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
6870 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
6871 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
6872 the same address as last time,
6873 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6874
6875       </div>
6876       <div class="tags">
6877
6878
6879         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>.
6880
6881
6882       </div>
6883     </div>
6884     <div class="padding"></div>
6885
6886     <div class="entry">
6887       <div class="title">
6888         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ledger___double_entry_accounting_using_text_based_storage_format.html">Ledger - double-entry accounting using text based storage format</a>
6889       </div>
6890       <div class="date">
6891         18th December 2012
6892       </div>
6893       <div class="body">
6894         <p>A few days ago I came across
6895 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
6896 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
6897 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
6898 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
6899 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
6900 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
6901 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
6902 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
6903 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
6904
6905 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
6906 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
6907 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
6908 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
6909
6910 <blockquote><pre>
6911 2004-05-27 Book Store
6912       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
6913       Liabilities:Visa
6914 </pre></blockquote>
6915
6916 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
6917 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
6918 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
6919 Spang</a>,
6920 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
6921 Keen</a>,
6922 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
6923 Cantino</a> and
6924 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
6925 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
6926 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
6927 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
6928 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
6929
6930 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
6931 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
6932 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
6933 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
6934 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
6935
6936 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
6937 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
6938 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
6939 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
6940 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
6941 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
6942 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
6943 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
6944 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
6945
6946       </div>
6947       <div class="tags">
6948
6949
6950         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>.
6951
6952
6953       </div>
6954     </div>
6955     <div class="padding"></div>
6956
6957     <div class="entry">
6958       <div class="title">
6959         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Scripting_the_Cerebrum_bofhd_user_administration_system_using_XML_RPC.html">Scripting the Cerebrum/bofhd user administration system using XML-RPC</a>
6960       </div>
6961       <div class="date">
6962          6th December 2012
6963       </div>
6964       <div class="body">
6965         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
6966 Oslo</a>, we use the
6967 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
6968 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
6969 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
6970 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
6971 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
6972 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
6973 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
6974 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
6975 Python.</p>
6976
6977 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
6978 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
6979 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
6980 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
6981 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
6982 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
6983
6984 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
6985 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
6986 user currently logged in:</p>
6987
6988 <blockquote><pre>
6989 #!/usr/bin/env python
6990 import getpass
6991 import xmlrpclib
6992 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
6993 username = getpass.getuser()
6994 password = getpass.getpass()
6995 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
6996 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
6997 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
6998 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
6999 result = server.logout(sessionid)
7000 print result
7001 </pre></blockquote>
7002
7003 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
7004 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
7005
7006       </div>
7007       <div class="tags">
7008
7009
7010         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
7011
7012
7013       </div>
7014     </div>
7015     <div class="padding"></div>
7016
7017     <div class="entry">
7018       <div class="title">
7019         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_the_value_of_copyright_taxed_.html">Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?</a>
7020       </div>
7021       <div class="date">
7022         17th November 2012
7023       </div>
7024       <div class="body">
7025         <p>While working on a
7026 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
7027 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
7028 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
7029 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
7030 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
7031 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
7032
7033 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
7034 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
7035 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
7036 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
7037 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
7038 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
7039 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
7040 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
7041 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
7042 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
7043 arguments.</p>
7044
7045 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
7046 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
7047 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
7048 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
7049 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
7050 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
7051 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
7052 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
7053
7054 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
7055 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
7056 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
7057 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
7058 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
7059 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
7060 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
7061 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
7062 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
7063 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
7064 correct right holder.</p>
7065
7066 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
7067 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
7068 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
7069 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
7070 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
7071 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
7072 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
7073 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
7074 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
7075 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
7076 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
7077 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
7078 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
7079 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
7080
7081 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
7082 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
7083 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
7084
7085 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
7086 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
7087
7088       </div>
7089       <div class="tags">
7090
7091
7092         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
7093
7094
7095       </div>
7096     </div>
7097     <div class="padding"></div>
7098
7099     <div class="entry">
7100       <div class="title">
7101         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
7102       </div>
7103       <div class="date">
7104         14th November 2012
7105       </div>
7106       <div class="body">
7107         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
7108 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
7109 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
7110 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
7111 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
7112 the people behind the German
7113 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
7114 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
7115 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
7116
7117 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7118
7119 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
7120 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
7121 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
7122
7123 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
7124 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
7125 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
7126 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
7127 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
7128 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
7129
7130 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
7131 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
7132 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
7133 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
7134 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
7135 relationship management and the communication processes in the
7136 project.</p>
7137
7138 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
7139 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
7140 and a yoga teacher.</p>
7141
7142 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
7143 project?</strong></p>
7144
7145 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
7146
7147 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
7148 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
7149 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
7150 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
7151 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
7152 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
7153 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
7154 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
7155 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
7156 parents.</p>
7157
7158 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
7159 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
7160 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
7161 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
7162 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
7163 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
7164 Germany.</p>
7165
7166 <p>For information about our school project you can read
7167 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
7168 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
7169
7170 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
7171 Edu?</strong></p>
7172
7173 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
7174 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
7175
7176 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
7177 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
7178 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
7179 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
7180 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
7181 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
7182 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
7183 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
7184 teachers, parents...</p>
7185
7186 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
7187 Edu?</strong></p>
7188
7189 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
7190 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
7191
7192 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
7193 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
7194 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
7195 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
7196 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
7197
7198 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
7199 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
7200 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
7201 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
7202 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
7203 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
7204 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
7205
7206 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7207
7208 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
7209 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
7210 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
7211 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
7212
7213 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7214 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7215
7216 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
7217 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
7218 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
7219 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
7220 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
7221
7222 <ul>
7223
7224 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
7225 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
7226 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
7227
7228 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
7229 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
7230 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
7231 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
7232 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
7233 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
7234 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
7235
7236 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
7237 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
7238 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
7239 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
7240
7241 </ul>
7242
7243       </div>
7244       <div class="tags">
7245
7246
7247         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>.
7248
7249
7250       </div>
7251     </div>
7252     <div class="padding"></div>
7253
7254     <div class="entry">
7255       <div class="title">
7256         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_European_Central_Bank__ECB__take_a_look_at_bitcoin.html">The European Central Bank (ECB) take a look at bitcoin</a>
7257       </div>
7258       <div class="date">
7259          4th November 2012
7260       </div>
7261       <div class="body">
7262         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
7263 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
7264 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
7265 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
7266 see how a member of the bitcoin community
7267 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
7268 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
7269 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
7270 competition.  My thoughts go to the
7271 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
7272 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
7273 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
7274 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
7275 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
7276
7277 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
7278 that the community already seem to have
7279 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
7280 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
7281 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
7282 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
7283 wealth is available.</p>
7284
7285       </div>
7286       <div class="tags">
7287
7288
7289         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
7290
7291
7292       </div>
7293     </div>
7294     <div class="padding"></div>
7295
7296     <div class="entry">
7297       <div class="title">
7298         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html">12 years of outages - summarised by Stuart Kendrick</a>
7299       </div>
7300       <div class="date">
7301         26th October 2012
7302       </div>
7303       <div class="body">
7304         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
7305 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
7306 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
7307 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
7308 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
7309 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
7310 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
7311 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
7312 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
7313 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
7314 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
7315 it every time.</p>
7316
7317 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
7318 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
7319 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
7320 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
7321 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
7322 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
7323 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
7324 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
7325 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
7326 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
7327 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
7328 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
7329
7330 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
7331 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
7332 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
7333 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
7334 article: First the unplanned outage:
7335
7336 <blockquote><pre>
7337 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
7338 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
7339 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
7340 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
7341 Duration:    40 minutes
7342 Scope:       Exchange 2003
7343 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
7344              a cluster failover.
7345
7346 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
7347              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
7348 Technician:  [xxx]
7349 </pre></blockquote>
7350
7351 Next the planned outage:
7352
7353 <blockquote><pre>
7354 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
7355 Severity:    Major (Planned)
7356 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
7357 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
7358 Duration:    10 hours
7359 Scope:       H2 Transport
7360 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
7361              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
7362              4510s.
7363 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
7364              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
7365              connectivity.
7366 Technician:  [xxx]
7367 </pre></blockquote>
7368
7369 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
7370 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
7371 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
7372 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
7373 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
7374 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
7375 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
7376
7377 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
7378 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
7379 university too.  We do register
7380 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
7381 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
7382 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
7383 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
7384 for other sites to consider too?</p>
7385
7386       </div>
7387       <div class="tags">
7388
7389
7390         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>.
7391
7392
7393       </div>
7394     </div>
7395     <div class="padding"></div>
7396
7397     <div class="entry">
7398       <div class="title">
7399         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html">Amazon steal books from customer and throw out her out without any explanation</a>
7400       </div>
7401       <div class="date">
7402         22nd October 2012
7403       </div>
7404       <div class="body">
7405         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
7406 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
7407 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
7408 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
7409 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
7410 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
7411 background information is available in Norwegian from
7412 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
7413 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
7414 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
7415 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
7416 willing to
7417 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
7418 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
7419 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
7420 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
7421 sounded like
7422 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
7423 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
7424 later.</p>
7425
7426 <p>And thought this action is
7427 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
7428 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
7429 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
7430 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
7431 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
7432 rights.</p>
7433
7434 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
7435 unacceptable terms.  For example
7436 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
7437 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
7438 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
7439 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
7440 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
7441
7442 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
7443 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
7444 restored the account of the user, as reported by
7445 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
7446 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
7447 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
7448 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
7449 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
7450 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
7451 reading two opinions from
7452 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
7453 Phipps</a> and
7454 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
7455 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
7456 details about the original story.</p>
7457
7458       </div>
7459       <div class="tags">
7460
7461
7462         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
7463
7464
7465       </div>
7466     </div>
7467     <div class="padding"></div>
7468
7469     <div class="entry">
7470       <div class="title">
7471         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
7472       </div>
7473       <div class="date">
7474         18th October 2012
7475       </div>
7476       <div class="body">
7477         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
7478 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
7479 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
7480 across a marvellous drawing by
7481 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
7482 visualising some of what is going on.
7483
7484 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
7485 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
7486
7487 <blockquote>
7488 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
7489 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
7490 </blockquote>
7491
7492 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
7493 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
7494 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
7495 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
7496 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
7497 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
7498
7499       </div>
7500       <div class="tags">
7501
7502
7503         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
7504
7505
7506       </div>
7507     </div>
7508     <div class="padding"></div>
7509
7510     <div class="entry">
7511       <div class="title">
7512         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
7513       </div>
7514       <div class="date">
7515         12th October 2012
7516       </div>
7517       <div class="body">
7518         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
7519 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
7520 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
7521 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
7522 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
7523 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
7524 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
7525 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
7526 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
7527 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
7528 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
7529 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
7530 matter".</p>
7531
7532 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
7533 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
7534 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
7535 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
7536 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
7537 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
7538 to argue its side.</p>
7539
7540 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
7541 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
7542 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
7543 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
7544
7545 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
7546 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
7547 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
7548
7549       </div>
7550       <div class="tags">
7551
7552
7553         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis</a>.
7554
7555
7556       </div>
7557     </div>
7558     <div class="padding"></div>
7559
7560     <div class="entry">
7561       <div class="title">
7562         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_is_your_local_library_collecting_the__wrong__computer_books_.html">Why is your local library collecting the "wrong" computer books?</a>
7563       </div>
7564       <div class="date">
7565          3rd October 2012
7566       </div>
7567       <div class="body">
7568         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
7569 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
7570 the computer science book collection available in his local
7571 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
7572 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
7573 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
7574 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
7575 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
7576 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
7577 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
7578 recently published books.</p>
7579
7580 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
7581 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
7582 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
7583 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
7584 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
7585 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
7586 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
7587 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
7588 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
7589 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
7590 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
7591 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
7592 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
7593 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
7594 for the library that evening.</p>
7595
7596 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
7597 going to know that for example
7598 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
7599 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
7600 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
7601 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
7602 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
7603 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
7604 book right away.</p>
7605
7606       </div>
7607       <div class="tags">
7608
7609
7610         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7611
7612
7613       </div>
7614     </div>
7615     <div class="padding"></div>
7616
7617     <div class="entry">
7618       <div class="title">
7619         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Seventy_percent_done_with_Norwegian_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Seventy percent done with Norwegian docbook version of Free Culture</a>
7620       </div>
7621       <div class="date">
7622         23rd September 2012
7623       </div>
7624       <div class="body">
7625         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
7626 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
7627 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
7628 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
7629 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
7630 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
7631
7632 When I started, I
7633 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
7634 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
7635 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
7636 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
7637 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
7638 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
7639 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
7640
7641 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
7642
7643 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
7644 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
7645 the project files currently available from
7646 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7647
7648 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
7649 the updated
7650 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
7651 and
7652 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
7653 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
7654 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
7655 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
7656
7657       </div>
7658       <div class="tags">
7659
7660
7661         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>.
7662
7663
7664       </div>
7665     </div>
7666     <div class="padding"></div>
7667
7668     <div class="entry">
7669       <div class="title">
7670         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
7671       </div>
7672       <div class="date">
7673         17th September 2012
7674       </div>
7675       <div class="body">
7676         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
7677 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
7678 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
7679 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
7680 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
7681 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
7682 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
7683
7684 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7685
7686 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
7687 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
7688 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
7689 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
7690 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
7691 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
7692 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
7693 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
7694 training is anyway very important</p>
7695
7696 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
7697 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
7698 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
7699 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
7700 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
7701
7702 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7703 project?</strong></p>
7704
7705 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
7706 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
7707 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
7708 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
7709 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
7710 hole.</p>
7711
7712 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7713 Edu?</strong></p>
7714
7715 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
7716 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
7717 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
7718 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
7719 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
7720 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
7721 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
7722 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
7723 hassle.</p>
7724
7725 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7726 Edu?</strong></p>
7727
7728 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
7729 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
7730 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
7731 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
7732 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
7733 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
7734 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
7735 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
7736
7737 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7738
7739 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
7740 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
7741 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
7742 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
7743 has the same...</p>
7744
7745 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
7746 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
7747 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
7748 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
7749
7750 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7751 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7752
7753 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
7754 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
7755 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
7756
7757 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
7758 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
7759 don't.</p>
7760
7761 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
7762 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
7763 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
7764 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
7765 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
7766 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
7767 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
7768
7769       </div>
7770       <div class="tags">
7771
7772
7773         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>.
7774
7775
7776       </div>
7777     </div>
7778     <div class="padding"></div>
7779
7780     <div class="entry">
7781       <div class="title">
7782         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
7783       </div>
7784       <div class="date">
7785         15th September 2012
7786       </div>
7787       <div class="body">
7788         <p>After the
7789 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
7790 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
7791 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
7792 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
7793 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
7794 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
7795 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
7796 was
7797 <a href="http://ietf.10.n7.nabble.com/New-Non-WG-Mailing-List-video-codec-Video-codec-BoF-discussion-list-td119548.html">created 2012-08-20</a>.  It is intended to discuss the topic and if a
7798 formal working group should be formed.</p>
7799
7800 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
7801 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
7802 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
7803 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
7804 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
7805 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
7806 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
7807 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
7808
7809 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
7810 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
7811 IETF.</p>
7812
7813       </div>
7814       <div class="tags">
7815
7816
7817         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
7818
7819
7820       </div>
7821     </div>
7822     <div class="padding"></div>
7823
7824     <div class="entry">
7825       <div class="title">
7826         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
7827       </div>
7828       <div class="date">
7829         12th September 2012
7830       </div>
7831       <div class="body">
7832         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
7833 publication of of
7834 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
7835 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
7836 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
7837 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
7838 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
7839 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
7840 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
7841 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
7842 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
7843 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
7844
7845 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
7846 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
7847 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
7848 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
7849
7850 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
7851 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
7852
7853       </div>
7854       <div class="tags">
7855
7856
7857         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
7858
7859
7860       </div>
7861     </div>
7862     <div class="padding"></div>
7863
7864     <div class="entry">
7865       <div class="title">
7866         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
7867       </div>
7868       <div class="date">
7869          7th September 2012
7870       </div>
7871       <div class="body">
7872         <p>As I
7873 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
7874 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
7875 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
7876 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
7877 repository for the project</a>.</p>
7878
7879 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
7880 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
7881 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
7882 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
7883
7884 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
7885 PostScript formats at
7886 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
7887 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
7888
7889       </div>
7890       <div class="tags">
7891
7892
7893         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>.
7894
7895
7896       </div>
7897     </div>
7898     <div class="padding"></div>
7899
7900     <div class="entry">
7901       <div class="title">
7902         <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>
7903       </div>
7904       <div class="date">
7905         23rd August 2012
7906       </div>
7907       <div class="body">
7908         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
7909 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
7910 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
7911 revisit the great site
7912 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
7913 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
7914 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
7915
7916       </div>
7917       <div class="tags">
7918
7919
7920         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>.
7921
7922
7923       </div>
7924     </div>
7925     <div class="padding"></div>
7926
7927     <div class="entry">
7928       <div class="title">
7929         <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>
7930       </div>
7931       <div class="date">
7932         17th August 2012
7933       </div>
7934       <div class="body">
7935         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
7936 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
7937 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
7938 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
7939 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
7940 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
7941 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
7942 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
7943 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
7944 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
7945 summer I
7946 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
7947 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
7948 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
7949
7950 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
7951 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
7952 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
7953 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
7954 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
7955 progress:</p>
7956
7957 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
7958
7959 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
7960 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
7961 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
7962 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
7963 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
7964 english version of the docbook source.</p>
7965
7966 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
7967 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
7968 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
7969 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
7970 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
7971 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
7972 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
7973 project files currently available from <a
7974 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7975
7976 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
7977 the updated
7978 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
7979 and
7980 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
7981 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
7982 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
7983 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
7984
7985       </div>
7986       <div class="tags">
7987
7988
7989         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>.
7990
7991
7992       </div>
7993     </div>
7994     <div class="padding"></div>
7995
7996     <div class="entry">
7997       <div class="title">
7998         <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>
7999       </div>
8000       <div class="date">
8001         10th August 2012
8002       </div>
8003       <div class="body">
8004         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
8005 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
8006 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
8007 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
8008 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
8009 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
8010 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
8011 case for the language
8012 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
8013 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
8014
8015 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
8016 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
8017 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
8018 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
8019 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
8020
8021 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
8022 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
8023 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
8024 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
8025 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
8026 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
8027 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
8028 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
8029 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
8030 alias for 'nb'.</p>
8031
8032 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
8033 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
8034 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
8035 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
8036 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
8037 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
8038 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
8039 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
8040 at the same time. :(</p>
8041
8042 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
8043 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
8044 processors. :(</p>
8045
8046 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
8047
8048       </div>
8049       <div class="tags">
8050
8051
8052         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>.
8053
8054
8055       </div>
8056     </div>
8057     <div class="padding"></div>
8058
8059     <div class="entry">
8060       <div class="title">
8061         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
8062       </div>
8063       <div class="date">
8064         31st July 2012
8065       </div>
8066       <div class="body">
8067         <p>I tried to send this text to the
8068 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
8069 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
8070 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
8071 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
8072 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
8073 out.</p>
8074
8075 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
8076 learning curve at the moment.</p>
8077
8078 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
8079 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
8080 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
8081 available from
8082 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
8083 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
8084 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
8085 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
8086 Squeeze.</p>
8087
8088 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
8089 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
8090 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
8091 problems.</p>
8092
8093 <ul>
8094
8095 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
8096    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
8097    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
8098    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
8099    index references spanning several pages (See
8100    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
8101    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
8102    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
8103
8104 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
8105    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
8106    #683163</a>).</li>
8107
8108 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
8109    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
8110    footnote and text body, see
8111    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
8112    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
8113    refs listed are not right).</li>
8114
8115 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
8116
8117 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
8118    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
8119
8120 </ul>
8121
8122 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
8123 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
8124 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
8125
8126 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
8127
8128       </div>
8129       <div class="tags">
8130
8131
8132         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>.
8133
8134
8135       </div>
8136     </div>
8137     <div class="padding"></div>
8138
8139     <div class="entry">
8140       <div class="title">
8141         <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>
8142       </div>
8143       <div class="date">
8144         21st July 2012
8145       </div>
8146       <div class="body">
8147         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
8148 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
8149 norwegian version</a> of the book
8150 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
8151 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
8152 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
8153 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
8154 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
8155
8156 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
8157 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
8158 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
8159 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
8160 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
8161 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
8162 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
8163 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
8164 print. :)</p>
8165
8166 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
8167 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
8168 language.</p>
8169
8170       </div>
8171       <div class="tags">
8172
8173
8174         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>.
8175
8176
8177       </div>
8178     </div>
8179     <div class="padding"></div>
8180
8181     <div class="entry">
8182       <div class="title">
8183         <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>
8184       </div>
8185       <div class="date">
8186         16th July 2012
8187       </div>
8188       <div class="body">
8189         <p>I am currently working on a
8190 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
8191 to translate</a> the book
8192 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
8193 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
8194 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
8195 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
8196 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
8197 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
8198 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
8199
8200 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
8201 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
8202 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
8203 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
8204 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
8205 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
8206 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
8207 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
8208 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
8209
8210       </div>
8211       <div class="tags">
8212
8213
8214         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>.
8215
8216
8217       </div>
8218     </div>
8219     <div class="padding"></div>
8220
8221     <div class="entry">
8222       <div class="title">
8223         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
8224       </div>
8225       <div class="date">
8226          9th July 2012
8227       </div>
8228       <div class="body">
8229         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
8230 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
8231 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
8232 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
8233 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
8234 to adjust and scale the just released
8235 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
8236 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
8237 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
8238
8239 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8240
8241 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
8242 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
8243 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
8244 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
8245 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
8246 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
8247 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
8248 perspective when working with IT.</p>
8249
8250 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8251 project?</strong></p>
8252
8253 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
8254 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
8255 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
8256 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
8257 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
8258 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
8259
8260 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8261 Edu?</strong></p>
8262
8263 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
8264 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
8265 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
8266 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
8267 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
8268 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
8269 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
8270 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
8271 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
8272 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
8273 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
8274 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
8275 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
8276 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
8277 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
8278 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
8279 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
8280 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
8281 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
8282 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
8283 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
8284 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
8285 quicker to update.
8286
8287 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8288 Edu?</strong></p>
8289
8290 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
8291 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
8292 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
8293 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
8294 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
8295 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
8296
8297 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
8298 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
8299 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
8300 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
8301 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
8302 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
8303 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
8304 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
8305 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
8306 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
8307 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
8308 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
8309 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
8310 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
8311 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
8312
8313 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
8314 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
8315 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
8316 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
8317 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
8318 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
8319 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
8320 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
8321
8322 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
8323 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
8324 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
8325 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
8326 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
8327 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
8328 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
8329 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
8330 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
8331 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
8332 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
8333 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
8334 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
8335 sound file.</p>
8336
8337 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
8338 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
8339 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
8340 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
8341 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
8342 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
8343 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
8344 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
8345 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
8346
8347 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8348
8349 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
8350 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
8351 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
8352 )</p>
8353
8354 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8355 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8356
8357 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
8358 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
8359 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
8360 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
8361 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
8362 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
8363 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
8364 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
8365 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
8366 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
8367 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
8368 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
8369 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
8370 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
8371 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
8372
8373 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
8374 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
8375 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
8376 management with Airtime</a>,
8377 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
8378 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
8379 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
8380 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
8381 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
8382
8383       </div>
8384       <div class="tags">
8385
8386
8387         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>.
8388
8389
8390       </div>
8391     </div>
8392     <div class="padding"></div>
8393
8394     <div class="entry">
8395       <div class="title">
8396         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
8397       </div>
8398       <div class="date">
8399          8th July 2012
8400       </div>
8401       <div class="body">
8402         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
8403 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
8404 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
8405 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
8406 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
8407 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
8408 Steinberg in his blog post
8409 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
8410 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
8411 spending of your tax money.</p>
8412
8413 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
8414 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
8415 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
8416 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
8417 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
8418 purchases.</p>
8419
8420       </div>
8421       <div class="tags">
8422
8423
8424         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>.
8425
8426
8427       </div>
8428     </div>
8429     <div class="padding"></div>
8430
8431     <div class="entry">
8432       <div class="title">
8433         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
8434       </div>
8435       <div class="date">
8436          7th July 2012
8437       </div>
8438       <div class="body">
8439         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
8440 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
8441 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
8442 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
8443 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
8444 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
8445 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
8446 receive.  The software is
8447
8448 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
8449 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
8450 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
8451 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
8452 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
8453 Windows</a>.</p>
8454
8455 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
8456 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
8457
8458 <p><ul>
8459
8460   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
8461     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
8462
8463   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
8464     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
8465     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
8466     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
8467     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
8468     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
8469     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
8470     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
8471     </li>
8472
8473   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
8474     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
8475
8476   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
8477     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
8478
8479   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
8480     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
8481
8482   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
8483
8484   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
8485     formats </li>
8486
8487   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
8488     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
8489     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
8490     (as separate sets)</li>
8491
8492   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
8493     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
8494     percentage)</li>
8495
8496   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
8497     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
8498     memory):
8499     <ul>
8500       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
8501       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
8502       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
8503       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
8504       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
8505       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
8506       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
8507       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
8508       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
8509       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
8510           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
8511           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
8512           activity)</li>
8513       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
8514       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
8515     </ul></li>
8516
8517   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
8518     <ul>
8519       <li>Break periods</li>
8520       <li>For teacher(s):
8521         <ul>
8522           <li>Not available periods</li>
8523           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
8524           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
8525           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
8526           <li>Min hours daily</li>
8527           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
8528
8529           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
8530             days per week</li>
8531         </ul></li>
8532       <li>For students (sets):
8533         <ul>
8534           <li>Not available periods</li>
8535           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
8536           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
8537           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
8538           <li>Min hours daily</li>
8539           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
8540
8541           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
8542             days per week</li>
8543         </ul></li>
8544       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
8545         <ul>
8546           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
8547           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
8548           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
8549           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
8550           <li>End(s) students day</li>
8551           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
8552           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
8553             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
8554           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
8555           <li>Not overlapping</li>
8556           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
8557           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
8558         </ul></li>
8559     </ul></li>
8560
8561   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
8562     <ul>
8563       <li>Room not available periods</li>
8564       <li>For teacher(s):
8565         <ul>
8566           <li>Home room(s)</li>
8567           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
8568           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
8569         </ul>
8570       </li>
8571
8572       <li>For students (sets):
8573         <ul>
8574           <li>Home room(s)</li>
8575           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
8576           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
8577         </ul>
8578       </li>
8579       <li>Preferred room(s):
8580         <ul>
8581           <li>For a subject</li>
8582           <li>For an activity tag</li>
8583           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
8584           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
8585         </ul>
8586       </li>
8587
8588       <li>For a set of activities:
8589         <ul>
8590           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
8591         </ul>
8592       </li>
8593     </ul>
8594   </li>
8595 </ul></p>
8596
8597 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
8598 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
8599 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
8600 manually, check it out.
8601
8602 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
8603 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
8604 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
8605 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
8606 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
8607 section</a>.</p>
8608
8609       </div>
8610       <div class="tags">
8611
8612
8613         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>.
8614
8615
8616       </div>
8617     </div>
8618     <div class="padding"></div>
8619
8620     <div class="entry">
8621       <div class="title">
8622         <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>
8623       </div>
8624       <div class="date">
8625          3rd July 2012
8626       </div>
8627       <div class="body">
8628         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
8629 project (Norwegian version of
8630 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
8631 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
8632 a problem with the municipalities using
8633 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
8634 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
8635 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
8636 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
8637 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
8638 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
8639 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
8640 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
8641 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
8642 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
8643 the From: header.</p>
8644
8645 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
8646 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
8647 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
8648 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
8649 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
8650 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
8651 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
8652 behaviour.</p>
8653
8654 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
8655 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
8656 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
8657 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
8658 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
8659 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
8660 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
8661
8662       </div>
8663       <div class="tags">
8664
8665
8666         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>.
8667
8668
8669       </div>
8670     </div>
8671     <div class="padding"></div>
8672
8673     <div class="entry">
8674       <div class="title">
8675         <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>
8676       </div>
8677       <div class="date">
8678         26th June 2012
8679       </div>
8680       <div class="body">
8681         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
8682 another interview with the people behind
8683 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
8684 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
8685 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
8686 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
8687 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
8688 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
8689 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
8690
8691 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8692
8693 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
8694 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
8695 ICT in schools</p>
8696
8697 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8698 project?</strong></p>
8699
8700 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
8701 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
8702 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
8703 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
8704
8705 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8706 Edu?</strong></p>
8707
8708 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
8709 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
8710 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
8711 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
8712
8713 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8714 Edu?</strong></p>
8715
8716 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
8717 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
8718 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
8719 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
8720 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
8721 technologies in school.</p>
8722
8723 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8724
8725 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
8726 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
8727 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
8728
8729 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8730 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8731
8732 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
8733 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
8734 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
8735 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
8736
8737 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
8738 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
8739 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
8740
8741 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
8742 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
8743 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
8744 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
8745 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
8746 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
8747 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
8748 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
8749 working there.</p>
8750
8751       </div>
8752       <div class="tags">
8753
8754
8755         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>.
8756
8757
8758       </div>
8759     </div>
8760     <div class="padding"></div>
8761
8762     <div class="entry">
8763       <div class="title">
8764         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
8765       </div>
8766       <div class="date">
8767         24th June 2012
8768       </div>
8769       <div class="body">
8770         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
8771 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
8772 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
8773 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
8774 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
8775 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
8776 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
8777 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
8778 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
8779 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
8780 missing in my book.</p>
8781
8782 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
8783 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
8784 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
8785 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
8786 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
8787 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
8788 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
8789
8790       </div>
8791       <div class="tags">
8792
8793
8794         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>.
8795
8796
8797       </div>
8798     </div>
8799     <div class="padding"></div>
8800
8801     <div class="entry">
8802       <div class="title">
8803         <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>
8804       </div>
8805       <div class="date">
8806         11th June 2012
8807       </div>
8808       <div class="body">
8809         <p>During my work on
8810 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
8811 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
8812 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
8813 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
8814 explanation.</p>
8815
8816 <p><ul>
8817
8818 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
8819 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
8820 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
8821 system depend on tasksel tasks in
8822 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
8823 installation.</li>
8824
8825 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
8826 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
8827 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
8828 at least try to enable it for these services:
8829 <ul>
8830
8831   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
8832     quotas.</li>
8833   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
8834   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
8835   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
8836   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
8837   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
8838
8839 </ul></li>
8840
8841 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
8842 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
8843 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
8844 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
8845
8846 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
8847 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
8848 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
8849
8850 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
8851 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
8852 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
8853 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
8854 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
8855 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
8856
8857 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
8858 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
8859 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
8860 in Wheezy.
8861
8862 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
8863 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
8864 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
8865
8866 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
8867 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
8868 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
8869 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
8870
8871 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
8872 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
8873 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
8874 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
8875
8876 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
8877 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
8878 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
8879
8880 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
8881 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
8882 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
8883
8884 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
8885 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
8886 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
8887 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
8888 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
8889
8890 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
8891 <ul>
8892
8893 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
8894 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
8895 <li>and probably more?</li>
8896 </ul></li>
8897
8898 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
8899 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
8900 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
8901 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
8902 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
8903 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
8904 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
8905 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
8906
8907
8908 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
8909 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
8910 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
8911 use.</li>
8912
8913 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
8914 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
8915 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
8916 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
8917 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
8918
8919 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
8920 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
8921 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
8922 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
8923 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
8924 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
8925
8926 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
8927 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
8928 There are at least three implementations,
8929 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
8930 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
8931 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
8932 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
8933 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
8934 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
8935 given room.</li>
8936
8937 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
8938 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
8939 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
8940 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
8941 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
8942 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
8943 investigated.</li>
8944
8945 </ul></p>
8946
8947 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
8948 version.</p>
8949
8950       </div>
8951       <div class="tags">
8952
8953
8954         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>.
8955
8956
8957       </div>
8958     </div>
8959     <div class="padding"></div>
8960
8961     <div class="entry">
8962       <div class="title">
8963         <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>
8964       </div>
8965       <div class="date">
8966          9th June 2012
8967       </div>
8968       <div class="body">
8969         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
8970 <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
8971 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
8972 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
8973 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
8974 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
8975 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
8976 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
8977 be willing to pay for.</p>
8978
8979 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
8980 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
8981 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
8982 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
8983 Orwell</a>.</p>
8984
8985       </div>
8986       <div class="tags">
8987
8988
8989         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>.
8990
8991
8992       </div>
8993     </div>
8994     <div class="padding"></div>
8995
8996     <div class="entry">
8997       <div class="title">
8998         <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>
8999       </div>
9000       <div class="date">
9001          6th June 2012
9002       </div>
9003       <div class="body">
9004         <p>A few days ago
9005 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
9006 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
9007 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
9008 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
9009 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
9010 code for HP, Dell and IBM
9011 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
9012 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
9013 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
9014 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
9015 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
9016
9017 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
9018 output:
9019
9020 <blockquote><pre>
9021 % 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>
9022 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": ""})
9023 %
9024 </pre></blockquote>
9025
9026 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
9027 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
9028 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
9029
9030       </div>
9031       <div class="tags">
9032
9033
9034         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>.
9035
9036
9037       </div>
9038     </div>
9039     <div class="padding"></div>
9040
9041     <div class="entry">
9042       <div class="title">
9043         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
9044       </div>
9045       <div class="date">
9046          2nd June 2012
9047       </div>
9048       <div class="body">
9049         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
9050 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
9051 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
9052 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
9053 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
9054 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
9055
9056 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9057
9058 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
9059 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
9060 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
9061 by Angela).</p>
9062
9063 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
9064 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
9065 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
9066 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
9067 becoming an osteopath.</p>
9068
9069 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
9070 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
9071 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
9072 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
9073 skills with communication skills.</p>
9074
9075 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9076 project?</strong></p>
9077
9078 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
9079 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
9080 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
9081 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
9082 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
9083
9084 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
9085 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
9086 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
9087 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
9088 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
9089 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
9090 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
9091 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
9092 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
9093
9094 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
9095 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
9096 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
9097
9098 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
9099
9100 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
9101 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
9102 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
9103 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
9104 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
9105 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
9106 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
9107 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
9108 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
9109 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
9110 point.</p>
9111
9112 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
9113 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
9114 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
9115 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
9116 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
9117 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
9118
9119 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
9120 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
9121 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
9122 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
9123 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
9124 spare time.</p>
9125
9126 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
9127 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
9128 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
9129 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
9130 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
9131
9132 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
9133 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
9134 avoidance do exist.</p>
9135
9136 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
9137 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
9138 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
9139 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
9140 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
9141 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
9142 and probably a gain for all.</p>
9143
9144 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9145 Edu?</strong></p>
9146
9147 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
9148 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
9149 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
9150 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
9151 project communication, honest communication within the group of
9152 developers, etc.</p>
9153
9154 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9155 Edu?</strong></p>
9156
9157 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
9158
9159 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
9160 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
9161 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
9162 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
9163 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
9164 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
9165 contribute).</p>
9166
9167 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
9168 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
9169 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
9170 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
9171 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
9172 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
9173 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
9174 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
9175 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
9176 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
9177
9178 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9179
9180 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
9181
9182 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
9183 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
9184 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
9185
9186 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
9187 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
9188 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
9189 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
9190
9191 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
9192 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
9193 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
9194 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
9195 whiteboard.</p>
9196
9197 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
9198
9199 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9200 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9201
9202 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
9203 enrol people.</p>
9204
9205       </div>
9206       <div class="tags">
9207
9208
9209         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>.
9210
9211
9212       </div>
9213     </div>
9214     <div class="padding"></div>
9215
9216     <div class="entry">
9217       <div class="title">
9218         <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>
9219       </div>
9220       <div class="date">
9221          1st June 2012
9222       </div>
9223       <div class="body">
9224         <p>A few years ago I wrote
9225 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
9226 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
9227 I have learned from colleges here at the
9228 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
9229 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
9230 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
9231 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
9232 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
9233
9234 <p><pre>
9235 use strict;
9236 use warnings;
9237 use SOAP::Lite;
9238 use Data::Dumper;
9239 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
9240 my $App = 'test';
9241 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
9242 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
9243 my $s = SOAP::Lite
9244     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
9245     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
9246     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
9247     ;
9248 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
9249     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
9250     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
9251     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
9252 );
9253 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
9254 </pre></p>
9255
9256 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
9257
9258 <p><pre>
9259 $VAR1 = {
9260           'Asset' => {
9261                      'Entitlements' => {
9262                                        'EntitlementData' => [
9263                                                             {
9264                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
9265                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
9266                                                               'Provider' => '',
9267                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
9268                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
9269                                                             },
9270                                                             {
9271                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
9272                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
9273                                                               'Provider' => '',
9274                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
9275                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
9276                                                             },
9277                                                             {
9278                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
9279                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
9280                                                               'Provider' => '',
9281                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
9282                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
9283                                                             }
9284                                                           ]
9285                                      },
9286                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
9287                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
9288                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
9289                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
9290                                           'Buid' => '2323',
9291                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
9292                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
9293                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
9294                                         }
9295                    }
9296         };
9297 </pre></p>
9298
9299 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
9300 service outside the
9301 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
9302 documentation</a>, and according to
9303 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
9304 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
9305 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
9306
9307 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
9308 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
9309
9310       </div>
9311       <div class="tags">
9312
9313
9314         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>.
9315
9316
9317       </div>
9318     </div>
9319     <div class="padding"></div>
9320
9321     <div class="entry">
9322       <div class="title">
9323         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
9324       </div>
9325       <div class="date">
9326         31st May 2012
9327       </div>
9328       <div class="body">
9329         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
9330 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
9331 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
9332 running Debian Squeeze, where
9333 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
9334 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
9335 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
9336 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
9337 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
9338 another day.</p>
9339
9340 <p>After calibration, I get a
9341 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
9342 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
9343 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
9344 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
9345 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
9346 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
9347 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
9348 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
9349 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
9350 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
9351 and a simple</p>
9352
9353 <p><pre>
9354 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
9355 </pre></p>
9356
9357 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
9358 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
9359 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
9360 enough for now.</p>
9361
9362       </div>
9363       <div class="tags">
9364
9365
9366         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9367
9368
9369       </div>
9370     </div>
9371     <div class="padding"></div>
9372
9373     <div class="entry">
9374       <div class="title">
9375         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
9376       </div>
9377       <div class="date">
9378         27th May 2012
9379       </div>
9380       <div class="body">
9381         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
9382 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
9383 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
9384 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
9385 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
9386 since then, helping to make sure the
9387 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
9388 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
9389
9390 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9391
9392 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
9393 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
9394 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
9395 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
9396 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
9397 our computer network.</p>
9398
9399 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
9400 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
9401 (4 months).</p>
9402
9403 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9404 project?</strong></p>
9405
9406 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
9407 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
9408 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
9409 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
9410 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
9411 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
9412 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
9413 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
9414 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
9415 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
9416 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
9417 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
9418 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
9419 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
9420
9421 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9422 Edu?</strong></p>
9423
9424 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
9425 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
9426 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
9427 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
9428 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
9429 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
9430 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
9431 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
9432
9433 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9434 Edu?</strong></p>
9435
9436 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
9437 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
9438 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
9439 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
9440 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
9441 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
9442 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
9443 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
9444 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
9445 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
9446 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
9447 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
9448
9449 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9450
9451 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
9452 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
9453 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
9454
9455 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9456 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9457
9458 <p><ol>
9459
9460 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
9461 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
9462 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
9463 developing.</li>
9464
9465 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
9466 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
9467 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
9468 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
9469 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
9470
9471 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
9472 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
9473 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
9474
9475 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
9476 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
9477 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
9478 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
9479
9480 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
9481 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
9482 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
9483
9484 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
9485
9486 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
9487 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
9488 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
9489 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
9490
9491 </ol></p>
9492
9493       </div>
9494       <div class="tags">
9495
9496
9497         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>.
9498
9499
9500       </div>
9501     </div>
9502     <div class="padding"></div>
9503
9504     <div class="entry">
9505       <div class="title">
9506         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
9507       </div>
9508       <div class="date">
9509         26th May 2012
9510       </div>
9511       <div class="body">
9512         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
9513 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
9514 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
9515 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
9516 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
9517
9518 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
9519 <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>
9520 comment:</p>
9521
9522 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
9523 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
9524 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
9525 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
9526 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
9527 </blockquote></p>
9528
9529 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
9530 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
9531 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
9532 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
9533 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
9534 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
9535 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
9536 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
9537 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
9538 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
9539 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
9540 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
9541 of wasted effort.</p>
9542
9543 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
9544 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
9545 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
9546
9547 <p>See
9548 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
9549 and
9550 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
9551 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
9552 </blockquote></p>
9553
9554       </div>
9555       <div class="tags">
9556
9557
9558         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>.
9559
9560
9561       </div>
9562     </div>
9563     <div class="padding"></div>
9564
9565     <div class="entry">
9566       <div class="title">
9567         <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>
9568       </div>
9569       <div class="date">
9570         18th May 2012
9571       </div>
9572       <div class="body">
9573         <p>In january, I
9574 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
9575 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
9576 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
9577 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
9578 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
9579 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
9580 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
9581 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
9582 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
9583 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
9584
9585 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
9586 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
9587 drivers. :)</p>
9588
9589       </div>
9590       <div class="tags">
9591
9592
9593         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9594
9595
9596       </div>
9597     </div>
9598     <div class="padding"></div>
9599
9600     <div class="entry">
9601       <div class="title">
9602         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
9603       </div>
9604       <div class="date">
9605         13th May 2012
9606       </div>
9607       <div class="body">
9608         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
9609 publish another interview with the people behind
9610 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
9611 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
9612 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
9613 details get right before release.
9614
9615 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9616
9617 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
9618 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
9619 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
9620 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
9621 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
9622 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
9623 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
9624 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
9625
9626 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
9627 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
9628 home since 2006.</p>
9629
9630 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9631 project?</strong></p>
9632
9633 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
9634 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
9635 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
9636 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
9637 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
9638 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
9639
9640 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
9641 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
9642 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
9643 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
9644 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
9645 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
9646 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
9647 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
9648 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
9649 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
9650 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
9651 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
9652 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
9653 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
9654 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
9655 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
9656
9657 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9658 Edu?</strong></p>
9659
9660 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
9661 for me as today.</p>
9662
9663 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
9664
9665 <p><ul>
9666
9667 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
9668 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
9669
9670 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
9671 cost.</li>
9672
9673 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
9674 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
9675 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
9676 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
9677 server</li>
9678
9679 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
9680 school.</li>
9681
9682 </ul></p>
9683
9684 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
9685 came up in this way:</p>
9686
9687 <p><ul>
9688
9689 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
9690 now.</li>
9691
9692 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
9693 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
9694 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
9695
9696 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
9697 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
9698 interfaces used in the past.</li>
9699
9700 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
9701 different needs.</li>
9702
9703 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
9704
9705 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
9706 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
9707 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
9708
9709 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
9710 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
9711
9712 </ul></p>
9713
9714 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9715 Edu?</strong></p>
9716
9717 <p><ul>
9718
9719 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
9720 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
9721 whole municipality areas.</li>
9722
9723 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
9724 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
9725 politicians.</li>
9726
9727 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
9728
9729 </ul></p>
9730
9731 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9732
9733 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
9734 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
9735 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
9736 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
9737 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
9738 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
9739
9740 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
9741 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
9742 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
9743 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
9744 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
9745
9746 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9747 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9748
9749 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
9750 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
9751 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
9752
9753       </div>
9754       <div class="tags">
9755
9756
9757         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>.
9758
9759
9760       </div>
9761     </div>
9762     <div class="padding"></div>
9763
9764     <div class="entry">
9765       <div class="title">
9766         <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>
9767       </div>
9768       <div class="date">
9769         30th April 2012
9770       </div>
9771       <div class="body">
9772         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
9773 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
9774
9775 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
9776 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
9777 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
9778 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
9779 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
9780 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
9781 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
9782 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
9783 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
9784 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
9785 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
9786 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
9787 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
9788 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
9789 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
9790 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
9791
9792 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
9793 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
9794 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
9795 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
9796 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
9797 finally found a Danish supplier
9798 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
9799 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
9800 days ago.</p>
9801
9802 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
9803 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
9804 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
9805 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
9806 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
9807 toys.</p>
9808
9809       </div>
9810       <div class="tags">
9811
9812
9813         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9814
9815
9816       </div>
9817     </div>
9818     <div class="padding"></div>
9819
9820     <div class="entry">
9821       <div class="title">
9822         <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>
9823       </div>
9824       <div class="date">
9825         26th April 2012
9826       </div>
9827       <div class="body">
9828         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
9829 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
9830 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
9831 that the video editor application included with
9832 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
9833 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
9834 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
9835
9836 <p><blockquote>
9837 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
9838 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
9839 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
9840 </blockquote></p>
9841
9842 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
9843
9844 <p><blockquote>
9845 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
9846 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
9847 </blockquote></p>
9848
9849 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
9850 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
9851 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
9852 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
9853 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
9854 video.  AMR is
9855 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
9856 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
9857 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
9858 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
9859 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
9860 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
9861 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
9862
9863 <p>I know why I prefer
9864 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
9865 standards</a> also for video.</p>
9866
9867       </div>
9868       <div class="tags">
9869
9870
9871         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>.
9872
9873
9874       </div>
9875     </div>
9876     <div class="padding"></div>
9877
9878     <div class="entry">
9879       <div class="title">
9880         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
9881       </div>
9882       <div class="date">
9883         19th April 2012
9884       </div>
9885       <div class="body">
9886         <p>Here in Norway, the
9887 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
9888 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
9889 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
9890 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
9891 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
9892 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
9893 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
9894 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
9895 on the same level.</p>
9896
9897 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
9898 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
9899 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
9900 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
9901 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
9902 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
9903 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
9904 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
9905 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
9906 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
9907 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
9908 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
9909 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
9910 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
9911 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
9912 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
9913 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
9914 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
9915
9916 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
9917 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
9918 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
9919 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
9920 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
9921 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
9922 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
9923 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
9924
9925 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
9926 from Simon Phipps
9927 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
9928 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
9929
9930 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
9931 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
9932 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
9933 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
9934 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
9935 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
9936 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
9937 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
9938 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
9939
9940       </div>
9941       <div class="tags">
9942
9943
9944         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>.
9945
9946
9947       </div>
9948     </div>
9949     <div class="padding"></div>
9950
9951     <div class="entry">
9952       <div class="title">
9953         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
9954       </div>
9955       <div class="date">
9956         15th April 2012
9957       </div>
9958       <div class="body">
9959         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
9960 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
9961 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
9962 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
9963 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
9964 up in the recently released
9965 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
9966 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
9967
9968 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9969
9970 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
9971 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
9972 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
9973 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
9974 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
9975 information technology and science/technology.</p>
9976
9977 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9978 project?</strong></p>
9979
9980 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
9981 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
9982 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
9983 contributing.</p>
9984
9985 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9986 Edu?</strong></p>
9987
9988 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
9989 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
9990 Debian Project!</p>
9991
9992 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9993 Edu?</strong></p>
9994
9995 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
9996 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
9997 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
9998 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
9999 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
10000 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
10001 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
10002
10003 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
10004 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
10005
10006 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10007
10008 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
10009 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
10010 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
10011 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
10012
10013 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10014 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10015
10016 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
10017 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
10018 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
10019 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
10020 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
10021 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
10022 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
10023
10024 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
10025 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
10026 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
10027 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
10028 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
10029 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
10030 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
10031 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
10032
10033       </div>
10034       <div class="tags">
10035
10036
10037         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>.
10038
10039
10040       </div>
10041     </div>
10042     <div class="padding"></div>
10043
10044     <div class="entry">
10045       <div class="title">
10046         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
10047       </div>
10048       <div class="date">
10049          8th April 2012
10050       </div>
10051       <div class="body">
10052         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
10053 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
10054 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
10055 contributor to the
10056 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
10057 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
10058
10059 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10060
10061 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
10062 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
10063
10064 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10065 project?</strong></p>
10066
10067 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
10068 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
10069 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
10070 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
10071 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
10072 "localisation".</p>
10073
10074 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10075 Edu?</strong></p>
10076
10077 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10078 Edu?</strong></p>
10079
10080 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
10081 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
10082 education system.</p>
10083
10084 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
10085 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
10086 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
10087 money on the latest hardware.</p>
10088
10089 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10090
10091 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
10092 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
10093 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
10094
10095 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10096 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10097
10098 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
10099 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
10100 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
10101
10102       </div>
10103       <div class="tags">
10104
10105
10106         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>.
10107
10108
10109       </div>
10110     </div>
10111     <div class="padding"></div>
10112
10113     <div class="entry">
10114       <div class="title">
10115         <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>
10116       </div>
10117       <div class="date">
10118          6th April 2012
10119       </div>
10120       <div class="body">
10121         <p>Recently I have spent time with
10122 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
10123 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
10124 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
10125 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
10126 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
10127 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
10128 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
10129 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
10130
10131 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
10132 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
10133 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
10134 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
10135 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
10136 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
10137 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
10138 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
10139
10140 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
10141 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
10142 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
10143 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
10144 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
10145 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
10146 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
10147 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
10148
10149 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
10150 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
10151 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
10152 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
10153 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
10154 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
10155 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
10156 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
10157 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
10158 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
10159
10160 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
10161 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
10162 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
10163 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
10164
10165 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
10166 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
10167
10168       </div>
10169       <div class="tags">
10170
10171
10172         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>.
10173
10174
10175       </div>
10176     </div>
10177     <div class="padding"></div>
10178
10179     <div class="entry">
10180       <div class="title">
10181         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
10182       </div>
10183       <div class="date">
10184          5th April 2012
10185       </div>
10186       <div class="body">
10187         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
10188 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
10189 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
10190 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
10191 for schools.  Check out his article
10192 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
10193 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
10194
10195       </div>
10196       <div class="tags">
10197
10198
10199         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>.
10200
10201
10202       </div>
10203     </div>
10204     <div class="padding"></div>
10205
10206     <div class="entry">
10207       <div class="title">
10208         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
10209       </div>
10210       <div class="date">
10211          1st April 2012
10212       </div>
10213       <div class="body">
10214         <p>Germany is a core area for the
10215 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
10216 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
10217 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
10218
10219 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10220
10221 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
10222 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
10223 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
10224 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
10225 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
10226 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
10227 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
10228 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
10229
10230 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
10231 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
10232 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
10233 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
10234 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
10235 the end of April this year.</p>
10236
10237 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10238 project?</strong></p>
10239
10240 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
10241 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
10242 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
10243 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
10244 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
10245 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
10246 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
10247 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
10248 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
10249 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
10250 Skolelinux.</p>
10251
10252 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
10253 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
10254 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
10255 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
10256 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
10257 the admin teachers.</p>
10258
10259 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10260 Edu?</strong></p>
10261
10262 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
10263 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
10264 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
10265
10266 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
10267 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
10268 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
10269 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
10270 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
10271
10272 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10273 Edu?</strong></p>
10274
10275 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
10276
10277 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10278
10279 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
10280 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
10281 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
10282 LibreOffice.</p>
10283
10284 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10285 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10286
10287 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
10288 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
10289 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
10290
10291       </div>
10292       <div class="tags">
10293
10294
10295         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>.
10296
10297
10298       </div>
10299     </div>
10300     <div class="padding"></div>
10301
10302     <div class="entry">
10303       <div class="title">
10304         <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>
10305       </div>
10306       <div class="date">
10307         25th March 2012
10308       </div>
10309       <div class="body">
10310         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
10311
10312 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
10313 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
10314 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
10315 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
10316 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
10317 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
10318 and download as a
10319 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
10320 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
10321
10322 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
10323   <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"' />
10324     <p>Download video as
10325       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
10326 </video></p>
10327
10328       </div>
10329       <div class="tags">
10330
10331
10332         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>.
10333
10334
10335       </div>
10336     </div>
10337     <div class="padding"></div>
10338
10339     <div class="entry">
10340       <div class="title">
10341         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
10342       </div>
10343       <div class="date">
10344         19th March 2012
10345       </div>
10346       <div class="body">
10347         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
10348 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
10349 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
10350 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
10351 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
10352
10353 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10354
10355 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
10356 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
10357 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
10358 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
10359 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
10360 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
10361 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
10362 installations.</p>
10363
10364 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10365 project?</strong></p>
10366
10367 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
10368 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
10369 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
10370 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
10371 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
10372 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
10373 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
10374 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
10375 these things we decided to try it.</p>
10376
10377 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10378 Edu?</strong></p>
10379
10380 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
10381 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
10382 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
10383 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
10384 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
10385 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
10386 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
10387 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
10388
10389 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10390 Edu?</strong></p>
10391
10392 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
10393 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
10394 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
10395 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
10396 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
10397
10398 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10399
10400 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
10401 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
10402 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
10403 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
10404 that counts...)</p>
10405
10406 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10407 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10408
10409 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
10410 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
10411 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
10412 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
10413 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
10414 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
10415 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
10416 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
10417 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
10418 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
10419 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
10420
10421 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
10422 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
10423 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
10424
10425       </div>
10426       <div class="tags">
10427
10428
10429         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>.
10430
10431
10432       </div>
10433     </div>
10434     <div class="padding"></div>
10435
10436     <div class="entry">
10437       <div class="title">
10438         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
10439       </div>
10440       <div class="date">
10441         16th March 2012
10442       </div>
10443       <div class="body">
10444         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
10445 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
10446 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
10447 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
10448
10449 <ol>
10450
10451 <li>The documentation is written in a
10452 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
10453 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
10454 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
10455 docbook XML.</li>
10456
10457 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
10458 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
10459 with the translated text.</li>
10460
10461 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
10462 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
10463 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
10464 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
10465 images.</li>
10466
10467 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
10468 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
10469
10470 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
10471 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
10472
10473 </ol>
10474
10475 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
10476 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
10477 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
10478 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
10479 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
10480
10481 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
10482 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
10483 package</a>.</p>
10484
10485       </div>
10486       <div class="tags">
10487
10488
10489         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>.
10490
10491
10492       </div>
10493     </div>
10494     <div class="padding"></div>
10495
10496     <div class="entry">
10497       <div class="title">
10498         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
10499       </div>
10500       <div class="date">
10501         11th March 2012
10502       </div>
10503       <div class="body">
10504         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
10505 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
10506 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
10507 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
10508 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
10509 you have not done so already.</p>
10510
10511 <p>I plan to present the new version at
10512 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
10513 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
10514 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
10515
10516       </div>
10517       <div class="tags">
10518
10519
10520         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>.
10521
10522
10523       </div>
10524     </div>
10525     <div class="padding"></div>
10526
10527     <div class="entry">
10528       <div class="title">
10529         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
10530       </div>
10531       <div class="date">
10532          9th March 2012
10533       </div>
10534       <div class="body">
10535         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
10536 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
10537 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
10538 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
10539 more international audience.</p>
10540
10541 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
10542 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
10543 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
10544 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
10545 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
10546 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
10547 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
10548
10549
10550 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10551
10552 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
10553 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
10554 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
10555 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
10556 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
10557 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
10558 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
10559 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
10560 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
10561 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
10562 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
10563
10564 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10565 project?</strong></p>
10566
10567 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
10568 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
10569 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
10570 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
10571 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
10572 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
10573 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
10574 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
10575 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
10576 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
10577 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
10578 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
10579 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
10580
10581 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10582 Edu?</strong></p>
10583
10584 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
10585 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
10586 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
10587 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
10588 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
10589 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
10590 Japan.</p>
10591
10592 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10593 Edu?</strong></p>
10594
10595 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
10596 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
10597 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
10598 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
10599 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
10600 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
10601 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
10602 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
10603 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
10604 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
10605 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
10606 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
10607 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
10608 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
10609 help.</p>
10610
10611 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10612
10613 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
10614 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
10615 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
10616 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
10617 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
10618 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
10619 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
10620 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
10621 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
10622 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
10623 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
10624
10625 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10626 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10627
10628 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
10629 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
10630 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
10631 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
10632 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
10633 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
10634 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
10635 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
10636 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
10637 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
10638 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
10639 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
10640
10641       </div>
10642       <div class="tags">
10643
10644
10645         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>.
10646
10647
10648       </div>
10649     </div>
10650     <div class="padding"></div>
10651
10652     <div class="entry">
10653       <div class="title">
10654         <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>
10655       </div>
10656       <div class="date">
10657          7th March 2012
10658       </div>
10659       <div class="body">
10660         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
10661
10662 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
10663 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
10664 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
10665 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
10666 download as a
10667 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
10668 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
10669
10670 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
10671   <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"' />
10672     <p>Download video as
10673       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
10674 </video></p>
10675
10676       </div>
10677       <div class="tags">
10678
10679
10680         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>.
10681
10682
10683       </div>
10684     </div>
10685     <div class="padding"></div>
10686
10687     <div class="entry">
10688       <div class="title">
10689         <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>
10690       </div>
10691       <div class="date">
10692          4th March 2012
10693       </div>
10694       <div class="body">
10695         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
10696 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
10697 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
10698 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
10699 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
10700 need a software solution for your school.</p>
10701
10702       </div>
10703       <div class="tags">
10704
10705
10706         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>.
10707
10708
10709       </div>
10710     </div>
10711     <div class="padding"></div>
10712
10713     <div class="entry">
10714       <div class="title">
10715         <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>
10716       </div>
10717       <div class="date">
10718          3rd March 2012
10719       </div>
10720       <div class="body">
10721         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
10722 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
10723 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
10724 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
10725 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
10726 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
10727 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
10728 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
10729 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
10730 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
10731 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
10732 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
10733 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
10734 year...</p>
10735
10736 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
10737 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
10738 name,
10739 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
10740 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
10741 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
10742 mean). I've been following
10743 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
10744 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
10745 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
10746 Check it out. :)</p>
10747
10748       </div>
10749       <div class="tags">
10750
10751
10752         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>.
10753
10754
10755       </div>
10756     </div>
10757     <div class="padding"></div>
10758
10759     <div class="entry">
10760       <div class="title">
10761         <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>
10762       </div>
10763       <div class="date">
10764         27th February 2012
10765       </div>
10766       <div class="body">
10767         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
10768 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
10769 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
10770 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
10771 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
10772 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
10773 need a software solution for your school.</p>
10774
10775       </div>
10776       <div class="tags">
10777
10778
10779         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>.
10780
10781
10782       </div>
10783     </div>
10784     <div class="padding"></div>
10785
10786     <div class="entry">
10787       <div class="title">
10788         <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>
10789       </div>
10790       <div class="date">
10791         19th February 2012
10792       </div>
10793       <div class="body">
10794         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
10795 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
10796 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
10797 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
10798 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
10799 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
10800 solution for your school.</p>
10801
10802       </div>
10803       <div class="tags">
10804
10805
10806         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>.
10807
10808
10809       </div>
10810     </div>
10811     <div class="padding"></div>
10812
10813     <div class="entry">
10814       <div class="title">
10815         <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>
10816       </div>
10817       <div class="date">
10818         14th February 2012
10819       </div>
10820       <div class="body">
10821         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
10822 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
10823 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
10824 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
10825 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
10826 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
10827 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
10828 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
10829 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
10830
10831 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
10832 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
10833 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
10834 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
10835 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
10836
10837 <blockquote><pre>
10838 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
10839 do
10840     printf "Failed disk $d: "
10841     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
10842 done
10843 </blockquote></pre>
10844
10845 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
10846 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
10847
10848 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
10849
10850 <blockquote><pre>
10851 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
10852 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
10853 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
10854 </blockquote></pre>
10855
10856 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
10857 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
10858 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
10859 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
10860 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
10861 mounted inside my box.</p>
10862
10863 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
10864 Software RAID in the
10865 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
10866 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
10867 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
10868 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
10869 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
10870 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
10871
10872       </div>
10873       <div class="tags">
10874
10875
10876         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>.
10877
10878
10879       </div>
10880     </div>
10881     <div class="padding"></div>
10882
10883     <div class="entry">
10884       <div class="title">
10885         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
10886       </div>
10887       <div class="date">
10888         13th February 2012
10889       </div>
10890       <div class="body">
10891         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
10892 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
10893 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
10894 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
10895 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
10896 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
10897 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
10898 change the global proxy setting by editing
10899 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
10900 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
10901
10902 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
10903 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
10904 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
10905
10906 <blockquote><pre>
10907 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
10908 {
10909    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
10910        isPlainHostName(host) ||
10911        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
10912       return "DIRECT";
10913    else
10914       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
10915 }
10916 </pre></blockquote>
10917
10918 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
10919
10920 <blockquote><pre>
10921 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
10922 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
10923 </pre></blockquote>
10924
10925 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
10926 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
10927 would be used for
10928 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
10929 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
10930 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
10931 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
10932 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
10933 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
10934 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
10935 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
10936 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
10937 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
10938
10939 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
10940 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
10941 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
10942 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
10943 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
10944 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
10945
10946 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
10947 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
10948 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
10949 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
10950 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
10951 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
10952 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
10953 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
10954 the network setup changes.</p>
10955
10956 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
10957 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
10958 draft</a> and a
10959 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
10960 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
10961
10962       </div>
10963       <div class="tags">
10964
10965
10966         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>.
10967
10968
10969       </div>
10970     </div>
10971     <div class="padding"></div>
10972
10973     <div class="entry">
10974       <div class="title">
10975         <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>
10976       </div>
10977       <div class="date">
10978          5th February 2012
10979       </div>
10980       <div class="body">
10981         <p>Since the Lenny version of
10982 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
10983 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
10984 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
10985 in the morning.  This is done using the
10986 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
10987
10988 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
10989 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
10990 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
10991 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
10992 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
10993 the
10994 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
10995 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
10996 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
10997 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
10998 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
10999
11000 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
11001 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
11002 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
11003 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
11004 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
11005 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
11006 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
11007
11008 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
11009 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
11010 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
11011 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
11012 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
11013
11014       </div>
11015       <div class="tags">
11016
11017
11018         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>.
11019
11020
11021       </div>
11022     </div>
11023     <div class="padding"></div>
11024
11025     <div class="entry">
11026       <div class="title">
11027         <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>
11028       </div>
11029       <div class="date">
11030          4th February 2012
11031       </div>
11032       <div class="body">
11033         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
11034 publish the third beta version of
11035 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
11036 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
11037 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
11038 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
11039 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
11040 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
11041 on the project announcement list.</p>
11042
11043 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
11044 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
11045
11046 <ul>
11047
11048 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
11049   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
11050   the installation.</li>
11051
11052 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
11053   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
11054
11055 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
11056   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
11057   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
11058
11059 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
11060   for the local system administrator is created during installation
11061   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
11062   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
11063   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
11064   up to date on the system.</li>
11065
11066 </ul>
11067
11068 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
11069 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
11070 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
11071 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
11072
11073 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
11074 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
11075 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
11076 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
11077 will see you there?</p>
11078
11079       </div>
11080       <div class="tags">
11081
11082
11083         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>.
11084
11085
11086       </div>
11087     </div>
11088     <div class="padding"></div>
11089
11090     <div class="entry">
11091       <div class="title">
11092         <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>
11093       </div>
11094       <div class="date">
11095         27th January 2012
11096       </div>
11097       <div class="body">
11098         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
11099 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
11100 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
11101 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
11102 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
11103 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
11104 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
11105
11106 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
11107 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
11108 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
11109 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
11110 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
11111 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
11112 not taken care of by this.</p>
11113
11114 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
11115 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
11116 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
11117 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
11118 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
11119 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
11120 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
11121 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
11122 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
11123 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
11124 firmware packages.</p>
11125
11126 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
11127 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
11128 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
11129 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
11130 initrd with extra firmware, the
11131 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
11132 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
11133 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
11134
11135 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
11136 network cards working.  For this,
11137 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
11138 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
11139 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
11140
11141 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
11142 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
11143 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
11144
11145 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
11146 try.</p>
11147
11148       </div>
11149       <div class="tags">
11150
11151
11152         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>.
11153
11154
11155       </div>
11156     </div>
11157     <div class="padding"></div>
11158
11159     <div class="entry">
11160       <div class="title">
11161         <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>
11162       </div>
11163       <div class="date">
11164         25th January 2012
11165       </div>
11166       <div class="body">
11167         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
11168 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
11169 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
11170 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
11171 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
11172
11173 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
11174 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
11175 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
11176 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
11177 this is done, log on to the central server and run
11178 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
11179 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
11180 will look similar to this:</p>
11181
11182 <p><blockquote><pre>
11183 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
11184 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
11185 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.
11186
11187 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
11188
11189 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11190 enter password: *******
11191 %
11192 </pre></blockquote></p>
11193
11194 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
11195 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
11196 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
11197 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
11198 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
11199 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
11200 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
11201 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
11202 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
11203 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
11204 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
11205 automatically.</p>
11206
11207 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
11208 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
11209
11210 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
11211 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
11212 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
11213
11214       </div>
11215       <div class="tags">
11216
11217
11218         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>.
11219
11220
11221       </div>
11222     </div>
11223     <div class="padding"></div>
11224
11225     <div class="entry">
11226       <div class="title">
11227         <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>
11228       </div>
11229       <div class="date">
11230         10th January 2012
11231       </div>
11232       <div class="body">
11233         <p>In the Squeeze version of
11234 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
11235 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
11236 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
11237 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
11238 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
11239 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
11240 first time.</p>
11241
11242 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
11243 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
11244 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
11245 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
11246
11247 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
11248 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
11249 new setting.</p>
11250
11251 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
11252 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
11253 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
11254
11255       </div>
11256       <div class="tags">
11257
11258
11259         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>.
11260
11261
11262       </div>
11263     </div>
11264     <div class="padding"></div>
11265
11266     <div class="entry">
11267       <div class="title">
11268         <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>
11269       </div>
11270       <div class="date">
11271          7th January 2012
11272       </div>
11273       <div class="body">
11274         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
11275 the second beta version of
11276 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
11277 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
11278 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
11279 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
11280 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
11281 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
11282 on the project announcement list.</p>
11283
11284       </div>
11285       <div class="tags">
11286
11287
11288         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>.
11289
11290
11291       </div>
11292     </div>
11293     <div class="padding"></div>
11294
11295     <div class="entry">
11296       <div class="title">
11297         <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>
11298       </div>
11299       <div class="date">
11300          3rd January 2012
11301       </div>
11302       <div class="body">
11303         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
11304 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
11305 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
11306 interesting.</p>
11307
11308 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
11309 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
11310 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
11311 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
11312 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
11313 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
11314 wrap up its tasks.</p>
11315
11316 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
11317 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
11318 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
11319 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
11320 because I was typing.</P>
11321
11322 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
11323 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
11324 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
11325 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
11326 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
11327 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
11328 generate entropy.</p>
11329
11330 <p>The fix is in
11331 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
11332 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
11333 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
11334 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
11335
11336       </div>
11337       <div class="tags">
11338
11339
11340         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>.
11341
11342
11343       </div>
11344     </div>
11345     <div class="padding"></div>
11346
11347     <div class="entry">
11348       <div class="title">
11349         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
11350       </div>
11351       <div class="date">
11352         21st November 2011
11353       </div>
11354       <div class="body">
11355         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
11356 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
11357 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
11358 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
11359 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
11360 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
11361 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
11362 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
11363 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
11364 the tools to do so.</p>
11365
11366 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
11367 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
11368 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
11369 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
11370
11371 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
11372 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
11373 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
11374 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
11375 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
11376 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
11377 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
11378 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
11379
11380 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
11381 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
11382 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
11383
11384 <p><pre>
11385 #!/usr/bin/perl
11386 use strict;
11387 use warnings;
11388 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
11389 BEGIN {
11390     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
11391     my %rhelmodules = (
11392         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
11393         );
11394     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
11395         eval "use $module;";
11396         if ($@) {
11397             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
11398             system("yum install -y $pkg");
11399             eval "use $module;";
11400         }
11401     }
11402 }
11403 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
11404
11405 upgrade_dell();
11406
11407 exit 0;
11408
11409 sub run_firmware_script {
11410     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
11411     unless ($script) {
11412         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
11413         exit 1
11414     }
11415     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
11416
11417     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
11418         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
11419     } else {
11420         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
11421     }
11422 }
11423
11424 sub run_firmware_scripts {
11425     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
11426     # Run firmware packages
11427     for my $dir (@dirs) {
11428         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
11429         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
11430         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
11431             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
11432             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
11433         }
11434         closedir $dh;
11435     }
11436 }
11437
11438 sub download {
11439     my $url = shift;
11440     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
11441     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
11442 }
11443
11444 sub upgrade_dell {
11445     my @dirs;
11446     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11447     chomp $product;
11448
11449     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
11450
11451         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
11452         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
11453
11454         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
11455             CLEANUP => 1
11456             );
11457         chdir($tmpdir);
11458         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
11459         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
11460         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
11461         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
11462         my $fwopts = "-q";
11463         if (@paths) {
11464             for my $url (@paths) {
11465                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
11466             }
11467             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
11468         } else {
11469             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11470             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11471         }
11472         chdir('/');
11473     } else {
11474         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11475         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11476     }
11477 }
11478
11479 sub fetch_dell_fw {
11480     my $path = shift;
11481     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
11482     download($url);
11483 }
11484
11485 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
11486 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
11487 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
11488 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
11489     my $filename = shift;
11490
11491     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11492     chomp $product;
11493     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
11494
11495     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
11496
11497     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
11498     my @paths;
11499     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
11500         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
11501         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
11502         my $oscode;
11503         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
11504             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
11505         } else {
11506             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
11507         }
11508         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
11509         {
11510             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
11511         }
11512     }
11513     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
11514         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
11515
11516         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
11517         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
11518
11519         my $cpath = $component->{path};
11520         for my $path (@paths) {
11521             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
11522                 push(@paths, $cpath);
11523             }
11524         }
11525     }
11526     return @paths;
11527 }
11528 </pre>
11529
11530 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
11531 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
11532 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
11533 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
11534 outdated.</p>
11535
11536       </div>
11537       <div class="tags">
11538
11539
11540         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>.
11541
11542
11543       </div>
11544     </div>
11545     <div class="padding"></div>
11546
11547     <div class="entry">
11548       <div class="title">
11549         <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>
11550       </div>
11551       <div class="date">
11552          7th October 2011
11553       </div>
11554       <div class="body">
11555         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
11556 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
11557 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
11558 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
11559 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
11560 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
11561 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
11562 models.</p>
11563
11564 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
11565 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
11566 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
11567 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
11568
11569 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
11570 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
11571 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
11572 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
11573 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
11574 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
11575 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
11576 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
11577 distributed.</p>
11578
11579 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
11580
11581 <ul>
11582
11583 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
11584   other relevant equipment.</li>
11585
11586 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
11587
11588 </ul>
11589
11590 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
11591 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
11592 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
11593 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
11594 books available.</p>
11595
11596 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
11597 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
11598 libraries. :)</p>
11599
11600       </div>
11601       <div class="tags">
11602
11603
11604         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>.
11605
11606
11607       </div>
11608     </div>
11609     <div class="padding"></div>
11610
11611     <div class="entry">
11612       <div class="title">
11613         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
11614       </div>
11615       <div class="date">
11616         17th September 2011
11617       </div>
11618       <div class="body">
11619         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
11620 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
11621 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
11622 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
11623 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
11624 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
11625 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
11626 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
11627
11628 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
11629
11630 <blockquote><pre>
11631 #!/bin/sh
11632 # apt-get install lsdvd
11633 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
11634 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
11635 </pre></blockquote>
11636
11637 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
11638 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
11639 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
11640 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
11641
11642 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
11643 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
11644 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
11645 back as an ISO.
11646
11647 <blockquote><pre>
11648 #!/bin/sh
11649 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
11650 set -e
11651 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
11652 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
11653 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
11654 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
11655 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
11656 </pre></blockquote>
11657
11658 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
11659
11660 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
11661 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
11662 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
11663 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
11664 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
11665
11666 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
11667 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
11668 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
11669 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
11670 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
11671 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
11672
11673       </div>
11674       <div class="tags">
11675
11676
11677         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>.
11678
11679
11680       </div>
11681     </div>
11682     <div class="padding"></div>
11683
11684     <div class="entry">
11685       <div class="title">
11686         <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>
11687       </div>
11688       <div class="date">
11689          4th August 2011
11690       </div>
11691       <div class="body">
11692         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
11693 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
11694 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
11695 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
11696 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
11697 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
11698 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
11699 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
11700 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
11701
11702 <p><blockquote>
11703 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
11704 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
11705 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
11706 </blockquote></p>
11707
11708 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
11709 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
11710 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
11711 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
11712 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
11713 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
11714 hard to explain.</p>
11715
11716 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
11717 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
11718 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
11719 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
11720 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
11721 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
11722 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
11723 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
11724 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
11725 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
11726 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
11727 mode).</p>
11728
11729 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
11730 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
11731 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
11732 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
11733 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
11734 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
11735 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
11736 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
11737 after visiting single user mode.</p>
11738
11739 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
11740 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
11741 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
11742 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
11743 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
11744 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
11745 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
11746 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
11747
11748 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
11749 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
11750 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
11751
11752       </div>
11753       <div class="tags">
11754
11755
11756         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>.
11757
11758
11759       </div>
11760     </div>
11761     <div class="padding"></div>
11762
11763     <div class="entry">
11764       <div class="title">
11765         <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>
11766       </div>
11767       <div class="date">
11768         30th July 2011
11769       </div>
11770       <div class="body">
11771         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
11772 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
11773 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
11774 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
11775 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
11776 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
11777 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
11778 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
11779 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
11780 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
11781 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
11782 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
11783 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
11784
11785 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
11786 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
11787 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
11788 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
11789 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
11790 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
11791 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
11792 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
11793 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
11794
11795 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
11796 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
11797 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
11798 is presented.</p>
11799
11800 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
11801 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
11802 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
11803 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
11804 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
11805 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
11806 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
11807 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
11808 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
11809 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
11810 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
11811 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
11812 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
11813 find time to push this forward.</p>
11814
11815       </div>
11816       <div class="tags">
11817
11818
11819         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>.
11820
11821
11822       </div>
11823     </div>
11824     <div class="padding"></div>
11825
11826     <div class="entry">
11827       <div class="title">
11828         <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>
11829       </div>
11830       <div class="date">
11831         29th July 2011
11832       </div>
11833       <div class="body">
11834         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
11835 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
11836 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
11837 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
11838 issues.</p>
11839
11840 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
11841 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
11842 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
11843
11844 <ol>
11845
11846 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
11847 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
11848 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
11849 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
11850 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
11851 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
11852 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
11853 Debian.</li>
11854
11855 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
11856 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
11857 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
11858 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
11859 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
11860 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
11861 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
11862 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
11863 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
11864 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
11865 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
11866 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
11867 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
11868
11869 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
11870 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
11871 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
11872 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
11873 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
11874 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
11875 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
11876 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
11877 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
11878 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
11879
11880 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
11881 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
11882 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
11883 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
11884 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
11885 latter behaviour.</li>
11886
11887 </ol>
11888
11889 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
11890 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
11891 it do not matter much.</p>
11892
11893 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
11894 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
11895 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
11896
11897       </div>
11898       <div class="tags">
11899
11900
11901         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>.
11902
11903
11904       </div>
11905     </div>
11906     <div class="padding"></div>
11907
11908     <div class="entry">
11909       <div class="title">
11910         <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>
11911       </div>
11912       <div class="date">
11913         26th July 2011
11914       </div>
11915       <div class="body">
11916         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
11917 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
11918 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
11919 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
11920 security support for a few years.</p>
11921
11922 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
11923 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
11924 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
11925 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
11926 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
11927 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
11928 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
11929 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
11930 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
11931 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
11932 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
11933 easier in the future.</p>
11934
11935 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
11936 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
11937 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
11938 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
11939 do not have time for.</p>
11940
11941       </div>
11942       <div class="tags">
11943
11944
11945         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>.
11946
11947
11948       </div>
11949     </div>
11950     <div class="padding"></div>
11951
11952     <div class="entry">
11953       <div class="title">
11954         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
11955       </div>
11956       <div class="date">
11957         20th June 2011
11958       </div>
11959       <div class="body">
11960         <p>Reading
11961 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
11962 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
11963 parts of the
11964 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
11965 and
11966 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
11967 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
11968 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
11969 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
11970
11971       </div>
11972       <div class="tags">
11973
11974
11975         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>.
11976
11977
11978       </div>
11979     </div>
11980     <div class="padding"></div>
11981
11982     <div class="entry">
11983       <div class="title">
11984         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experimental_Open311_API_for_the_mySociety_fixmystreet_system.html">Experimental Open311 API for the mySociety fixmystreet system</a>
11985       </div>
11986       <div class="date">
11987         30th April 2011
11988       </div>
11989       <div class="body">
11990         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
11991 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
11992 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
11993 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
11994 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
11995 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
11996 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
11997 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
11998 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
11999 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
12000
12001 <p>Where is it?  Visit
12002 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
12003 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
12004 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
12005 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
12006
12007       </div>
12008       <div class="tags">
12009
12010
12011         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>.
12012
12013
12014       </div>
12015     </div>
12016     <div class="padding"></div>
12017
12018     <div class="entry">
12019       <div class="title">
12020         <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>
12021       </div>
12022       <div class="date">
12023         29th April 2011
12024       </div>
12025       <div class="body">
12026         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
12027 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
12028 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
12029 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
12030 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
12031 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
12032 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
12033 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
12034 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
12035 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
12036 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
12037 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
12038 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
12039
12040 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
12041 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
12042 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
12043 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
12044 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
12045 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
12046 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
12047 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
12048 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
12049 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
12050 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
12051 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
12052 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
12053
12054 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
12055 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
12056 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
12057 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
12058 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
12059 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
12060 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
12061 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
12062 it.</p>
12063
12064 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
12065 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
12066 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
12067 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
12068 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
12069 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
12070 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
12071
12072 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
12073 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
12074 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
12075 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
12076 and range= options.</p>
12077
12078 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
12079 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
12080 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
12081 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
12082 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
12083 to best handle this.  I've noticed
12084 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
12085 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
12086 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
12087 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
12088
12089 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
12090 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
12091 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
12092 discussions instead of only
12093 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
12094 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
12095 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
12096 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
12097 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
12098 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
12099
12100       </div>
12101       <div class="tags">
12102
12103
12104         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>.
12105
12106
12107       </div>
12108     </div>
12109     <div class="padding"></div>
12110
12111     <div class="entry">
12112       <div class="title">
12113         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
12114       </div>
12115       <div class="date">
12116          6th April 2011
12117       </div>
12118       <div class="body">
12119         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
12120 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
12121 A few days ago the project
12122 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
12123 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
12124 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
12125 into Gnash.</p>
12126
12127       </div>
12128       <div class="tags">
12129
12130
12131         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>.
12132
12133
12134       </div>
12135     </div>
12136     <div class="padding"></div>
12137
12138     <div class="entry">
12139       <div class="title">
12140         <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>
12141       </div>
12142       <div class="date">
12143          3rd April 2011
12144       </div>
12145       <div class="body">
12146         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
12147 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
12148 update in English.</p>
12149
12150 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
12151 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
12152 of the British service
12153 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
12154 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
12155 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
12156 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
12157 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
12158 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
12159 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
12160 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
12161 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
12162 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
12163 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
12164 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
12165 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
12166
12167 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
12168 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
12169 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
12170 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
12171 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
12172 public infrastructure.</p>
12173
12174 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
12175 such service?</p>
12176
12177       </div>
12178       <div class="tags">
12179
12180
12181         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>.
12182
12183
12184       </div>
12185     </div>
12186     <div class="padding"></div>
12187
12188     <div class="entry">
12189       <div class="title">
12190         <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>
12191       </div>
12192       <div class="date">
12193         28th January 2011
12194       </div>
12195       <div class="body">
12196         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
12197 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
12198 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
12199 available on the Internet, and check our locally
12200 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
12201 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
12202 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
12203 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
12204 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
12205 out which security holes were present in our free software
12206 collection.</p>
12207
12208 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
12209 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
12210 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
12211 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
12212 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
12213 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
12214 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
12215 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
12216 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
12217 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
12218 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
12219 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
12220 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
12221 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
12222 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
12223 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
12224
12225 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
12226 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
12227 check out, one could look up
12228 <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
12229 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
12230 The most recent one is
12231 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
12232 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
12233 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
12234
12235 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
12236 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
12237 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
12238 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
12239 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
12240 security issues out.</p>
12241
12242 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
12243 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
12244 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
12245 RHEL is providing
12246 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
12247 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
12248 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
12249
12250 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
12251 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
12252 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
12253 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
12254 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
12255 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
12256 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
12257 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
12258 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
12259 established soon.</p>
12260
12261 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
12262 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
12263 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
12264 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
12265 for their packages.</p>
12266
12267       </div>
12268       <div class="tags">
12269
12270
12271         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>.
12272
12273
12274       </div>
12275     </div>
12276     <div class="padding"></div>
12277
12278     <div class="entry">
12279       <div class="title">
12280         <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>
12281       </div>
12282       <div class="date">
12283         23rd January 2011
12284       </div>
12285       <div class="body">
12286         <p>In the
12287 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
12288 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
12289 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
12290 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
12291 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
12292 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
12293 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
12294 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
12295 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
12296 one of my machines like this:</p>
12297
12298 <pre>
12299 loaded modules:
12300 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
12301 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
12302 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
12303 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
12304 10de:03ec pata_amd
12305 10de:03f6 sata_nv
12306 1022:1103 k8temp
12307 109e:036e bttv
12308 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
12309 11ab:4364 sky2
12310 </pre>
12311
12312 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
12313 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
12314
12315 <pre>
12316 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
12317     echo loaded pci modules:
12318     (
12319         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
12320         for address in * ; do
12321             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
12322                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
12323                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
12324                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
12325                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
12326                     echo "$id $module"
12327                 fi
12328             fi
12329         done
12330     )
12331     echo
12332 fi
12333 </pre>
12334
12335 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
12336 mappings:</p>
12337
12338 <pre>
12339 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
12340     echo loaded usb modules:
12341     (
12342         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
12343         for address in * ; do
12344             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
12345                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
12346                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
12347                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
12348                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
12349                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
12350                         echo "$id $module"
12351                     fi
12352                 fi
12353             fi
12354         done
12355     )
12356     echo
12357 fi
12358 </pre>
12359
12360 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
12361 well.</p>
12362
12363       </div>
12364       <div class="tags">
12365
12366
12367         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>.
12368
12369
12370       </div>
12371     </div>
12372     <div class="padding"></div>
12373
12374     <div class="entry">
12375       <div class="title">
12376         <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>
12377       </div>
12378       <div class="date">
12379         16th January 2011
12380       </div>
12381       <div class="body">
12382         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
12383 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
12384 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
12385 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
12386 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
12387 the Wikipedia article on
12388 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
12389 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
12390 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
12391 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
12392 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
12393 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
12394 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
12395 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
12396 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
12397 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
12398 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
12399 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
12400
12401 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
12402 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
12403 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
12404 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
12405 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
12406 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
12407 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
12408 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
12409 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
12410 from last week</a>.</p>
12411
12412 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
12413 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
12414 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
12415 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
12416 was without royalties and license terms, check out
12417 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
12418 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
12419
12420 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
12421 available from
12422 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
12423 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
12424 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
12425
12426 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
12427 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
12428 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
12429 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
12430
12431       </div>
12432       <div class="tags">
12433
12434
12435         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>.
12436
12437
12438       </div>
12439     </div>
12440     <div class="padding"></div>
12441
12442     <div class="entry">
12443       <div class="title">
12444         <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>
12445       </div>
12446       <div class="date">
12447         12th January 2011
12448       </div>
12449       <div class="body">
12450         <p>Today I discovered
12451 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
12452 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
12453 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
12454 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
12455 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
12456 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
12457 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
12458 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
12459 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
12460 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
12461 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
12462 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
12463 on the Google announcement is available from
12464 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
12465 A good read. :)</p>
12466
12467 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
12468 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
12469 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
12470 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
12471 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
12472 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
12473 browsers support H.264, and others support
12474 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
12475 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
12476 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
12477 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
12478 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
12479 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
12480 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
12481 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
12482
12483 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
12484 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
12485 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
12486 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
12487 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
12488 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
12489 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
12490
12491 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
12492 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
12493 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
12494 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
12495 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
12496 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
12497 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
12498
12499 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
12500 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
12501 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
12502 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
12503 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
12504 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
12505 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
12506
12507 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
12508 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
12509 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
12510 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
12511 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
12512 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
12513 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
12514 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
12515 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
12516 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
12517 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
12518 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
12519 I guess time will tell.</p>
12520
12521 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
12522 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
12523 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
12524
12525       </div>
12526       <div class="tags">
12527
12528
12529         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>.
12530
12531
12532       </div>
12533     </div>
12534     <div class="padding"></div>
12535
12536     <div class="entry">
12537       <div class="title">
12538         <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>
12539       </div>
12540       <div class="date">
12541         30th December 2010
12542       </div>
12543       <div class="body">
12544         <p>After trying to
12545 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
12546 Ogg Theora</a> to
12547 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
12548 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
12549 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
12550 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
12551 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
12552 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
12553 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
12554
12555 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
12556 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
12557 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
12558 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
12559 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
12560 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
12561 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
12562
12563 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
12564 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
12565
12566       </div>
12567       <div class="tags">
12568
12569
12570         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>.
12571
12572
12573       </div>
12574     </div>
12575     <div class="padding"></div>
12576
12577     <div class="entry">
12578       <div class="title">
12579         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
12580       </div>
12581       <div class="date">
12582         27th December 2010
12583       </div>
12584       <div class="body">
12585         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
12586 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
12587 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
12588 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
12589 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
12590 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
12591 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
12592 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
12593
12594 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
12595 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
12596 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
12597 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
12598 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
12599 page</a>.</p>
12600
12601 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
12602 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
12603 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
12604 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
12605 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
12606 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
12607 specification on equal terms.</p>
12608
12609 <blockquote>
12610
12611 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
12612 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
12613 open standard:</p>
12614
12615 <ul>
12616
12617 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
12618 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
12619 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
12620 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
12621
12622 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
12623 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
12624 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
12625 nominal fee.</li>
12626
12627 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
12628 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
12629 free basis.</li>
12630
12631 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
12632
12633 </ul>
12634 </blockquote>
12635
12636 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
12637 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
12638 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
12639 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
12640 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
12641 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
12642 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
12643
12644 <blockquote>
12645
12646 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
12647
12648 <ol>
12649
12650 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
12651 tilgængelig.</li>
12652
12653 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
12654 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
12655
12656 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
12657 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
12658
12659 </ol>
12660
12661 </blockquote>
12662
12663 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
12664 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
12665
12666 <blockquote>
12667
12668 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
12669
12670 <ol>
12671
12672 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
12673 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
12674
12675 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
12676 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
12677 Standard themselves;</li>
12678
12679 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
12680 any party or in any business model;</li>
12681
12682 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
12683 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
12684 parties;</li>
12685
12686 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
12687 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
12688 parties.</li>
12689
12690 </ol>
12691
12692 </blockquote>
12693
12694 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
12695 its
12696 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
12697 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
12698
12699 <blockquote>
12700 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
12701
12702 <ul>
12703
12704 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
12705   democratic:
12706
12707          <ul>
12708
12709          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
12710             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
12711             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
12712             and managed.</li>
12713
12714          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
12715             method, can be changed through input from all
12716             participants.</li>
12717
12718          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
12719             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
12720
12721          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
12722             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
12723
12724          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
12725             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
12726             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
12727
12728          </ul>
12729
12730 </li>
12731
12732 </ul>
12733
12734 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
12735 <ul>
12736
12737 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
12738   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
12739   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
12740   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
12741   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
12742
12743 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
12744   a technical or economic barriers</li>
12745
12746 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
12747   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
12748   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
12749   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
12750   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
12751   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
12752   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
12753   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
12754   intended to function.</li>
12755
12756 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
12757   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
12758   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
12759
12760 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
12761   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
12762   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
12763   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
12764   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
12765   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
12766   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
12767   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
12768
12769       <ul>
12770
12771       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
12772         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
12773         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
12774
12775       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
12776         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
12777         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
12778         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
12779
12780       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
12781         licensor</li>
12782
12783       </ul>
12784 </li>
12785
12786 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
12787   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
12788   or restricted licensing terms</li>
12789
12790 </ul>
12791
12792 </blockquote>
12793
12794 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
12795 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
12796 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
12797 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
12798 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
12799 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
12800 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
12801 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
12802 Standards.</p>
12803
12804       </div>
12805       <div class="tags">
12806
12807
12808         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>.
12809
12810
12811       </div>
12812     </div>
12813     <div class="padding"></div>
12814
12815     <div class="entry">
12816       <div class="title">
12817         <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>
12818       </div>
12819       <div class="date">
12820         25th December 2010
12821       </div>
12822       <div class="body">
12823         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
12824 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
12825
12826 <blockquote>
12827
12828 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
12829 as follows:</p>
12830
12831 <ol>
12832
12833 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
12834 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
12835 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
12836
12837 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
12838 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
12839 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
12840 parties.</li>
12841
12842 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
12843 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
12844 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
12845
12846 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
12847 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
12848
12849 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
12850
12851 </ol>
12852
12853 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
12854 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
12855 products based on the standard.</p>
12856 </blockquote>
12857
12858 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
12859 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
12860 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
12861 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
12862 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
12863 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
12864 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
12865 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
12866
12867 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
12868
12869 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
12870 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
12871 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
12872 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
12873 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
12874 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
12875 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
12876 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
12877 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
12878 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
12879 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
12880 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
12881 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
12882 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
12883
12884 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
12885
12886 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
12887 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
12888 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
12889 documentation indicating this.</p>
12890
12891 <p>According to
12892 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
12893 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
12894 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
12895 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
12896 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
12897 report is correct.</p>
12898
12899 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
12900
12901 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
12902 container format</a> and both the
12903 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
12904 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
12905 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
12906
12907 <blockquote>
12908
12909 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
12910 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
12911 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
12912 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
12913 specification compliance.
12914
12915 </blockquote>
12916
12917 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
12918 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
12919 this is the term:<p>
12920
12921 <blockquote>
12922
12923 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
12924 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
12925 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
12926 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
12927 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
12928 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
12929 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
12930 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
12931 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
12932 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
12933 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
12934 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
12935
12936 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
12937 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
12938 </blockquote>
12939
12940 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
12941 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
12942 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
12943 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
12944 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
12945
12946 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
12947
12948 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
12949 Theora format.
12950 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
12951 and
12952 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
12953 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
12954 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
12955 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
12956 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
12957 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
12958 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
12959 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
12960
12961 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
12962
12963 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
12964
12965 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
12966
12967 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
12968 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
12969 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
12970 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
12971 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
12972 this.</p>
12973
12974 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
12975 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
12976
12977       </div>
12978       <div class="tags">
12979
12980
12981         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>.
12982
12983
12984       </div>
12985     </div>
12986     <div class="padding"></div>
12987
12988     <div class="entry">
12989       <div class="title">
12990         <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>
12991       </div>
12992       <div class="date">
12993         25th December 2010
12994       </div>
12995       <div class="body">
12996         <p>A few days ago
12997 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
12998 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
12999 2.0 of
13000 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
13001 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
13002 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
13003 Nothing very surprising there, given
13004 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
13005 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
13006 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
13007 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
13008 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
13009 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
13010 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
13011 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
13012 standard definition from its content.</p>
13013
13014 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
13015 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
13016 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
13017 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
13018 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
13019 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
13020 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
13021 background information about that story is available in
13022 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
13023 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
13024
13025 <blockquote>
13026 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
13027 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
13028 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
13029
13030 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
13031
13032 <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>
13033
13034 <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>
13035
13036 <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>
13037
13038 <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>
13039
13040 <p>
13041 <ul>
13042 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
13043 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
13044 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
13045 </ul>
13046 </p>
13047
13048 <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>
13049
13050 <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>
13051
13052 <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>
13053
13054 <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>
13055
13056 <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>
13057
13058
13059 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
13060 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
13061 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
13062 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
13063 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
13064 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
13065
13066 </p>
13067
13068 <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>
13069
13070 <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>
13071
13072 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
13073
13074 <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>
13075
13076 <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>
13077
13078 <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>
13079
13080 <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>
13081
13082 <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>
13083
13084 <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>
13085
13086 <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>
13087
13088 <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>
13089
13090 <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>
13091
13092 <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>
13093
13094 <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>
13095
13096 <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>
13097
13098 <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>
13099
13100 <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>
13101
13102 <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>
13103
13104 <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>
13105
13106 <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>
13107
13108 <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>
13109
13110 <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>
13111
13112 <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>
13113
13114 <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>
13115
13116 <p>On security:</p>
13117
13118 <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>
13119
13120 <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>
13121
13122 <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>
13123
13124 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
13125
13126 <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>
13127
13128 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
13129
13130 <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>
13131
13132 <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>
13133
13134 <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>
13135
13136 <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>
13137
13138 <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>
13139
13140 <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>
13141
13142 <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>
13143
13144 <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>
13145
13146 <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>
13147
13148 <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>
13149
13150 <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>
13151
13152 <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>
13153
13154 <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>
13155
13156 <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>
13157
13158 <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>
13159
13160 <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>
13161
13162 <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>
13163
13164 <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>
13165
13166 <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>
13167
13168 <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>
13169
13170 <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>
13171
13172 <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>
13173
13174 <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>
13175
13176 <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>
13177
13178 <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>
13179
13180 <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>
13181
13182 <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>
13183
13184 <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>
13185
13186 <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>
13187
13188 <p>Cordially,<br>
13189 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
13190 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
13191 </blockquote>
13192
13193       </div>
13194       <div class="tags">
13195
13196
13197         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>.
13198
13199
13200       </div>
13201     </div>
13202     <div class="padding"></div>
13203
13204     <div class="entry">
13205       <div class="title">
13206         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
13207       </div>
13208       <div class="date">
13209         25th December 2010
13210       </div>
13211       <div class="body">
13212         <p>Half a year ago I
13213 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
13214 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
13215 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
13216 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
13217
13218 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
13219 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
13220 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
13221 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
13222 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
13223 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
13224 got such a great test tool available.</p>
13225
13226       </div>
13227       <div class="tags">
13228
13229
13230         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>.
13231
13232
13233       </div>
13234     </div>
13235     <div class="padding"></div>
13236
13237     <div class="entry">
13238       <div class="title">
13239         <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>
13240       </div>
13241       <div class="date">
13242         22nd December 2010
13243       </div>
13244       <div class="body">
13245         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
13246 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
13247 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
13248 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
13249 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
13250 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
13251 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
13252 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
13253 university.</p>
13254
13255 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
13256 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
13257 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
13258 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
13259 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
13260 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
13261 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
13262 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
13263
13264 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
13265 I perform on a new model.</p>
13266
13267 <ul>
13268
13269 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
13270 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
13271 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
13272
13273 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
13274 installation, X.org is working.</li>
13275
13276 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
13277 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
13278 reported by the program.</li>
13279
13280 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
13281 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
13282 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
13283 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
13284 normally test this by playing
13285 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
13286 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
13287
13288 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
13289 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
13290
13291 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
13292 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
13293
13294 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
13295 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
13296
13297 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
13298 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
13299 few.</li>
13300
13301 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
13302 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
13303 notice this.</li>
13304
13305 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
13306 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
13307 resume.</li>
13308
13309 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
13310 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
13311 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
13312 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
13313 not.</li>
13314
13315 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
13316 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
13317 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
13318 existence.</li>
13319
13320 </ul>
13321
13322 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
13323 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
13324 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
13325 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
13326 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
13327 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
13328 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
13329 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
13330
13331       </div>
13332       <div class="tags">
13333
13334
13335         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>.
13336
13337
13338       </div>
13339     </div>
13340     <div class="padding"></div>
13341
13342     <div class="entry">
13343       <div class="title">
13344         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
13345       </div>
13346       <div class="date">
13347         11th December 2010
13348       </div>
13349       <div class="body">
13350         <p>As I continue to explore
13351 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
13352 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
13353 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
13354
13355 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
13356 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
13357 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
13358 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
13359 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
13360 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
13361 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
13362 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
13363 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
13364 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
13365 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
13366 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
13367 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
13368 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
13369 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
13370 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
13371 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
13372 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
13373 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
13374 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
13375
13376 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
13377 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
13378 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
13379 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
13380 If the Skolelinux foundation
13381 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
13382 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
13383 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
13384 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
13385 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
13386 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
13387 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
13388 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
13389
13390 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
13391 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
13392 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
13393 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
13394 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
13395 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
13396 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
13397 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
13398 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
13399 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
13400 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
13401 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
13402 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
13403 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
13404 currencies.</p>
13405
13406 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
13407 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
13408 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
13409 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
13410 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
13411 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
13412 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
13413 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
13414 BitCoins.  Check out
13415 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
13416 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
13417 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
13418 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
13419 yet.</p>
13420
13421 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
13422 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
13423 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
13424 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
13425 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
13426
13427       </div>
13428       <div class="tags">
13429
13430
13431         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>.
13432
13433
13434       </div>
13435     </div>
13436     <div class="padding"></div>
13437
13438     <div class="entry">
13439       <div class="title">
13440         <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>
13441       </div>
13442       <div class="date">
13443         10th December 2010
13444       </div>
13445       <div class="body">
13446         <p>With this weeks lawless
13447 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
13448 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
13449 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
13450 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
13451 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
13452 A blog post from
13453 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
13454 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
13455 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
13456 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
13457 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
13458 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
13459 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
13460
13461 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
13462 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
13463 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
13464 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
13465 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
13466 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
13467 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
13468 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
13469 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
13470 Debian</a> soon.</p>
13471
13472 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
13473 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
13474 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
13475 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
13476 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
13477 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
13478 you can even get
13479 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
13480 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
13481 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
13482 on the current exchange rates.</p>
13483
13484 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
13485 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
13486 donations to the address
13487 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
13488
13489       </div>
13490       <div class="tags">
13491
13492
13493         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>.
13494
13495
13496       </div>
13497     </div>
13498     <div class="padding"></div>
13499
13500     <div class="entry">
13501       <div class="title">
13502         <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>
13503       </div>
13504       <div class="date">
13505          9th December 2010
13506       </div>
13507       <div class="body">
13508         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
13509 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
13510 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
13511 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
13512 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
13513 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
13514 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
13515 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
13516 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
13517 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
13518 operational.</p>
13519
13520 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
13521 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
13522 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
13523 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
13524 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
13525 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
13526 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
13527
13528       </div>
13529       <div class="tags">
13530
13531
13532         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>.
13533
13534
13535       </div>
13536     </div>
13537     <div class="padding"></div>
13538
13539     <div class="entry">
13540       <div class="title">
13541         <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>
13542       </div>
13543       <div class="date">
13544         29th November 2010
13545       </div>
13546       <div class="body">
13547         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
13548 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
13549 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
13550 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
13551 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
13552 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
13553
13554 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
13555 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
13556 will hold its
13557 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
13558 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
13559 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
13560 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
13561 vote this year.</p>
13562
13563       </div>
13564       <div class="tags">
13565
13566
13567         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>.
13568
13569
13570       </div>
13571     </div>
13572     <div class="padding"></div>
13573
13574     <div class="entry">
13575       <div class="title">
13576         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
13577       </div>
13578       <div class="date">
13579         27th November 2010
13580       </div>
13581       <div class="body">
13582         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
13583 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
13584 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
13585 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
13586 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
13587 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
13588 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
13589 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
13590
13591 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
13592 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
13593 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
13594 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
13595 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
13596 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
13597 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
13598 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
13599 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
13600 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
13601 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
13602
13603 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
13604 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
13605 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
13606 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
13607 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
13608 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
13609 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
13610 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
13611 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
13612 what is going on.</p>
13613
13614       </div>
13615       <div class="tags">
13616
13617
13618         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>.
13619
13620
13621       </div>
13622     </div>
13623     <div class="padding"></div>
13624
13625     <div class="entry">
13626       <div class="title">
13627         <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>
13628       </div>
13629       <div class="date">
13630         22nd November 2010
13631       </div>
13632       <div class="body">
13633         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
13634 upgrade testing of the
13635 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
13636 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
13637 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
13638 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
13639
13640 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
13641
13642 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13643
13644 <blockquote><p>
13645   apache2.2-bin
13646   aptdaemon
13647   baobab
13648   binfmt-support
13649   browser-plugin-gnash
13650   cheese-common
13651   cli-common
13652   cups-pk-helper
13653   dmz-cursor-theme
13654   empathy
13655   empathy-common
13656   freedesktop-sound-theme
13657   freeglut3
13658   gconf-defaults-service
13659   gdm-themes
13660   gedit-plugins
13661   geoclue
13662   geoclue-hostip
13663   geoclue-localnet
13664   geoclue-manual
13665   geoclue-yahoo
13666   gnash
13667   gnash-common
13668   gnome
13669   gnome-backgrounds
13670   gnome-cards-data
13671   gnome-codec-install
13672   gnome-core
13673   gnome-desktop-environment
13674   gnome-disk-utility
13675   gnome-screenshot
13676   gnome-search-tool
13677   gnome-session-canberra
13678   gnome-system-log
13679   gnome-themes-extras
13680   gnome-themes-more
13681   gnome-user-share
13682   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
13683   gstreamer0.10-tools
13684   gtk2-engines
13685   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
13686   gtk2-engines-smooth
13687   hamster-applet
13688   libapache2-mod-dnssd
13689   libapr1
13690   libaprutil1
13691   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
13692   libaprutil1-ldap
13693   libart2.0-cil
13694   libboost-date-time1.42.0
13695   libboost-python1.42.0
13696   libboost-thread1.42.0
13697   libchamplain-0.4-0
13698   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
13699   libcheese-gtk18
13700   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
13701   libcryptui0
13702   libdiscid0
13703   libelf1
13704   libepc-1.0-2
13705   libepc-common
13706   libepc-ui-1.0-2
13707   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
13708   libfreerdp0
13709   libgconf2.0-cil
13710   libgdata-common
13711   libgdata7
13712   libgdu-gtk0
13713   libgee2
13714   libgeoclue0
13715   libgexiv2-0
13716   libgif4
13717   libglade2.0-cil
13718   libglib2.0-cil
13719   libgmime2.4-cil
13720   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
13721   libgnome2.24-cil
13722   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
13723   libgpod-common
13724   libgpod4
13725   libgtk2.0-cil
13726   libgtkglext1
13727   libgtksourceview2.0-common
13728   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
13729   libmono-addins0.2-cil
13730   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
13731   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
13732   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
13733   libmono-posix2.0-cil
13734   libmono-security2.0-cil
13735   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
13736   libmono-system2.0-cil
13737   libmtp8
13738   libmusicbrainz3-6
13739   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
13740   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
13741   libopal3.6.8
13742   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
13743   libpt2.6.7
13744   libpython2.6
13745   librpm1
13746   librpmio1
13747   libsdl1.2debian
13748   libsrtp0
13749   libssh-4
13750   libtelepathy-farsight0
13751   libtelepathy-glib0
13752   libtidy-0.99-0
13753   media-player-info
13754   mesa-utils
13755   mono-2.0-gac
13756   mono-gac
13757   mono-runtime
13758   nautilus-sendto
13759   nautilus-sendto-empathy
13760   p7zip-full
13761   pkg-config
13762   python-aptdaemon
13763   python-aptdaemon-gtk
13764   python-axiom
13765   python-beautifulsoup
13766   python-bugbuddy
13767   python-clientform
13768   python-coherence
13769   python-configobj
13770   python-crypto
13771   python-cupshelpers
13772   python-elementtree
13773   python-epsilon
13774   python-evolution
13775   python-feedparser
13776   python-gdata
13777   python-gdbm
13778   python-gst0.10
13779   python-gtkglext1
13780   python-gtksourceview2
13781   python-httplib2
13782   python-louie
13783   python-mako
13784   python-markupsafe
13785   python-mechanize
13786   python-nevow
13787   python-notify
13788   python-opengl
13789   python-openssl
13790   python-pam
13791   python-pkg-resources
13792   python-pyasn1
13793   python-pysqlite2
13794   python-rdflib
13795   python-serial
13796   python-tagpy
13797   python-twisted-bin
13798   python-twisted-conch
13799   python-twisted-core
13800   python-twisted-web
13801   python-utidylib
13802   python-webkit
13803   python-xdg
13804   python-zope.interface
13805   remmina
13806   remmina-plugin-data
13807   remmina-plugin-rdp
13808   remmina-plugin-vnc
13809   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
13810   rhythmbox-plugins
13811   rpm-common
13812   rpm2cpio
13813   seahorse-plugins
13814   shotwell
13815   software-center
13816   system-config-printer-udev
13817   telepathy-gabble
13818   telepathy-mission-control-5
13819   telepathy-salut
13820   tomboy
13821   totem
13822   totem-coherence
13823   totem-mozilla
13824   totem-plugins
13825   transmission-common
13826   xdg-user-dirs
13827   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
13828   xserver-xephyr
13829 </p></blockquote>
13830
13831 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13832
13833 <blockquote><p>
13834   cheese
13835   ekiga
13836   eog
13837   epiphany-extensions
13838   evolution-exchange
13839   fast-user-switch-applet
13840   file-roller
13841   gcalctool
13842   gconf-editor
13843   gdm
13844   gedit
13845   gedit-common
13846   gnome-games
13847   gnome-games-data
13848   gnome-nettool
13849   gnome-system-tools
13850   gnome-themes
13851   gnuchess
13852   gucharmap
13853   guile-1.8-libs
13854   libavahi-ui0
13855   libdmx1
13856   libgalago3
13857   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
13858   libgtksourceview2.0-0
13859   liblircclient0
13860   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
13861   libspeexdsp1
13862   libsvga1
13863   rhythmbox
13864   seahorse
13865   sound-juicer
13866   system-config-printer
13867   totem-common
13868   transmission-gtk
13869   vinagre
13870   vino
13871 </p></blockquote>
13872
13873 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13874
13875 <blockquote><p>
13876   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
13877 </p></blockquote>
13878
13879 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13880
13881 <blockquote><p>
13882 [nothing]
13883 </p></blockquote>
13884
13885 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
13886
13887 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13888
13889 <blockquote><p>
13890   ksmserver
13891 </p></blockquote>
13892
13893 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13894
13895 <blockquote><p>
13896   kwin
13897   network-manager-kde
13898 </p></blockquote>
13899
13900 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13901
13902 <blockquote><p>
13903   arts
13904   dolphin
13905   freespacenotifier
13906   google-gadgets-gst
13907   google-gadgets-xul
13908   kappfinder
13909   kcalc
13910   kcharselect
13911   kde-core
13912   kde-plasma-desktop
13913   kde-standard
13914   kde-window-manager
13915   kdeartwork
13916   kdeartwork-emoticons
13917   kdeartwork-style
13918   kdeartwork-theme-icon
13919   kdebase
13920   kdebase-apps
13921   kdebase-workspace
13922   kdebase-workspace-bin
13923   kdebase-workspace-data
13924   kdeeject
13925   kdelibs
13926   kdeplasma-addons
13927   kdeutils
13928   kdewallpapers
13929   kdf
13930   kfloppy
13931   kgpg
13932   khelpcenter4
13933   kinfocenter
13934   konq-plugins-l10n
13935   konqueror-nsplugins
13936   kscreensaver
13937   kscreensaver-xsavers
13938   ktimer
13939   kwrite
13940   libgle3
13941   libkde4-ruby1.8
13942   libkonq5
13943   libkonq5-templates
13944   libnetpbm10
13945   libplasma-ruby
13946   libplasma-ruby1.8
13947   libqt4-ruby1.8
13948   marble-data
13949   marble-plugins
13950   netpbm
13951   nuvola-icon-theme
13952   plasma-dataengines-workspace
13953   plasma-desktop
13954   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
13955   plasma-runners-addons
13956   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
13957   plasma-scriptengine-python
13958   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
13959   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
13960   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
13961   plasma-scriptengines
13962   plasma-wallpapers-addons
13963   plasma-widget-folderview
13964   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
13965   ruby
13966   sweeper
13967   update-notifier-kde
13968   xscreensaver-data-extra
13969   xscreensaver-gl
13970   xscreensaver-gl-extra
13971   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
13972 </p></blockquote>
13973
13974 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13975
13976 <blockquote><p>
13977   ark
13978   google-gadgets-common
13979   google-gadgets-qt
13980   htdig
13981   kate
13982   kdebase-bin
13983   kdebase-data
13984   kdepasswd
13985   kfind
13986   klipper
13987   konq-plugins
13988   konqueror
13989   ksysguard
13990   ksysguardd
13991   libarchive1
13992   libcln6
13993   libeet1
13994   libeina-svn-06
13995   libggadget-1.0-0b
13996   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
13997   libgps19
13998   libkdecorations4
13999   libkephal4
14000   libkonq4
14001   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
14002   libkscreensaver5
14003   libksgrd4
14004   libksignalplotter4
14005   libkunitconversion4
14006   libkwineffects1a
14007   libmarblewidget4
14008   libntrack-qt4-1
14009   libntrack0
14010   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
14011   libplasmaclock4a
14012   libplasmagenericshell4
14013   libprocesscore4a
14014   libprocessui4a
14015   libqalculate5
14016   libqedje0a
14017   libqtruby4shared2
14018   libqzion0a
14019   libruby1.8
14020   libscim8c2a
14021   libsmokekdecore4-3
14022   libsmokekdeui4-3
14023   libsmokekfile3
14024   libsmokekhtml3
14025   libsmokekio3
14026   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
14027   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
14028   libsmokekparts3
14029   libsmokektexteditor3
14030   libsmokekutils3
14031   libsmokenepomuk3
14032   libsmokephonon3
14033   libsmokeplasma3
14034   libsmokeqtcore4-3
14035   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
14036   libsmokeqtgui4-3
14037   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
14038   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
14039   libsmokeqtscript4-3
14040   libsmokeqtsql4-3
14041   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
14042   libsmokeqttest4-3
14043   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
14044   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
14045   libsmokeqtxml4-3
14046   libsmokesolid3
14047   libsmokesoprano3
14048   libtaskmanager4a
14049   libtidy-0.99-0
14050   libweather-ion4a
14051   libxklavier16
14052   libxxf86misc1
14053   okteta
14054   oxygencursors
14055   plasma-dataengines-addons
14056   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
14057   plasma-widget-lancelot
14058   plasma-widgets-addons
14059   plasma-widgets-workspace
14060   polkit-kde-1
14061   ruby1.8
14062   systemsettings
14063   update-notifier-common
14064 </p></blockquote>
14065
14066 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
14067 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
14068 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
14069 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
14070
14071       </div>
14072       <div class="tags">
14073
14074
14075         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>.
14076
14077
14078       </div>
14079     </div>
14080     <div class="padding"></div>
14081
14082     <div class="entry">
14083       <div class="title">
14084         <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>
14085       </div>
14086       <div class="date">
14087         22nd November 2010
14088       </div>
14089       <div class="body">
14090         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
14091 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
14092 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
14093 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
14094 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
14095 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
14096 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
14097 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
14098 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
14099
14100 <p>I found
14101 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
14102 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
14103 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
14104 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
14105 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
14106 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
14107
14108 <pre>
14109 #!/bin/sh
14110
14111 # Based on
14112 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
14113
14114 set -e
14115 set -x
14116
14117 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
14118     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
14119     exit 1
14120 else
14121     host="$1"
14122 fi
14123
14124 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
14125     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
14126     exit 1
14127 fi
14128
14129 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
14130 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
14131 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
14132 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
14133
14134 img=$host.img
14135 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
14136 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
14137
14138 parted $img mklabel msdos
14139 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
14140 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
14141 parted $img set 1 boot on
14142
14143 modprobe dm-mod
14144 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
14145 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
14146
14147 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
14148 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
14149 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
14150
14151 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
14152 losetup -d /dev/loop0
14153 </pre>
14154
14155 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
14156 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
14157
14158 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
14159 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
14160 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
14161 seem to work just fine.</p>
14162
14163       </div>
14164       <div class="tags">
14165
14166
14167         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>.
14168
14169
14170       </div>
14171     </div>
14172     <div class="padding"></div>
14173
14174     <div class="entry">
14175       <div class="title">
14176         <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>
14177       </div>
14178       <div class="date">
14179         20th November 2010
14180       </div>
14181       <div class="body">
14182         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
14183 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
14184 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
14185 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
14186
14187 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
14188 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
14189 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
14190
14191 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
14192
14193 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
14194
14195 <blockquote><p>
14196   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
14197   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
14198   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
14199   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
14200   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
14201   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
14202   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
14203   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
14204   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
14205   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
14206   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
14207   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
14208   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
14209   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
14210   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
14211   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
14212   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
14213   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
14214   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
14215   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
14216   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
14217   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
14218   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
14219   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
14220   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
14221   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
14222   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
14223   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
14224   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
14225   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
14226   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
14227   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
14228   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
14229   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
14230   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
14231   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
14232   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
14233   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
14234   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
14235   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
14236   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
14237   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
14238   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
14239   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
14240   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
14241   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
14242   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
14243   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
14244   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
14245   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
14246   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
14247   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
14248   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
14249   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
14250   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
14251   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
14252   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
14253   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
14254   zip
14255 </p></blockquote>
14256
14257 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
14258
14259 <blockquote><p>
14260   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
14261   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
14262   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
14263   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
14264   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
14265   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
14266   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
14267   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
14268   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
14269   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
14270   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
14271   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
14272   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
14273   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
14274   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
14275   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
14276   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
14277   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
14278   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
14279   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
14280   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
14281   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
14282   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
14283   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
14284   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
14285   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
14286   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
14287   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
14288   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
14289 </p></blockquote>
14290
14291 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
14292
14293 <blockquote><p>
14294   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
14295 </p></blockquote>
14296
14297 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
14298
14299 <blockquote><p>
14300 [nothing]
14301 </p></blockquote>
14302
14303 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
14304
14305 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
14306
14307 <blockquote><p>
14308   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
14309   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
14310   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
14311   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
14312   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
14313   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
14314   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
14315   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
14316   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
14317   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
14318   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
14319   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
14320   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
14321   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
14322   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
14323   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
14324   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
14325   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
14326   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
14327   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
14328   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
14329   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
14330   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
14331   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
14332   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
14333   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
14334   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
14335   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
14336   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
14337   ttf-sazanami-gothic
14338 </p></blockquote>
14339
14340 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
14341
14342 <blockquote><p>
14343   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
14344   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
14345   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
14346   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
14347   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
14348   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
14349   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
14350   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
14351   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
14352   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
14353   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
14354   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
14355   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
14356   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
14357   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
14358   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
14359   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
14360   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
14361   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
14362   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
14363   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
14364   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
14365   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
14366   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
14367   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
14368   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
14369   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
14370   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
14371   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
14372   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
14373   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
14374   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
14375   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
14376 </p></blockquote>
14377
14378 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
14379
14380 <blockquote><p>
14381   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
14382   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
14383   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
14384   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
14385   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
14386   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
14387   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
14388 </p></blockquote>
14389
14390 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
14391
14392 <blockquote><p>
14393   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
14394 </p></blockquote>
14395
14396       </div>
14397       <div class="tags">
14398
14399
14400         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>.
14401
14402
14403       </div>
14404     </div>
14405     <div class="padding"></div>
14406
14407     <div class="entry">
14408       <div class="title">
14409         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
14410       </div>
14411       <div class="date">
14412         20th November 2010
14413       </div>
14414       <div class="body">
14415         <p>Answering
14416 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
14417 call from the Gnash project</a> for
14418 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
14419 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
14420 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
14421 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
14422 releases out more often.</p>
14423
14424 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
14425 I have considered setting up a <a
14426 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
14427 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
14428 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
14429 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
14430 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
14431 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
14432 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
14433 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
14434 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
14435 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
14436 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
14437 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
14438
14439       </div>
14440       <div class="tags">
14441
14442
14443         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>.
14444
14445
14446       </div>
14447     </div>
14448     <div class="padding"></div>
14449
14450     <div class="entry">
14451       <div class="title">
14452         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
14453       </div>
14454       <div class="date">
14455          9th November 2010
14456       </div>
14457       <div class="body">
14458         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
14459
14460 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
14461 3D linked in from
14462 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
14463 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
14464
14465       </div>
14466       <div class="tags">
14467
14468
14469         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>.
14470
14471
14472       </div>
14473     </div>
14474     <div class="padding"></div>
14475
14476     <div class="entry">
14477       <div class="title">
14478         <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>
14479       </div>
14480       <div class="date">
14481          7th November 2010
14482       </div>
14483       <div class="body">
14484         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
14485 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
14486 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
14487 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
14488 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
14489 working using this DVD.</p>
14490
14491 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
14492 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
14493 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
14494 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
14495 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
14496 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
14497 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
14498
14499 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
14500 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
14501 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
14502 Debian archive.</p>
14503
14504 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
14505 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
14506 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
14507 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
14508 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
14509 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
14510 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
14511 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
14512 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
14513 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
14514 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
14515 free X driver should work.</p>
14516
14517 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
14518 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
14519 DVD more useful again.</p>
14520
14521       </div>
14522       <div class="tags">
14523
14524
14525         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>.
14526
14527
14528       </div>
14529     </div>
14530     <div class="padding"></div>
14531
14532     <div class="entry">
14533       <div class="title">
14534         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
14535       </div>
14536       <div class="date">
14537         24th October 2010
14538       </div>
14539       <div class="body">
14540         <p>Some updates.</p>
14541
14542 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
14543 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
14544 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
14545 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
14546 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
14547 :)</p>
14548
14549 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
14550 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
14551 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
14552 It is called
14553 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
14554 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
14555 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
14556 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
14557 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
14558 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
14559
14560 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
14561 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
14562 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
14563 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
14564 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
14565 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
14566 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
14567 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
14568 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
14569 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
14570
14571       </div>
14572       <div class="tags">
14573
14574
14575         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>.
14576
14577
14578       </div>
14579     </div>
14580     <div class="padding"></div>
14581
14582     <div class="entry">
14583       <div class="title">
14584         <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>
14585       </div>
14586       <div class="date">
14587         19th October 2010
14588       </div>
14589       <div class="body">
14590         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
14591 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
14592 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
14593 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
14594 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
14595 AVM2 flash files.</p>
14596
14597 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
14598 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
14599 following text:</P>
14600
14601 <p><blockquote>
14602
14603   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
14604   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
14605
14606   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
14607
14608   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
14609
14610   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
14611   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
14612   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
14613   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
14614   days. The project web page is available from
14615   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
14616   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
14617   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
14618
14619   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
14620   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
14621   to get this to happen.</p>
14622
14623   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
14624   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
14625
14626 </blockquote></p>
14627
14628 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
14629 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
14630 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
14631 :)</p>
14632
14633       </div>
14634       <div class="tags">
14635
14636
14637         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>.
14638
14639
14640       </div>
14641     </div>
14642     <div class="padding"></div>
14643
14644     <div class="entry">
14645       <div class="title">
14646         <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>
14647       </div>
14648       <div class="date">
14649          9th October 2010
14650       </div>
14651       <div class="body">
14652         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
14653 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
14654 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
14655 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
14656 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
14657 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
14658 robots.</p>
14659
14660 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
14661 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
14662 a few less important features too.</p>
14663
14664 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
14665 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
14666 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
14667 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
14668
14669 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
14670 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
14671 source or binary package:</p>
14672
14673 <p><ul>
14674 <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>
14675 <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>
14676 <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>
14677 </ul></p>
14678
14679 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
14680 please let me know.</p>
14681
14682       </div>
14683       <div class="tags">
14684
14685
14686         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>.
14687
14688
14689       </div>
14690     </div>
14691     <div class="padding"></div>
14692
14693     <div class="entry">
14694       <div class="title">
14695         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
14696       </div>
14697       <div class="date">
14698          3rd October 2010
14699       </div>
14700       <div class="body">
14701         <p><ul>
14702
14703 <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
14704 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
14705
14706 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
14707 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
14708 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
14709
14710 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
14711 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
14712 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
14713 simple setup.
14714
14715 </ul></p>
14716
14717       </div>
14718       <div class="tags">
14719
14720
14721         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>.
14722
14723
14724       </div>
14725     </div>
14726     <div class="padding"></div>
14727
14728     <div class="entry">
14729       <div class="title">
14730         <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>
14731       </div>
14732       <div class="date">
14733          9th September 2010
14734       </div>
14735       <div class="body">
14736         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
14737 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
14738 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
14739 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
14740 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
14741 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
14742 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
14743 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
14744 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
14745
14746 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
14747 written:</p>
14748
14749 <blockquote>
14750 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
14751 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
14752 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
14753 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
14754 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
14755
14756 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
14757 standard.</p>
14758 </blockquote>
14759
14760 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
14761 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
14762 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
14763 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
14764
14765 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
14766 read
14767 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
14768 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
14769 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
14770 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
14771 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
14772 the issue.  The solution is to support the
14773 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
14774 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
14775 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
14776
14777       </div>
14778       <div class="tags">
14779
14780
14781         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>.
14782
14783
14784       </div>
14785     </div>
14786     <div class="padding"></div>
14787
14788     <div class="entry">
14789       <div class="title">
14790         <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>
14791       </div>
14792       <div class="date">
14793          4th September 2010
14794       </div>
14795       <div class="body">
14796         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
14797 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
14798 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
14799 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
14800 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
14801 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
14802 installed.</p>
14803
14804 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
14805 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
14806 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
14807 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
14808 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
14809 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
14810 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
14811 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
14812 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
14813
14814 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
14815 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
14816 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
14817 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
14818 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
14819 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
14820 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
14821 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
14822 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
14823 pages they want to visit.</p>
14824
14825 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
14826 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
14827 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
14828 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
14829 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
14830 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
14831 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
14832 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
14833 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
14834 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
14835 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
14836
14837       </div>
14838       <div class="tags">
14839
14840
14841         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>.
14842
14843
14844       </div>
14845     </div>
14846     <div class="padding"></div>
14847
14848     <div class="entry">
14849       <div class="title">
14850         <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>
14851       </div>
14852       <div class="date">
14853          1st September 2010
14854       </div>
14855       <div class="body">
14856         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
14857 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
14858 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
14859 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
14860 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
14861 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
14862 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
14863 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
14864 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
14865 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
14866 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
14867 drive around.</p>
14868
14869 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
14870 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
14871
14872 <p><pre>
14873 use Spykee;
14874 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
14875 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
14876 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
14877 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
14878 $spykee->left();
14879 sleep 2;
14880 $spykee->right();
14881 sleep 2;
14882 $spykee->forward();
14883 sleep 2;
14884 $spykee->back();
14885 sleep 2;
14886 $spykee->stop();
14887 </pre></p>
14888
14889 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
14890 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
14891 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
14892 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
14893 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
14894 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
14895 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
14896 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
14897 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
14898 going. :).</p>
14899
14900 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
14901 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
14902 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
14903 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
14904
14905       </div>
14906       <div class="tags">
14907
14908
14909         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>.
14910
14911
14912       </div>
14913     </div>
14914     <div class="padding"></div>
14915
14916     <div class="entry">
14917       <div class="title">
14918         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
14919       </div>
14920       <div class="date">
14921         30th August 2010
14922       </div>
14923       <div class="body">
14924         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
14925 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
14926 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
14927 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
14928 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
14929 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
14930 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
14931
14932 <pre>
14933 % ln foo bar
14934 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
14935 %
14936 </pre>
14937
14938 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
14939 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
14940 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
14941 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
14942 nevertheless. :)</p>
14943
14944 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
14945 git from
14946 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
14947
14948       </div>
14949       <div class="tags">
14950
14951
14952         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>.
14953
14954
14955       </div>
14956     </div>
14957     <div class="padding"></div>
14958
14959     <div class="entry">
14960       <div class="title">
14961         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
14962       </div>
14963       <div class="date">
14964         26th August 2010
14965       </div>
14966       <div class="body">
14967         <p>My file system sematics program
14968 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
14969 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
14970 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
14971 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
14972 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
14973 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
14974 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
14975 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
14976 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
14977 script:</p>
14978
14979 <pre>
14980 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
14981   mode_t retval = 0;
14982   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
14983   if (-1 != fd) {
14984     unlink(name);
14985     struct stat statbuf;
14986     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
14987       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
14988     }
14989     close(fd);
14990   }
14991   return retval;
14992 }
14993
14994 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
14995 int test_umask(void) {
14996   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
14997
14998   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
14999   mode_t newmode;
15000   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
15001     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
15002            newmode);
15003   }
15004   umask(007);
15005   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
15006     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
15007            newmode);
15008   }
15009
15010   umask (orig_umask);
15011   return 0;
15012 }
15013
15014 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
15015   [...]
15016   test_umask();
15017   return 0;
15018 }
15019 </pre>
15020
15021 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
15022
15023 <pre>
15024 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
15025 info: testing symlink creation
15026 info: testing subdirectory creation
15027 info: testing fcntl locking
15028   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15029   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15030   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
15031   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15032   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15033   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
15034 info: testing umask effect on file creation
15035 </pre>
15036
15037 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
15038 result:</p>
15039
15040 <pre>
15041 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
15042 info: testing symlink creation
15043 info: testing subdirectory creation
15044 info: testing fcntl locking
15045   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15046   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15047   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
15048   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15049   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15050   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
15051 info: testing umask effect on file creation
15052   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
15053   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
15054 </pre>
15055
15056 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
15057 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
15058 directory.</p>
15059
15060 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
15061 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
15062
15063 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
15064 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
15065 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
15066
15067       </div>
15068       <div class="tags">
15069
15070
15071         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>.
15072
15073
15074       </div>
15075     </div>
15076     <div class="padding"></div>
15077
15078     <div class="entry">
15079       <div class="title">
15080         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
15081       </div>
15082       <div class="date">
15083         15th August 2010
15084       </div>
15085       <div class="body">
15086         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
15087 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
15088 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
15089 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
15090 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
15091 long time.</p>
15092
15093       </div>
15094       <div class="tags">
15095
15096
15097         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>.
15098
15099
15100       </div>
15101     </div>
15102     <div class="padding"></div>
15103
15104     <div class="entry">
15105       <div class="title">
15106         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
15107       </div>
15108       <div class="date">
15109          9th August 2010
15110       </div>
15111       <div class="body">
15112         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
15113 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
15114 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
15115 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
15116 generated configuration.</p>
15117
15118 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
15119 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
15120 without any manual configuration.</p>
15121
15122 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
15123 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
15124 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
15125 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
15126 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
15127 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
15128 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
15129 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
15130 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
15131 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
15132 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
15133 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
15134 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
15135 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
15136 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
15137 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
15138 use.</p>
15139
15140 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
15141 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
15142 working properly out of the box:</p>
15143
15144 <ul>
15145 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
15146 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
15147 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
15148 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
15149 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
15150 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
15151 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
15152 </ul>
15153
15154 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
15155
15156 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
15157 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
15158 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
15159 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
15160 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
15161
15162 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
15163 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
15164 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
15165 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
15166 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
15167 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
15168 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
15169 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
15170
15171 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
15172 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
15173 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
15174 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
15175 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
15176 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
15177 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
15178 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
15179 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
15180 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
15181 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
15182 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
15183 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
15184 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
15185 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
15186 current DNS domain is used.</p>
15187
15188 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
15189 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
15190 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
15191 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
15192 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
15193 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
15194 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
15195 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
15196 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
15197 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
15198 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
15199 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
15200 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
15201
15202 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
15203 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
15204 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
15205 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
15206 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
15207 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
15208 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
15209 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
15210 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
15211 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
15212 do for now. :)</p>
15213
15214 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
15215 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
15216 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
15217 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
15218 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
15219 yet.</p>
15220
15221 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
15222 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15223
15224 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
15225 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
15226 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
15227 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
15228
15229       </div>
15230       <div class="tags">
15231
15232
15233         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>.
15234
15235
15236       </div>
15237     </div>
15238     <div class="padding"></div>
15239
15240     <div class="entry">
15241       <div class="title">
15242         <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>
15243       </div>
15244       <div class="date">
15245          8th August 2010
15246       </div>
15247       <div class="body">
15248         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
15249 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
15250 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
15251 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
15252 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
15253 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
15254 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
15255
15256 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
15257 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
15258 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
15259 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
15260 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
15261 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
15262 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
15263
15264 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
15265 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
15266 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
15267 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
15268 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
15269
15270 <pre>
15271 /*
15272  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
15273  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
15274  * directory.
15275  * License: GPL v2 or later
15276  *
15277  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
15278  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
15279 */
15280
15281 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
15282 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
15283 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
15284
15285 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
15286
15287 #include &lt;errno.h>
15288 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
15289 #include &lt;stdio.h>
15290 #include &lt;string.h>
15291 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
15292 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
15293 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
15294 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
15295 #include &lt;unistd.h>
15296
15297 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
15298 /*
15299  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
15300  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
15301  * below.
15302  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
15303  */
15304 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
15305 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
15306   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
15307 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
15308   char *zErrMsg;
15309   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
15310   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
15311   unlink(name);
15312   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
15313   if( rc ){
15314     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
15315     sqlite3_close(db);
15316     return -1;
15317   }
15318
15319   /* create tables */
15320   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
15321   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
15322     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
15323     sqlite3_close(db);
15324     return -1;
15325   }
15326   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
15327   sqlite3_close(db);
15328   return 0;
15329 }
15330 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
15331
15332 /*
15333  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
15334  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
15335  * done in the sqlite3 library.
15336  * See also
15337  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
15338  * POSIX specification
15339  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
15340  */
15341 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
15342   struct flock fl;
15343   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
15344   unlink(name);
15345   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
15346   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
15347
15348   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
15349   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
15350   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
15351   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
15352   fl.l_len    = 1;
15353   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
15354   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15355
15356   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
15357   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
15358   fl.l_len    = 510;
15359   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
15360   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15361
15362   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
15363   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
15364   fl.l_len    = 1;
15365   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
15366   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15367
15368   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
15369   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
15370   fl.l_len    = 1;
15371   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
15372   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15373
15374   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
15375   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
15376   fl.l_len    = 510;
15377   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15378
15379   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
15380   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
15381   fl.l_len    = 2;
15382   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
15383   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15384
15385   close(fd);
15386   return 0;
15387 }
15388
15389 /*
15390  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
15391  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
15392  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
15393  * slowing down file operations.
15394  */
15395 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
15396 #define LEVELS 5
15397   char *path = strdup("test");
15398   char *dirs[LEVELS];
15399   int level;
15400   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
15401   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
15402     char *newpath = NULL;
15403     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
15404       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
15405              path, strerror(errno));
15406       break;
15407     }
15408     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
15409     free(path);
15410     path = newpath;
15411   }
15412   return 0;
15413 }
15414
15415 /*
15416  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
15417  * KDE.
15418  */
15419 int test_symlinks(void) {
15420   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
15421   unlink("symlink");
15422   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
15423     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
15424   return 0;
15425 }
15426
15427 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
15428   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
15429   test_symlinks();
15430   test_subdirectory_creation();
15431 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
15432   test_sqlite_open();
15433 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
15434   test_gcompris_locking();
15435   return 0;
15436 }
15437 </pre>
15438
15439 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
15440 this:</p>
15441
15442 <pre>
15443 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
15444 info: testing symlink creation
15445 info: testing subdirectory creation
15446 info: sqlite worked
15447 info: testing fcntl locking
15448   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15449   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15450   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
15451   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15452   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15453   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
15454 </pre>
15455
15456 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
15457 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
15458 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
15459 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
15460 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
15461 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
15462 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
15463 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
15464
15465 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
15466 it. :)</p>
15467
15468 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
15469 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
15470 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
15471
15472       </div>
15473       <div class="tags">
15474
15475
15476         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>.
15477
15478
15479       </div>
15480     </div>
15481     <div class="padding"></div>
15482
15483     <div class="entry">
15484       <div class="title">
15485         <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>
15486       </div>
15487       <div class="date">
15488          7th August 2010
15489       </div>
15490       <div class="body">
15491         <p>A few days ago, I
15492 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
15493 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
15494 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
15495 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
15496 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
15497 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
15498 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
15499 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
15500 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
15501
15502 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
15503 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
15504 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
15505 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
15506 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
15507 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
15508 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
15509 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
15510 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
15511 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
15512 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
15513 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
15514 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
15515 gave it a IP address.</p>
15516
15517 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
15518 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
15519 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
15520 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
15521 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
15522 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
15523 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
15524 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
15525
15526 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
15527 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
15528 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
15529 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
15530 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
15531 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
15532
15533 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
15534 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
15535 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
15536 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
15537 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
15538 with UID and GID values.</p>
15539
15540 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
15541 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15542
15543       </div>
15544       <div class="tags">
15545
15546
15547         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>.
15548
15549
15550       </div>
15551     </div>
15552     <div class="padding"></div>
15553
15554     <div class="entry">
15555       <div class="title">
15556         <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>
15557       </div>
15558       <div class="date">
15559          3rd August 2010
15560       </div>
15561       <div class="body">
15562         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
15563 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
15564 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
15565 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
15566 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
15567 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
15568 servers.</p>
15569
15570 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
15571 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
15572 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
15573 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
15574 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
15575 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
15576 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
15577 .uio.no.</p>
15578
15579 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
15580 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
15581 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
15582 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
15583 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
15584 university servers.</p>
15585
15586 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
15587 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
15588 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
15589 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
15590 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
15591 uses.</p>
15592
15593       </div>
15594       <div class="tags">
15595
15596
15597         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>.
15598
15599
15600       </div>
15601     </div>
15602     <div class="padding"></div>
15603
15604     <div class="entry">
15605       <div class="title">
15606         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
15607       </div>
15608       <div class="date">
15609         27th July 2010
15610       </div>
15611       <div class="body">
15612         <p>I discovered this while doing
15613 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
15614 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
15615 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
15616 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
15617 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
15618
15619 <p>An example is from todays
15620 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
15621 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
15622 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
15623 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
15624 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
15625 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
15626 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
15627
15628 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
15629
15630 <blockquote><pre>
15631 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
15632  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
15633   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
15634 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
15635  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
15636 </pre></blockquote>
15637
15638 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
15639 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
15640 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
15641 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
15642 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
15643 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
15644 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
15645 of dependency loops.</p>
15646
15647 <p>Thanks to
15648 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
15649 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
15650 dependencies
15651 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
15652 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
15653
15654 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
15655 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
15656 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
15657 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
15658 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
15659 it.</p>
15660
15661       </div>
15662       <div class="tags">
15663
15664
15665         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>.
15666
15667
15668       </div>
15669     </div>
15670     <div class="padding"></div>
15671
15672     <div class="entry">
15673       <div class="title">
15674         <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>
15675       </div>
15676       <div class="date">
15677         27th July 2010
15678       </div>
15679       <div class="body">
15680         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
15681 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
15682 completed.</p>
15683
15684 <blockquote>
15685 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
15686 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
15687 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
15688 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
15689 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
15690 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
15691 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
15692 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
15693
15694 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
15695 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
15696 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
15697
15698 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
15699 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
15700 much.</p>
15701
15702 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
15703
15704 <ul>
15705 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
15706 <ul>
15707   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
15708          combination with some new artwork
15709   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
15710   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
15711   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
15712   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
15713   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
15714   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
15715   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
15716   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
15717   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
15718 </ul></li>
15719 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
15720     Enabled for:
15721 <ul>
15722   <li>PAM
15723   <li>LDAP
15724   <li>IMAP
15725   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
15726 </ul>
15727 </li>
15728 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
15729 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
15730     fetched from LDAP.</li>
15731 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
15732 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
15733 </ul>
15734 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
15735
15736 <ul>
15737 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
15738     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
15739     for testing.</li>
15740 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
15741     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
15742     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
15743 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
15744 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
15745 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
15746 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
15747     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
15748 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
15749     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
15750     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
15751 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
15752     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
15753     and help out with translations.</li>
15754 </ul>
15755
15756 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
15757
15758 <ul>
15759 <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>
15760 <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>
15761 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
15762 </ul>
15763 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
15764
15765 <ul>
15766 <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>
15767 <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>
15768 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
15769 </ul>
15770
15771 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
15772 get closer to the final release.</p>
15773
15774 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
15775
15776 <ul>
15777 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
15778 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
15779 </ul>
15780
15781 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
15782 <ul>
15783 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
15784 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
15785 </ul>
15786 <p>How to report bugs:
15787 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
15788
15789 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
15790 </blockquote>
15791
15792       </div>
15793       <div class="tags">
15794
15795
15796         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>.
15797
15798
15799       </div>
15800     </div>
15801     <div class="padding"></div>
15802
15803     <div class="entry">
15804       <div class="title">
15805         <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>
15806       </div>
15807       <div class="date">
15808         25th July 2010
15809       </div>
15810       <div class="body">
15811         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
15812 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
15813 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
15814 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
15815 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
15816
15817 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
15818 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
15819 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
15820 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
15821 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
15822 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
15823 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
15824
15825 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
15826 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
15827 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
15828 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
15829 up. :)</p>
15830
15831 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
15832 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
15833 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
15834
15835 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
15836 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
15837 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
15838 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
15839 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
15840 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
15841 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
15842 release another day.</p>
15843
15844 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
15845 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15846
15847       </div>
15848       <div class="tags">
15849
15850
15851         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>.
15852
15853
15854       </div>
15855     </div>
15856     <div class="padding"></div>
15857
15858     <div class="entry">
15859       <div class="title">
15860         <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>
15861       </div>
15862       <div class="date">
15863         18th July 2010
15864       </div>
15865       <div class="body">
15866         <p>Thanks to
15867 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
15868 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
15869 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
15870 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
15871 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
15872 only available from the development server, until more experience is
15873 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
15874
15875 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
15876 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
15877 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
15878 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
15879 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
15880 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
15881 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
15882
15883       </div>
15884       <div class="tags">
15885
15886
15887         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>.
15888
15889
15890       </div>
15891     </div>
15892     <div class="padding"></div>
15893
15894     <div class="entry">
15895       <div class="title">
15896         <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>
15897       </div>
15898       <div class="date">
15899         17th July 2010
15900       </div>
15901       <div class="body">
15902         <p>This is a
15903 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
15904 on my
15905 <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
15906 work</a> on
15907 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
15908 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
15909
15910 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
15911 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
15912 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
15913 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
15914
15915 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
15916 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
15917 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
15918
15919 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
15920
15921 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
15922 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
15923 the web.
15924
15925 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
15926 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
15927 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
15928 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
15929 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
15930 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
15931
15932 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
15933 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
15934 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
15935 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
15936 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
15937 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
15938 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
15939 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
15940 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
15941 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
15942 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
15943 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
15944 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
15945 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
15946 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
15947 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
15948
15949 <blockquote><pre>
15950 ldapsearch -h ldap \
15951   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
15952   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
15953   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
15954   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
15955   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
15956   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
15957
15958 ldapsearch -h ldap \
15959   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
15960   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
15961   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
15962   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
15963   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
15964 </pre></blockquote>
15965
15966 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
15967 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
15968 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
15969 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15970 also exist.</p>
15971
15972 <blockquote><pre>
15973 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15974 objectclass: top
15975 objectclass: dnsdomain
15976 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
15977 dc: tjener
15978 arecord: 10.0.2.2
15979 associateddomain: tjener.intern
15980
15981 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15982 objectclass: top
15983 objectclass: dnsdomain2
15984 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
15985 dc: 2
15986 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
15987 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
15988 </pre></blockquote>
15989
15990 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
15991 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
15992 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
15993 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
15994 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
15995 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
15996 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
15997 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
15998 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
15999 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
16000 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
16001 instead.</p>
16002
16003 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
16004 like this:</p>
16005
16006 <blockquote><pre>
16007 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
16008   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
16009   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
16010   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
16011   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
16012   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
16013
16014 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
16015   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
16016 </pre></blockquote>
16017
16018 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
16019 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
16020 reverse lookups.</p>
16021
16022 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
16023 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
16024 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
16025 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
16026
16027 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
16028 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
16029 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
16030
16031 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
16032 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
16033 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
16034 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
16035 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
16036
16037 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
16038 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
16039 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
16040 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
16041 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
16042
16043 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
16044 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
16045 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
16046 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
16047 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
16048 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
16049
16050 <blockquote><pre>
16051 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
16052     SUP top
16053     AUXILIARY
16054     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
16055           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
16056           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
16057           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
16058           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
16059     ))
16060 </pre></blockquote>
16061
16062 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
16063 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
16064 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
16065 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
16066 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
16067 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
16068
16069 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
16070
16071 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
16072 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
16073 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
16074 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
16075 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
16076
16077 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
16078 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
16079 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
16080 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
16081
16082 <blockquote><pre>
16083 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
16084 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
16085 </pre></blockquote>
16086
16087 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
16088 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
16089 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
16090 search result is this entry:</p>
16091
16092 <blockquote><pre>
16093 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16094 cn: dhcp
16095 objectClass: top
16096 objectClass: dhcpServer
16097 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16098 </pre></blockquote>
16099
16100 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
16101 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
16102 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
16103 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
16104 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
16105 The search result is this entry:</p>
16106
16107 <blockquote><pre>
16108 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16109 cn: DHCP Config
16110 objectClass: top
16111 objectClass: dhcpService
16112 objectClass: dhcpOptions
16113 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16114 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
16115 dhcpStatements: authoritative
16116 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
16117 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
16118 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
16119 </pre></blockquote>
16120
16121 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
16122 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
16123 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
16124 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
16125 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
16126 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
16127 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
16128 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
16129 related computer objects.</p>
16130
16131 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
16132 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
16133 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
16134 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
16135 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
16136 like:</p>
16137
16138 <blockquote><pre>
16139 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16140 cn: hostname
16141 objectClass: top
16142 objectClass: dhcpHost
16143 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
16144 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
16145 </pre></blockquote>
16146
16147 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
16148 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
16149 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
16150 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
16151 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
16152 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
16153 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
16154 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
16155 structural object class.
16156
16157 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
16158
16159 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
16160 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
16161 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
16162 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
16163 in the configuration.</p>
16164
16165 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
16166 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
16167 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
16168 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
16169 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
16170 structure.</p>
16171
16172 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
16173 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
16174
16175 <blockquote><pre>
16176 ou=services
16177   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
16178     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
16179     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
16180       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
16181         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
16182     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
16183       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
16184         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
16185     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
16186       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
16187 </pre></blockquote>
16188
16189 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
16190 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
16191 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
16192 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
16193
16194 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
16195 like this:</p>
16196
16197 <blockquote><pre>
16198 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16199 dc: hostname
16200 objectClass: top
16201 objectClass: dhcpHost
16202 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
16203 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
16204 associateddomain: hostname.intern
16205 arecord: 10.11.12.13
16206 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
16207 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
16208 </pre></blockquote>
16209
16210 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
16211 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
16212 auxiliary object class.</p>
16213
16214       </div>
16215       <div class="tags">
16216
16217
16218         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>.
16219
16220
16221       </div>
16222     </div>
16223     <div class="padding"></div>
16224
16225     <div class="entry">
16226       <div class="title">
16227         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
16228       </div>
16229       <div class="date">
16230         14th July 2010
16231       </div>
16232       <div class="body">
16233         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
16234 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
16235 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
16236 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
16237 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
16238
16239 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
16240 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
16241
16242 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
16243 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
16244 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
16245 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
16246 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
16247 to a slave DNS server.</p>
16248
16249 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
16250 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
16251 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
16252 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
16253 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
16254 seem to work.</p>
16255
16256 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
16257 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
16258 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
16259 this:</p>
16260
16261 <blockquote><pre>
16262   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16263   cn: hostname
16264   objectClass: dhcphost
16265   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
16266   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
16267   associateddomain: hostname.intern
16268   arecord: 10.11.12.13
16269   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
16270   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
16271   ldapconfigsound: Y
16272 </pre></blockquote>
16273
16274 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
16275 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
16276 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
16277 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
16278
16279 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
16280 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
16281 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
16282 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
16283 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
16284 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
16285 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
16286 might be a good place to put it.</p>
16287
16288 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16289 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16290
16291       </div>
16292       <div class="tags">
16293
16294
16295         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>.
16296
16297
16298       </div>
16299     </div>
16300     <div class="padding"></div>
16301
16302     <div class="entry">
16303       <div class="title">
16304         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
16305       </div>
16306       <div class="date">
16307         11th July 2010
16308       </div>
16309       <div class="body">
16310         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
16311 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
16312 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
16313 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
16314
16315 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
16316 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
16317 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
16318 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
16319 LTSP clients.</p>
16320
16321 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
16322 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
16323 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
16324
16325 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
16326 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
16327 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
16328
16329 <blockquote><pre>
16330 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
16331 #
16332 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
16333 #
16334 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
16335 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
16336 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
16337 #
16338 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
16339 # existence of attribute names.
16340 #
16341 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
16342 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
16343 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
16344 #
16345 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
16346 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
16347 #
16348 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
16349 #     SUP top
16350 #     AUXILIARY
16351 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
16352
16353 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
16354 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
16355     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
16356     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
16357         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
16358         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
16359             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
16360             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
16361             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
16362             # bass value on to clients
16363             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
16364         done
16365     done
16366 fi
16367 </pre></blockquote>
16368
16369 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
16370 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
16371 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
16372 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
16373 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
16374
16375 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16376 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16377
16378 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
16379 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
16380 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
16381 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
16382 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
16383 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
16384
16385       </div>
16386       <div class="tags">
16387
16388
16389         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>.
16390
16391
16392       </div>
16393     </div>
16394     <div class="padding"></div>
16395
16396     <div class="entry">
16397       <div class="title">
16398         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
16399       </div>
16400       <div class="date">
16401          9th July 2010
16402       </div>
16403       <div class="body">
16404         <p>Since
16405 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
16406 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
16407 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
16408 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
16409 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
16410 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
16411 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
16412 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
16413 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
16414 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
16415 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
16416 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
16417 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
16418
16419       </div>
16420       <div class="tags">
16421
16422
16423         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>.
16424
16425
16426       </div>
16427     </div>
16428     <div class="padding"></div>
16429
16430     <div class="entry">
16431       <div class="title">
16432         <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>
16433       </div>
16434       <div class="date">
16435          3rd July 2010
16436       </div>
16437       <div class="body">
16438         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
16439 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
16440 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
16441 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
16442 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
16443 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
16444 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
16445 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
16446
16447 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
16448 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
16449 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
16450 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
16451 publish the difference.</p>
16452
16453 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
16454
16455 <blockquote><p>
16456   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
16457   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
16458   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
16459   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
16460   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
16461   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
16462   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
16463   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
16464 </p></blockquote>
16465
16466 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
16467
16468 <blockquote><p>
16469   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
16470   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
16471   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
16472   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
16473   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
16474   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
16475   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
16476   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
16477   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
16478   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
16479   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
16480   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
16481   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
16482   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
16483   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
16484   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
16485   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
16486   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
16487   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
16488   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
16489 </p></blockquote>
16490
16491 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
16492
16493 <blockquote><p>
16494   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
16495   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
16496   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
16497   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
16498   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
16499   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
16500   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
16501   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
16502   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
16503   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
16504   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
16505   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
16506   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
16507   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
16508   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
16509   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
16510   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
16511   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
16512   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
16513   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
16514   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
16515 </p></blockquote>
16516
16517 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
16518
16519 <blockquote><p>
16520   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
16521   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
16522   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
16523 </p></blockquote>
16524
16525 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
16526 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
16527 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
16528 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
16529 the difference somewhat.
16530
16531       </div>
16532       <div class="tags">
16533
16534
16535         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>.
16536
16537
16538       </div>
16539     </div>
16540     <div class="padding"></div>
16541
16542     <div class="entry">
16543       <div class="title">
16544         <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>
16545       </div>
16546       <div class="date">
16547          1st July 2010
16548       </div>
16549       <div class="body">
16550         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
16551 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
16552 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
16553 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
16554 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
16555 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
16556 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
16557 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
16558 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
16559
16560 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
16561
16562 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
16563 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
16564 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
16565 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
16566 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
16567 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
16568 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
16569 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
16570 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
16571 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
16572 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
16573 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
16574 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
16575 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
16576 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
16577
16578 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
16579
16580 <blockquote><pre>
16581 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
16582 </pre></blockquote>
16583
16584 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
16585 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
16586 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
16587 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
16588 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
16589 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
16590 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
16591 on how to get this working.</p>
16592
16593 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
16594 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
16595 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
16596 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
16597 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
16598 instructions I found in the
16599 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
16600 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
16601
16602 <blockquote><pre>
16603         debug-level             0
16604         reload-count            unlimited
16605         paranoia                no
16606
16607         enable-cache            passwd          yes
16608         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
16609         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
16610         suggested-size          passwd          211
16611         check-files             passwd          yes
16612         persistent              passwd          yes
16613         shared                  passwd          yes
16614         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
16615         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
16616
16617         enable-cache            group           yes
16618         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
16619         negative-time-to-live   group           20
16620         suggested-size          group           211
16621         check-files             group           yes
16622         persistent              group           yes
16623         shared                  group           yes
16624         max-db-size             group           33554432
16625         auto-propagate          group           yes
16626
16627         enable-cache            hosts           no
16628         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
16629         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
16630         suggested-size          hosts           211
16631         check-files             hosts           yes
16632         persistent              hosts           yes
16633         shared                  hosts           yes
16634         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
16635
16636         enable-cache            services        yes
16637         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
16638         negative-time-to-live   services        20
16639         suggested-size          services        211
16640         check-files             services        yes
16641         persistent              services        yes
16642         shared                  services        yes
16643         max-db-size             services        33554432
16644 </pre></blockquote>
16645
16646 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
16647 automatically like the one provided in
16648 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
16649 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
16650 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
16651 look like this:</p>
16652
16653 <blockquote><pre>
16654 passwd:         files ldap
16655 group:          files ldap
16656 shadow:         files ldap
16657 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
16658 networks:       files
16659 protocols:      files
16660 services:       files
16661 ethers:         files
16662 rpc:            files
16663 netgroup:       files ldap
16664 </pre></blockquote>
16665
16666 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
16667 shadow and netgroup.</p>
16668
16669 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
16670 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
16671 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
16672 attributes cached.
16673
16674 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
16675   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
16676
16677 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
16678 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
16679 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
16680 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
16681 discovered sssd.</p>
16682
16683 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
16684
16685 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
16686 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
16687 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
16688 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
16689 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
16690 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
16691 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
16692 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
16693 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
16694 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
16695 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
16696 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
16697 version 1.2 is now in testing.
16698
16699 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
16700 roaming setup I want</p>
16701
16702 <blockquote><pre>
16703 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
16704 </pre></blockquote>
16705
16706 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
16707 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
16708
16709 <blockquote><pre>
16710 [sssd]
16711 config_file_version = 2
16712 reconnection_retries = 3
16713 sbus_timeout = 30
16714 services = nss, pam
16715 domains = INTERN
16716
16717 [nss]
16718 filter_groups = root
16719 filter_users = root
16720 reconnection_retries = 3
16721
16722 [pam]
16723 reconnection_retries = 3
16724
16725 [domain/INTERN]
16726 enumerate = false
16727 cache_credentials = true
16728
16729 id_provider = ldap
16730 auth_provider = ldap
16731 chpass_provider = ldap
16732
16733 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
16734 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16735 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
16736 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
16737 </pre></blockquote>
16738
16739 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
16740 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
16741
16742 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
16743 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
16744 modify it manually.</p>
16745
16746 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16747 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16748
16749       </div>
16750       <div class="tags">
16751
16752
16753         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>.
16754
16755
16756       </div>
16757     </div>
16758     <div class="padding"></div>
16759
16760     <div class="entry">
16761       <div class="title">
16762         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
16763       </div>
16764       <div class="date">
16765         28th June 2010
16766       </div>
16767       <div class="body">
16768         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
16769 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
16770 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
16771 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
16772 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
16773 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
16774 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
16775 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
16776 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
16777 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
16778
16779 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
16780 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
16781 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
16782 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
16783 released.</p>
16784
16785 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
16786 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
16787 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
16788 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
16789
16790 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
16791 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16792
16793 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
16794 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
16795 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
16796 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
16797 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
16798
16799       </div>
16800       <div class="tags">
16801
16802
16803         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>.
16804
16805
16806       </div>
16807     </div>
16808     <div class="padding"></div>
16809
16810     <div class="entry">
16811       <div class="title">
16812         <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>
16813       </div>
16814       <div class="date">
16815         24th June 2010
16816       </div>
16817       <div class="body">
16818         <p>A while back, I
16819 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
16820 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
16821 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
16822 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
16823
16824 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
16825 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
16826 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
16827 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
16828
16829 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
16830 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
16831 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
16832 Debian Edu.</p>
16833
16834 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
16835 the
16836 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
16837 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
16838 available today from IETF.</p>
16839
16840 <pre>
16841 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
16842 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
16843 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
16844  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
16845         NAME 'dhcpHost'
16846         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
16847 -       SUP top
16848 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
16849         MUST cn
16850         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
16851         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
16852 </pre>
16853
16854 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
16855 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
16856 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
16857
16858 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16859 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16860
16861       </div>
16862       <div class="tags">
16863
16864
16865         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>.
16866
16867
16868       </div>
16869     </div>
16870     <div class="padding"></div>
16871
16872     <div class="entry">
16873       <div class="title">
16874         <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>
16875       </div>
16876       <div class="date">
16877         16th June 2010
16878       </div>
16879       <div class="body">
16880         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
16881 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
16882 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
16883 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
16884 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
16885 this:
16886
16887 <blockquote><pre>
16888 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
16889 tasksel --new-install
16890 </pre></blockquote>
16891
16892 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
16893 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
16894 any output what so ever.
16895
16896 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
16897 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
16898 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
16899 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
16900 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
16901 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
16902 code like this:
16903
16904 <blockquote><pre>
16905 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
16906 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
16907 $cmd
16908 </pre></blockquote>
16909
16910 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
16911 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
16912 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
16913 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
16914 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
16915 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
16916 installation.</p>
16917
16918 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
16919 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
16920 like this.</p>
16921
16922       </div>
16923       <div class="tags">
16924
16925
16926         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>.
16927
16928
16929       </div>
16930     </div>
16931     <div class="padding"></div>
16932
16933     <div class="entry">
16934       <div class="title">
16935         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
16936       </div>
16937       <div class="date">
16938         13th June 2010
16939       </div>
16940       <div class="body">
16941         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
16942 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
16943 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
16944 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
16945 pages.</p>
16946
16947 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
16948 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
16949 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
16950 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
16951 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
16952 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
16953 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
16954 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
16955 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
16956 see how the project is doing.</p>
16957
16958 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
16959 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
16960 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
16961 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
16962 Windows.  This is great.</p>
16963
16964       </div>
16965       <div class="tags">
16966
16967
16968         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>.
16969
16970
16971       </div>
16972     </div>
16973     <div class="padding"></div>
16974
16975     <div class="entry">
16976       <div class="title">
16977         <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>
16978       </div>
16979       <div class="date">
16980         13th June 2010
16981       </div>
16982       <div class="body">
16983         <p>My
16984 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
16985 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
16986 finally made the upgrade logs available from
16987 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
16988 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
16989 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
16990 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
16991
16992 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
16993 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
16994 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
16995 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
16996 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
16997 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
16998 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
16999 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
17000
17001 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
17002 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
17003 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
17004 too surprising.</p>
17005
17006 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
17007 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
17008 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
17009 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
17010 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
17011 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
17012 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
17013 continue.</p>
17014
17015 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
17016 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
17017   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
17018   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
17019   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
17020   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
17021   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
17022   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
17023   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
17024   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
17025   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
17026   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
17027   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
17028   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
17029   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
17030   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
17031   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
17032   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
17033   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
17034   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
17035   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
17036   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
17037   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
17038   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
17039   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
17040   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
17041   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
17042   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
17043   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
17044   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
17045
17046 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
17047
17048 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
17049   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
17050   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
17051   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
17052   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
17053   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
17054   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
17055   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
17056   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
17057   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
17058   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
17059   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
17060   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
17061   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
17062   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
17063   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
17064   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
17065   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
17066   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
17067   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
17068   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
17069   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
17070   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
17071   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
17072   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
17073   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
17074   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
17075   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
17076   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
17077   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
17078   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
17079   zip</p>
17080
17081 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
17082
17083 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
17084   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
17085   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
17086   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
17087   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
17088   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
17089   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
17090   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
17091   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
17092   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
17093   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
17094   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
17095   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
17096   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
17097   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
17098   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
17099   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
17100   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
17101   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
17102   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
17103   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
17104   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
17105   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
17106   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
17107   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
17108   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
17109   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
17110   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
17111
17112 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
17113 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
17114   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
17115   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
17116   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
17117   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
17118   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
17119   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
17120   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
17121   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
17122   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
17123   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
17124   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
17125   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
17126   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
17127   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
17128   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
17129   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
17130   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
17131   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
17132   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
17133   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
17134   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
17135   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
17136   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
17137   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
17138   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
17139   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
17140   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
17141   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
17142   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
17143   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
17144   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
17145   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
17146   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
17147   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
17148   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
17149   xulrunner-1.9</p>
17150
17151
17152       </div>
17153       <div class="tags">
17154
17155
17156         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>.
17157
17158
17159       </div>
17160     </div>
17161     <div class="padding"></div>
17162
17163     <div class="entry">
17164       <div class="title">
17165         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
17166       </div>
17167       <div class="date">
17168         11th June 2010
17169       </div>
17170       <div class="body">
17171         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
17172 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
17173 have been discovered and reported in the process
17174 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
17175 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
17176 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
17177 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
17178 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
17179
17180 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
17181 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
17182 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
17183 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
17184 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
17185 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
17186
17187 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
17188 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
17189 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
17190 is created.  The bug report
17191 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
17192 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
17193 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
17194 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
17195 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
17196 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
17197 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
17198 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
17199 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
17200 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
17201 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
17202 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
17203 Debian Squeeze.</p>
17204
17205 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
17206 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
17207 trick:</p>
17208
17209 <blockquote><pre>
17210 #!/bin/sh
17211 set -ex
17212
17213 if [ "$1" ] ; then
17214     desktop=$1
17215 else
17216     desktop=gnome
17217 fi
17218
17219 from=lenny
17220 to=squeeze
17221
17222 exec &lt; /dev/null
17223 unset LANG
17224 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
17225 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
17226 fuser -mv .
17227 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
17228 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
17229 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
17230 #!/bin/sh
17231 exit 101
17232 EOF
17233 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
17234 exit_cleanup() {
17235     umount $tmpdir/proc
17236 }
17237 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
17238 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
17239 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
17240
17241 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
17242
17243 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
17244 # to return the correct answers.
17245 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
17246     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
17247
17248 # Include the desktop and laptop task
17249 for test in desktop laptop ; do
17250     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
17251 #!/bin/sh
17252 exit 2
17253 EOF
17254     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
17255 done
17256
17257 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
17258 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
17259 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
17260 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
17261
17262 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
17263 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
17264 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
17265 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
17266 fuser -mv
17267 </pre></blockquote>
17268
17269 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
17270 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
17271 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
17272 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
17273 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
17274 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
17275
17276 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
17277 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
17278 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
17279 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
17280 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
17281 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
17282 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
17283
17284 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
17285 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
17286 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
17287 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
17288 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
17289 packages.</p>
17290
17291       </div>
17292       <div class="tags">
17293
17294
17295         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>.
17296
17297
17298       </div>
17299     </div>
17300     <div class="padding"></div>
17301
17302     <div class="entry">
17303       <div class="title">
17304         <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>
17305       </div>
17306       <div class="date">
17307          6th June 2010
17308       </div>
17309       <div class="body">
17310         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
17311 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
17312 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
17313 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
17314 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
17315 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
17316 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
17317
17318 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
17319 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
17320 COLUMNS):</p>
17321
17322 <blockquote><pre>
17323 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
17324 previous=N
17325 PREVLEVEL=
17326 RUNLEVEL=
17327 runlevel=S
17328 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
17329 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
17330 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
17331 </pre></blockquote>
17332
17333 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
17334 script.</p>
17335
17336 <blockquote><pre>
17337 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
17338 previous=N
17339 PREVLEVEL=N
17340 RUNLEVEL=S
17341 runlevel=S
17342 </pre></blockquote>
17343
17344 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
17345 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
17346 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
17347
17348 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
17349 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
17350 choice.</p>
17351
17352       </div>
17353       <div class="tags">
17354
17355
17356         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>.
17357
17358
17359       </div>
17360     </div>
17361     <div class="padding"></div>
17362
17363     <div class="entry">
17364       <div class="title">
17365         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
17366       </div>
17367       <div class="date">
17368          6th June 2010
17369       </div>
17370       <div class="body">
17371         <p>Via the
17372 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
17373 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
17374 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
17375 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
17376 following the standards wars of today.</p>
17377
17378       </div>
17379       <div class="tags">
17380
17381
17382         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>.
17383
17384
17385       </div>
17386     </div>
17387     <div class="padding"></div>
17388
17389     <div class="entry">
17390       <div class="title">
17391         <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>
17392       </div>
17393       <div class="date">
17394          3rd June 2010
17395       </div>
17396       <div class="body">
17397         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
17398 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
17399 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
17400 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
17401 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
17402
17403 <blockquote><pre>
17404 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
17405   vendor                    count
17406   Dell Computer Corporation     1
17407     PowerEdge 1750              1
17408   IBM                           1
17409     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
17410   Intel                         2
17411   [no-dmi-info]                 3
17412 maintainer:~#
17413 </pre></blockquote>
17414
17415 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
17416 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
17417 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
17418 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
17419 option to list the individual machines.</p>
17420
17421 <p>A larger list is
17422 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
17423 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
17424 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
17425 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
17426 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
17427 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
17428 collector.</p>
17429
17430       </div>
17431       <div class="tags">
17432
17433
17434         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>.
17435
17436
17437       </div>
17438     </div>
17439     <div class="padding"></div>
17440
17441     <div class="entry">
17442       <div class="title">
17443         <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>
17444       </div>
17445       <div class="date">
17446          1st June 2010
17447       </div>
17448       <div class="body">
17449         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
17450 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
17451 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
17452 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
17453 wait.</p>
17454
17455 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
17456 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
17457 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
17458 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
17459 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
17460 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
17461
17462 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
17463 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
17464 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
17465 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
17466 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
17467 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
17468 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
17469 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
17470
17471 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
17472
17473       </div>
17474       <div class="tags">
17475
17476
17477         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>.
17478
17479
17480       </div>
17481     </div>
17482     <div class="padding"></div>
17483
17484     <div class="entry">
17485       <div class="title">
17486         <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>
17487       </div>
17488       <div class="date">
17489         27th May 2010
17490       </div>
17491       <div class="body">
17492         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
17493 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
17494 issues are known and should be solved:
17495
17496 <p><ul>
17497
17498 <li>The wicd package seen to
17499 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
17500 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
17501 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
17502 seem to be on the case.</li>
17503
17504 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
17505 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
17506 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
17507 maintainer is on the case.</li>
17508
17509 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
17510 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
17511 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
17512 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
17513 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
17514 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
17515 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
17516 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
17517
17518 </ul></p>
17519
17520 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
17521 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
17522 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
17523 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
17524
17525 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
17526 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
17527 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
17528 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
17529
17530 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
17531
17532       </div>
17533       <div class="tags">
17534
17535
17536         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>.
17537
17538
17539       </div>
17540     </div>
17541     <div class="padding"></div>
17542
17543     <div class="entry">
17544       <div class="title">
17545         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
17546       </div>
17547       <div class="date">
17548         22nd May 2010
17549       </div>
17550       <div class="body">
17551         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
17552 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
17553 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
17554 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
17555
17556 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
17557 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
17558 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
17559 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
17560 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
17561 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
17562 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
17563 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
17564 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
17565 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
17566 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
17567 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
17568 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
17569 going to work.</p>
17570
17571 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
17572 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
17573 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
17574 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
17575 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
17576 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
17577 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
17578 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
17579 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
17580 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
17581 Edu.</p>
17582
17583 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
17584 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
17585 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
17586 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
17587 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
17588 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
17589
17590 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
17591 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
17592
17593       </div>
17594       <div class="tags">
17595
17596
17597         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>.
17598
17599
17600       </div>
17601     </div>
17602     <div class="padding"></div>
17603
17604     <div class="entry">
17605       <div class="title">
17606         <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>
17607       </div>
17608       <div class="date">
17609         19th May 2010
17610       </div>
17611       <div class="body">
17612         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
17613 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
17614 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
17615 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
17616 into unstable.  The
17617 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
17618 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
17619 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
17620 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
17621 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
17622 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
17623 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
17624
17625 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
17626 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
17627 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
17628 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
17629 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
17630 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
17631 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
17632 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
17633
17634 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
17635 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
17636 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
17637 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
17638 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
17639 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
17640 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
17641
17642 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
17643 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
17644 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
17645 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
17646 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
17647 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
17648 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
17649 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
17650 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
17651 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
17652 on the home directory servers.</p>
17653
17654 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
17655 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
17656 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
17657 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
17658 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
17659 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
17660
17661 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
17662 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17663
17664       </div>
17665       <div class="tags">
17666
17667
17668         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>.
17669
17670
17671       </div>
17672     </div>
17673     <div class="padding"></div>
17674
17675     <div class="entry">
17676       <div class="title">
17677         <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>
17678       </div>
17679       <div class="date">
17680         14th May 2010
17681       </div>
17682       <div class="body">
17683         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
17684 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
17685 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
17686 expected, if I am to believe the
17687 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
17688 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
17689 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
17690 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
17691 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
17692 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
17693 version.</p>
17694
17695 More information about
17696 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
17697 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
17698 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
17699 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
17700
17701 <blockquote><pre>
17702 CONCURRENCY=none
17703 </pre></blockquote>
17704
17705 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
17706 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
17707 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
17708 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
17709
17710       </div>
17711       <div class="tags">
17712
17713
17714         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>.
17715
17716
17717       </div>
17718     </div>
17719     <div class="padding"></div>
17720
17721     <div class="entry">
17722       <div class="title">
17723         <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>
17724       </div>
17725       <div class="date">
17726         14th May 2010
17727       </div>
17728       <div class="body">
17729         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
17730 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
17731 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
17732 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
17733 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
17734 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
17735 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
17736 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
17737
17738 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
17739 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
17740 this on the collector host:</p>
17741
17742 <blockquote><pre>
17743 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
17744 </pre></blockquote>
17745
17746 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
17747 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
17748
17749 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
17750 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
17751 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
17752 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
17753 written yet.</p>
17754
17755       </div>
17756       <div class="tags">
17757
17758
17759         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>.
17760
17761
17762       </div>
17763     </div>
17764     <div class="padding"></div>
17765
17766     <div class="entry">
17767       <div class="title">
17768         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
17769       </div>
17770       <div class="date">
17771         13th May 2010
17772       </div>
17773       <div class="body">
17774         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
17775 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
17776 has been
17777 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
17778
17779 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
17780 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
17781 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
17782 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
17783 based boot system.  Tollef is
17784 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
17785 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
17786 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
17787 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
17788 at the moment do not.</p>
17789
17790 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
17791 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
17792 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
17793 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
17794 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
17795 way forward.</p>
17796
17797 <p>In the mean time, based on the
17798 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
17799 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
17800 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
17801 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
17802 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
17803 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
17804 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
17805 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
17806
17807       </div>
17808       <div class="tags">
17809
17810
17811         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>.
17812
17813
17814       </div>
17815     </div>
17816     <div class="padding"></div>
17817
17818     <div class="entry">
17819       <div class="title">
17820         <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>
17821       </div>
17822       <div class="date">
17823          6th May 2010
17824       </div>
17825       <div class="body">
17826         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
17827 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
17828 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
17829 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
17830 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
17831 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
17832 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
17833
17834 <blockquote><pre>
17835 CONCURRENCY=makefile
17836 </pre></blockquote>
17837
17838 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
17839 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
17840 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
17841 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
17842 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
17843 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
17844 make this happen.</p>
17845
17846 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
17847 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
17848 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
17849 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
17850 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
17851
17852 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
17853 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
17854 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
17855 fix the remaining issues.</p>
17856
17857 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
17858 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
17859 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
17860 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
17861
17862       </div>
17863       <div class="tags">
17864
17865
17866         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>.
17867
17868
17869       </div>
17870     </div>
17871     <div class="padding"></div>
17872
17873     <div class="entry">
17874       <div class="title">
17875         <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>
17876       </div>
17877       <div class="date">
17878          2nd May 2010
17879       </div>
17880       <div class="body">
17881         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
17882 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
17883 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
17884
17885 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
17886 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
17887 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
17888 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
17889 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
17890
17891 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
17892 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
17893
17894 <blockquote><pre>
17895 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
17896 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
17897 Password expires                                        : never
17898 Password inactive                                       : never
17899 Account expires                                         : never
17900 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
17901 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
17902 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
17903 root@tjener:~#
17904 </pre></blockquote>
17905
17906 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
17907 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
17908 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
17909 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
17910 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
17911 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
17912
17913 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
17914 intended:</p>
17915
17916 <blockquote><pre>
17917 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
17918 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
17919 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
17920 Password expires                                        : never
17921 Password inactive                                       : never
17922 Account expires                                         : never
17923 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
17924 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
17925 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
17926 root@tjener:~#
17927 </pre></blockquote>
17928
17929 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
17930 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
17931 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
17932
17933 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
17934 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
17935
17936 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
17937 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17938
17939 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
17940 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
17941 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
17942 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
17943 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
17944 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
17945 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
17946
17947 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
17948 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
17949 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
17950 change.</p>
17951
17952       </div>
17953       <div class="tags">
17954
17955
17956         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>.
17957
17958
17959       </div>
17960     </div>
17961     <div class="padding"></div>
17962
17963     <div class="entry">
17964       <div class="title">
17965         <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>
17966       </div>
17967       <div class="date">
17968         28th April 2010
17969       </div>
17970       <div class="body">
17971         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
17972 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
17973 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
17974 and go.</p>
17975
17976 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
17977 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
17978 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
17979 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
17980
17981 <ul>
17982
17983  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
17984    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
17985    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
17986    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
17987    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
17988    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
17989    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
17990    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
17991    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
17992    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
17993    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
17994    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
17995
17996  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
17997    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
17998    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
17999    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
18000    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
18001    or the Fedora developed
18002    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
18003    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
18004
18005  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
18006    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
18007    directory, using unison.</li>
18008
18009  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
18010    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
18011    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
18012    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
18013    implemented.</li>
18014
18015  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
18016    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
18017
18018  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
18019    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
18020    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
18021
18022 </ul>
18023
18024 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
18025 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
18026 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
18027 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
18028 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
18029 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
18030 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
18031 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
18032 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
18033
18034 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
18035 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18036
18037       </div>
18038       <div class="tags">
18039
18040
18041         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>.
18042
18043
18044       </div>
18045     </div>
18046     <div class="padding"></div>
18047
18048     <div class="entry">
18049       <div class="title">
18050         <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>
18051       </div>
18052       <div class="date">
18053         19th April 2010
18054       </div>
18055       <div class="body">
18056         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
18057 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
18058 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
18059 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
18060 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
18061 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
18062 restrictions on the web, for example from
18063 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
18064 epub-version from
18065 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
18066 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
18067 strongly recommend this book.</p>
18068
18069       </div>
18070       <div class="tags">
18071
18072
18073         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>.
18074
18075
18076       </div>
18077     </div>
18078     <div class="padding"></div>
18079
18080     <div class="entry">
18081       <div class="title">
18082         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
18083       </div>
18084       <div class="date">
18085         14th April 2010
18086       </div>
18087       <div class="body">
18088         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
18089 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
18090 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
18091 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
18092 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
18093 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
18094 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
18095 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
18096 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
18097
18098 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
18099 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
18100 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
18101 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
18102 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
18103
18104 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
18105 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
18106
18107 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
18108 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
18109 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
18110 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
18111 to work properly.</p>
18112
18113 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
18114 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
18115 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
18116 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
18117 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
18118 time.</p>
18119
18120 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
18121 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
18122 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
18123 up in a few days.</p>
18124
18125       </div>
18126       <div class="tags">
18127
18128
18129         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>.
18130
18131
18132       </div>
18133     </div>
18134     <div class="padding"></div>
18135
18136     <div class="entry">
18137       <div class="title">
18138         <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>
18139       </div>
18140       <div class="date">
18141          6th March 2010
18142       </div>
18143       <div class="body">
18144         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
18145 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
18146 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
18147 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
18148 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
18149 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
18150
18151 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
18152 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
18153 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
18154 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
18155
18156 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
18157 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
18158 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
18159 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
18160 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
18161 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
18162
18163       </div>
18164       <div class="tags">
18165
18166
18167         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>.
18168
18169
18170       </div>
18171     </div>
18172     <div class="padding"></div>
18173
18174     <div class="entry">
18175       <div class="title">
18176         <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>
18177       </div>
18178       <div class="date">
18179         11th February 2010
18180       </div>
18181       <div class="body">
18182         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
18183 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
18184 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
18185 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
18186 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
18187 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
18188 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
18189
18190 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
18191
18192 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
18193 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
18194 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
18195 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
18196
18197       </div>
18198       <div class="tags">
18199
18200
18201         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>.
18202
18203
18204       </div>
18205     </div>
18206     <div class="padding"></div>
18207
18208     <div class="entry">
18209       <div class="title">
18210         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
18211       </div>
18212       <div class="date">
18213         27th January 2010
18214       </div>
18215       <div class="body">
18216         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
18217 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
18218 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
18219 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
18220 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
18221 further.</p>
18222
18223 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
18224 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
18225 configured to be a server for the
18226 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
18227 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
18228 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
18229 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
18230 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
18231 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
18232 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
18233 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
18234 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
18235 and Nagios configuration.</p>
18236
18237 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
18238 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
18239 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
18240 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
18241
18242 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
18243 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
18244 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
18245 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
18246 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
18247 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
18248 the machine.</p>
18249
18250 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
18251 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
18252 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
18253 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
18254
18255 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
18256 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
18257 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
18258 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
18259 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
18260 everything is taken care of.</p>
18261
18262       </div>
18263       <div class="tags">
18264
18265
18266         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>.
18267
18268
18269       </div>
18270     </div>
18271     <div class="padding"></div>
18272
18273     <div class="entry">
18274       <div class="title">
18275         <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>
18276       </div>
18277       <div class="date">
18278         12th August 2009
18279       </div>
18280       <div class="body">
18281         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
18282 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
18283 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
18284 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
18285
18286 <table>
18287 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
18288 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
18289 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
18290 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
18291 </table>
18292
18293 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
18294 got these numbers:</p>
18295
18296 <table>
18297 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
18298 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
18299 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
18300 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
18301 </table>
18302
18303 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
18304
18305 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
18306 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
18307 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
18308 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
18309 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
18310
18311
18312 <table>
18313 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
18314 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
18315 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
18316 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
18317 </table>
18318
18319 <p>And with 'site:no':
18320
18321 <table>
18322 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
18323 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
18324 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
18325 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
18326 </table>
18327
18328 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
18329 numbers.</p>
18330
18331       </div>
18332       <div class="tags">
18333
18334
18335         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>.
18336
18337
18338       </div>
18339     </div>
18340     <div class="padding"></div>
18341
18342     <div class="entry">
18343       <div class="title">
18344         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
18345       </div>
18346       <div class="date">
18347          8th August 2009
18348       </div>
18349       <div class="body">
18350         <p>According to <a
18351 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
18352 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
18353 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
18354 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
18355 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
18356 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
18357 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
18358 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
18359 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
18360 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
18361
18362 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
18363 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
18364 seminar this autumn.</p>
18365
18366       </div>
18367       <div class="tags">
18368
18369
18370         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>.
18371
18372
18373       </div>
18374     </div>
18375     <div class="padding"></div>
18376
18377     <div class="entry">
18378       <div class="title">
18379         <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>
18380       </div>
18381       <div class="date">
18382         27th July 2009
18383       </div>
18384       <div class="body">
18385         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
18386 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
18387 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
18388 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
18389 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
18390 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
18391 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
18392
18393 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
18394 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
18395 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
18396
18397       </div>
18398       <div class="tags">
18399
18400
18401         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>.
18402
18403
18404       </div>
18405     </div>
18406     <div class="padding"></div>
18407
18408     <div class="entry">
18409       <div class="title">
18410         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
18411       </div>
18412       <div class="date">
18413         22nd July 2009
18414       </div>
18415       <div class="body">
18416         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
18417 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
18418 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
18419 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
18420 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
18421 the package up to date.</p>
18422
18423 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
18424 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
18425 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
18426 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
18427 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
18428 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
18429 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
18430 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
18431 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
18432 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
18433 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
18434 working on the future release.</p>
18435
18436 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
18437 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
18438
18439       </div>
18440       <div class="tags">
18441
18442
18443         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>.
18444
18445
18446       </div>
18447     </div>
18448     <div class="padding"></div>
18449
18450     <div class="entry">
18451       <div class="title">
18452         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
18453       </div>
18454       <div class="date">
18455         24th June 2009
18456       </div>
18457       <div class="body">
18458         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
18459 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
18460 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
18461 funded
18462 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
18463 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
18464 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
18465 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
18466 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
18467 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
18468
18469 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
18470 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
18471 boot:</p>
18472
18473 <ul>
18474
18475 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
18476
18477 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
18478    clock is in UTC.</li>
18479
18480 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
18481    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
18482    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
18483
18484 </ul>
18485
18486 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
18487 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
18488 Villegas</a>.
18489
18490 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
18491 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
18492 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
18493 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
18494 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
18495 using this.</p>
18496
18497 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
18498 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
18499 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
18500 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
18501 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
18502 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
18503 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
18504
18505       </div>
18506       <div class="tags">
18507
18508
18509         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>.
18510
18511
18512       </div>
18513     </div>
18514     <div class="padding"></div>
18515
18516     <div class="entry">
18517       <div class="title">
18518         <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>
18519       </div>
18520       <div class="date">
18521          2nd May 2009
18522       </div>
18523       <div class="body">
18524         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
18525 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
18526 do not yet know them.</p>
18527
18528 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
18529 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
18530 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
18531 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
18532 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
18533 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
18534 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
18535 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
18536 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
18537 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
18538 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
18539
18540 <p>The second one is
18541 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
18542 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
18543 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
18544 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
18545 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
18546 and the company behind it is running
18547 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
18548 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
18549 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
18550 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
18551 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
18552 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
18553 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
18554 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
18555
18556 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
18557 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
18558 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
18559 surrounded by today.</p>
18560
18561       </div>
18562       <div class="tags">
18563
18564
18565         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>.
18566
18567
18568       </div>
18569     </div>
18570     <div class="padding"></div>
18571
18572     <div class="entry">
18573       <div class="title">
18574         <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>
18575       </div>
18576       <div class="date">
18577         28th April 2009
18578       </div>
18579       <div class="body">
18580         <p>Julien Blache
18581 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
18582 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
18583 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
18584 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
18585 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
18586 properties.</p>
18587
18588       </div>
18589       <div class="tags">
18590
18591
18592         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>.
18593
18594
18595       </div>
18596     </div>
18597     <div class="padding"></div>
18598
18599     <div class="entry">
18600       <div class="title">
18601         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
18602       </div>
18603       <div class="date">
18604          5th April 2009
18605       </div>
18606       <div class="body">
18607         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
18608 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
18609 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
18610 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
18611 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
18612 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
18613 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
18614 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
18615
18616 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
18617 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
18618 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
18619   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
18620   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
18621
18622 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
18623 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
18624 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
18625 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
18626
18627 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
18628 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
18629 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
18630 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
18631
18632 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
18633 set -e
18634 URL="$1"
18635 SAVEFILE="$2"
18636 DURATION="$3"
18637 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
18638   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
18639   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
18640 pid=$!
18641 sleep $DURATION
18642 kill $pid
18643 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
18644
18645       </div>
18646       <div class="tags">
18647
18648
18649         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>.
18650
18651
18652       </div>
18653     </div>
18654     <div class="padding"></div>
18655
18656     <div class="entry">
18657       <div class="title">
18658         <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>
18659       </div>
18660       <div class="date">
18661         30th March 2009
18662       </div>
18663       <div class="body">
18664         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
18665 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
18666 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
18667 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
18668 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
18669 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
18670 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
18671 application.</p>
18672
18673 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
18674 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
18675 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
18676 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
18677 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
18678 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
18679 blocked from doing so.</p>
18680
18681 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
18682 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
18683 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
18684 requirements change.</p>
18685
18686 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
18687 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
18688 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
18689
18690       </div>
18691       <div class="tags">
18692
18693
18694         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>.
18695
18696
18697       </div>
18698     </div>
18699     <div class="padding"></div>
18700
18701     <div class="entry">
18702       <div class="title">
18703         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
18704       </div>
18705       <div class="date">
18706         29th March 2009
18707       </div>
18708       <div class="body">
18709         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
18710 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
18711 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
18712 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
18713 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
18714 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
18715 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
18716 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
18717 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
18718 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
18719 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
18720 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
18721 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
18722 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
18723 now. :)</p>
18724
18725       </div>
18726       <div class="tags">
18727
18728
18729         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>.
18730
18731
18732       </div>
18733     </div>
18734     <div class="padding"></div>
18735
18736     <div class="entry">
18737       <div class="title">
18738         <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>
18739       </div>
18740       <div class="date">
18741         29th March 2009
18742       </div>
18743       <div class="body">
18744         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
18745 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
18746 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
18747 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
18748 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
18749 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
18750
18751 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
18752 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
18753 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
18754 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
18755 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
18756 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
18757 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
18758 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
18759 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
18760 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
18761 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
18762 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
18763 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
18764
18765 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
18766 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
18767 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
18768 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
18769
18770 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
18771 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
18772
18773 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
18774 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
18775 new IETF work group?</p>
18776
18777       </div>
18778       <div class="tags">
18779
18780
18781         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>.
18782
18783
18784       </div>
18785     </div>
18786     <div class="padding"></div>
18787
18788     <div class="entry">
18789       <div class="title">
18790         <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>
18791       </div>
18792       <div class="date">
18793         28th February 2009
18794       </div>
18795       <div class="body">
18796         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
18797 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
18798 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
18799 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
18800 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
18801 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
18802 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
18803 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
18804 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
18805 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
18806 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
18807 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
18808 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
18809 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
18810 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
18811 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
18812 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
18813 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
18814 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
18815 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
18816 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
18817 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
18818 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
18819 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
18820 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
18821 machine.</p>
18822
18823 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
18824 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
18825 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
18826 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
18827 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
18828 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
18829 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
18830
18831 <pre>
18832 use LWP::Simple;
18833 use POSIX;
18834 use WWW::Mechanize;
18835 use Date::Parse;
18836 [...]
18837 sub get_support_info {
18838     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
18839     my $str;
18840
18841     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
18842         # fetch website from Dell support
18843         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";
18844         my $webpage = get($url);
18845         return undef unless ($webpage);
18846
18847         my $daysleft = -1;
18848         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
18849         foreach my $line (@lines) {
18850             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
18851             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
18852             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
18853
18854             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
18855             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
18856             my $lastend = "";
18857             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
18858                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
18859
18860                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18861                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
18862                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18863                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
18864                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
18865                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
18866                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
18867             }
18868             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
18869             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
18870                 if ($lastend lt $today);
18871         }
18872     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
18873         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
18874         my $url =
18875             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
18876         $mech->get($url);
18877         my $fields = {
18878             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
18879             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
18880             'country' => 'NO',
18881             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
18882             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
18883         };
18884         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
18885                             fields      => $fields );
18886         # Next step is screen scraping
18887         my $content = $mech->content();
18888
18889         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
18890         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
18891         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
18892         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
18893
18894         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
18895
18896         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
18897             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
18898                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
18899             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
18900             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18901                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
18902             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18903                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
18904
18905             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
18906
18907             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
18908                 if ($end lt $today);
18909         }
18910     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
18911         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
18912         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
18913         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
18914             my $content =
18915                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
18916             if ($content) {
18917                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
18918                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
18919                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
18920                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
18921
18922                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
18923                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
18924
18925                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
18926
18927                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
18928                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
18929                     if ($end lt $today);
18930             }
18931         }
18932     }
18933     return $str;
18934 }
18935 </pre>
18936
18937 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
18938 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
18939 from dmidecode.</p>
18940
18941 <pre>
18942 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
18943                        "447707-B21");
18944 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
18945 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
18946                        "1234567");
18947 </pre>
18948
18949 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
18950 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
18951
18952 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
18953 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
18954 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
18955 do so.</p>
18956
18957       </div>
18958       <div class="tags">
18959
18960
18961         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>.
18962
18963
18964       </div>
18965     </div>
18966     <div class="padding"></div>
18967
18968     <div class="entry">
18969       <div class="title">
18970         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
18971       </div>
18972       <div class="date">
18973         20th February 2009
18974       </div>
18975       <div class="body">
18976         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
18977 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
18978 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
18979 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
18980 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
18981 the "missing" computer.</p>
18982
18983 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
18984 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
18985 code blocks as defined in the
18986 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
18987 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
18988 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
18989 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
18990 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
18991 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
18992 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
18993 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
18994 codes.</p>
18995
18996 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
18997 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
18998 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
18999 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
19000 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
19001 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
19002
19003 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
19004 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
19005 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
19006 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
19007 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
19008 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
19009 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
19010 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
19011 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
19012 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
19013
19014 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
19015 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
19016 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
19017
19018       </div>
19019       <div class="tags">
19020
19021
19022         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>.
19023
19024
19025       </div>
19026     </div>
19027     <div class="padding"></div>
19028
19029     <div class="entry">
19030       <div class="title">
19031         <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>
19032       </div>
19033       <div class="date">
19034         17th January 2009
19035       </div>
19036       <div class="body">
19037         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
19038 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
19039 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
19040 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
19041 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
19042 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
19043 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
19044 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
19045 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
19046 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
19047 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
19048 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
19049 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
19050 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
19051
19052 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
19053 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
19054 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
19055 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
19056 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
19057 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
19058 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
19059 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
19060 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
19061 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
19062 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
19063 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
19064 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
19065 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
19066 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
19067 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
19068 playing when the download is done.</p>
19069
19070 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
19071 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
19072 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
19073 too.</p>
19074
19075 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
19076 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
19077 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
19078 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
19079
19080       </div>
19081       <div class="tags">
19082
19083
19084         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>.
19085
19086
19087       </div>
19088     </div>
19089     <div class="padding"></div>
19090
19091     <div class="entry">
19092       <div class="title">
19093         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
19094       </div>
19095       <div class="date">
19096         28th December 2008
19097       </div>
19098       <div class="body">
19099         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
19100 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
19101 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
19102 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
19103 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
19104 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
19105 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
19106 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
19107 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
19108 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
19109 source, sink and mixer applications and
19110 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
19111 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
19112 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
19113 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
19114 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
19115 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
19116 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
19117 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
19118 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
19119
19120 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
19121 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
19122 larger stick as well.</p>
19123
19124       </div>
19125       <div class="tags">
19126
19127
19128         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>.
19129
19130
19131       </div>
19132     </div>
19133     <div class="padding"></div>
19134
19135     <div class="entry">
19136       <div class="title">
19137         <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>
19138       </div>
19139       <div class="date">
19140          7th December 2008
19141       </div>
19142       <div class="body">
19143         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
19144 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
19145 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
19146 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
19147 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
19148 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
19149 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
19150 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
19151
19152 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
19153 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
19154 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
19155 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
19156 of these cards.</p>
19157
19158       </div>
19159       <div class="tags">
19160
19161
19162         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>.
19163
19164
19165       </div>
19166     </div>
19167     <div class="padding"></div>
19168
19169     <div class="entry">
19170       <div class="title">
19171         <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>
19172       </div>
19173       <div class="date">
19174         25th November 2008
19175       </div>
19176       <div class="body">
19177         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
19178 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
19179 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
19180 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
19181 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
19182 notes are available on
19183 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
19184 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
19185 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
19186 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
19187 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
19188 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
19189 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
19190 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
19191 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
19192
19193 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
19194 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
19195
19196       </div>
19197       <div class="tags">
19198
19199
19200         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>.
19201
19202
19203       </div>
19204     </div>
19205     <div class="padding"></div>
19206
19207     <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>
19208     <div id="sidebar">
19209
19210
19211
19212 <h2>Archive</h2>
19213 <ul>
19214
19215 <li>2014
19216 <ul>
19217
19218 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
19219
19220 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
19221
19222 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (6)</a></li>
19223
19224 </ul></li>
19225
19226 <li>2013
19227 <ul>
19228
19229 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
19230
19231 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
19232
19233 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
19234
19235 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
19236
19237 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
19238
19239 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
19240
19241 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
19242
19243 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
19244
19245 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
19246
19247 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
19248
19249 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
19250
19251 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
19252
19253 </ul></li>
19254
19255 <li>2012
19256 <ul>
19257
19258 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
19259
19260 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
19261
19262 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
19263
19264 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
19265
19266 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
19267
19268 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
19269
19270 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
19271
19272 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
19273
19274 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
19275
19276 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
19277
19278 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
19279
19280 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
19281
19282 </ul></li>
19283
19284 <li>2011
19285 <ul>
19286
19287 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
19288
19289 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
19290
19291 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
19292
19293 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
19294
19295 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
19296
19297 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
19298
19299 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
19300
19301 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
19302
19303 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
19304
19305 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
19306
19307 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
19308
19309 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
19310
19311 </ul></li>
19312
19313 <li>2010
19314 <ul>
19315
19316 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
19317
19318 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
19319
19320 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
19321
19322 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
19323
19324 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
19325
19326 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
19327
19328 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
19329
19330 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
19331
19332 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
19333
19334 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
19335
19336 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
19337
19338 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
19339
19340 </ul></li>
19341
19342 <li>2009
19343 <ul>
19344
19345 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
19346
19347 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
19348
19349 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
19350
19351 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
19352
19353 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
19354
19355 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
19356
19357 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
19358
19359 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
19360
19361 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
19362
19363 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
19364
19365 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
19366
19367 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
19368
19369 </ul></li>
19370
19371 <li>2008
19372 <ul>
19373
19374 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
19375
19376 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
19377
19378 </ul></li>
19379
19380 </ul>
19381
19382
19383
19384 <h2>Tags</h2>
19385 <ul>
19386
19387  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
19388
19389  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
19390
19391  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
19392
19393  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
19394
19395  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
19396
19397  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
19398
19399  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
19400
19401  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
19402
19403  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (95)</a></li>
19404
19405  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (145)</a></li>
19406
19407  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
19408
19409  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
19410
19411  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
19412
19413  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (240)</a></li>
19414
19415  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
19416
19417  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
19418
19419  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
19420
19421  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (6)</a></li>
19422
19423  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
19424
19425  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (39)</a></li>
19426
19427  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
19428
19429  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
19430
19431  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
19432
19433  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (7)</a></li>
19434
19435  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
19436
19437  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (7)</a></li>
19438
19439  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (26)</a></li>
19440
19441  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (242)</a></li>
19442
19443  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (162)</a></li>
19444
19445  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
19446
19447  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
19448
19449  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (46)</a></li>
19450
19451  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (69)</a></li>
19452
19453  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
19454
19455  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
19456
19457  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
19458
19459  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
19460
19461  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
19462
19463  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
19464
19465  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
19466
19467  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (36)</a></li>
19468
19469  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
19470
19471  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
19472
19473  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (44)</a></li>
19474
19475  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
19476
19477  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
19478
19479  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (22)</a></li>
19480
19481  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
19482
19483  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
19484
19485  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (40)</a></li>
19486
19487  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
19488
19489  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (29)</a></li>
19490
19491 </ul>
19492
19493
19494     </div>
19495     <p style="text-align: right">
19496  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
19497 </p>
19498
19499   </body>
19500 </html>