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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/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          2nd January 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
  32 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
  33 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
  34 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
  35 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
  36 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
  37 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
  38 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
  39 situation. :)</p>
  40
  41       </div>
  42       <div class="tags">
  43
  44
  45         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
  46
  47
  48       </div>
  49     </div>
  50     <div class="padding"></div>
  51
  52     <div class="entry">
  53       <div class="title">
  54         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
  55       </div>
  56       <div class="date">
  57         28th December 2012
  58       </div>
  59       <div class="body">
  60         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
  61 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
  62 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
  63 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
  64 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
  65 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
  66 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
  67 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
  68 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
  69 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
  70 followed by many others. :)</p>
  71
  72 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
  73 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
  74 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
  75 you want to donate to the project.</p>
  76
  77       </div>
  78       <div class="tags">
  79
  80
  81         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
  82
  83
  84       </div>
  85     </div>
  86     <div class="padding"></div>
  87
  88     <div class="entry">
  89       <div class="title">
  90         <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>
  91       </div>
  92       <div class="date">
  93         25th December 2012
  94       </div>
  95       <div class="body">
  96         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
  97 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
  98
  99 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
 100 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
 101 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
 102 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
 103 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
 104 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
 105 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
 106 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
 107 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
 108 name.</p>
 109
 110 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
 111 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
 112 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
 113
 114 <blockquote><pre>
 115 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
 116 cd bitcoin
 117 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
 118 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
 119 </pre></blockquote>
 120
 121 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
 122 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
 123 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
 124 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
 125 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
 126 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
 127 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
 128 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
 129 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
 130
 131 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 132 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 133 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 134
 135       </div>
 136       <div class="tags">
 137
 138
 139         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>.
 140
 141
 142       </div>
 143     </div>
 144     <div class="padding"></div>
 145
 146     <div class="entry">
 147       <div class="title">
 148         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
 149       </div>
 150       <div class="date">
 151         21st December 2012
 152       </div>
 153       <div class="body">
 154         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
 155 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
 156 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
 157 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
 158 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
 159 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
 160 is now maintained by a
 161 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
 162 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
 163 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
 164 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
 165 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
 166 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
 167 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
 168 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
 169 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
 170 Corallo in a
 171 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
 172 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
 173 Debian package.</p>
 174
 175 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
 176 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
 177 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
 178 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
 179 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
 180 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
 181 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
 182 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
 183 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
 184 new version to unstable.
 185
 186 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
 187 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
 188 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
 189 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
 190 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
 191 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
 192 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
 193 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
 194 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
 195 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
 196 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
 197 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
 198 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
 199 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
 200 have not tested them.</p>
 201
 202 <p>My
 203 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
 204 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
 205 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
 206 years ago, as can be
 207 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
 208 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
 209 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
 210 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
 211 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
 212 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
 213 the same address as last time,
 214 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 215
 216       </div>
 217       <div class="tags">
 218
 219
 220         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>.
 221
 222
 223       </div>
 224     </div>
 225     <div class="padding"></div>
 226
 227     <div class="entry">
 228       <div class="title">
 229         <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>
 230       </div>
 231       <div class="date">
 232         18th December 2012
 233       </div>
 234       <div class="body">
 235         <p>A few days ago I came across
 236 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
 237 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
 238 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
 239 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
 240 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
 241 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
 242 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
 243 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
 244 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
 245
 246 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
 247 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
 248 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
 249 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
 250
 251 <blockquote><pre>
 252 2004-05-27 Book Store
 253       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
 254       Liabilities:Visa
 255 </pre></blockquote>
 256
 257 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
 258 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
 259 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
 260 Spang</a>,
 261 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
 262 Keen</a>,
 263 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
 264 Cantino</a> and
 265 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
 266 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
 267 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
 268 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
 269 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
 270
 271 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
 272 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
 273 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
 274 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
 275 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
 276
 277 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
 278 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
 279 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
 280 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
 281 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
 282 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
 283 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
 284 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
 285 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
 286
 287       </div>
 288       <div class="tags">
 289
 290
 291         Tags: <a href="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>.
 292
 293
 294       </div>
 295     </div>
 296     <div class="padding"></div>
 297
 298     <div class="entry">
 299       <div class="title">
 300         <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>
 301       </div>
 302       <div class="date">
 303          6th December 2012
 304       </div>
 305       <div class="body">
 306         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
 307 Oslo</a>, we use the
 308 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
 309 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
 310 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
 311 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
 312 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
 313 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
 314 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
 315 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
 316 Python.</p>
 317
 318 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
 319 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
 320 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
 321 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
 322 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
 323 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
 324
 325 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
 326 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
 327 user currently logged in:</p>
 328
 329 <blockquote><pre>
 330 #!/usr/bin/env python
 331 import getpass
 332 import xmlrpclib
 333 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
 334 username = getpass.getuser()
 335 password = getpass.getpass()
 336 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
 337 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
 338 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
 339 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
 340 result = server.logout(sessionid)
 341 print result
 342 </pre></blockquote>
 343
 344 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
 345 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
 346
 347       </div>
 348       <div class="tags">
 349
 350
 351         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>.
 352
 353
 354       </div>
 355     </div>
 356     <div class="padding"></div>
 357
 358     <div class="entry">
 359       <div class="title">
 360         <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>
 361       </div>
 362       <div class="date">
 363         17th November 2012
 364       </div>
 365       <div class="body">
 366         <p>While working on a
 367 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
 368 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
 369 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
 370 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
 371 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
 372 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
 373
 374 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
 375 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
 376 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
 377 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
 378 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
 379 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
 380 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
 381 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
 382 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
 383 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
 384 arguments.</p>
 385
 386 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
 387 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
 388 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
 389 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
 390 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
 391 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
 392 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
 393 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
 394
 395 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
 396 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
 397 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
 398 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
 399 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
 400 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
 401 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
 402 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
 403 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
 404 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
 405 correct right holder.</p>
 406
 407 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
 408 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
 409 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
 410 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
 411 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
 412 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
 413 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
 414 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
 415 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
 416 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
 417 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
 418 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
 419 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
 420 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
 421
 422 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
 423 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
 424 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
 425
 426 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
 427 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
 428
 429       </div>
 430       <div class="tags">
 431
 432
 433         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>.
 434
 435
 436       </div>
 437     </div>
 438     <div class="padding"></div>
 439
 440     <div class="entry">
 441       <div class="title">
 442         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
 443       </div>
 444       <div class="date">
 445         14th November 2012
 446       </div>
 447       <div class="body">
 448         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
 449 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
 450 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
 451 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
 452 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
 453 the people behind the German
 454 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
 455 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
 456 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
 457
 458 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 459
 460 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
 461 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
 462 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
 463
 464 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
 465 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
 466 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
 467 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
 468 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
 469 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
 470
 471 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
 472 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
 473 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
 474 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
 475 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
 476 relationship management and the communication processes in the
 477 project.</p>
 478
 479 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
 480 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
 481 and a yoga teacher.</p>
 482
 483 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
 484 project?</strong></p>
 485
 486 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
 487
 488 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
 489 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
 490 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
 491 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
 492 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
 493 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
 494 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
 495 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
 496 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
 497 parents.</p>
 498
 499 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
 500 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
 501 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
 502 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
 503 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
 504 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
 505 Germany.</p>
 506
 507 <p>For information about our school project you can read
 508 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
 509 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
 510
 511 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 512 Edu?</strong></p>
 513
 514 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
 515 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
 516
 517 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
 518 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
 519 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
 520 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
 521 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
 522 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
 523 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
 524 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
 525 teachers, parents...</p>
 526
 527 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 528 Edu?</strong></p>
 529
 530 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
 531 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
 532
 533 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
 534 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
 535 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
 536 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
 537 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
 538
 539 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
 540 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
 541 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
 542 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
 543 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
 544 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
 545 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
 546
 547 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 548
 549 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
 550 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
 551 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
 552 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
 553
 554 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 555 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 556
 557 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
 558 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
 559 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
 560 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
 561 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
 562
 563 <ul>
 564
 565 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
 566 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
 567 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
 568
 569 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
 570 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
 571 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
 572 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
 573 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
 574 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
 575 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
 576
 577 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
 578 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
 579 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
 580 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
 581
 582 </ul>
 583
 584       </div>
 585       <div class="tags">
 586
 587
 588         Tags: <a href="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>.
 589
 590
 591       </div>
 592     </div>
 593     <div class="padding"></div>
 594
 595     <div class="entry">
 596       <div class="title">
 597         <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>
 598       </div>
 599       <div class="date">
 600          4th November 2012
 601       </div>
 602       <div class="body">
 603         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
 604 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
 605 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
 606 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
 607 see how a member of the bitcoin community
 608 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
 609 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
 610 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
 611 competition.  My thoughts go to the
 612 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
 613 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
 614 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
 615 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
 616 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
 617
 618 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
 619 that the community already seem to have
 620 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
 621 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
 622 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
 623 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
 624 wealth is available.</p>
 625
 626       </div>
 627       <div class="tags">
 628
 629
 630         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>.
 631
 632
 633       </div>
 634     </div>
 635     <div class="padding"></div>
 636
 637     <div class="entry">
 638       <div class="title">
 639         <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>
 640       </div>
 641       <div class="date">
 642         26th October 2012
 643       </div>
 644       <div class="body">
 645         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
 646 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
 647 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
 648 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
 649 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
 650 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
 651 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
 652 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
 653 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
 654 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
 655 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
 656 it every time.</p>
 657
 658 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
 659 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
 660 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
 661 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
 662 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
 663 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
 664 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
 665 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
 666 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
 667 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
 668 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
 669 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
 670
 671 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
 672 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
 673 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
 674 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
 675 article: First the unplanned outage:
 676
 677 <blockquote><pre>
 678 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
 679 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
 680 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
 681 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
 682 Duration:    40 minutes
 683 Scope:       Exchange 2003
 684 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
 685              a cluster failover.
 686
 687 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
 688              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
 689 Technician:  [xxx]
 690 </pre></blockquote>
 691
 692 Next the planned outage:
 693
 694 <blockquote><pre>
 695 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
 696 Severity:    Major (Planned)
 697 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
 698 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
 699 Duration:    10 hours
 700 Scope:       H2 Transport
 701 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
 702              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
 703              4510s.
 704 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
 705              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
 706              connectivity.
 707 Technician:  [xxx]
 708 </pre></blockquote>
 709
 710 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
 711 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
 712 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
 713 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
 714 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
 715 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
 716 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
 717
 718 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
 719 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
 720 university too.  We do register
 721 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
 722 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
 723 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
 724 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
 725 for other sites to consider too?</p>
 726
 727       </div>
 728       <div class="tags">
 729
 730
 731         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>.
 732
 733
 734       </div>
 735     </div>
 736     <div class="padding"></div>
 737
 738     <div class="entry">
 739       <div class="title">
 740         <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>
 741       </div>
 742       <div class="date">
 743         22nd October 2012
 744       </div>
 745       <div class="body">
 746         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
 747 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
 748 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
 749 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
 750 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
 751 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
 752 background information is available in Norwegian from
 753 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
 754 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
 755 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
 756 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
 757 willing to
 758 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
 759 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
 760 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
 761 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
 762 sounded like
 763 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
 764 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
 765 later.</p>
 766
 767 <p>And thought this action is
 768 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
 769 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
 770 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
 771 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
 772 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
 773 rights.</p>
 774
 775 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
 776 unacceptable terms.  For example
 777 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
 778 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
 779 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
 780 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
 781 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
 782
 783 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
 784 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
 785 restored the account of the user, as reported by
 786 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
 787 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
 788 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
 789 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
 790 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
 791 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
 792 reading two opinions from
 793 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
 794 Phipps</a> and
 795 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
 796 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
 797 details about the original story.</p>
 798
 799       </div>
 800       <div class="tags">
 801
 802
 803         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>.
 804
 805
 806       </div>
 807     </div>
 808     <div class="padding"></div>
 809
 810     <div class="entry">
 811       <div class="title">
 812         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
 813       </div>
 814       <div class="date">
 815         18th October 2012
 816       </div>
 817       <div class="body">
 818         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
 819 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
 820 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
 821 across a marvellous drawing by
 822 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
 823 visualising some of what is going on.
 824
 825 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
 826 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
 827
 828 <blockquote>
 829 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
 830 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
 831 </blockquote>
 832
 833 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
 834 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
 835 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
 836 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
 837 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
 838 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
 839
 840       </div>
 841       <div class="tags">
 842
 843
 844         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>.
 845
 846
 847       </div>
 848     </div>
 849     <div class="padding"></div>
 850
 851     <div class="entry">
 852       <div class="title">
 853         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
 854       </div>
 855       <div class="date">
 856         12th October 2012
 857       </div>
 858       <div class="body">
 859         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
 860 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
 861 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
 862 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
 863 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
 864 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
 865 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
 866 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
 867 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
 868 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
 869 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
 870 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
 871 matter".</p>
 872
 873 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
 874 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
 875 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
 876 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
 877 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
 878 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
 879 to argue its side.</p>
 880
 881 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
 882 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
 883 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
 884 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
 885
 886 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
 887 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
 888 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
 889
 890       </div>
 891       <div class="tags">
 892
 893
 894         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>.
 895
 896
 897       </div>
 898     </div>
 899     <div class="padding"></div>
 900
 901     <div class="entry">
 902       <div class="title">
 903         <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>
 904       </div>
 905       <div class="date">
 906          3rd October 2012
 907       </div>
 908       <div class="body">
 909         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
 910 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
 911 the computer science book collection available in his local
 912 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
 913 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
 914 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
 915 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
 916 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
 917 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
 918 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
 919 recently published books.</p>
 920
 921 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
 922 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
 923 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
 924 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
 925 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
 926 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
 927 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
 928 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
 929 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
 930 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
 931 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
 932 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
 933 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
 934 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
 935 for the library that evening.</p>
 936
 937 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
 938 going to know that for example
 939 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
 940 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
 941 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
 942 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
 943 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
 944 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
 945 book right away.</p>
 946
 947       </div>
 948       <div class="tags">
 949
 950
 951         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 952
 953
 954       </div>
 955     </div>
 956     <div class="padding"></div>
 957
 958     <div class="entry">
 959       <div class="title">
 960         <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>
 961       </div>
 962       <div class="date">
 963         23rd September 2012
 964       </div>
 965       <div class="body">
 966         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
 967 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
 968 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
 969 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
 970 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
 971 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
 972
 973 When I started, I
 974 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
 975 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
 976 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
 977 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
 978 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
 979 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
 980 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
 981
 982 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
 983
 984 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
 985 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
 986 the project files currently available from
 987 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
 988
 989 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
 990 the updated
 991 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
 992 and
 993 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
 994 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
 995 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
 996 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
 997
 998       </div>
 999       <div class="tags">
1000
1001
1002         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>.
1003
1004
1005       </div>
1006     </div>
1007     <div class="padding"></div>
1008
1009     <div class="entry">
1010       <div class="title">
1011         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
1012       </div>
1013       <div class="date">
1014         17th September 2012
1015       </div>
1016       <div class="body">
1017         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
1018 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
1019 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
1020 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
1021 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
1022 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
1023 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
1024
1025 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1026
1027 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
1028 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
1029 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
1030 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
1031 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
1032 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
1033 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
1034 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
1035 training is anyway very important</p>
1036
1037 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
1038 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
1039 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
1040 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
1041 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
1042
1043 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1044 project?</strong></p>
1045
1046 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
1047 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
1048 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
1049 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
1050 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
1051 hole.</p>
1052
1053 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1054 Edu?</strong></p>
1055
1056 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
1057 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
1058 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
1059 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
1060 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
1061 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
1062 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
1063 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
1064 hassle.</p>
1065
1066 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1067 Edu?</strong></p>
1068
1069 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
1070 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
1071 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
1072 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
1073 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
1074 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
1075 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
1076 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
1077
1078 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1079
1080 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
1081 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
1082 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
1083 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
1084 has the same...</p>
1085
1086 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
1087 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
1088 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
1089 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
1090
1091 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1092 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1093
1094 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
1095 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
1096 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
1097
1098 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
1099 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
1100 don't.</p>
1101
1102 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
1103 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
1104 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
1105 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
1106 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
1107 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
1108 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
1109
1110       </div>
1111       <div class="tags">
1112
1113
1114         Tags: <a href="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>.
1115
1116
1117       </div>
1118     </div>
1119     <div class="padding"></div>
1120
1121     <div class="entry">
1122       <div class="title">
1123         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
1124       </div>
1125       <div class="date">
1126         15th September 2012
1127       </div>
1128       <div class="body">
1129         <p>After the
1130 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
1131 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
1132 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
1133 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
1134 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
1135 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
1136 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
1137 was
1138 <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
1139 formal working group should be formed.</p>
1140
1141 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
1142 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
1143 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
1144 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
1145 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
1146 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
1147 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
1148 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
1149
1150 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
1151 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
1152 IETF.</p>
1153
1154       </div>
1155       <div class="tags">
1156
1157
1158         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>.
1159
1160
1161       </div>
1162     </div>
1163     <div class="padding"></div>
1164
1165     <div class="entry">
1166       <div class="title">
1167         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
1168       </div>
1169       <div class="date">
1170         12th September 2012
1171       </div>
1172       <div class="body">
1173         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
1174 publication of of
1175 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
1176 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
1177 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
1178 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
1179 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
1180 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
1181 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
1182 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
1183 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
1184 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
1185
1186 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
1187 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
1188 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
1189 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
1190
1191 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
1192 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
1193
1194       </div>
1195       <div class="tags">
1196
1197
1198         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>.
1199
1200
1201       </div>
1202     </div>
1203     <div class="padding"></div>
1204
1205     <div class="entry">
1206       <div class="title">
1207         <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>
1208       </div>
1209       <div class="date">
1210          7th September 2012
1211       </div>
1212       <div class="body">
1213         <p>As I
1214 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
1215 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
1216 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
1217 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
1218 repository for the project</a>.</p>
1219
1220 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
1221 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
1222 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
1223 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
1224
1225 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
1226 PostScript formats at
1227 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
1228 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
1229
1230       </div>
1231       <div class="tags">
1232
1233
1234         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>.
1235
1236
1237       </div>
1238     </div>
1239     <div class="padding"></div>
1240
1241     <div class="entry">
1242       <div class="title">
1243         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
1244       </div>
1245       <div class="date">
1246         23rd August 2012
1247       </div>
1248       <div class="body">
1249         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
1250 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
1251 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
1252 revisit the great site
1253 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
1254 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
1255 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
1256
1257       </div>
1258       <div class="tags">
1259
1260
1261         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>.
1262
1263
1264       </div>
1265     </div>
1266     <div class="padding"></div>
1267
1268     <div class="entry">
1269       <div class="title">
1270         <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>
1271       </div>
1272       <div class="date">
1273         17th August 2012
1274       </div>
1275       <div class="body">
1276         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
1277 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
1278 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
1279 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
1280 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
1281 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
1282 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
1283 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
1284 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
1285 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
1286 summer I
1287 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
1288 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
1289 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
1290
1291 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
1292 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
1293 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
1294 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
1295 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
1296 progress:</p>
1297
1298 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
1299
1300 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
1301 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
1302 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
1303 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
1304 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
1305 english version of the docbook source.</p>
1306
1307 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
1308 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
1309 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
1310 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
1311 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
1312 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
1313 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
1314 project files currently available from <a
1315 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
1316
1317 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
1318 the updated
1319 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
1320 and
1321 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
1322 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
1323 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
1324 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
1325
1326       </div>
1327       <div class="tags">
1328
1329
1330         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>.
1331
1332
1333       </div>
1334     </div>
1335     <div class="padding"></div>
1336
1337     <div class="entry">
1338       <div class="title">
1339         <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>
1340       </div>
1341       <div class="date">
1342         10th August 2012
1343       </div>
1344       <div class="body">
1345         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
1346 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
1347 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
1348 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
1349 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
1350 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
1351 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
1352 case for the language
1353 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
1354 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
1355
1356 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
1357 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
1358 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
1359 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
1360 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
1361
1362 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
1363 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
1364 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
1365 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
1366 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
1367 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
1368 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
1369 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
1370 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
1371 alias for 'nb'.</p>
1372
1373 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
1374 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
1375 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
1376 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
1377 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
1378 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
1379 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
1380 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
1381 at the same time. :(</p>
1382
1383 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
1384 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
1385 processors. :(</p>
1386
1387 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
1388
1389       </div>
1390       <div class="tags">
1391
1392
1393         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>.
1394
1395
1396       </div>
1397     </div>
1398     <div class="padding"></div>
1399
1400     <div class="entry">
1401       <div class="title">
1402         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
1403       </div>
1404       <div class="date">
1405         31st July 2012
1406       </div>
1407       <div class="body">
1408         <p>I tried to send this text to the
1409 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
1410 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
1411 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
1412 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
1413 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
1414 out.</p>
1415
1416 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
1417 learning curve at the moment.</p>
1418
1419 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
1420 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
1421 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
1422 available from
1423 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
1424 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
1425 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
1426 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
1427 Squeeze.</p>
1428
1429 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
1430 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
1431 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
1432 problems.</p>
1433
1434 <ul>
1435
1436 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
1437    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
1438    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
1439    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
1440    index references spanning several pages (See
1441    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
1442    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
1443    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
1444
1445 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
1446    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
1447    #683163</a>).</li>
1448
1449 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
1450    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
1451    footnote and text body, see
1452    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
1453    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
1454    refs listed are not right).</li>
1455
1456 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
1457
1458 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
1459    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
1460
1461 </ul>
1462
1463 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
1464 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
1465 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
1466
1467 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
1468
1469       </div>
1470       <div class="tags">
1471
1472
1473         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>.
1474
1475
1476       </div>
1477     </div>
1478     <div class="padding"></div>
1479
1480     <div class="entry">
1481       <div class="title">
1482         <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>
1483       </div>
1484       <div class="date">
1485         21st July 2012
1486       </div>
1487       <div class="body">
1488         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
1489 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
1490 norwegian version</a> of the book
1491 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
1492 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
1493 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
1494 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
1495 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
1496
1497 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
1498 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
1499 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
1500 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
1501 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
1502 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
1503 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
1504 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
1505 print. :)</p>
1506
1507 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
1508 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
1509 language.</p>
1510
1511       </div>
1512       <div class="tags">
1513
1514
1515         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>.
1516
1517
1518       </div>
1519     </div>
1520     <div class="padding"></div>
1521
1522     <div class="entry">
1523       <div class="title">
1524         <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>
1525       </div>
1526       <div class="date">
1527         16th July 2012
1528       </div>
1529       <div class="body">
1530         <p>I am currently working on a
1531 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
1532 to translate</a> the book
1533 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
1534 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
1535 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
1536 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
1537 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
1538 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
1539 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
1540
1541 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
1542 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
1543 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
1544 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
1545 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
1546 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
1547 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
1548 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
1549 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
1550
1551       </div>
1552       <div class="tags">
1553
1554
1555         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>.
1556
1557
1558       </div>
1559     </div>
1560     <div class="padding"></div>
1561
1562     <div class="entry">
1563       <div class="title">
1564         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
1565       </div>
1566       <div class="date">
1567          9th July 2012
1568       </div>
1569       <div class="body">
1570         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
1571 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
1572 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
1573 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
1574 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
1575 to adjust and scale the just released
1576 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
1577 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
1578 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
1579
1580 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1581
1582 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
1583 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
1584 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
1585 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
1586 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
1587 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
1588 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
1589 perspective when working with IT.</p>
1590
1591 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1592 project?</strong></p>
1593
1594 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
1595 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
1596 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
1597 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
1598 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
1599 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
1600
1601 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1602 Edu?</strong></p>
1603
1604 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
1605 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
1606 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
1607 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
1608 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
1609 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
1610 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
1611 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
1612 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
1613 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
1614 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
1615 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
1616 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
1617 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
1618 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
1619 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
1620 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
1621 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
1622 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
1623 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
1624 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
1625 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
1626 quicker to update.
1627
1628 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1629 Edu?</strong></p>
1630
1631 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
1632 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
1633 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
1634 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
1635 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
1636 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
1637
1638 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
1639 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
1640 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
1641 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
1642 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
1643 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
1644 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
1645 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
1646 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
1647 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
1648 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
1649 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
1650 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
1651 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
1652 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
1653
1654 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
1655 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
1656 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
1657 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
1658 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
1659 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
1660 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
1661 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
1662
1663 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
1664 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
1665 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
1666 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
1667 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
1668 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
1669 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
1670 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
1671 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
1672 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
1673 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
1674 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
1675 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
1676 sound file.</p>
1677
1678 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
1679 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
1680 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
1681 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
1682 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
1683 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
1684 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
1685 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
1686 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
1687
1688 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1689
1690 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
1691 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
1692 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
1693 )</p>
1694
1695 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1696 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1697
1698 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
1699 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
1700 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
1701 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
1702 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
1703 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
1704 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
1705 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
1706 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
1707 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
1708 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
1709 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
1710 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
1711 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
1712 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
1713
1714 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
1715 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
1716 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
1717 management with Airtime</a>,
1718 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
1719 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
1720 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
1721 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
1722 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
1723
1724       </div>
1725       <div class="tags">
1726
1727
1728         Tags: <a href="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>.
1729
1730
1731       </div>
1732     </div>
1733     <div class="padding"></div>
1734
1735     <div class="entry">
1736       <div class="title">
1737         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
1738       </div>
1739       <div class="date">
1740          8th July 2012
1741       </div>
1742       <div class="body">
1743         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
1744 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
1745 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
1746 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
1747 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
1748 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
1749 Steinberg in his blog post
1750 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
1751 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
1752 spending of your tax money.</p>
1753
1754 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
1755 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
1756 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
1757 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
1758 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
1759 purchases.</p>
1760
1761       </div>
1762       <div class="tags">
1763
1764
1765         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1766
1767
1768       </div>
1769     </div>
1770     <div class="padding"></div>
1771
1772     <div class="entry">
1773       <div class="title">
1774         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
1775       </div>
1776       <div class="date">
1777          7th July 2012
1778       </div>
1779       <div class="body">
1780         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
1781 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
1782 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
1783 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
1784 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
1785 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
1786 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
1787 receive.  The software is
1788
1789 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
1790 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
1791 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
1792 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
1793 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
1794 Windows</a>.</p>
1795
1796 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
1797 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
1798
1799 <p><ul>
1800
1801   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
1802     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
1803
1804   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
1805     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
1806     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
1807     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
1808     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
1809     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
1810     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
1811     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
1812     </li>
1813
1814   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
1815     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
1816
1817   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
1818     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
1819
1820   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
1821     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
1822
1823   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
1824
1825   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
1826     formats </li>
1827
1828   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
1829     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
1830     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
1831     (as separate sets)</li>
1832
1833   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
1834     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
1835     percentage)</li>
1836
1837   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
1838     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
1839     memory):
1840     <ul>
1841       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
1842       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
1843       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
1844       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
1845       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
1846       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
1847       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
1848       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
1849       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
1850       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
1851           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
1852           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
1853           activity)</li>
1854       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
1855       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
1856     </ul></li>
1857
1858   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
1859     <ul>
1860       <li>Break periods</li>
1861       <li>For teacher(s):
1862         <ul>
1863           <li>Not available periods</li>
1864           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
1865           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
1866           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
1867           <li>Min hours daily</li>
1868           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
1869
1870           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
1871             days per week</li>
1872         </ul></li>
1873       <li>For students (sets):
1874         <ul>
1875           <li>Not available periods</li>
1876           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
1877           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
1878           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
1879           <li>Min hours daily</li>
1880           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
1881
1882           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
1883             days per week</li>
1884         </ul></li>
1885       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
1886         <ul>
1887           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
1888           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
1889           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
1890           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
1891           <li>End(s) students day</li>
1892           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
1893           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
1894             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
1895           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
1896           <li>Not overlapping</li>
1897           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
1898           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
1899         </ul></li>
1900     </ul></li>
1901
1902   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
1903     <ul>
1904       <li>Room not available periods</li>
1905       <li>For teacher(s):
1906         <ul>
1907           <li>Home room(s)</li>
1908           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
1909           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
1910         </ul>
1911       </li>
1912
1913       <li>For students (sets):
1914         <ul>
1915           <li>Home room(s)</li>
1916           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
1917           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
1918         </ul>
1919       </li>
1920       <li>Preferred room(s):
1921         <ul>
1922           <li>For a subject</li>
1923           <li>For an activity tag</li>
1924           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
1925           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
1926         </ul>
1927       </li>
1928
1929       <li>For a set of activities:
1930         <ul>
1931           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
1932         </ul>
1933       </li>
1934     </ul>
1935   </li>
1936 </ul></p>
1937
1938 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
1939 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
1940 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
1941 manually, check it out.
1942
1943 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
1944 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
1945 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
1946 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
1947 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
1948 section</a>.</p>
1949
1950       </div>
1951       <div class="tags">
1952
1953
1954         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1955
1956
1957       </div>
1958     </div>
1959     <div class="padding"></div>
1960
1961     <div class="entry">
1962       <div class="title">
1963         <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>
1964       </div>
1965       <div class="date">
1966          3rd July 2012
1967       </div>
1968       <div class="body">
1969         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
1970 project (Norwegian version of
1971 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
1972 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
1973 a problem with the municipalities using
1974 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
1975 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
1976 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
1977 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
1978 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
1979 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
1980 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
1981 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
1982 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
1983 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
1984 the From: header.</p>
1985
1986 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
1987 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
1988 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
1989 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
1990 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
1991 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
1992 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
1993 behaviour.</p>
1994
1995 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
1996 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
1997 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
1998 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
1999 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
2000 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
2001 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
2002
2003       </div>
2004       <div class="tags">
2005
2006
2007         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>.
2008
2009
2010       </div>
2011     </div>
2012     <div class="padding"></div>
2013
2014     <div class="entry">
2015       <div class="title">
2016         <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>
2017       </div>
2018       <div class="date">
2019         26th June 2012
2020       </div>
2021       <div class="body">
2022         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
2023 another interview with the people behind
2024 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
2025 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
2026 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
2027 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
2028 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
2029 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
2030 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
2031
2032 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2033
2034 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
2035 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
2036 ICT in schools</p>
2037
2038 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2039 project?</strong></p>
2040
2041 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
2042 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
2043 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
2044 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
2045
2046 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2047 Edu?</strong></p>
2048
2049 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
2050 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
2051 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
2052 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
2053
2054 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2055 Edu?</strong></p>
2056
2057 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
2058 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
2059 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
2060 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
2061 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
2062 technologies in school.</p>
2063
2064 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2065
2066 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
2067 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
2068 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
2069
2070 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2071 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2072
2073 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
2074 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
2075 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
2076 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
2077
2078 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
2079 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
2080 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
2081
2082 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
2083 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
2084 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
2085 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
2086 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
2087 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
2088 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
2089 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
2090 working there.</p>
2091
2092       </div>
2093       <div class="tags">
2094
2095
2096         Tags: <a href="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>.
2097
2098
2099       </div>
2100     </div>
2101     <div class="padding"></div>
2102
2103     <div class="entry">
2104       <div class="title">
2105         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
2106       </div>
2107       <div class="date">
2108         24th June 2012
2109       </div>
2110       <div class="body">
2111         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
2112 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
2113 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
2114 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
2115 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
2116 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
2117 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
2118 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
2119 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
2120 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
2121 missing in my book.</p>
2122
2123 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
2124 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
2125 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
2126 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
2127 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
2128 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
2129 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
2130
2131       </div>
2132       <div class="tags">
2133
2134
2135         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>.
2136
2137
2138       </div>
2139     </div>
2140     <div class="padding"></div>
2141
2142     <div class="entry">
2143       <div class="title">
2144         <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>
2145       </div>
2146       <div class="date">
2147         11th June 2012
2148       </div>
2149       <div class="body">
2150         <p>During my work on
2151 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
2152 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
2153 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
2154 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
2155 explanation.</p>
2156
2157 <p><ul>
2158
2159 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
2160 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
2161 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
2162 system depend on tasksel tasks in
2163 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
2164 installation.</li>
2165
2166 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
2167 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
2168 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
2169 at least try to enable it for these services:
2170 <ul>
2171
2172   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
2173     quotas.</li>
2174   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
2175   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
2176   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
2177   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
2178   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
2179
2180 </ul></li>
2181
2182 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
2183 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
2184 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
2185 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
2186
2187 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
2188 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
2189 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
2190
2191 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
2192 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
2193 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
2194 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
2195 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
2196 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
2197
2198 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
2199 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
2200 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
2201 in Wheezy.
2202
2203 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
2204 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
2205 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
2206
2207 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
2208 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
2209 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
2210 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
2211
2212 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
2213 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
2214 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
2215 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
2216
2217 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
2218 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
2219 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
2220
2221 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
2222 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
2223 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
2224
2225 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
2226 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
2227 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
2228 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
2229 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
2230
2231 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
2232 <ul>
2233
2234 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
2235 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
2236 <li>and probably more?</li>
2237 </ul></li>
2238
2239 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
2240 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
2241 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
2242 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
2243 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
2244 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
2245 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
2246 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
2247
2248
2249 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
2250 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
2251 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
2252 use.</li>
2253
2254 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
2255 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
2256 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
2257 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
2258 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
2259
2260 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
2261 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
2262 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
2263 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
2264 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
2265 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
2266
2267 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
2268 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
2269 There are at least three implementations,
2270 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
2271 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
2272 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
2273 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
2274 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
2275 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
2276 given room.</li>
2277
2278 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
2279 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
2280 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
2281 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
2282 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
2283 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
2284 investigated.</li>
2285
2286 </ul></p>
2287
2288 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
2289 version.</p>
2290
2291       </div>
2292       <div class="tags">
2293
2294
2295         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2296
2297
2298       </div>
2299     </div>
2300     <div class="padding"></div>
2301
2302     <div class="entry">
2303       <div class="title">
2304         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html">TV with face recognition, for improved viewer experience</a>
2305       </div>
2306       <div class="date">
2307          9th June 2012
2308       </div>
2309       <div class="body">
2310         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
2311 <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
2312 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
2313 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
2314 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
2315 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
2316 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
2317 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
2318 be willing to pay for.</p>
2319
2320 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
2321 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
2322 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
2323 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
2324 Orwell</a>.</p>
2325
2326       </div>
2327       <div class="tags">
2328
2329
2330         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>.
2331
2332
2333       </div>
2334     </div>
2335     <div class="padding"></div>
2336
2337     <div class="entry">
2338       <div class="title">
2339         <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>
2340       </div>
2341       <div class="date">
2342          6th June 2012
2343       </div>
2344       <div class="body">
2345         <p>A few days ago
2346 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
2347 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
2348 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
2349 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
2350 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
2351 code for HP, Dell and IBM
2352 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
2353 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
2354 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
2355 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
2356 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
2357
2358 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
2359 output:
2360
2361 <blockquote><pre>
2362 % 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>
2363 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": ""})
2364 %
2365 </pre></blockquote>
2366
2367 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
2368 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
2369 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
2370
2371       </div>
2372       <div class="tags">
2373
2374
2375         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>.
2376
2377
2378       </div>
2379     </div>
2380     <div class="padding"></div>
2381
2382     <div class="entry">
2383       <div class="title">
2384         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
2385       </div>
2386       <div class="date">
2387          2nd June 2012
2388       </div>
2389       <div class="body">
2390         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
2391 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
2392 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
2393 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
2394 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
2395 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
2396
2397 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2398
2399 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
2400 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
2401 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
2402 by Angela).</p>
2403
2404 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
2405 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
2406 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
2407 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
2408 becoming an osteopath.</p>
2409
2410 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
2411 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
2412 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
2413 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
2414 skills with communication skills.</p>
2415
2416 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2417 project?</strong></p>
2418
2419 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
2420 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
2421 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
2422 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
2423 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
2424
2425 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
2426 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
2427 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
2428 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
2429 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
2430 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
2431 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
2432 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
2433 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
2434
2435 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
2436 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
2437 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
2438
2439 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
2440
2441 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
2442 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
2443 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
2444 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
2445 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
2446 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
2447 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
2448 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
2449 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
2450 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
2451 point.</p>
2452
2453 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
2454 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
2455 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
2456 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
2457 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
2458 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
2459
2460 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
2461 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
2462 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
2463 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
2464 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
2465 spare time.</p>
2466
2467 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
2468 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
2469 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
2470 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
2471 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
2472
2473 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
2474 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
2475 avoidance do exist.</p>
2476
2477 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
2478 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
2479 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
2480 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
2481 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
2482 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
2483 and probably a gain for all.</p>
2484
2485 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2486 Edu?</strong></p>
2487
2488 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
2489 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
2490 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
2491 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
2492 project communication, honest communication within the group of
2493 developers, etc.</p>
2494
2495 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2496 Edu?</strong></p>
2497
2498 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
2499
2500 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
2501 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
2502 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
2503 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
2504 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
2505 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
2506 contribute).</p>
2507
2508 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
2509 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
2510 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
2511 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
2512 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
2513 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
2514 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
2515 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
2516 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
2517 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
2518
2519 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2520
2521 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
2522
2523 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
2524 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
2525 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
2526
2527 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
2528 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
2529 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
2530 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
2531
2532 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
2533 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
2534 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
2535 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
2536 whiteboard.</p>
2537
2538 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
2539
2540 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2541 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2542
2543 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
2544 enrol people.</p>
2545
2546       </div>
2547       <div class="tags">
2548
2549
2550         Tags: <a href="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>.
2551
2552
2553       </div>
2554     </div>
2555     <div class="padding"></div>
2556
2557     <div class="entry">
2558       <div class="title">
2559         <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>
2560       </div>
2561       <div class="date">
2562          1st June 2012
2563       </div>
2564       <div class="body">
2565         <p>A few years ago I wrote
2566 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
2567 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
2568 I have learned from colleges here at the
2569 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
2570 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
2571 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
2572 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
2573 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
2574
2575 <p><pre>
2576 use strict;
2577 use warnings;
2578 use SOAP::Lite;
2579 use Data::Dumper;
2580 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
2581 my $App = 'test';
2582 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
2583 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
2584 my $s = SOAP::Lite
2585     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
2586     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
2587     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
2588     ;
2589 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
2590     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
2591     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
2592     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
2593 );
2594 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
2595 </pre></p>
2596
2597 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
2598
2599 <p><pre>
2600 $VAR1 = {
2601           'Asset' => {
2602                      'Entitlements' => {
2603                                        'EntitlementData' => [
2604                                                             {
2605                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
2606                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
2607                                                               'Provider' => '',
2608                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
2609                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
2610                                                             },
2611                                                             {
2612                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
2613                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
2614                                                               'Provider' => '',
2615                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
2616                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
2617                                                             },
2618                                                             {
2619                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
2620                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
2621                                                               'Provider' => '',
2622                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
2623                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
2624                                                             }
2625                                                           ]
2626                                      },
2627                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
2628                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
2629                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
2630                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
2631                                           'Buid' => '2323',
2632                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
2633                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
2634                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
2635                                         }
2636                    }
2637         };
2638 </pre></p>
2639
2640 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
2641 service outside the
2642 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
2643 documentation</a>, and according to
2644 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
2645 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
2646 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
2647
2648 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
2649 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
2650
2651       </div>
2652       <div class="tags">
2653
2654
2655         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>.
2656
2657
2658       </div>
2659     </div>
2660     <div class="padding"></div>
2661
2662     <div class="entry">
2663       <div class="title">
2664         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
2665       </div>
2666       <div class="date">
2667         31st May 2012
2668       </div>
2669       <div class="body">
2670         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
2671 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
2672 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
2673 running Debian Squeeze, where
2674 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
2675 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
2676 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
2677 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
2678 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
2679 another day.</p>
2680
2681 <p>After calibration, I get a
2682 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
2683 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
2684 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
2685 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
2686 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
2687 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
2688 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
2689 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
2690 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
2691 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
2692 and a simple</p>
2693
2694 <p><pre>
2695 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
2696 </pre></p>
2697
2698 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
2699 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
2700 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
2701 enough for now.</p>
2702
2703       </div>
2704       <div class="tags">
2705
2706
2707         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2708
2709
2710       </div>
2711     </div>
2712     <div class="padding"></div>
2713
2714     <div class="entry">
2715       <div class="title">
2716         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
2717       </div>
2718       <div class="date">
2719         27th May 2012
2720       </div>
2721       <div class="body">
2722         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
2723 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
2724 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
2725 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
2726 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
2727 since then, helping to make sure the
2728 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
2729 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
2730
2731 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2732
2733 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
2734 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
2735 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
2736 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
2737 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
2738 our computer network.</p>
2739
2740 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
2741 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
2742 (4 months).</p>
2743
2744 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2745 project?</strong></p>
2746
2747 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
2748 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
2749 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
2750 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
2751 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
2752 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
2753 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
2754 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
2755 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
2756 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
2757 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
2758 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
2759 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
2760 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
2761
2762 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2763 Edu?</strong></p>
2764
2765 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
2766 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
2767 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
2768 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
2769 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
2770 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
2771 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
2772 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
2773
2774 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2775 Edu?</strong></p>
2776
2777 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
2778 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
2779 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
2780 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
2781 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
2782 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
2783 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
2784 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
2785 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
2786 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
2787 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
2788 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
2789
2790 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2791
2792 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
2793 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
2794 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
2795
2796 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2797 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2798
2799 <p><ol>
2800
2801 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
2802 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
2803 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
2804 developing.</li>
2805
2806 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
2807 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
2808 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
2809 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
2810 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
2811
2812 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
2813 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
2814 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
2815
2816 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
2817 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
2818 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
2819 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
2820
2821 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
2822 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
2823 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
2824
2825 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
2826
2827 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
2828 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
2829 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
2830 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
2831
2832 </ol></p>
2833
2834       </div>
2835       <div class="tags">
2836
2837
2838         Tags: <a href="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>.
2839
2840
2841       </div>
2842     </div>
2843     <div class="padding"></div>
2844
2845     <div class="entry">
2846       <div class="title">
2847         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
2848       </div>
2849       <div class="date">
2850         26th May 2012
2851       </div>
2852       <div class="body">
2853         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
2854 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
2855 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
2856 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
2857 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
2858
2859 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
2860 <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>
2861 comment:</p>
2862
2863 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
2864 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
2865 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
2866 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
2867 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
2868 </blockquote></p>
2869
2870 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
2871 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
2872 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
2873 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
2874 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
2875 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
2876 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
2877 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
2878 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
2879 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
2880 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
2881 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
2882 of wasted effort.</p>
2883
2884 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
2885 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
2886 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
2887
2888 <p>See
2889 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
2890 and
2891 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
2892 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
2893 </blockquote></p>
2894
2895       </div>
2896       <div class="tags">
2897
2898
2899         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>.
2900
2901
2902       </div>
2903     </div>
2904     <div class="padding"></div>
2905
2906     <div class="entry">
2907       <div class="title">
2908         <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>
2909       </div>
2910       <div class="date">
2911         18th May 2012
2912       </div>
2913       <div class="body">
2914         <p>In january, I
2915 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
2916 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
2917 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
2918 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
2919 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
2920 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
2921 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
2922 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
2923 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
2924 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
2925
2926 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
2927 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
2928 drivers. :)</p>
2929
2930       </div>
2931       <div class="tags">
2932
2933
2934         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2935
2936
2937       </div>
2938     </div>
2939     <div class="padding"></div>
2940
2941     <div class="entry">
2942       <div class="title">
2943         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
2944       </div>
2945       <div class="date">
2946         13th May 2012
2947       </div>
2948       <div class="body">
2949         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
2950 publish another interview with the people behind
2951 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
2952 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
2953 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
2954 details get right before release.
2955
2956 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2957
2958 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
2959 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
2960 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
2961 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
2962 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
2963 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
2964 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
2965 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
2966
2967 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
2968 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
2969 home since 2006.</p>
2970
2971 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2972 project?</strong></p>
2973
2974 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
2975 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
2976 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
2977 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
2978 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
2979 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
2980
2981 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
2982 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
2983 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
2984 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
2985 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
2986 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
2987 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
2988 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
2989 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
2990 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
2991 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
2992 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
2993 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
2994 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
2995 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
2996 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
2997
2998 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2999 Edu?</strong></p>
3000
3001 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
3002 for me as today.</p>
3003
3004 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
3005
3006 <p><ul>
3007
3008 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
3009 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
3010
3011 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
3012 cost.</li>
3013
3014 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
3015 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
3016 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
3017 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
3018 server</li>
3019
3020 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
3021 school.</li>
3022
3023 </ul></p>
3024
3025 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
3026 came up in this way:</p>
3027
3028 <p><ul>
3029
3030 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
3031 now.</li>
3032
3033 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
3034 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
3035 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
3036
3037 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
3038 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
3039 interfaces used in the past.</li>
3040
3041 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
3042 different needs.</li>
3043
3044 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
3045
3046 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
3047 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
3048 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
3049
3050 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
3051 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
3052
3053 </ul></p>
3054
3055 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3056 Edu?</strong></p>
3057
3058 <p><ul>
3059
3060 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
3061 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
3062 whole municipality areas.</li>
3063
3064 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
3065 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
3066 politicians.</li>
3067
3068 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
3069
3070 </ul></p>
3071
3072 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3073
3074 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
3075 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
3076 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
3077 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
3078 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
3079 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
3080
3081 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
3082 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
3083 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
3084 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
3085 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
3086
3087 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3088 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3089
3090 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
3091 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
3092 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
3093
3094       </div>
3095       <div class="tags">
3096
3097
3098         Tags: <a href="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>.
3099
3100
3101       </div>
3102     </div>
3103     <div class="padding"></div>
3104
3105     <div class="entry">
3106       <div class="title">
3107         <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>
3108       </div>
3109       <div class="date">
3110         30th April 2012
3111       </div>
3112       <div class="body">
3113         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
3114 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
3115
3116 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
3117 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
3118 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
3119 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
3120 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
3121 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
3122 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
3123 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
3124 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
3125 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
3126 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
3127 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
3128 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
3129 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
3130 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
3131 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
3132
3133 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
3134 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
3135 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
3136 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
3137 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
3138 finally found a Danish supplier
3139 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
3140 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
3141 days ago.</p>
3142
3143 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
3144 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
3145 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
3146 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
3147 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
3148 toys.</p>
3149
3150       </div>
3151       <div class="tags">
3152
3153
3154         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3155
3156
3157       </div>
3158     </div>
3159     <div class="padding"></div>
3160
3161     <div class="entry">
3162       <div class="title">
3163         <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>
3164       </div>
3165       <div class="date">
3166         26th April 2012
3167       </div>
3168       <div class="body">
3169         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
3170 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
3171 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
3172 that the video editor application included with
3173 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
3174 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
3175 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
3176
3177 <p><blockquote>
3178 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
3179 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
3180 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
3181 </blockquote></p>
3182
3183 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
3184
3185 <p><blockquote>
3186 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
3187 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
3188 </blockquote></p>
3189
3190 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
3191 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
3192 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
3193 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
3194 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
3195 video.  AMR is
3196 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
3197 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
3198 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
3199 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
3200 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
3201 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
3202 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
3203
3204 <p>I know why I prefer
3205 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
3206 standards</a> also for video.</p>
3207
3208       </div>
3209       <div class="tags">
3210
3211
3212         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>.
3213
3214
3215       </div>
3216     </div>
3217     <div class="padding"></div>
3218
3219     <div class="entry">
3220       <div class="title">
3221         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
3222       </div>
3223       <div class="date">
3224         19th April 2012
3225       </div>
3226       <div class="body">
3227         <p>Here in Norway, the
3228 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
3229 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
3230 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
3231 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
3232 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
3233 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
3234 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
3235 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
3236 on the same level.</p>
3237
3238 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
3239 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
3240 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
3241 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
3242 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
3243 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
3244 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
3245 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
3246 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
3247 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
3248 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
3249 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
3250 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
3251 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
3252 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
3253 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
3254 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
3255 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
3256
3257 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
3258 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
3259 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
3260 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
3261 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
3262 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
3263 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
3264 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
3265
3266 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
3267 from Simon Phipps
3268 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
3269 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
3270
3271 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
3272 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
3273 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
3274 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
3275 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
3276 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
3277 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
3278 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
3279 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
3280
3281       </div>
3282       <div class="tags">
3283
3284
3285         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>.
3286
3287
3288       </div>
3289     </div>
3290     <div class="padding"></div>
3291
3292     <div class="entry">
3293       <div class="title">
3294         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
3295       </div>
3296       <div class="date">
3297         15th April 2012
3298       </div>
3299       <div class="body">
3300         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
3301 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
3302 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
3303 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
3304 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
3305 up in the recently released
3306 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
3307 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
3308
3309 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3310
3311 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
3312 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
3313 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
3314 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
3315 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
3316 information technology and science/technology.</p>
3317
3318 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3319 project?</strong></p>
3320
3321 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
3322 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
3323 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
3324 contributing.</p>
3325
3326 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3327 Edu?</strong></p>
3328
3329 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
3330 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
3331 Debian Project!</p>
3332
3333 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3334 Edu?</strong></p>
3335
3336 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
3337 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
3338 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
3339 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
3340 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
3341 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
3342 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
3343
3344 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
3345 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
3346
3347 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3348
3349 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
3350 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
3351 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
3352 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
3353
3354 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3355 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3356
3357 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
3358 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
3359 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
3360 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
3361 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
3362 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
3363 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
3364
3365 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
3366 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
3367 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
3368 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
3369 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
3370 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
3371 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
3372 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
3373
3374       </div>
3375       <div class="tags">
3376
3377
3378         Tags: <a href="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>.
3379
3380
3381       </div>
3382     </div>
3383     <div class="padding"></div>
3384
3385     <div class="entry">
3386       <div class="title">
3387         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
3388       </div>
3389       <div class="date">
3390          8th April 2012
3391       </div>
3392       <div class="body">
3393         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
3394 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
3395 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
3396 contributor to the
3397 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
3398 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
3399
3400 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3401
3402 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
3403 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
3404
3405 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3406 project?</strong></p>
3407
3408 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
3409 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
3410 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
3411 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
3412 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
3413 "localisation".</p>
3414
3415 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3416 Edu?</strong></p>
3417
3418 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3419 Edu?</strong></p>
3420
3421 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
3422 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
3423 education system.</p>
3424
3425 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
3426 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
3427 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
3428 money on the latest hardware.</p>
3429
3430 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3431
3432 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
3433 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
3434 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
3435
3436 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3437 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3438
3439 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
3440 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
3441 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
3442
3443       </div>
3444       <div class="tags">
3445
3446
3447         Tags: <a href="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>.
3448
3449
3450       </div>
3451     </div>
3452     <div class="padding"></div>
3453
3454     <div class="entry">
3455       <div class="title">
3456         <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>
3457       </div>
3458       <div class="date">
3459          6th April 2012
3460       </div>
3461       <div class="body">
3462         <p>Recently I have spent time with
3463 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
3464 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
3465 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
3466 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
3467 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
3468 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
3469 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
3470 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
3471
3472 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
3473 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
3474 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
3475 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
3476 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
3477 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
3478 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
3479 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
3480
3481 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
3482 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
3483 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
3484 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
3485 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
3486 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
3487 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
3488 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
3489
3490 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
3491 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
3492 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
3493 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
3494 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
3495 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
3496 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
3497 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
3498 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
3499 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
3500
3501 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
3502 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
3503 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
3504 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
3505
3506 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
3507 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
3508
3509       </div>
3510       <div class="tags">
3511
3512
3513         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3514
3515
3516       </div>
3517     </div>
3518     <div class="padding"></div>
3519
3520     <div class="entry">
3521       <div class="title">
3522         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
3523       </div>
3524       <div class="date">
3525          5th April 2012
3526       </div>
3527       <div class="body">
3528         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
3529 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
3530 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
3531 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
3532 for schools.  Check out his article
3533 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
3534 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
3535
3536       </div>
3537       <div class="tags">
3538
3539
3540         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3541
3542
3543       </div>
3544     </div>
3545     <div class="padding"></div>
3546
3547     <div class="entry">
3548       <div class="title">
3549         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
3550       </div>
3551       <div class="date">
3552          1st April 2012
3553       </div>
3554       <div class="body">
3555         <p>Germany is a core area for the
3556 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
3557 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
3558 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
3559
3560 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3561
3562 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
3563 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
3564 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
3565 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
3566 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
3567 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
3568 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
3569 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
3570
3571 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
3572 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
3573 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
3574 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
3575 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
3576 the end of April this year.</p>
3577
3578 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3579 project?</strong></p>
3580
3581 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
3582 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
3583 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
3584 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
3585 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
3586 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
3587 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
3588 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
3589 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
3590 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
3591 Skolelinux.</p>
3592
3593 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
3594 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
3595 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
3596 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
3597 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
3598 the admin teachers.</p>
3599
3600 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3601 Edu?</strong></p>
3602
3603 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
3604 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
3605 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
3606
3607 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
3608 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
3609 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
3610 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
3611 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
3612
3613 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3614 Edu?</strong></p>
3615
3616 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
3617
3618 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3619
3620 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
3621 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
3622 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
3623 LibreOffice.</p>
3624
3625 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3626 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3627
3628 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
3629 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
3630 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
3631
3632       </div>
3633       <div class="tags">
3634
3635
3636         Tags: <a href="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>.
3637
3638
3639       </div>
3640     </div>
3641     <div class="padding"></div>
3642
3643     <div class="entry">
3644       <div class="title">
3645         <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>
3646       </div>
3647       <div class="date">
3648         25th March 2012
3649       </div>
3650       <div class="body">
3651         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
3652
3653 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
3654 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
3655 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
3656 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
3657 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
3658 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
3659 and download as a
3660 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
3661 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
3662
3663 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
3664   <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"' />
3665     <p>Download video as
3666       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
3667 </video></p>
3668
3669       </div>
3670       <div class="tags">
3671
3672
3673         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3674
3675
3676       </div>
3677     </div>
3678     <div class="padding"></div>
3679
3680     <div class="entry">
3681       <div class="title">
3682         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
3683       </div>
3684       <div class="date">
3685         19th March 2012
3686       </div>
3687       <div class="body">
3688         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
3689 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
3690 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
3691 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
3692 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
3693
3694 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3695
3696 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
3697 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
3698 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
3699 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
3700 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
3701 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
3702 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
3703 installations.</p>
3704
3705 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3706 project?</strong></p>
3707
3708 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
3709 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
3710 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
3711 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
3712 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
3713 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
3714 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
3715 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
3716 these things we decided to try it.</p>
3717
3718 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3719 Edu?</strong></p>
3720
3721 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
3722 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
3723 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
3724 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
3725 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
3726 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
3727 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
3728 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
3729
3730 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3731 Edu?</strong></p>
3732
3733 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
3734 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
3735 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
3736 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
3737 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
3738
3739 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3740
3741 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
3742 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
3743 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
3744 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
3745 that counts...)</p>
3746
3747 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3748 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3749
3750 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
3751 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
3752 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
3753 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
3754 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
3755 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
3756 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
3757 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
3758 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
3759 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
3760 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
3761
3762 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
3763 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
3764 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
3765
3766       </div>
3767       <div class="tags">
3768
3769
3770         Tags: <a href="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>.
3771
3772
3773       </div>
3774     </div>
3775     <div class="padding"></div>
3776
3777     <div class="entry">
3778       <div class="title">
3779         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
3780       </div>
3781       <div class="date">
3782         16th March 2012
3783       </div>
3784       <div class="body">
3785         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
3786 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
3787 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
3788 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
3789
3790 <ol>
3791
3792 <li>The documentation is written in a
3793 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
3794 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
3795 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
3796 docbook XML.</li>
3797
3798 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
3799 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
3800 with the translated text.</li>
3801
3802 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
3803 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
3804 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
3805 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
3806 images.</li>
3807
3808 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
3809 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
3810
3811 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
3812 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
3813
3814 </ol>
3815
3816 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
3817 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
3818 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
3819 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
3820 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
3821
3822 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
3823 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
3824 package</a>.</p>
3825
3826       </div>
3827       <div class="tags">
3828
3829
3830         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3831
3832
3833       </div>
3834     </div>
3835     <div class="padding"></div>
3836
3837     <div class="entry">
3838       <div class="title">
3839         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
3840       </div>
3841       <div class="date">
3842         11th March 2012
3843       </div>
3844       <div class="body">
3845         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
3846 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
3847 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
3848 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
3849 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
3850 you have not done so already.</p>
3851
3852 <p>I plan to present the new version at
3853 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
3854 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
3855 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
3856
3857       </div>
3858       <div class="tags">
3859
3860
3861         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3862
3863
3864       </div>
3865     </div>
3866     <div class="padding"></div>
3867
3868     <div class="entry">
3869       <div class="title">
3870         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
3871       </div>
3872       <div class="date">
3873          9th March 2012
3874       </div>
3875       <div class="body">
3876         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
3877 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
3878 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3879 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
3880 more international audience.</p>
3881
3882 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
3883 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
3884 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
3885 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
3886 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
3887 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
3888 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
3889
3890
3891 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3892
3893 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
3894 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
3895 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
3896 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
3897 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
3898 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
3899 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
3900 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
3901 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
3902 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
3903 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
3904
3905 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3906 project?</strong></p>
3907
3908 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
3909 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
3910 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
3911 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
3912 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
3913 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
3914 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
3915 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
3916 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
3917 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
3918 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
3919 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
3920 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
3921
3922 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3923 Edu?</strong></p>
3924
3925 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
3926 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
3927 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
3928 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
3929 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
3930 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
3931 Japan.</p>
3932
3933 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3934 Edu?</strong></p>
3935
3936 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
3937 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
3938 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
3939 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
3940 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
3941 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
3942 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
3943 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
3944 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
3945 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
3946 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
3947 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
3948 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
3949 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
3950 help.</p>
3951
3952 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3953
3954 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
3955 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
3956 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
3957 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
3958 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
3959 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
3960 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
3961 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
3962 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
3963 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
3964 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
3965
3966 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3967 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3968
3969 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
3970 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
3971 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
3972 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
3973 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
3974 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
3975 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
3976 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
3977 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
3978 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
3979 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
3980 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
3981
3982       </div>
3983       <div class="tags">
3984
3985
3986         Tags: <a href="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>.
3987
3988
3989       </div>
3990     </div>
3991     <div class="padding"></div>
3992
3993     <div class="entry">
3994       <div class="title">
3995         <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>
3996       </div>
3997       <div class="date">
3998          7th March 2012
3999       </div>
4000       <div class="body">
4001         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
4002
4003 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
4004 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
4005 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
4006 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
4007 download as a
4008 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
4009 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
4010
4011 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
4012   <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"' />
4013     <p>Download video as
4014       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
4015 </video></p>
4016
4017       </div>
4018       <div class="tags">
4019
4020
4021         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4022
4023
4024       </div>
4025     </div>
4026     <div class="padding"></div>
4027
4028     <div class="entry">
4029       <div class="title">
4030         <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>
4031       </div>
4032       <div class="date">
4033          4th March 2012
4034       </div>
4035       <div class="body">
4036         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
4037 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4038 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
4039 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
4040 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
4041 need a software solution for your school.</p>
4042
4043       </div>
4044       <div class="tags">
4045
4046
4047         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4048
4049
4050       </div>
4051     </div>
4052     <div class="padding"></div>
4053
4054     <div class="entry">
4055       <div class="title">
4056         <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>
4057       </div>
4058       <div class="date">
4059          3rd March 2012
4060       </div>
4061       <div class="body">
4062         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
4063 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
4064 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
4065 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
4066 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
4067 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
4068 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
4069 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
4070 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
4071 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
4072 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
4073 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
4074 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
4075 year...</p>
4076
4077 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
4078 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
4079 name,
4080 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
4081 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
4082 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
4083 mean). I've been following
4084 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
4085 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
4086 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
4087 Check it out. :)</p>
4088
4089       </div>
4090       <div class="tags">
4091
4092
4093         Tags: <a href="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>.
4094
4095
4096       </div>
4097     </div>
4098     <div class="padding"></div>
4099
4100     <div class="entry">
4101       <div class="title">
4102         <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>
4103       </div>
4104       <div class="date">
4105         27th February 2012
4106       </div>
4107       <div class="body">
4108         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
4109 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4110 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
4111 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
4112 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
4113 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
4114 need a software solution for your school.</p>
4115
4116       </div>
4117       <div class="tags">
4118
4119
4120         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4121
4122
4123       </div>
4124     </div>
4125     <div class="padding"></div>
4126
4127     <div class="entry">
4128       <div class="title">
4129         <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>
4130       </div>
4131       <div class="date">
4132         19th February 2012
4133       </div>
4134       <div class="body">
4135         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
4136 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
4137 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
4138 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
4139 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
4140 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
4141 solution for your school.</p>
4142
4143       </div>
4144       <div class="tags">
4145
4146
4147         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4148
4149
4150       </div>
4151     </div>
4152     <div class="padding"></div>
4153
4154     <div class="entry">
4155       <div class="title">
4156         <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>
4157       </div>
4158       <div class="date">
4159         14th February 2012
4160       </div>
4161       <div class="body">
4162         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
4163 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
4164 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
4165 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
4166 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
4167 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
4168 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
4169 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
4170 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
4171
4172 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
4173 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
4174 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
4175 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
4176 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
4177
4178 <blockquote><pre>
4179 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
4180 do
4181     printf "Failed disk $d: "
4182     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
4183 done
4184 </blockquote></pre>
4185
4186 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
4187 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
4188
4189 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
4190
4191 <blockquote><pre>
4192 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
4193 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
4194 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
4195 </blockquote></pre>
4196
4197 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
4198 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
4199 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
4200 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
4201 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
4202 mounted inside my box.</p>
4203
4204 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
4205 Software RAID in the
4206 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
4207 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
4208 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
4209 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
4210 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
4211 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
4212
4213       </div>
4214       <div class="tags">
4215
4216
4217         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>.
4218
4219
4220       </div>
4221     </div>
4222     <div class="padding"></div>
4223
4224     <div class="entry">
4225       <div class="title">
4226         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
4227       </div>
4228       <div class="date">
4229         13th February 2012
4230       </div>
4231       <div class="body">
4232         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
4233 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
4234 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
4235 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
4236 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
4237 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
4238 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
4239 change the global proxy setting by editing
4240 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
4241 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
4242
4243 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
4244 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
4245 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
4246
4247 <blockquote><pre>
4248 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
4249 {
4250    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
4251        isPlainHostName(host) ||
4252        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
4253       return "DIRECT";
4254    else
4255       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
4256 }
4257 </pre></blockquote>
4258
4259 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
4260
4261 <blockquote><pre>
4262 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
4263 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
4264 </pre></blockquote>
4265
4266 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
4267 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
4268 would be used for
4269 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
4270 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
4271 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
4272 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
4273 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
4274 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
4275 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
4276 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
4277 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
4278 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
4279
4280 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
4281 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
4282 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
4283 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
4284 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
4285 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
4286
4287 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
4288 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
4289 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
4290 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
4291 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
4292 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
4293 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
4294 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
4295 the network setup changes.</p>
4296
4297 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
4298 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
4299 draft</a> and a
4300 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
4301 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
4302
4303       </div>
4304       <div class="tags">
4305
4306
4307         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4308
4309
4310       </div>
4311     </div>
4312     <div class="padding"></div>
4313
4314     <div class="entry">
4315       <div class="title">
4316         <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>
4317       </div>
4318       <div class="date">
4319          5th February 2012
4320       </div>
4321       <div class="body">
4322         <p>Since the Lenny version of
4323 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
4324 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
4325 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
4326 in the morning.  This is done using the
4327 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
4328
4329 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
4330 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
4331 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
4332 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
4333 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
4334 the
4335 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
4336 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
4337 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
4338 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
4339 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
4340
4341 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
4342 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
4343 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
4344 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
4345 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
4346 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
4347 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
4348
4349 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
4350 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
4351 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
4352 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
4353 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
4354
4355       </div>
4356       <div class="tags">
4357
4358
4359         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4360
4361
4362       </div>
4363     </div>
4364     <div class="padding"></div>
4365
4366     <div class="entry">
4367       <div class="title">
4368         <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>
4369       </div>
4370       <div class="date">
4371          4th February 2012
4372       </div>
4373       <div class="body">
4374         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
4375 publish the third beta version of
4376 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
4377 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
4378 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
4379 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
4380 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
4381 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
4382 on the project announcement list.</p>
4383
4384 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
4385 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
4386
4387 <ul>
4388
4389 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
4390   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
4391   the installation.</li>
4392
4393 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
4394   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
4395
4396 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
4397   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
4398   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
4399
4400 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
4401   for the local system administrator is created during installation
4402   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
4403   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
4404   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
4405   up to date on the system.</li>
4406
4407 </ul>
4408
4409 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
4410 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
4411 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
4412 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
4413
4414 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
4415 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
4416 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
4417 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
4418 will see you there?</p>
4419
4420       </div>
4421       <div class="tags">
4422
4423
4424         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4425
4426
4427       </div>
4428     </div>
4429     <div class="padding"></div>
4430
4431     <div class="entry">
4432       <div class="title">
4433         <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>
4434       </div>
4435       <div class="date">
4436         27th January 2012
4437       </div>
4438       <div class="body">
4439         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
4440 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
4441 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
4442 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
4443 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
4444 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
4445 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
4446
4447 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
4448 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
4449 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
4450 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
4451 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
4452 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
4453 not taken care of by this.</p>
4454
4455 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
4456 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
4457 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
4458 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
4459 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
4460 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
4461 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
4462 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
4463 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
4464 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
4465 firmware packages.</p>
4466
4467 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
4468 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
4469 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
4470 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
4471 initrd with extra firmware, the
4472 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
4473 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
4474 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
4475
4476 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
4477 network cards working.  For this,
4478 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
4479 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
4480 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
4481
4482 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
4483 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
4484 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
4485
4486 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
4487 try.</p>
4488
4489       </div>
4490       <div class="tags">
4491
4492
4493         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4494
4495
4496       </div>
4497     </div>
4498     <div class="padding"></div>
4499
4500     <div class="entry">
4501       <div class="title">
4502         <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>
4503       </div>
4504       <div class="date">
4505         25th January 2012
4506       </div>
4507       <div class="body">
4508         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
4509 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
4510 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
4511 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
4512 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
4513
4514 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
4515 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
4516 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
4517 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
4518 this is done, log on to the central server and run
4519 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
4520 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
4521 will look similar to this:</p>
4522
4523 <p><blockquote><pre>
4524 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
4525 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
4526 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.
4527
4528 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
4529
4530 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4531 enter password: *******
4532 %
4533 </pre></blockquote></p>
4534
4535 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
4536 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
4537 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
4538 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
4539 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
4540 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
4541 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
4542 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
4543 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
4544 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
4545 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
4546 automatically.</p>
4547
4548 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
4549 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
4550
4551 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
4552 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
4553 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
4554
4555       </div>
4556       <div class="tags">
4557
4558
4559         Tags: <a href="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>.
4560
4561
4562       </div>
4563     </div>
4564     <div class="padding"></div>
4565
4566     <div class="entry">
4567       <div class="title">
4568         <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>
4569       </div>
4570       <div class="date">
4571         10th January 2012
4572       </div>
4573       <div class="body">
4574         <p>In the Squeeze version of
4575 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
4576 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
4577 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
4578 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
4579 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
4580 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
4581 first time.</p>
4582
4583 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
4584 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
4585 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
4586 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
4587
4588 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
4589 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
4590 new setting.</p>
4591
4592 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
4593 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
4594 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
4595
4596       </div>
4597       <div class="tags">
4598
4599
4600         Tags: <a href="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>.
4601
4602
4603       </div>
4604     </div>
4605     <div class="padding"></div>
4606
4607     <div class="entry">
4608       <div class="title">
4609         <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>
4610       </div>
4611       <div class="date">
4612          7th January 2012
4613       </div>
4614       <div class="body">
4615         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
4616 the second beta version of
4617 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
4618 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
4619 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
4620 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
4621 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
4622 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
4623 on the project announcement list.</p>
4624
4625       </div>
4626       <div class="tags">
4627
4628
4629         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4630
4631
4632       </div>
4633     </div>
4634     <div class="padding"></div>
4635
4636     <div class="entry">
4637       <div class="title">
4638         <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>
4639       </div>
4640       <div class="date">
4641          3rd January 2012
4642       </div>
4643       <div class="body">
4644         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
4645 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
4646 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
4647 interesting.</p>
4648
4649 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
4650 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
4651 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
4652 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
4653 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
4654 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
4655 wrap up its tasks.</p>
4656
4657 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
4658 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
4659 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
4660 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
4661 because I was typing.</P>
4662
4663 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
4664 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
4665 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
4666 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
4667 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
4668 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
4669 generate entropy.</p>
4670
4671 <p>The fix is in
4672 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
4673 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
4674 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
4675 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
4676
4677       </div>
4678       <div class="tags">
4679
4680
4681         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4682
4683
4684       </div>
4685     </div>
4686     <div class="padding"></div>
4687
4688     <div class="entry">
4689       <div class="title">
4690         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4691       </div>
4692       <div class="date">
4693         21st November 2011
4694       </div>
4695       <div class="body">
4696         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
4697 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
4698 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4699 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
4700 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4701 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
4702 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
4703 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
4704 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4705 the tools to do so.</p>
4706
4707 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4708 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
4709 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4710 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
4711
4712 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4713 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
4714 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
4715 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4716 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4717 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4718 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4719 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
4720
4721 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4722 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4723 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
4724
4725 <p><pre>
4726 #!/usr/bin/perl
4727 use strict;
4728 use warnings;
4729 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4730 BEGIN {
4731     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4732     my %rhelmodules = (
4733         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
4734         );
4735     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4736         eval "use $module;";
4737         if ($@) {
4738             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4739             system("yum install -y $pkg");
4740             eval "use $module;";
4741         }
4742     }
4743 }
4744 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
4745
4746 upgrade_dell();
4747
4748 exit 0;
4749
4750 sub run_firmware_script {
4751     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4752     unless ($script) {
4753         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
4754         exit 1
4755     }
4756     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
4757
4758     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4759         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
4760     } else {
4761         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
4762     }
4763 }
4764
4765 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4766     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4767     # Run firmware packages
4768     for my $dir (@dirs) {
4769         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
4770         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
4771         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4772             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4773             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
4774         }
4775         closedir $dh;
4776     }
4777 }
4778
4779 sub download {
4780     my $url = shift;
4781     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
4782     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
4783 }
4784
4785 sub upgrade_dell {
4786     my @dirs;
4787     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4788     chomp $product;
4789
4790     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4791
4792         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4793         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
4794
4795         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4796             CLEANUP => 1
4797             );
4798         chdir($tmpdir);
4799         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
4800         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
4801         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
4802         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4803         my $fwopts = "-q";
4804         if (@paths) {
4805             for my $url (@paths) {
4806                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4807             }
4808             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4809         } else {
4810             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4811             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4812         }
4813         chdir('/');
4814     } else {
4815         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4816         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4817     }
4818 }
4819
4820 sub fetch_dell_fw {
4821     my $path = shift;
4822     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
4823     download($url);
4824 }
4825
4826 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4827 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
4828 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
4829 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4830     my $filename = shift;
4831
4832     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4833     chomp $product;
4834     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4835
4836     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
4837
4838     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4839     my @paths;
4840     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4841         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
4842         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
4843         my $oscode;
4844         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
4845             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
4846         } else {
4847             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
4848         }
4849         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
4850         {
4851             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
4852         }
4853     }
4854     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
4855         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
4856
4857         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
4858         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
4859
4860         my $cpath = $component->{path};
4861         for my $path (@paths) {
4862             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
4863                 push(@paths, $cpath);
4864             }
4865         }
4866     }
4867     return @paths;
4868 }
4869 </pre>
4870
4871 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
4872 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
4873 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
4874 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
4875 outdated.</p>
4876
4877       </div>
4878       <div class="tags">
4879
4880
4881         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>.
4882
4883
4884       </div>
4885     </div>
4886     <div class="padding"></div>
4887
4888     <div class="entry">
4889       <div class="title">
4890         <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>
4891       </div>
4892       <div class="date">
4893          7th October 2011
4894       </div>
4895       <div class="body">
4896         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
4897 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
4898 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
4899 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
4900 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
4901 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
4902 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
4903 models.</p>
4904
4905 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
4906 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
4907 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
4908 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
4909
4910 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
4911 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
4912 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
4913 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
4914 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
4915 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
4916 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
4917 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
4918 distributed.</p>
4919
4920 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
4921
4922 <ul>
4923
4924 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
4925   other relevant equipment.</li>
4926
4927 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
4928
4929 </ul>
4930
4931 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
4932 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
4933 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
4934 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
4935 books available.</p>
4936
4937 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
4938 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
4939 libraries. :)</p>
4940
4941       </div>
4942       <div class="tags">
4943
4944
4945         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>.
4946
4947
4948       </div>
4949     </div>
4950     <div class="padding"></div>
4951
4952     <div class="entry">
4953       <div class="title">
4954         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
4955       </div>
4956       <div class="date">
4957         17th September 2011
4958       </div>
4959       <div class="body">
4960         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
4961 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
4962 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
4963 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
4964 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
4965 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
4966 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
4967 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
4968
4969 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
4970
4971 <blockquote><pre>
4972 #!/bin/sh
4973 # apt-get install lsdvd
4974 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
4975 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
4976 </pre></blockquote>
4977
4978 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
4979 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
4980 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
4981 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
4982
4983 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
4984 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
4985 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
4986 back as an ISO.
4987
4988 <blockquote><pre>
4989 #!/bin/sh
4990 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
4991 set -e
4992 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
4993 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
4994 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
4995 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
4996 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
4997 </pre></blockquote>
4998
4999 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
5000
5001 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
5002 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
5003 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
5004 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
5005 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
5006
5007 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
5008 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
5009 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
5010 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
5011 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
5012 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
5013
5014       </div>
5015       <div class="tags">
5016
5017
5018         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>.
5019
5020
5021       </div>
5022     </div>
5023     <div class="padding"></div>
5024
5025     <div class="entry">
5026       <div class="title">
5027         <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>
5028       </div>
5029       <div class="date">
5030          4th August 2011
5031       </div>
5032       <div class="body">
5033         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
5034 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
5035 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
5036 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
5037 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
5038 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
5039 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
5040 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
5041 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
5042
5043 <p><blockquote>
5044 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
5045 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
5046 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
5047 </blockquote></p>
5048
5049 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
5050 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
5051 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
5052 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
5053 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
5054 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
5055 hard to explain.</p>
5056
5057 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
5058 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
5059 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
5060 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
5061 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
5062 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
5063 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
5064 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
5065 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
5066 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
5067 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
5068 mode).</p>
5069
5070 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
5071 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
5072 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
5073 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
5074 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
5075 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
5076 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
5077 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
5078 after visiting single user mode.</p>
5079
5080 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
5081 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
5082 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
5083 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
5084 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
5085 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
5086 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
5087 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
5088
5089 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
5090 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
5091 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
5092
5093       </div>
5094       <div class="tags">
5095
5096
5097         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>.
5098
5099
5100       </div>
5101     </div>
5102     <div class="padding"></div>
5103
5104     <div class="entry">
5105       <div class="title">
5106         <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>
5107       </div>
5108       <div class="date">
5109         30th July 2011
5110       </div>
5111       <div class="body">
5112         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
5113 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
5114 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
5115 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
5116 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
5117 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
5118 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
5119 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
5120 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
5121 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
5122 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
5123 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
5124 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
5125
5126 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
5127 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
5128 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
5129 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
5130 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
5131 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
5132 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
5133 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
5134 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
5135
5136 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
5137 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
5138 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
5139 is presented.</p>
5140
5141 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
5142 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
5143 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
5144 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
5145 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
5146 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
5147 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
5148 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
5149 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
5150 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
5151 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
5152 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
5153 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
5154 find time to push this forward.</p>
5155
5156       </div>
5157       <div class="tags">
5158
5159
5160         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>.
5161
5162
5163       </div>
5164     </div>
5165     <div class="padding"></div>
5166
5167     <div class="entry">
5168       <div class="title">
5169         <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>
5170       </div>
5171       <div class="date">
5172         29th July 2011
5173       </div>
5174       <div class="body">
5175         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
5176 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
5177 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
5178 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
5179 issues.</p>
5180
5181 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
5182 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
5183 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
5184
5185 <ol>
5186
5187 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
5188 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
5189 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
5190 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
5191 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
5192 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
5193 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
5194 Debian.</li>
5195
5196 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
5197 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
5198 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
5199 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
5200 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
5201 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
5202 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
5203 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
5204 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
5205 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
5206 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
5207 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
5208 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
5209
5210 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
5211 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
5212 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
5213 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
5214 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
5215 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
5216 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
5217 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
5218 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
5219 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
5220
5221 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
5222 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
5223 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
5224 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
5225 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
5226 latter behaviour.</li>
5227
5228 </ol>
5229
5230 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
5231 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
5232 it do not matter much.</p>
5233
5234 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
5235 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
5236 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
5237
5238       </div>
5239       <div class="tags">
5240
5241
5242         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>.
5243
5244
5245       </div>
5246     </div>
5247     <div class="padding"></div>
5248
5249     <div class="entry">
5250       <div class="title">
5251         <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>
5252       </div>
5253       <div class="date">
5254         26th July 2011
5255       </div>
5256       <div class="body">
5257         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
5258 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
5259 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
5260 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
5261 security support for a few years.</p>
5262
5263 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
5264 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
5265 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
5266 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
5267 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
5268 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
5269 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
5270 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
5271 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
5272 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
5273 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
5274 easier in the future.</p>
5275
5276 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
5277 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
5278 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
5279 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
5280 do not have time for.</p>
5281
5282       </div>
5283       <div class="tags">
5284
5285
5286         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>.
5287
5288
5289       </div>
5290     </div>
5291     <div class="padding"></div>
5292
5293     <div class="entry">
5294       <div class="title">
5295         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
5296       </div>
5297       <div class="date">
5298         20th June 2011
5299       </div>
5300       <div class="body">
5301         <p>Reading
5302 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
5303 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
5304 parts of the
5305 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
5306 and
5307 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
5308 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
5309 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
5310 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
5311
5312       </div>
5313       <div class="tags">
5314
5315
5316         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>.
5317
5318
5319       </div>
5320     </div>
5321     <div class="padding"></div>
5322
5323     <div class="entry">
5324       <div class="title">
5325         <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>
5326       </div>
5327       <div class="date">
5328         30th April 2011
5329       </div>
5330       <div class="body">
5331         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
5332 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
5333 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
5334 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
5335 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
5336 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
5337 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
5338 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
5339 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
5340 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
5341
5342 <p>Where is it?  Visit
5343 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
5344 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
5345 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
5346 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
5347
5348       </div>
5349       <div class="tags">
5350
5351
5352         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>.
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/Initial_notes_on_adding_Open311_server_API_on_FixMyStreet.html">Initial notes on adding Open311 server API on FixMyStreet</a>
5362       </div>
5363       <div class="date">
5364         29th April 2011
5365       </div>
5366       <div class="body">
5367         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
5368 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
5369 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
5370 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
5371 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
5372 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
5373 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
5374 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
5375 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
5376 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
5377 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
5378 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
5379 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
5380
5381 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
5382 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
5383 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
5384 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
5385 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
5386 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
5387 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
5388 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
5389 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
5390 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
5391 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
5392 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
5393 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
5394
5395 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
5396 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
5397 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
5398 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
5399 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
5400 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
5401 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
5402 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
5403 it.</p>
5404
5405 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
5406 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
5407 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
5408 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
5409 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
5410 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
5411 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
5412
5413 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
5414 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
5415 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
5416 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
5417 and range= options.</p>
5418
5419 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
5420 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
5421 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
5422 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
5423 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
5424 to best handle this.  I've noticed
5425 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
5426 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
5427 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
5428 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
5429
5430 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
5431 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
5432 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
5433 discussions instead of only
5434 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
5435 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
5436 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
5437 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
5438 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
5439 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
5440
5441       </div>
5442       <div class="tags">
5443
5444
5445         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>.
5446
5447
5448       </div>
5449     </div>
5450     <div class="padding"></div>
5451
5452     <div class="entry">
5453       <div class="title">
5454         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
5455       </div>
5456       <div class="date">
5457          6th April 2011
5458       </div>
5459       <div class="body">
5460         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
5461 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
5462 A few days ago the project
5463 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
5464 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
5465 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
5466 into Gnash.</p>
5467
5468       </div>
5469       <div class="tags">
5470
5471
5472         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>.
5473
5474
5475       </div>
5476     </div>
5477     <div class="padding"></div>
5478
5479     <div class="entry">
5480       <div class="title">
5481         <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>
5482       </div>
5483       <div class="date">
5484          3rd April 2011
5485       </div>
5486       <div class="body">
5487         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
5488 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
5489 update in English.</p>
5490
5491 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
5492 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
5493 of the British service
5494 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
5495 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
5496 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
5497 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
5498 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
5499 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
5500 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
5501 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
5502 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
5503 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
5504 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
5505 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
5506 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
5507
5508 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
5509 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
5510 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
5511 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
5512 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
5513 public infrastructure.</p>
5514
5515 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
5516 such service?</p>
5517
5518       </div>
5519       <div class="tags">
5520
5521
5522         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>.
5523
5524
5525       </div>
5526     </div>
5527     <div class="padding"></div>
5528
5529     <div class="entry">
5530       <div class="title">
5531         <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>
5532       </div>
5533       <div class="date">
5534         28th January 2011
5535       </div>
5536       <div class="body">
5537         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
5538 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
5539 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
5540 available on the Internet, and check our locally
5541 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
5542 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
5543 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
5544 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
5545 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
5546 out which security holes were present in our free software
5547 collection.</p>
5548
5549 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
5550 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
5551 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
5552 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
5553 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
5554 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
5555 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
5556 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
5557 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
5558 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
5559 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5560 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5561 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5562 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5563 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5564 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5565
5566 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5567 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5568 check out, one could look up
5569 <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
5570 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5571 The most recent one is
5572 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5573 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5574 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5575
5576 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5577 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5578 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5579 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5580 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5581 security issues out.</p>
5582
5583 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5584 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5585 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5586 RHEL is providing
5587 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5588 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5589 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5590
5591 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5592 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5593 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5594 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5595 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5596 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5597 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5598 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5599 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5600 established soon.</p>
5601
5602 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5603 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5604 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5605 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5606 for their packages.</p>
5607
5608       </div>
5609       <div class="tags">
5610
5611
5612         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>.
5613
5614
5615       </div>
5616     </div>
5617     <div class="padding"></div>
5618
5619     <div class="entry">
5620       <div class="title">
5621         <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>
5622       </div>
5623       <div class="date">
5624         23rd January 2011
5625       </div>
5626       <div class="body">
5627         <p>In the
5628 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5629 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5630 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5631 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5632 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5633 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5634 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5635 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5636 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5637 one of my machines like this:</p>
5638
5639 <pre>
5640 loaded modules:
5641 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5642 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5643 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5644 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5645 10de:03ec pata_amd
5646 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5647 1022:1103 k8temp
5648 109e:036e bttv
5649 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5650 11ab:4364 sky2
5651 </pre>
5652
5653 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5654 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5655
5656 <pre>
5657 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5658     echo loaded pci modules:
5659     (
5660         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5661         for address in * ; do
5662             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5663                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5664                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5665                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5666                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5667                     echo "$id $module"
5668                 fi
5669             fi
5670         done
5671     )
5672     echo
5673 fi
5674 </pre>
5675
5676 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5677 mappings:</p>
5678
5679 <pre>
5680 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5681     echo loaded usb modules:
5682     (
5683         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5684         for address in * ; do
5685             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5686                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5687                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5688                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5689                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5690                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5691                         echo "$id $module"
5692                     fi
5693                 fi
5694             fi
5695         done
5696     )
5697     echo
5698 fi
5699 </pre>
5700
5701 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5702 well.</p>
5703
5704       </div>
5705       <div class="tags">
5706
5707
5708         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>.
5709
5710
5711       </div>
5712     </div>
5713     <div class="padding"></div>
5714
5715     <div class="entry">
5716       <div class="title">
5717         <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>
5718       </div>
5719       <div class="date">
5720         16th January 2011
5721       </div>
5722       <div class="body">
5723         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
5724 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
5725 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
5726 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
5727 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
5728 the Wikipedia article on
5729 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
5730 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
5731 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
5732 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
5733 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
5734 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
5735 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
5736 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
5737 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
5738 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
5739 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
5740 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
5741
5742 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
5743 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
5744 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
5745 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
5746 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
5747 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
5748 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
5749 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
5750 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
5751 from last week</a>.</p>
5752
5753 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
5754 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
5755 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
5756 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
5757 was without royalties and license terms, check out
5758 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
5759 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
5760
5761 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
5762 available from
5763 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
5764 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
5765 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
5766
5767 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
5768 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
5769 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
5770 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
5771
5772       </div>
5773       <div class="tags">
5774
5775
5776         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>.
5777
5778
5779       </div>
5780     </div>
5781     <div class="padding"></div>
5782
5783     <div class="entry">
5784       <div class="title">
5785         <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>
5786       </div>
5787       <div class="date">
5788         12th January 2011
5789       </div>
5790       <div class="body">
5791         <p>Today I discovered
5792 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
5793 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
5794 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
5795 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
5796 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
5797 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
5798 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
5799 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
5800 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
5801 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
5802 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
5803 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
5804 on the Google announcement is available from
5805 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
5806 A good read. :)</p>
5807
5808 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
5809 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
5810 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
5811 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
5812 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
5813 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
5814 browsers support H.264, and others support
5815 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
5816 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
5817 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
5818 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
5819 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
5820 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
5821 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
5822 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
5823
5824 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
5825 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
5826 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
5827 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
5828 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
5829 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
5830 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
5831
5832 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
5833 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
5834 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
5835 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
5836 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
5837 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
5838 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
5839
5840 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
5841 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
5842 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
5843 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
5844 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
5845 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
5846 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
5847
5848 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
5849 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
5850 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
5851 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
5852 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
5853 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
5854 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
5855 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
5856 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
5857 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
5858 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
5859 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
5860 I guess time will tell.</p>
5861
5862 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
5863 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
5864 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
5865
5866       </div>
5867       <div class="tags">
5868
5869
5870         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>.
5871
5872
5873       </div>
5874     </div>
5875     <div class="padding"></div>
5876
5877     <div class="entry">
5878       <div class="title">
5879         <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>
5880       </div>
5881       <div class="date">
5882         30th December 2010
5883       </div>
5884       <div class="body">
5885         <p>After trying to
5886 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
5887 Ogg Theora</a> to
5888 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
5889 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
5890 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
5891 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
5892 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
5893 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
5894 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
5895
5896 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
5897 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
5898 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
5899 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
5900 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
5901 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
5902 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
5903
5904 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
5905 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
5906
5907       </div>
5908       <div class="tags">
5909
5910
5911         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>.
5912
5913
5914       </div>
5915     </div>
5916     <div class="padding"></div>
5917
5918     <div class="entry">
5919       <div class="title">
5920         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
5921       </div>
5922       <div class="date">
5923         27th December 2010
5924       </div>
5925       <div class="body">
5926         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
5927 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
5928 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
5929 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
5930 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
5931 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
5932 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
5933 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
5934
5935 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
5936 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
5937 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
5938 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
5939 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
5940 page</a>.</p>
5941
5942 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
5943 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
5944 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
5945 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
5946 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
5947 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
5948 specification on equal terms.</p>
5949
5950 <blockquote>
5951
5952 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
5953 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
5954 open standard:</p>
5955
5956 <ul>
5957
5958 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
5959 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
5960 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
5961 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
5962
5963 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
5964 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
5965 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
5966 nominal fee.</li>
5967
5968 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
5969 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
5970 free basis.</li>
5971
5972 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
5973
5974 </ul>
5975 </blockquote>
5976
5977 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
5978 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
5979 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
5980 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
5981 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
5982 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
5983 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
5984
5985 <blockquote>
5986
5987 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
5988
5989 <ol>
5990
5991 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
5992 tilgængelig.</li>
5993
5994 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
5995 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
5996
5997 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
5998 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
5999
6000 </ol>
6001
6002 </blockquote>
6003
6004 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
6005 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
6006
6007 <blockquote>
6008
6009 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
6010
6011 <ol>
6012
6013 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
6014 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
6015
6016 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
6017 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
6018 Standard themselves;</li>
6019
6020 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
6021 any party or in any business model;</li>
6022
6023 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
6024 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
6025 parties;</li>
6026
6027 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
6028 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
6029 parties.</li>
6030
6031 </ol>
6032
6033 </blockquote>
6034
6035 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
6036 its
6037 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
6038 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
6039
6040 <blockquote>
6041 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
6042
6043 <ul>
6044
6045 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
6046   democratic:
6047
6048          <ul>
6049
6050          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
6051             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
6052             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
6053             and managed.</li>
6054
6055          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
6056             method, can be changed through input from all
6057             participants.</li>
6058
6059          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
6060             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
6061
6062          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
6063             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
6064
6065          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
6066             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
6067             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
6068
6069          </ul>
6070
6071 </li>
6072
6073 </ul>
6074
6075 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
6076 <ul>
6077
6078 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
6079   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
6080   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
6081   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
6082   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
6083
6084 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
6085   a technical or economic barriers</li>
6086
6087 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
6088   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
6089   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
6090   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
6091   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
6092   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
6093   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
6094   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
6095   intended to function.</li>
6096
6097 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
6098   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
6099   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
6100
6101 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
6102   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
6103   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
6104   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
6105   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
6106   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
6107   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
6108   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
6109
6110       <ul>
6111
6112       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
6113         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
6114         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
6115
6116       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
6117         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
6118         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
6119         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
6120
6121       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
6122         licensor</li>
6123
6124       </ul>
6125 </li>
6126
6127 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
6128   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
6129   or restricted licensing terms</li>
6130
6131 </ul>
6132
6133 </blockquote>
6134
6135 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
6136 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
6137 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
6138 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
6139 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
6140 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
6141 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
6142 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
6143 Standards.</p>
6144
6145       </div>
6146       <div class="tags">
6147
6148
6149         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>.
6150
6151
6152       </div>
6153     </div>
6154     <div class="padding"></div>
6155
6156     <div class="entry">
6157       <div class="title">
6158         <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>
6159       </div>
6160       <div class="date">
6161         25th December 2010
6162       </div>
6163       <div class="body">
6164         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
6165 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
6166
6167 <blockquote>
6168
6169 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
6170 as follows:</p>
6171
6172 <ol>
6173
6174 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
6175 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
6176 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
6177
6178 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
6179 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
6180 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
6181 parties.</li>
6182
6183 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
6184 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
6185 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
6186
6187 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
6188 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
6189
6190 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
6191
6192 </ol>
6193
6194 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
6195 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
6196 products based on the standard.</p>
6197 </blockquote>
6198
6199 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
6200 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
6201 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
6202 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
6203 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
6204 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
6205 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
6206 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
6207
6208 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
6209
6210 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
6211 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
6212 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
6213 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
6214 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
6215 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
6216 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
6217 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
6218 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
6219 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
6220 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
6221 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
6222 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
6223 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
6224
6225 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
6226
6227 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
6228 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
6229 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
6230 documentation indicating this.</p>
6231
6232 <p>According to
6233 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
6234 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
6235 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
6236 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
6237 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
6238 report is correct.</p>
6239
6240 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
6241
6242 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
6243 container format</a> and both the
6244 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
6245 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
6246 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
6247
6248 <blockquote>
6249
6250 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
6251 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
6252 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
6253 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
6254 specification compliance.
6255
6256 </blockquote>
6257
6258 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
6259 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
6260 this is the term:<p>
6261
6262 <blockquote>
6263
6264 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
6265 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
6266 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
6267 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
6268 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
6269 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
6270 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
6271 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
6272 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
6273 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
6274 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
6275 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
6276
6277 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
6278 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
6279 </blockquote>
6280
6281 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
6282 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
6283 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
6284 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
6285 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
6286
6287 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
6288
6289 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
6290 Theora format.
6291 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
6292 and
6293 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
6294 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
6295 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
6296 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
6297 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
6298 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
6299 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
6300 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
6301
6302 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
6303
6304 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
6305
6306 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
6307
6308 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
6309 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
6310 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
6311 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
6312 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
6313 this.</p>
6314
6315 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
6316 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
6317
6318       </div>
6319       <div class="tags">
6320
6321
6322         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>.
6323
6324
6325       </div>
6326     </div>
6327     <div class="padding"></div>
6328
6329     <div class="entry">
6330       <div class="title">
6331         <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>
6332       </div>
6333       <div class="date">
6334         25th December 2010
6335       </div>
6336       <div class="body">
6337         <p>A few days ago
6338 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
6339 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
6340 2.0 of
6341 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
6342 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
6343 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
6344 Nothing very surprising there, given
6345 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
6346 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
6347 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
6348 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
6349 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
6350 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
6351 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
6352 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
6353 standard definition from its content.</p>
6354
6355 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
6356 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
6357 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
6358 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
6359 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
6360 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
6361 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
6362 background information about that story is available in
6363 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
6364 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
6365
6366 <blockquote>
6367 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
6368 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
6369 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
6370
6371 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
6372
6373 <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>
6374
6375 <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>
6376
6377 <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>
6378
6379 <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>
6380
6381 <p>
6382 <ul>
6383 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
6384 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
6385 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
6386 </ul>
6387 </p>
6388
6389 <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>
6390
6391 <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>
6392
6393 <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>
6394
6395 <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>
6396
6397 <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>
6398
6399
6400 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
6401 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
6402 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
6403 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
6404 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
6405 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
6406
6407 </p>
6408
6409 <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>
6410
6411 <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>
6412
6413 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
6414
6415 <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>
6416
6417 <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>
6418
6419 <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>
6420
6421 <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>
6422
6423 <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>
6424
6425 <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>
6426
6427 <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>
6428
6429 <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>
6430
6431 <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>
6432
6433 <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>
6434
6435 <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>
6436
6437 <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>
6438
6439 <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>
6440
6441 <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>
6442
6443 <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>
6444
6445 <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>
6446
6447 <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>
6448
6449 <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>
6450
6451 <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>
6452
6453 <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>
6454
6455 <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>
6456
6457 <p>On security:</p>
6458
6459 <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>
6460
6461 <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>
6462
6463 <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>
6464
6465 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
6466
6467 <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>
6468
6469 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
6470
6471 <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>
6472
6473 <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>
6474
6475 <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>
6476
6477 <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>
6478
6479 <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>
6480
6481 <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>
6482
6483 <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>
6484
6485 <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>
6486
6487 <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>
6488
6489 <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>
6490
6491 <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>
6492
6493 <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>
6494
6495 <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>
6496
6497 <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>
6498
6499 <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>
6500
6501 <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>
6502
6503 <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>
6504
6505 <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>
6506
6507 <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>
6508
6509 <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>
6510
6511 <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>
6512
6513 <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>
6514
6515 <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>
6516
6517 <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>
6518
6519 <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>
6520
6521 <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>
6522
6523 <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>
6524
6525 <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>
6526
6527 <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>
6528
6529 <p>Cordially,<br>
6530 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
6531 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
6532 </blockquote>
6533
6534       </div>
6535       <div class="tags">
6536
6537
6538         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>.
6539
6540
6541       </div>
6542     </div>
6543     <div class="padding"></div>
6544
6545     <div class="entry">
6546       <div class="title">
6547         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
6548       </div>
6549       <div class="date">
6550         25th December 2010
6551       </div>
6552       <div class="body">
6553         <p>Half a year ago I
6554 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
6555 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
6556 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
6557 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
6558
6559 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
6560 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
6561 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
6562 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
6563 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
6564 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
6565 got such a great test tool available.</p>
6566
6567       </div>
6568       <div class="tags">
6569
6570
6571         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>.
6572
6573
6574       </div>
6575     </div>
6576     <div class="padding"></div>
6577
6578     <div class="entry">
6579       <div class="title">
6580         <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>
6581       </div>
6582       <div class="date">
6583         22nd December 2010
6584       </div>
6585       <div class="body">
6586         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
6587 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
6588 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
6589 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
6590 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
6591 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
6592 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
6593 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
6594 university.</p>
6595
6596 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
6597 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
6598 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
6599 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
6600 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
6601 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
6602 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
6603 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
6604
6605 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
6606 I perform on a new model.</p>
6607
6608 <ul>
6609
6610 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
6611 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
6612 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
6613
6614 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
6615 installation, X.org is working.</li>
6616
6617 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
6618 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
6619 reported by the program.</li>
6620
6621 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
6622 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
6623 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
6624 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
6625 normally test this by playing
6626 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
6627 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
6628
6629 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
6630 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
6631
6632 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
6633 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
6634
6635 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
6636 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
6637
6638 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
6639 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
6640 few.</li>
6641
6642 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
6643 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
6644 notice this.</li>
6645
6646 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
6647 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
6648 resume.</li>
6649
6650 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
6651 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
6652 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
6653 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
6654 not.</li>
6655
6656 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
6657 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
6658 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
6659 existence.</li>
6660
6661 </ul>
6662
6663 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
6664 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
6665 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
6666 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
6667 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
6668 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
6669 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
6670 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
6671
6672       </div>
6673       <div class="tags">
6674
6675
6676         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>.
6677
6678
6679       </div>
6680     </div>
6681     <div class="padding"></div>
6682
6683     <div class="entry">
6684       <div class="title">
6685         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
6686       </div>
6687       <div class="date">
6688         11th December 2010
6689       </div>
6690       <div class="body">
6691         <p>As I continue to explore
6692 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
6693 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
6694 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
6695
6696 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
6697 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
6698 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
6699 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
6700 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
6701 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
6702 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
6703 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
6704 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
6705 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
6706 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
6707 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
6708 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
6709 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
6710 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
6711 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
6712 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
6713 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
6714 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
6715 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
6716
6717 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
6718 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
6719 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
6720 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
6721 If the Skolelinux foundation
6722 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
6723 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
6724 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
6725 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
6726 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
6727 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
6728 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
6729 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
6730
6731 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
6732 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
6733 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
6734 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
6735 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
6736 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
6737 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
6738 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
6739 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
6740 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
6741 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
6742 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
6743 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
6744 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
6745 currencies.</p>
6746
6747 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
6748 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
6749 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
6750 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
6751 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
6752 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
6753 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
6754 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
6755 BitCoins.  Check out
6756 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
6757 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
6758 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
6759 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
6760 yet.</p>
6761
6762 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
6763 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
6764 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
6765 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
6766 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
6767
6768       </div>
6769       <div class="tags">
6770
6771
6772         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>.
6773
6774
6775       </div>
6776     </div>
6777     <div class="padding"></div>
6778
6779     <div class="entry">
6780       <div class="title">
6781         <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>
6782       </div>
6783       <div class="date">
6784         10th December 2010
6785       </div>
6786       <div class="body">
6787         <p>With this weeks lawless
6788 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
6789 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
6790 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
6791 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
6792 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
6793 A blog post from
6794 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
6795 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
6796 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
6797 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
6798 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
6799 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
6800 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
6801
6802 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
6803 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
6804 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
6805 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
6806 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
6807 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
6808 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
6809 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
6810 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
6811 Debian</a> soon.</p>
6812
6813 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
6814 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
6815 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
6816 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
6817 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
6818 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
6819 you can even get
6820 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
6821 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
6822 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
6823 on the current exchange rates.</p>
6824
6825 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
6826 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
6827 donations to the address
6828 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
6829
6830       </div>
6831       <div class="tags">
6832
6833
6834         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>.
6835
6836
6837       </div>
6838     </div>
6839     <div class="padding"></div>
6840
6841     <div class="entry">
6842       <div class="title">
6843         <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>
6844       </div>
6845       <div class="date">
6846          9th December 2010
6847       </div>
6848       <div class="body">
6849         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
6850 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
6851 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
6852 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
6853 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
6854 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
6855 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
6856 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
6857 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
6858 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
6859 operational.</p>
6860
6861 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
6862 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
6863 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
6864 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
6865 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
6866 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
6867 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
6868
6869       </div>
6870       <div class="tags">
6871
6872
6873         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>.
6874
6875
6876       </div>
6877     </div>
6878     <div class="padding"></div>
6879
6880     <div class="entry">
6881       <div class="title">
6882         <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>
6883       </div>
6884       <div class="date">
6885         29th November 2010
6886       </div>
6887       <div class="body">
6888         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6889 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
6890 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
6891 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
6892 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
6893 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
6894
6895 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
6896 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
6897 will hold its
6898 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
6899 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
6900 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
6901 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
6902 vote this year.</p>
6903
6904       </div>
6905       <div class="tags">
6906
6907
6908         Tags: <a href="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>.
6909
6910
6911       </div>
6912     </div>
6913     <div class="padding"></div>
6914
6915     <div class="entry">
6916       <div class="title">
6917         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
6918       </div>
6919       <div class="date">
6920         27th November 2010
6921       </div>
6922       <div class="body">
6923         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
6924 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
6925 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
6926 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
6927 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
6928 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
6929 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
6930 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
6931
6932 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
6933 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6934 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
6935 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
6936 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
6937 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
6938 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
6939 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
6940 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
6941 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
6942 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
6943
6944 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
6945 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
6946 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
6947 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
6948 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
6949 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
6950 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
6951 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
6952 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
6953 what is going on.</p>
6954
6955       </div>
6956       <div class="tags">
6957
6958
6959         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>.
6960
6961
6962       </div>
6963     </div>
6964     <div class="padding"></div>
6965
6966     <div class="entry">
6967       <div class="title">
6968         <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>
6969       </div>
6970       <div class="date">
6971         22nd November 2010
6972       </div>
6973       <div class="body">
6974         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
6975 upgrade testing of the
6976 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6977 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
6978 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
6979 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
6980
6981 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6982
6983 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6984
6985 <blockquote><p>
6986   apache2.2-bin
6987   aptdaemon
6988   baobab
6989   binfmt-support
6990   browser-plugin-gnash
6991   cheese-common
6992   cli-common
6993   cups-pk-helper
6994   dmz-cursor-theme
6995   empathy
6996   empathy-common
6997   freedesktop-sound-theme
6998   freeglut3
6999   gconf-defaults-service
7000   gdm-themes
7001   gedit-plugins
7002   geoclue
7003   geoclue-hostip
7004   geoclue-localnet
7005   geoclue-manual
7006   geoclue-yahoo
7007   gnash
7008   gnash-common
7009   gnome
7010   gnome-backgrounds
7011   gnome-cards-data
7012   gnome-codec-install
7013   gnome-core
7014   gnome-desktop-environment
7015   gnome-disk-utility
7016   gnome-screenshot
7017   gnome-search-tool
7018   gnome-session-canberra
7019   gnome-system-log
7020   gnome-themes-extras
7021   gnome-themes-more
7022   gnome-user-share
7023   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
7024   gstreamer0.10-tools
7025   gtk2-engines
7026   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
7027   gtk2-engines-smooth
7028   hamster-applet
7029   libapache2-mod-dnssd
7030   libapr1
7031   libaprutil1
7032   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
7033   libaprutil1-ldap
7034   libart2.0-cil
7035   libboost-date-time1.42.0
7036   libboost-python1.42.0
7037   libboost-thread1.42.0
7038   libchamplain-0.4-0
7039   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
7040   libcheese-gtk18
7041   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
7042   libcryptui0
7043   libdiscid0
7044   libelf1
7045   libepc-1.0-2
7046   libepc-common
7047   libepc-ui-1.0-2
7048   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
7049   libfreerdp0
7050   libgconf2.0-cil
7051   libgdata-common
7052   libgdata7
7053   libgdu-gtk0
7054   libgee2
7055   libgeoclue0
7056   libgexiv2-0
7057   libgif4
7058   libglade2.0-cil
7059   libglib2.0-cil
7060   libgmime2.4-cil
7061   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
7062   libgnome2.24-cil
7063   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
7064   libgpod-common
7065   libgpod4
7066   libgtk2.0-cil
7067   libgtkglext1
7068   libgtksourceview2.0-common
7069   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
7070   libmono-addins0.2-cil
7071   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
7072   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
7073   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
7074   libmono-posix2.0-cil
7075   libmono-security2.0-cil
7076   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
7077   libmono-system2.0-cil
7078   libmtp8
7079   libmusicbrainz3-6
7080   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
7081   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
7082   libopal3.6.8
7083   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
7084   libpt2.6.7
7085   libpython2.6
7086   librpm1
7087   librpmio1
7088   libsdl1.2debian
7089   libsrtp0
7090   libssh-4
7091   libtelepathy-farsight0
7092   libtelepathy-glib0
7093   libtidy-0.99-0
7094   media-player-info
7095   mesa-utils
7096   mono-2.0-gac
7097   mono-gac
7098   mono-runtime
7099   nautilus-sendto
7100   nautilus-sendto-empathy
7101   p7zip-full
7102   pkg-config
7103   python-aptdaemon
7104   python-aptdaemon-gtk
7105   python-axiom
7106   python-beautifulsoup
7107   python-bugbuddy
7108   python-clientform
7109   python-coherence
7110   python-configobj
7111   python-crypto
7112   python-cupshelpers
7113   python-elementtree
7114   python-epsilon
7115   python-evolution
7116   python-feedparser
7117   python-gdata
7118   python-gdbm
7119   python-gst0.10
7120   python-gtkglext1
7121   python-gtksourceview2
7122   python-httplib2
7123   python-louie
7124   python-mako
7125   python-markupsafe
7126   python-mechanize
7127   python-nevow
7128   python-notify
7129   python-opengl
7130   python-openssl
7131   python-pam
7132   python-pkg-resources
7133   python-pyasn1
7134   python-pysqlite2
7135   python-rdflib
7136   python-serial
7137   python-tagpy
7138   python-twisted-bin
7139   python-twisted-conch
7140   python-twisted-core
7141   python-twisted-web
7142   python-utidylib
7143   python-webkit
7144   python-xdg
7145   python-zope.interface
7146   remmina
7147   remmina-plugin-data
7148   remmina-plugin-rdp
7149   remmina-plugin-vnc
7150   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
7151   rhythmbox-plugins
7152   rpm-common
7153   rpm2cpio
7154   seahorse-plugins
7155   shotwell
7156   software-center
7157   system-config-printer-udev
7158   telepathy-gabble
7159   telepathy-mission-control-5
7160   telepathy-salut
7161   tomboy
7162   totem
7163   totem-coherence
7164   totem-mozilla
7165   totem-plugins
7166   transmission-common
7167   xdg-user-dirs
7168   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
7169   xserver-xephyr
7170 </p></blockquote>
7171
7172 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7173
7174 <blockquote><p>
7175   cheese
7176   ekiga
7177   eog
7178   epiphany-extensions
7179   evolution-exchange
7180   fast-user-switch-applet
7181   file-roller
7182   gcalctool
7183   gconf-editor
7184   gdm
7185   gedit
7186   gedit-common
7187   gnome-games
7188   gnome-games-data
7189   gnome-nettool
7190   gnome-system-tools
7191   gnome-themes
7192   gnuchess
7193   gucharmap
7194   guile-1.8-libs
7195   libavahi-ui0
7196   libdmx1
7197   libgalago3
7198   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
7199   libgtksourceview2.0-0
7200   liblircclient0
7201   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
7202   libspeexdsp1
7203   libsvga1
7204   rhythmbox
7205   seahorse
7206   sound-juicer
7207   system-config-printer
7208   totem-common
7209   transmission-gtk
7210   vinagre
7211   vino
7212 </p></blockquote>
7213
7214 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7215
7216 <blockquote><p>
7217   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7218 </p></blockquote>
7219
7220 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7221
7222 <blockquote><p>
7223 [nothing]
7224 </p></blockquote>
7225
7226 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
7227
7228 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7229
7230 <blockquote><p>
7231   ksmserver
7232 </p></blockquote>
7233
7234 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7235
7236 <blockquote><p>
7237   kwin
7238   network-manager-kde
7239 </p></blockquote>
7240
7241 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7242
7243 <blockquote><p>
7244   arts
7245   dolphin
7246   freespacenotifier
7247   google-gadgets-gst
7248   google-gadgets-xul
7249   kappfinder
7250   kcalc
7251   kcharselect
7252   kde-core
7253   kde-plasma-desktop
7254   kde-standard
7255   kde-window-manager
7256   kdeartwork
7257   kdeartwork-emoticons
7258   kdeartwork-style
7259   kdeartwork-theme-icon
7260   kdebase
7261   kdebase-apps
7262   kdebase-workspace
7263   kdebase-workspace-bin
7264   kdebase-workspace-data
7265   kdeeject
7266   kdelibs
7267   kdeplasma-addons
7268   kdeutils
7269   kdewallpapers
7270   kdf
7271   kfloppy
7272   kgpg
7273   khelpcenter4
7274   kinfocenter
7275   konq-plugins-l10n
7276   konqueror-nsplugins
7277   kscreensaver
7278   kscreensaver-xsavers
7279   ktimer
7280   kwrite
7281   libgle3
7282   libkde4-ruby1.8
7283   libkonq5
7284   libkonq5-templates
7285   libnetpbm10
7286   libplasma-ruby
7287   libplasma-ruby1.8
7288   libqt4-ruby1.8
7289   marble-data
7290   marble-plugins
7291   netpbm
7292   nuvola-icon-theme
7293   plasma-dataengines-workspace
7294   plasma-desktop
7295   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
7296   plasma-runners-addons
7297   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
7298   plasma-scriptengine-python
7299   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
7300   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
7301   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
7302   plasma-scriptengines
7303   plasma-wallpapers-addons
7304   plasma-widget-folderview
7305   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
7306   ruby
7307   sweeper
7308   update-notifier-kde
7309   xscreensaver-data-extra
7310   xscreensaver-gl
7311   xscreensaver-gl-extra
7312   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
7313 </p></blockquote>
7314
7315 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7316
7317 <blockquote><p>
7318   ark
7319   google-gadgets-common
7320   google-gadgets-qt
7321   htdig
7322   kate
7323   kdebase-bin
7324   kdebase-data
7325   kdepasswd
7326   kfind
7327   klipper
7328   konq-plugins
7329   konqueror
7330   ksysguard
7331   ksysguardd
7332   libarchive1
7333   libcln6
7334   libeet1
7335   libeina-svn-06
7336   libggadget-1.0-0b
7337   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
7338   libgps19
7339   libkdecorations4
7340   libkephal4
7341   libkonq4
7342   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
7343   libkscreensaver5
7344   libksgrd4
7345   libksignalplotter4
7346   libkunitconversion4
7347   libkwineffects1a
7348   libmarblewidget4
7349   libntrack-qt4-1
7350   libntrack0
7351   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
7352   libplasmaclock4a
7353   libplasmagenericshell4
7354   libprocesscore4a
7355   libprocessui4a
7356   libqalculate5
7357   libqedje0a
7358   libqtruby4shared2
7359   libqzion0a
7360   libruby1.8
7361   libscim8c2a
7362   libsmokekdecore4-3
7363   libsmokekdeui4-3
7364   libsmokekfile3
7365   libsmokekhtml3
7366   libsmokekio3
7367   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
7368   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
7369   libsmokekparts3
7370   libsmokektexteditor3
7371   libsmokekutils3
7372   libsmokenepomuk3
7373   libsmokephonon3
7374   libsmokeplasma3
7375   libsmokeqtcore4-3
7376   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
7377   libsmokeqtgui4-3
7378   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
7379   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
7380   libsmokeqtscript4-3
7381   libsmokeqtsql4-3
7382   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
7383   libsmokeqttest4-3
7384   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
7385   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
7386   libsmokeqtxml4-3
7387   libsmokesolid3
7388   libsmokesoprano3
7389   libtaskmanager4a
7390   libtidy-0.99-0
7391   libweather-ion4a
7392   libxklavier16
7393   libxxf86misc1
7394   okteta
7395   oxygencursors
7396   plasma-dataengines-addons
7397   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
7398   plasma-widget-lancelot
7399   plasma-widgets-addons
7400   plasma-widgets-workspace
7401   polkit-kde-1
7402   ruby1.8
7403   systemsettings
7404   update-notifier-common
7405 </p></blockquote>
7406
7407 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
7408 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
7409 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
7410 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
7411
7412       </div>
7413       <div class="tags">
7414
7415
7416         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>.
7417
7418
7419       </div>
7420     </div>
7421     <div class="padding"></div>
7422
7423     <div class="entry">
7424       <div class="title">
7425         <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>
7426       </div>
7427       <div class="date">
7428         22nd November 2010
7429       </div>
7430       <div class="body">
7431         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
7432 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
7433 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
7434 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
7435 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
7436 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
7437 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
7438 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
7439 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
7440
7441 <p>I found
7442 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
7443 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
7444 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
7445 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
7446 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
7447 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
7448
7449 <pre>
7450 #!/bin/sh
7451
7452 # Based on
7453 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
7454
7455 set -e
7456 set -x
7457
7458 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
7459     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
7460     exit 1
7461 else
7462     host="$1"
7463 fi
7464
7465 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
7466     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
7467     exit 1
7468 fi
7469
7470 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
7471 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
7472 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
7473 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
7474
7475 img=$host.img
7476 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
7477 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
7478
7479 parted $img mklabel msdos
7480 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
7481 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
7482 parted $img set 1 boot on
7483
7484 modprobe dm-mod
7485 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
7486 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
7487
7488 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
7489 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
7490 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
7491
7492 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
7493 losetup -d /dev/loop0
7494 </pre>
7495
7496 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
7497 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
7498
7499 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
7500 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
7501 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
7502 seem to work just fine.</p>
7503
7504       </div>
7505       <div class="tags">
7506
7507
7508         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>.
7509
7510
7511       </div>
7512     </div>
7513     <div class="padding"></div>
7514
7515     <div class="entry">
7516       <div class="title">
7517         <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>
7518       </div>
7519       <div class="date">
7520         20th November 2010
7521       </div>
7522       <div class="body">
7523         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
7524 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
7525 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
7526 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
7527
7528 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
7529 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
7530 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
7531
7532 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
7533
7534 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7535
7536 <blockquote><p>
7537   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
7538   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
7539   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
7540   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
7541   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
7542   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
7543   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
7544   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
7545   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
7546   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
7547   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
7548   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
7549   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
7550   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
7551   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
7552   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
7553   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
7554   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
7555   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
7556   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
7557   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
7558   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
7559   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
7560   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
7561   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
7562   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
7563   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
7564   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
7565   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
7566   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
7567   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
7568   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7569   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
7570   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
7571   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
7572   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
7573   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
7574   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
7575   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
7576   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
7577   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
7578   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
7579   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
7580   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
7581   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
7582   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
7583   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
7584   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
7585   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
7586   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
7587   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
7588   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
7589   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
7590   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
7591   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
7592   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
7593   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
7594   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
7595   zip
7596 </p></blockquote>
7597
7598 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
7599
7600 <blockquote><p>
7601   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
7602   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
7603   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
7604   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
7605   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
7606   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
7607   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
7608   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
7609   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
7610   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
7611   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
7612   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7613   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7614   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7615   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
7616   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
7617   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
7618   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
7619   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
7620   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
7621   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
7622   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
7623   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7624   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
7625   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
7626   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
7627   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
7628   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
7629   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
7630 </p></blockquote>
7631
7632 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7633
7634 <blockquote><p>
7635   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7636 </p></blockquote>
7637
7638 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7639
7640 <blockquote><p>
7641 [nothing]
7642 </p></blockquote>
7643
7644 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
7645
7646 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7647
7648 <blockquote><p>
7649   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
7650   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7651   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
7652   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
7653   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
7654   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
7655   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7656   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
7657   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
7658   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
7659   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
7660   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
7661   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
7662   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
7663   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
7664   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
7665   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
7666   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
7667   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
7668   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
7669   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
7670   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
7671   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
7672   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
7673   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
7674   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
7675   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
7676   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
7677   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
7678   ttf-sazanami-gothic
7679 </p></blockquote>
7680
7681 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7682
7683 <blockquote><p>
7684   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
7685   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
7686   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
7687   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
7688   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
7689   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
7690   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
7691   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
7692   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
7693   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
7694   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
7695   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
7696   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
7697   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
7698   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7699   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7700   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
7701   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
7702   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7703   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
7704   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
7705   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
7706   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7707   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7708   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
7709   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
7710   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
7711   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
7712   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
7713   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
7714   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
7715   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
7716   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
7717 </p></blockquote>
7718
7719 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7720
7721 <blockquote><p>
7722   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
7723   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
7724   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
7725   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
7726   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
7727   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
7728   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
7729 </p></blockquote>
7730
7731 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7732
7733 <blockquote><p>
7734   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
7735 </p></blockquote>
7736
7737       </div>
7738       <div class="tags">
7739
7740
7741         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>.
7742
7743
7744       </div>
7745     </div>
7746     <div class="padding"></div>
7747
7748     <div class="entry">
7749       <div class="title">
7750         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
7751       </div>
7752       <div class="date">
7753         20th November 2010
7754       </div>
7755       <div class="body">
7756         <p>Answering
7757 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
7758 call from the Gnash project</a> for
7759 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
7760 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
7761 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
7762 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
7763 releases out more often.</p>
7764
7765 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
7766 I have considered setting up a <a
7767 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
7768 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
7769 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
7770 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
7771 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
7772 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
7773 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
7774 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
7775 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
7776 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
7777 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
7778 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
7779
7780       </div>
7781       <div class="tags">
7782
7783
7784         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>.
7785
7786
7787       </div>
7788     </div>
7789     <div class="padding"></div>
7790
7791     <div class="entry">
7792       <div class="title">
7793         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
7794       </div>
7795       <div class="date">
7796          9th November 2010
7797       </div>
7798       <div class="body">
7799         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
7800
7801 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
7802 3D linked in from
7803 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
7804 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
7805
7806       </div>
7807       <div class="tags">
7808
7809
7810         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>.
7811
7812
7813       </div>
7814     </div>
7815     <div class="padding"></div>
7816
7817     <div class="entry">
7818       <div class="title">
7819         <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>
7820       </div>
7821       <div class="date">
7822          7th November 2010
7823       </div>
7824       <div class="body">
7825         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
7826 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
7827 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
7828 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
7829 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
7830 working using this DVD.</p>
7831
7832 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
7833 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
7834 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
7835 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
7836 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
7837 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
7838 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
7839
7840 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
7841 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
7842 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
7843 Debian archive.</p>
7844
7845 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
7846 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
7847 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
7848 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
7849 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
7850 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
7851 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
7852 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
7853 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
7854 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
7855 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
7856 free X driver should work.</p>
7857
7858 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
7859 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
7860 DVD more useful again.</p>
7861
7862       </div>
7863       <div class="tags">
7864
7865
7866         Tags: <a href="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>.
7867
7868
7869       </div>
7870     </div>
7871     <div class="padding"></div>
7872
7873     <div class="entry">
7874       <div class="title">
7875         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
7876       </div>
7877       <div class="date">
7878         24th October 2010
7879       </div>
7880       <div class="body">
7881         <p>Some updates.</p>
7882
7883 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
7884 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
7885 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
7886 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
7887 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
7888 :)</p>
7889
7890 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
7891 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
7892 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
7893 It is called
7894 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
7895 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
7896 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
7897 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
7898 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
7899 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
7900
7901 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
7902 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
7903 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
7904 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
7905 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
7906 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
7907 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
7908 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
7909 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
7910 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
7911
7912       </div>
7913       <div class="tags">
7914
7915
7916         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>.
7917
7918
7919       </div>
7920     </div>
7921     <div class="padding"></div>
7922
7923     <div class="entry">
7924       <div class="title">
7925         <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>
7926       </div>
7927       <div class="date">
7928         19th October 2010
7929       </div>
7930       <div class="body">
7931         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
7932 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
7933 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
7934 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
7935 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
7936 AVM2 flash files.</p>
7937
7938 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
7939 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
7940 following text:</P>
7941
7942 <p><blockquote>
7943
7944   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
7945   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
7946
7947   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
7948
7949   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
7950
7951   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
7952   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
7953   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
7954   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
7955   days. The project web page is available from
7956   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
7957   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
7958   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
7959
7960   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
7961   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
7962   to get this to happen.</p>
7963
7964   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
7965   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
7966
7967 </blockquote></p>
7968
7969 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
7970 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
7971 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
7972 :)</p>
7973
7974       </div>
7975       <div class="tags">
7976
7977
7978         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>.
7979
7980
7981       </div>
7982     </div>
7983     <div class="padding"></div>
7984
7985     <div class="entry">
7986       <div class="title">
7987         <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>
7988       </div>
7989       <div class="date">
7990          9th October 2010
7991       </div>
7992       <div class="body">
7993         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
7994 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
7995 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
7996 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
7997 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
7998 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
7999 robots.</p>
8000
8001 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
8002 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
8003 a few less important features too.</p>
8004
8005 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
8006 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
8007 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
8008 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
8009
8010 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
8011 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
8012 source or binary package:</p>
8013
8014 <p><ul>
8015 <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>
8016 <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>
8017 <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>
8018 </ul></p>
8019
8020 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
8021 please let me know.</p>
8022
8023       </div>
8024       <div class="tags">
8025
8026
8027         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>.
8028
8029
8030       </div>
8031     </div>
8032     <div class="padding"></div>
8033
8034     <div class="entry">
8035       <div class="title">
8036         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
8037       </div>
8038       <div class="date">
8039          3rd October 2010
8040       </div>
8041       <div class="body">
8042         <p><ul>
8043
8044 <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
8045 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
8046
8047 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
8048 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
8049 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
8050
8051 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
8052 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
8053 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
8054 simple setup.
8055
8056 </ul></p>
8057
8058       </div>
8059       <div class="tags">
8060
8061
8062         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>.
8063
8064
8065       </div>
8066     </div>
8067     <div class="padding"></div>
8068
8069     <div class="entry">
8070       <div class="title">
8071         <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>
8072       </div>
8073       <div class="date">
8074          9th September 2010
8075       </div>
8076       <div class="body">
8077         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
8078 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
8079 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
8080 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
8081 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
8082 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
8083 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
8084 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
8085 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
8086
8087 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
8088 written:</p>
8089
8090 <blockquote>
8091 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
8092 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
8093 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
8094 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
8095 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
8096
8097 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
8098 standard.</p>
8099 </blockquote>
8100
8101 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
8102 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
8103 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
8104 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
8105
8106 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
8107 read
8108 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
8109 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
8110 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
8111 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
8112 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
8113 the issue.  The solution is to support the
8114 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
8115 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
8116 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
8117
8118       </div>
8119       <div class="tags">
8120
8121
8122         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>.
8123
8124
8125       </div>
8126     </div>
8127     <div class="padding"></div>
8128
8129     <div class="entry">
8130       <div class="title">
8131         <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>
8132       </div>
8133       <div class="date">
8134          4th September 2010
8135       </div>
8136       <div class="body">
8137         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
8138 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
8139 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
8140 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
8141 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
8142 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
8143 installed.</p>
8144
8145 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
8146 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
8147 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
8148 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
8149 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
8150 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
8151 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
8152 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
8153 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
8154
8155 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
8156 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
8157 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
8158 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
8159 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
8160 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
8161 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
8162 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
8163 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
8164 pages they want to visit.</p>
8165
8166 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
8167 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
8168 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
8169 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
8170 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
8171 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
8172 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
8173 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
8174 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
8175 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
8176 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
8177
8178       </div>
8179       <div class="tags">
8180
8181
8182         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>.
8183
8184
8185       </div>
8186     </div>
8187     <div class="padding"></div>
8188
8189     <div class="entry">
8190       <div class="title">
8191         <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>
8192       </div>
8193       <div class="date">
8194          1st September 2010
8195       </div>
8196       <div class="body">
8197         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
8198 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
8199 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
8200 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
8201 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
8202 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
8203 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
8204 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
8205 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
8206 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
8207 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
8208 drive around.</p>
8209
8210 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
8211 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
8212
8213 <p><pre>
8214 use Spykee;
8215 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
8216 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
8217 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
8218 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
8219 $spykee->left();
8220 sleep 2;
8221 $spykee->right();
8222 sleep 2;
8223 $spykee->forward();
8224 sleep 2;
8225 $spykee->back();
8226 sleep 2;
8227 $spykee->stop();
8228 </pre></p>
8229
8230 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
8231 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
8232 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
8233 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
8234 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
8235 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
8236 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
8237 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
8238 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
8239 going. :).</p>
8240
8241 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
8242 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
8243 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
8244 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
8245
8246       </div>
8247       <div class="tags">
8248
8249
8250         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>.
8251
8252
8253       </div>
8254     </div>
8255     <div class="padding"></div>
8256
8257     <div class="entry">
8258       <div class="title">
8259         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
8260       </div>
8261       <div class="date">
8262         30th August 2010
8263       </div>
8264       <div class="body">
8265         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
8266 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
8267 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
8268 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
8269 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
8270 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
8271 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
8272
8273 <pre>
8274 % ln foo bar
8275 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
8276 %
8277 </pre>
8278
8279 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
8280 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
8281 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
8282 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
8283 nevertheless. :)</p>
8284
8285 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
8286 git from
8287 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
8288
8289       </div>
8290       <div class="tags">
8291
8292
8293         Tags: <a href="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>.
8294
8295
8296       </div>
8297     </div>
8298     <div class="padding"></div>
8299
8300     <div class="entry">
8301       <div class="title">
8302         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
8303       </div>
8304       <div class="date">
8305         26th August 2010
8306       </div>
8307       <div class="body">
8308         <p>My file system sematics program
8309 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
8310 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
8311 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
8312 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
8313 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
8314 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
8315 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
8316 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
8317 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
8318 script:</p>
8319
8320 <pre>
8321 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
8322   mode_t retval = 0;
8323   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
8324   if (-1 != fd) {
8325     unlink(name);
8326     struct stat statbuf;
8327     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
8328       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
8329     }
8330     close(fd);
8331   }
8332   return retval;
8333 }
8334
8335 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
8336 int test_umask(void) {
8337   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
8338
8339   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
8340   mode_t newmode;
8341   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
8342     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
8343            newmode);
8344   }
8345   umask(007);
8346   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
8347     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
8348            newmode);
8349   }
8350
8351   umask (orig_umask);
8352   return 0;
8353 }
8354
8355 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
8356   [...]
8357   test_umask();
8358   return 0;
8359 }
8360 </pre>
8361
8362 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
8363
8364 <pre>
8365 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
8366 info: testing symlink creation
8367 info: testing subdirectory creation
8368 info: testing fcntl locking
8369   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8370   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8371   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
8372   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8373   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8374   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
8375 info: testing umask effect on file creation
8376 </pre>
8377
8378 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
8379 result:</p>
8380
8381 <pre>
8382 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
8383 info: testing symlink creation
8384 info: testing subdirectory creation
8385 info: testing fcntl locking
8386   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8387   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8388   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
8389   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8390   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8391   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
8392 info: testing umask effect on file creation
8393   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
8394   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
8395 </pre>
8396
8397 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
8398 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
8399 directory.</p>
8400
8401 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
8402 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
8403
8404 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
8405 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
8406 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
8407
8408       </div>
8409       <div class="tags">
8410
8411
8412         Tags: <a href="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>.
8413
8414
8415       </div>
8416     </div>
8417     <div class="padding"></div>
8418
8419     <div class="entry">
8420       <div class="title">
8421         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
8422       </div>
8423       <div class="date">
8424         15th August 2010
8425       </div>
8426       <div class="body">
8427         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
8428 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
8429 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
8430 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
8431 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
8432 long time.</p>
8433
8434       </div>
8435       <div class="tags">
8436
8437
8438         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>.
8439
8440
8441       </div>
8442     </div>
8443     <div class="padding"></div>
8444
8445     <div class="entry">
8446       <div class="title">
8447         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
8448       </div>
8449       <div class="date">
8450          9th August 2010
8451       </div>
8452       <div class="body">
8453         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
8454 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
8455 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
8456 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
8457 generated configuration.</p>
8458
8459 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
8460 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
8461 without any manual configuration.</p>
8462
8463 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
8464 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
8465 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
8466 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
8467 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
8468 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
8469 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
8470 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
8471 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
8472 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
8473 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
8474 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
8475 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
8476 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
8477 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
8478 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
8479 use.</p>
8480
8481 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
8482 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
8483 working properly out of the box:</p>
8484
8485 <ul>
8486 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
8487 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
8488 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
8489 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
8490 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
8491 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
8492 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
8493 </ul>
8494
8495 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
8496
8497 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
8498 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
8499 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
8500 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
8501 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
8502
8503 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
8504 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
8505 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
8506 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
8507 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
8508 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
8509 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
8510 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
8511
8512 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
8513 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
8514 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
8515 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
8516 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
8517 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
8518 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
8519 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
8520 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
8521 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
8522 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
8523 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
8524 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
8525 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
8526 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
8527 current DNS domain is used.</p>
8528
8529 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
8530 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
8531 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
8532 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
8533 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
8534 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
8535 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
8536 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
8537 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
8538 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
8539 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
8540 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
8541 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
8542
8543 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
8544 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
8545 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
8546 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
8547 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
8548 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
8549 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
8550 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
8551 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
8552 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
8553 do for now. :)</p>
8554
8555 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
8556 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
8557 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
8558 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
8559 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
8560 yet.</p>
8561
8562 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
8563 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8564
8565 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
8566 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
8567 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
8568 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
8569
8570       </div>
8571       <div class="tags">
8572
8573
8574         Tags: <a href="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>.
8575
8576
8577       </div>
8578     </div>
8579     <div class="padding"></div>
8580
8581     <div class="entry">
8582       <div class="title">
8583         <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>
8584       </div>
8585       <div class="date">
8586          8th August 2010
8587       </div>
8588       <div class="body">
8589         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
8590 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
8591 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
8592 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
8593 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
8594 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
8595 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
8596
8597 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
8598 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
8599 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
8600 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
8601 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
8602 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
8603 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
8604
8605 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
8606 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
8607 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
8608 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
8609 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
8610
8611 <pre>
8612 /*
8613  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
8614  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
8615  * directory.
8616  * License: GPL v2 or later
8617  *
8618  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
8619  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
8620 */
8621
8622 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
8623 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
8624 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
8625
8626 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
8627
8628 #include &lt;errno.h>
8629 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
8630 #include &lt;stdio.h>
8631 #include &lt;string.h>
8632 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
8633 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
8634 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
8635 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
8636 #include &lt;unistd.h>
8637
8638 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
8639 /*
8640  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
8641  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
8642  * below.
8643  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
8644  */
8645 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
8646 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
8647   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
8648 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
8649   char *zErrMsg;
8650   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
8651   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
8652   unlink(name);
8653   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
8654   if( rc ){
8655     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
8656     sqlite3_close(db);
8657     return -1;
8658   }
8659
8660   /* create tables */
8661   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
8662   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
8663     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
8664     sqlite3_close(db);
8665     return -1;
8666   }
8667   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
8668   sqlite3_close(db);
8669   return 0;
8670 }
8671 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
8672
8673 /*
8674  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
8675  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
8676  * done in the sqlite3 library.
8677  * See also
8678  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
8679  * POSIX specification
8680  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
8681  */
8682 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
8683   struct flock fl;
8684   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
8685   unlink(name);
8686   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
8687   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
8688
8689   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
8690   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
8691   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
8692   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
8693   fl.l_len    = 1;
8694   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
8695   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8696
8697   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
8698   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
8699   fl.l_len    = 510;
8700   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
8701   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8702
8703   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
8704   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
8705   fl.l_len    = 1;
8706   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
8707   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8708
8709   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
8710   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
8711   fl.l_len    = 1;
8712   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
8713   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8714
8715   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
8716   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
8717   fl.l_len    = 510;
8718   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8719
8720   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
8721   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
8722   fl.l_len    = 2;
8723   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
8724   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8725
8726   close(fd);
8727   return 0;
8728 }
8729
8730 /*
8731  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
8732  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
8733  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
8734  * slowing down file operations.
8735  */
8736 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
8737 #define LEVELS 5
8738   char *path = strdup("test");
8739   char *dirs[LEVELS];
8740   int level;
8741   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
8742   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
8743     char *newpath = NULL;
8744     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
8745       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
8746              path, strerror(errno));
8747       break;
8748     }
8749     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
8750     free(path);
8751     path = newpath;
8752   }
8753   return 0;
8754 }
8755
8756 /*
8757  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
8758  * KDE.
8759  */
8760 int test_symlinks(void) {
8761   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
8762   unlink("symlink");
8763   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
8764     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
8765   return 0;
8766 }
8767
8768 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
8769   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
8770   test_symlinks();
8771   test_subdirectory_creation();
8772 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
8773   test_sqlite_open();
8774 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
8775   test_gcompris_locking();
8776   return 0;
8777 }
8778 </pre>
8779
8780 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
8781 this:</p>
8782
8783 <pre>
8784 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
8785 info: testing symlink creation
8786 info: testing subdirectory creation
8787 info: sqlite worked
8788 info: testing fcntl locking
8789   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8790   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8791   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
8792   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8793   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8794   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
8795 </pre>
8796
8797 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
8798 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
8799 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
8800 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
8801 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
8802 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
8803 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
8804 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
8805
8806 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
8807 it. :)</p>
8808
8809 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
8810 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
8811 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
8812
8813       </div>
8814       <div class="tags">
8815
8816
8817         Tags: <a href="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>.
8818
8819
8820       </div>
8821     </div>
8822     <div class="padding"></div>
8823
8824     <div class="entry">
8825       <div class="title">
8826         <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>
8827       </div>
8828       <div class="date">
8829          7th August 2010
8830       </div>
8831       <div class="body">
8832         <p>A few days ago, I
8833 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
8834 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
8835 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
8836 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
8837 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
8838 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
8839 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
8840 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
8841 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
8842
8843 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
8844 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
8845 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
8846 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
8847 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
8848 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
8849 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
8850 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
8851 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
8852 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
8853 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
8854 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
8855 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
8856 gave it a IP address.</p>
8857
8858 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
8859 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
8860 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
8861 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
8862 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
8863 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
8864 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
8865 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
8866
8867 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
8868 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
8869 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
8870 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
8871 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
8872 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
8873
8874 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
8875 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
8876 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
8877 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
8878 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
8879 with UID and GID values.</p>
8880
8881 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
8882 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8883
8884       </div>
8885       <div class="tags">
8886
8887
8888         Tags: <a href="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>.
8889
8890
8891       </div>
8892     </div>
8893     <div class="padding"></div>
8894
8895     <div class="entry">
8896       <div class="title">
8897         <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>
8898       </div>
8899       <div class="date">
8900          3rd August 2010
8901       </div>
8902       <div class="body">
8903         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
8904 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
8905 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
8906 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
8907 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
8908 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
8909 servers.</p>
8910
8911 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
8912 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
8913 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
8914 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
8915 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
8916 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
8917 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
8918 .uio.no.</p>
8919
8920 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
8921 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
8922 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
8923 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
8924 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
8925 university servers.</p>
8926
8927 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
8928 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
8929 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
8930 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
8931 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
8932 uses.</p>
8933
8934       </div>
8935       <div class="tags">
8936
8937
8938         Tags: <a href="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>.
8939
8940
8941       </div>
8942     </div>
8943     <div class="padding"></div>
8944
8945     <div class="entry">
8946       <div class="title">
8947         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
8948       </div>
8949       <div class="date">
8950         27th July 2010
8951       </div>
8952       <div class="body">
8953         <p>I discovered this while doing
8954 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
8955 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
8956 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
8957 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
8958 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
8959
8960 <p>An example is from todays
8961 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
8962 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
8963 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
8964 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
8965 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
8966 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
8967 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
8968
8969 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
8970
8971 <blockquote><pre>
8972 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
8973  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
8974   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
8975 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
8976  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
8977 </pre></blockquote>
8978
8979 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
8980 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
8981 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
8982 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
8983 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
8984 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
8985 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
8986 of dependency loops.</p>
8987
8988 <p>Thanks to
8989 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
8990 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
8991 dependencies
8992 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
8993 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
8994
8995 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
8996 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
8997 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
8998 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
8999 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
9000 it.</p>
9001
9002       </div>
9003       <div class="tags">
9004
9005
9006         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>.
9007
9008
9009       </div>
9010     </div>
9011     <div class="padding"></div>
9012
9013     <div class="entry">
9014       <div class="title">
9015         <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>
9016       </div>
9017       <div class="date">
9018         27th July 2010
9019       </div>
9020       <div class="body">
9021         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
9022 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
9023 completed.</p>
9024
9025 <blockquote>
9026 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
9027 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
9028 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
9029 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
9030 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
9031 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
9032 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
9033 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
9034
9035 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
9036 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
9037 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
9038
9039 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
9040 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
9041 much.</p>
9042
9043 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
9044
9045 <ul>
9046 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
9047 <ul>
9048   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
9049          combination with some new artwork
9050   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
9051   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
9052   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
9053   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
9054   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
9055   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
9056   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
9057   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
9058   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
9059 </ul></li>
9060 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
9061     Enabled for:
9062 <ul>
9063   <li>PAM
9064   <li>LDAP
9065   <li>IMAP
9066   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
9067 </ul>
9068 </li>
9069 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
9070 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
9071     fetched from LDAP.</li>
9072 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
9073 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
9074 </ul>
9075 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
9076
9077 <ul>
9078 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
9079     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
9080     for testing.</li>
9081 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
9082     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
9083     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
9084 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
9085 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
9086 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
9087 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
9088     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
9089 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
9090     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
9091     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
9092 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
9093     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
9094     and help out with translations.</li>
9095 </ul>
9096
9097 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
9098
9099 <ul>
9100 <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>
9101 <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>
9102 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
9103 </ul>
9104 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
9105
9106 <ul>
9107 <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>
9108 <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>
9109 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
9110 </ul>
9111
9112 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
9113 get closer to the final release.</p>
9114
9115 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
9116
9117 <ul>
9118 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
9119 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
9120 </ul>
9121
9122 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
9123 <ul>
9124 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
9125 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
9126 </ul>
9127 <p>How to report bugs:
9128 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
9129
9130 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
9131 </blockquote>
9132
9133       </div>
9134       <div class="tags">
9135
9136
9137         Tags: <a href="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>.
9138
9139
9140       </div>
9141     </div>
9142     <div class="padding"></div>
9143
9144     <div class="entry">
9145       <div class="title">
9146         <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>
9147       </div>
9148       <div class="date">
9149         25th July 2010
9150       </div>
9151       <div class="body">
9152         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
9153 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
9154 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
9155 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
9156 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
9157
9158 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
9159 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
9160 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
9161 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
9162 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
9163 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
9164 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
9165
9166 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
9167 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
9168 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
9169 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
9170 up. :)</p>
9171
9172 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
9173 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
9174 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
9175
9176 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
9177 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
9178 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
9179 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
9180 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
9181 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
9182 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
9183 release another day.</p>
9184
9185 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
9186 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9187
9188       </div>
9189       <div class="tags">
9190
9191
9192         Tags: <a href="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>.
9193
9194
9195       </div>
9196     </div>
9197     <div class="padding"></div>
9198
9199     <div class="entry">
9200       <div class="title">
9201         <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>
9202       </div>
9203       <div class="date">
9204         18th July 2010
9205       </div>
9206       <div class="body">
9207         <p>Thanks to
9208 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
9209 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
9210 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
9211 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
9212 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
9213 only available from the development server, until more experience is
9214 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
9215
9216 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
9217 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
9218 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
9219 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
9220 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
9221 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
9222 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
9223
9224       </div>
9225       <div class="tags">
9226
9227
9228         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>.
9229
9230
9231       </div>
9232     </div>
9233     <div class="padding"></div>
9234
9235     <div class="entry">
9236       <div class="title">
9237         <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>
9238       </div>
9239       <div class="date">
9240         17th July 2010
9241       </div>
9242       <div class="body">
9243         <p>This is a
9244 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
9245 on my
9246 <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
9247 work</a> on
9248 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
9249 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
9250
9251 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
9252 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
9253 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
9254 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
9255
9256 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
9257 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
9258 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
9259
9260 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
9261
9262 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
9263 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
9264 the web.
9265
9266 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
9267 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
9268 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
9269 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
9270 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
9271 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
9272
9273 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
9274 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
9275 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
9276 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
9277 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
9278 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
9279 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
9280 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
9281 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
9282 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
9283 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
9284 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
9285 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
9286 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
9287 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
9288 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
9289
9290 <blockquote><pre>
9291 ldapsearch -h ldap \
9292   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
9293   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
9294   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
9295   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
9296   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
9297   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
9298
9299 ldapsearch -h ldap \
9300   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
9301   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
9302   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
9303   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
9304   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
9305 </pre></blockquote>
9306
9307 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
9308 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
9309 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
9310 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9311 also exist.</p>
9312
9313 <blockquote><pre>
9314 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9315 objectclass: top
9316 objectclass: dnsdomain
9317 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9318 dc: tjener
9319 arecord: 10.0.2.2
9320 associateddomain: tjener.intern
9321
9322 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9323 objectclass: top
9324 objectclass: dnsdomain2
9325 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9326 dc: 2
9327 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
9328 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
9329 </pre></blockquote>
9330
9331 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
9332 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
9333 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
9334 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
9335 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
9336 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
9337 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
9338 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
9339 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
9340 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
9341 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
9342 instead.</p>
9343
9344 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
9345 like this:</p>
9346
9347 <blockquote><pre>
9348 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9349   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
9350   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
9351   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
9352   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
9353   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
9354
9355 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9356   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
9357 </pre></blockquote>
9358
9359 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
9360 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
9361 reverse lookups.</p>
9362
9363 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
9364 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
9365 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
9366 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
9367
9368 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
9369 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
9370 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
9371
9372 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
9373 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
9374 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
9375 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
9376 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
9377
9378 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
9379 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
9380 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
9381 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
9382 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
9383
9384 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
9385 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
9386 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
9387 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
9388 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
9389 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
9390
9391 <blockquote><pre>
9392 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
9393     SUP top
9394     AUXILIARY
9395     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
9396           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
9397           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
9398           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
9399           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
9400     ))
9401 </pre></blockquote>
9402
9403 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
9404 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
9405 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
9406 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
9407 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
9408 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
9409
9410 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
9411
9412 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
9413 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
9414 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
9415 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
9416 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
9417
9418 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
9419 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
9420 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
9421 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
9422
9423 <blockquote><pre>
9424 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
9425 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
9426 </pre></blockquote>
9427
9428 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
9429 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
9430 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
9431 search result is this entry:</p>
9432
9433 <blockquote><pre>
9434 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9435 cn: dhcp
9436 objectClass: top
9437 objectClass: dhcpServer
9438 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9439 </pre></blockquote>
9440
9441 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
9442 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
9443 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
9444 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
9445 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
9446 The search result is this entry:</p>
9447
9448 <blockquote><pre>
9449 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9450 cn: DHCP Config
9451 objectClass: top
9452 objectClass: dhcpService
9453 objectClass: dhcpOptions
9454 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9455 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
9456 dhcpStatements: authoritative
9457 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
9458 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
9459 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
9460 </pre></blockquote>
9461
9462 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
9463 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
9464 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
9465 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
9466 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
9467 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
9468 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
9469 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
9470 related computer objects.</p>
9471
9472 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
9473 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
9474 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
9475 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
9476 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
9477 like:</p>
9478
9479 <blockquote><pre>
9480 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9481 cn: hostname
9482 objectClass: top
9483 objectClass: dhcpHost
9484 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9485 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
9486 </pre></blockquote>
9487
9488 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
9489 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
9490 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
9491 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
9492 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
9493 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
9494 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
9495 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
9496 structural object class.
9497
9498 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
9499
9500 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
9501 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
9502 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
9503 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
9504 in the configuration.</p>
9505
9506 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
9507 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
9508 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
9509 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
9510 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
9511 structure.</p>
9512
9513 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
9514 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
9515
9516 <blockquote><pre>
9517 ou=services
9518   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
9519     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
9520     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9521       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9522         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9523     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9524       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9525         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9526     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
9527       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
9528 </pre></blockquote>
9529
9530 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
9531 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
9532 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
9533 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
9534
9535 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
9536 like this:</p>
9537
9538 <blockquote><pre>
9539 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9540 dc: hostname
9541 objectClass: top
9542 objectClass: dhcpHost
9543 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9544 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
9545 associateddomain: hostname.intern
9546 arecord: 10.11.12.13
9547 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9548 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
9549 </pre></blockquote>
9550
9551 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
9552 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
9553 auxiliary object class.</p>
9554
9555       </div>
9556       <div class="tags">
9557
9558
9559         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>.
9560
9561
9562       </div>
9563     </div>
9564     <div class="padding"></div>
9565
9566     <div class="entry">
9567       <div class="title">
9568         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
9569       </div>
9570       <div class="date">
9571         14th July 2010
9572       </div>
9573       <div class="body">
9574         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
9575 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
9576 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
9577 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
9578 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
9579
9580 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
9581 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
9582
9583 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
9584 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
9585 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
9586 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
9587 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
9588 to a slave DNS server.</p>
9589
9590 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
9591 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
9592 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
9593 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
9594 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
9595 seem to work.</p>
9596
9597 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
9598 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
9599 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
9600 this:</p>
9601
9602 <blockquote><pre>
9603   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9604   cn: hostname
9605   objectClass: dhcphost
9606   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9607   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
9608   associateddomain: hostname.intern
9609   arecord: 10.11.12.13
9610   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9611   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
9612   ldapconfigsound: Y
9613 </pre></blockquote>
9614
9615 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
9616 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
9617 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
9618 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
9619
9620 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
9621 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
9622 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
9623 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
9624 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
9625 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
9626 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
9627 might be a good place to put it.</p>
9628
9629 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9630 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9631
9632       </div>
9633       <div class="tags">
9634
9635
9636         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>.
9637
9638
9639       </div>
9640     </div>
9641     <div class="padding"></div>
9642
9643     <div class="entry">
9644       <div class="title">
9645         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
9646       </div>
9647       <div class="date">
9648         11th July 2010
9649       </div>
9650       <div class="body">
9651         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
9652 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
9653 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
9654 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
9655
9656 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
9657 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
9658 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
9659 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
9660 LTSP clients.</p>
9661
9662 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
9663 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
9664 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
9665
9666 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
9667 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
9668 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
9669
9670 <blockquote><pre>
9671 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
9672 #
9673 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
9674 #
9675 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
9676 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
9677 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
9678 #
9679 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
9680 # existence of attribute names.
9681 #
9682 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
9683 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
9684 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
9685 #
9686 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
9687 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
9688 #
9689 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
9690 #     SUP top
9691 #     AUXILIARY
9692 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
9693
9694 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
9695 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
9696     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
9697     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
9698         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
9699         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
9700             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
9701             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
9702             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
9703             # bass value on to clients
9704             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
9705         done
9706     done
9707 fi
9708 </pre></blockquote>
9709
9710 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
9711 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
9712 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
9713 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
9714 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
9715
9716 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9717 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9718
9719 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
9720 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
9721 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
9722 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
9723 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
9724 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
9725
9726       </div>
9727       <div class="tags">
9728
9729
9730         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>.
9731
9732
9733       </div>
9734     </div>
9735     <div class="padding"></div>
9736
9737     <div class="entry">
9738       <div class="title">
9739         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
9740       </div>
9741       <div class="date">
9742          9th July 2010
9743       </div>
9744       <div class="body">
9745         <p>Since
9746 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
9747 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
9748 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
9749 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
9750 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
9751 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
9752 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
9753 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
9754 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
9755 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
9756 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
9757 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
9758 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
9759
9760       </div>
9761       <div class="tags">
9762
9763
9764         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>.
9765
9766
9767       </div>
9768     </div>
9769     <div class="padding"></div>
9770
9771     <div class="entry">
9772       <div class="title">
9773         <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>
9774       </div>
9775       <div class="date">
9776          3rd July 2010
9777       </div>
9778       <div class="body">
9779         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
9780 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
9781 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
9782 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
9783 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
9784 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
9785 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
9786 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
9787
9788 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
9789 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
9790 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
9791 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
9792 publish the difference.</p>
9793
9794 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9795
9796 <blockquote><p>
9797   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9798   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
9799   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
9800   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
9801   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
9802   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
9803   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
9804   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
9805 </p></blockquote>
9806
9807 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9808
9809 <blockquote><p>
9810   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
9811   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
9812   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
9813   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
9814   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
9815   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
9816   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
9817   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
9818   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
9819   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
9820   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
9821   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
9822   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
9823   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
9824   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
9825   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
9826   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
9827   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
9828   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
9829   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
9830 </p></blockquote>
9831
9832 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9833
9834 <blockquote><p>
9835   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
9836   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
9837   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9838   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9839   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
9840   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
9841   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
9842   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9843   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9844   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9845   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9846   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
9847   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
9848   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
9849   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
9850   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
9851   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
9852   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
9853   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
9854   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
9855   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
9856 </p></blockquote>
9857
9858 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9859
9860 <blockquote><p>
9861   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
9862   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
9863   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
9864 </p></blockquote>
9865
9866 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
9867 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
9868 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
9869 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
9870 the difference somewhat.
9871
9872       </div>
9873       <div class="tags">
9874
9875
9876         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>.
9877
9878
9879       </div>
9880     </div>
9881     <div class="padding"></div>
9882
9883     <div class="entry">
9884       <div class="title">
9885         <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>
9886       </div>
9887       <div class="date">
9888          1st July 2010
9889       </div>
9890       <div class="body">
9891         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
9892 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
9893 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
9894 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
9895 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
9896 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
9897 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
9898 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
9899 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
9900
9901 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
9902
9903 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
9904 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
9905 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
9906 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
9907 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
9908 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
9909 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
9910 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
9911 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
9912 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
9913 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
9914 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
9915 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
9916 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
9917 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
9918
9919 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
9920
9921 <blockquote><pre>
9922 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
9923 </pre></blockquote>
9924
9925 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
9926 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
9927 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
9928 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
9929 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
9930 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
9931 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
9932 on how to get this working.</p>
9933
9934 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
9935 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
9936 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
9937 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
9938 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
9939 instructions I found in the
9940 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
9941 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
9942
9943 <blockquote><pre>
9944         debug-level             0
9945         reload-count            unlimited
9946         paranoia                no
9947
9948         enable-cache            passwd          yes
9949         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
9950         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
9951         suggested-size          passwd          211
9952         check-files             passwd          yes
9953         persistent              passwd          yes
9954         shared                  passwd          yes
9955         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
9956         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
9957
9958         enable-cache            group           yes
9959         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
9960         negative-time-to-live   group           20
9961         suggested-size          group           211
9962         check-files             group           yes
9963         persistent              group           yes
9964         shared                  group           yes
9965         max-db-size             group           33554432
9966         auto-propagate          group           yes
9967
9968         enable-cache            hosts           no
9969         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
9970         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
9971         suggested-size          hosts           211
9972         check-files             hosts           yes
9973         persistent              hosts           yes
9974         shared                  hosts           yes
9975         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
9976
9977         enable-cache            services        yes
9978         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
9979         negative-time-to-live   services        20
9980         suggested-size          services        211
9981         check-files             services        yes
9982         persistent              services        yes
9983         shared                  services        yes
9984         max-db-size             services        33554432
9985 </pre></blockquote>
9986
9987 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
9988 automatically like the one provided in
9989 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
9990 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
9991 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
9992 look like this:</p>
9993
9994 <blockquote><pre>
9995 passwd:         files ldap
9996 group:          files ldap
9997 shadow:         files ldap
9998 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
9999 networks:       files
10000 protocols:      files
10001 services:       files
10002 ethers:         files
10003 rpc:            files
10004 netgroup:       files ldap
10005 </pre></blockquote>
10006
10007 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
10008 shadow and netgroup.</p>
10009
10010 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
10011 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
10012 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
10013 attributes cached.
10014
10015 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
10016   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
10017
10018 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
10019 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
10020 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
10021 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
10022 discovered sssd.</p>
10023
10024 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
10025
10026 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
10027 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
10028 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
10029 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
10030 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
10031 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
10032 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
10033 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
10034 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
10035 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
10036 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
10037 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
10038 version 1.2 is now in testing.
10039
10040 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
10041 roaming setup I want</p>
10042
10043 <blockquote><pre>
10044 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
10045 </pre></blockquote>
10046
10047 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
10048 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
10049
10050 <blockquote><pre>
10051 [sssd]
10052 config_file_version = 2
10053 reconnection_retries = 3
10054 sbus_timeout = 30
10055 services = nss, pam
10056 domains = INTERN
10057
10058 [nss]
10059 filter_groups = root
10060 filter_users = root
10061 reconnection_retries = 3
10062
10063 [pam]
10064 reconnection_retries = 3
10065
10066 [domain/INTERN]
10067 enumerate = false
10068 cache_credentials = true
10069
10070 id_provider = ldap
10071 auth_provider = ldap
10072 chpass_provider = ldap
10073
10074 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
10075 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10076 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
10077 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
10078 </pre></blockquote>
10079
10080 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
10081 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
10082
10083 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
10084 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
10085 modify it manually.</p>
10086
10087 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10088 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10089
10090       </div>
10091       <div class="tags">
10092
10093
10094         Tags: <a href="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>.
10095
10096
10097       </div>
10098     </div>
10099     <div class="padding"></div>
10100
10101     <div class="entry">
10102       <div class="title">
10103         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
10104       </div>
10105       <div class="date">
10106         28th June 2010
10107       </div>
10108       <div class="body">
10109         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
10110 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
10111 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
10112 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
10113 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
10114 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
10115 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
10116 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
10117 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
10118 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
10119
10120 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
10121 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
10122 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
10123 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
10124 released.</p>
10125
10126 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
10127 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
10128 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
10129 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
10130
10131 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
10132 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10133
10134 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
10135 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
10136 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
10137 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
10138 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
10139
10140       </div>
10141       <div class="tags">
10142
10143
10144         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>.
10145
10146
10147       </div>
10148     </div>
10149     <div class="padding"></div>
10150
10151     <div class="entry">
10152       <div class="title">
10153         <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>
10154       </div>
10155       <div class="date">
10156         24th June 2010
10157       </div>
10158       <div class="body">
10159         <p>A while back, I
10160 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
10161 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
10162 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
10163 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
10164
10165 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
10166 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
10167 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
10168 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
10169
10170 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
10171 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
10172 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
10173 Debian Edu.</p>
10174
10175 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
10176 the
10177 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
10178 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
10179 available today from IETF.</p>
10180
10181 <pre>
10182 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
10183 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
10184 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
10185  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
10186         NAME 'dhcpHost'
10187         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
10188 -       SUP top
10189 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
10190         MUST cn
10191         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
10192         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
10193 </pre>
10194
10195 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
10196 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
10197 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
10198
10199 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10200 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10201
10202       </div>
10203       <div class="tags">
10204
10205
10206         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>.
10207
10208
10209       </div>
10210     </div>
10211     <div class="padding"></div>
10212
10213     <div class="entry">
10214       <div class="title">
10215         <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>
10216       </div>
10217       <div class="date">
10218         16th June 2010
10219       </div>
10220       <div class="body">
10221         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
10222 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
10223 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
10224 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
10225 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
10226 this:
10227
10228 <blockquote><pre>
10229 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10230 tasksel --new-install
10231 </pre></blockquote>
10232
10233 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
10234 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
10235 any output what so ever.
10236
10237 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
10238 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
10239 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
10240 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
10241 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
10242 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
10243 code like this:
10244
10245 <blockquote><pre>
10246 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10247 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
10248 $cmd
10249 </pre></blockquote>
10250
10251 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
10252 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
10253 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
10254 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
10255 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
10256 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
10257 installation.</p>
10258
10259 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
10260 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
10261 like this.</p>
10262
10263       </div>
10264       <div class="tags">
10265
10266
10267         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>.
10268
10269
10270       </div>
10271     </div>
10272     <div class="padding"></div>
10273
10274     <div class="entry">
10275       <div class="title">
10276         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
10277       </div>
10278       <div class="date">
10279         13th June 2010
10280       </div>
10281       <div class="body">
10282         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
10283 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
10284 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
10285 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
10286 pages.</p>
10287
10288 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
10289 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
10290 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
10291 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
10292 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
10293 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
10294 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
10295 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
10296 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
10297 see how the project is doing.</p>
10298
10299 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
10300 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
10301 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
10302 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
10303 Windows.  This is great.</p>
10304
10305       </div>
10306       <div class="tags">
10307
10308
10309         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>.
10310
10311
10312       </div>
10313     </div>
10314     <div class="padding"></div>
10315
10316     <div class="entry">
10317       <div class="title">
10318         <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>
10319       </div>
10320       <div class="date">
10321         13th June 2010
10322       </div>
10323       <div class="body">
10324         <p>My
10325 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
10326 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
10327 finally made the upgrade logs available from
10328 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
10329 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
10330 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
10331 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
10332
10333 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
10334 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
10335 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
10336 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
10337 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
10338 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
10339 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
10340 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
10341
10342 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
10343 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
10344 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
10345 too surprising.</p>
10346
10347 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
10348 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
10349 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
10350 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
10351 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
10352 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
10353 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
10354 continue.</p>
10355
10356 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
10357 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
10358   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
10359   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
10360   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
10361   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
10362   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
10363   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10364   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10365   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
10366   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
10367   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
10368   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
10369   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10370   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10371   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10372   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10373   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10374   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
10375   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
10376   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
10377   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
10378   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
10379   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
10380   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
10381   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
10382   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
10383   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
10384   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
10385   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
10386
10387 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
10388
10389 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
10390   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
10391   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
10392   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
10393   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
10394   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
10395   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
10396   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
10397   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
10398   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
10399   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10400   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
10401   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
10402   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
10403   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
10404   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
10405   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
10406   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
10407   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
10408   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
10409   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
10410   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
10411   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
10412   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
10413   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
10414   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
10415   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
10416   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
10417   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
10418   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10419   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
10420   zip</p>
10421
10422 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
10423
10424 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
10425   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
10426   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
10427   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
10428   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
10429   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
10430   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10431   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10432   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
10433   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
10434   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
10435   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
10436   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10437   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10438   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10439   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10440   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10441   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
10442   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
10443   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
10444   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
10445   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
10446   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
10447   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
10448   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
10449   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
10450   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
10451   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
10452
10453 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
10454 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
10455   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
10456   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
10457   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
10458   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
10459   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
10460   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
10461   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
10462   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
10463   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
10464   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
10465   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
10466   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
10467   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
10468   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
10469   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
10470   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
10471   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
10472   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
10473   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
10474   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
10475   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
10476   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
10477   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
10478   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
10479   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
10480   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
10481   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
10482   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
10483   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
10484   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
10485   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
10486   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
10487   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
10488   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10489   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
10490   xulrunner-1.9</p>
10491
10492
10493       </div>
10494       <div class="tags">
10495
10496
10497         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>.
10498
10499
10500       </div>
10501     </div>
10502     <div class="padding"></div>
10503
10504     <div class="entry">
10505       <div class="title">
10506         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
10507       </div>
10508       <div class="date">
10509         11th June 2010
10510       </div>
10511       <div class="body">
10512         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
10513 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
10514 have been discovered and reported in the process
10515 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
10516 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
10517 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
10518 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
10519 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
10520
10521 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
10522 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
10523 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
10524 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
10525 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
10526 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
10527
10528 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
10529 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
10530 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
10531 is created.  The bug report
10532 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
10533 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
10534 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
10535 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
10536 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
10537 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
10538 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
10539 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
10540 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
10541 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
10542 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
10543 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
10544 Debian Squeeze.</p>
10545
10546 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
10547 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
10548 trick:</p>
10549
10550 <blockquote><pre>
10551 #!/bin/sh
10552 set -ex
10553
10554 if [ "$1" ] ; then
10555     desktop=$1
10556 else
10557     desktop=gnome
10558 fi
10559
10560 from=lenny
10561 to=squeeze
10562
10563 exec &lt; /dev/null
10564 unset LANG
10565 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
10566 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
10567 fuser -mv .
10568 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
10569 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
10570 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
10571 #!/bin/sh
10572 exit 101
10573 EOF
10574 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
10575 exit_cleanup() {
10576     umount $tmpdir/proc
10577 }
10578 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
10579 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
10580 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
10581
10582 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
10583
10584 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
10585 # to return the correct answers.
10586 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
10587     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
10588
10589 # Include the desktop and laptop task
10590 for test in desktop laptop ; do
10591     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
10592 #!/bin/sh
10593 exit 2
10594 EOF
10595     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
10596 done
10597
10598 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10599 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
10600 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
10601 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
10602
10603 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
10604 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
10605 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
10606 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
10607 fuser -mv
10608 </pre></blockquote>
10609
10610 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
10611 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
10612 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
10613 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
10614 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
10615 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
10616
10617 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
10618 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
10619 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
10620 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
10621 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
10622 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
10623 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
10624
10625 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
10626 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
10627 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
10628 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
10629 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
10630 packages.</p>
10631
10632       </div>
10633       <div class="tags">
10634
10635
10636         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>.
10637
10638
10639       </div>
10640     </div>
10641     <div class="padding"></div>
10642
10643     <div class="entry">
10644       <div class="title">
10645         <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>
10646       </div>
10647       <div class="date">
10648          6th June 2010
10649       </div>
10650       <div class="body">
10651         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
10652 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
10653 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
10654 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
10655 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
10656 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
10657 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
10658
10659 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
10660 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
10661 COLUMNS):</p>
10662
10663 <blockquote><pre>
10664 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
10665 previous=N
10666 PREVLEVEL=
10667 RUNLEVEL=
10668 runlevel=S
10669 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
10670 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
10671 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
10672 </pre></blockquote>
10673
10674 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
10675 script.</p>
10676
10677 <blockquote><pre>
10678 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
10679 previous=N
10680 PREVLEVEL=N
10681 RUNLEVEL=S
10682 runlevel=S
10683 </pre></blockquote>
10684
10685 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
10686 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
10687 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
10688
10689 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
10690 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
10691 choice.</p>
10692
10693       </div>
10694       <div class="tags">
10695
10696
10697         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>.
10698
10699
10700       </div>
10701     </div>
10702     <div class="padding"></div>
10703
10704     <div class="entry">
10705       <div class="title">
10706         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
10707       </div>
10708       <div class="date">
10709          6th June 2010
10710       </div>
10711       <div class="body">
10712         <p>Via the
10713 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
10714 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
10715 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
10716 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
10717 following the standards wars of today.</p>
10718
10719       </div>
10720       <div class="tags">
10721
10722
10723         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>.
10724
10725
10726       </div>
10727     </div>
10728     <div class="padding"></div>
10729
10730     <div class="entry">
10731       <div class="title">
10732         <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>
10733       </div>
10734       <div class="date">
10735          3rd June 2010
10736       </div>
10737       <div class="body">
10738         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
10739 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
10740 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
10741 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
10742 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
10743
10744 <blockquote><pre>
10745 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
10746   vendor                    count
10747   Dell Computer Corporation     1
10748     PowerEdge 1750              1
10749   IBM                           1
10750     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
10751   Intel                         2
10752   [no-dmi-info]                 3
10753 maintainer:~#
10754 </pre></blockquote>
10755
10756 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
10757 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
10758 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
10759 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
10760 option to list the individual machines.</p>
10761
10762 <p>A larger list is
10763 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
10764 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
10765 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
10766 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
10767 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
10768 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
10769 collector.</p>
10770
10771       </div>
10772       <div class="tags">
10773
10774
10775         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>.
10776
10777
10778       </div>
10779     </div>
10780     <div class="padding"></div>
10781
10782     <div class="entry">
10783       <div class="title">
10784         <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>
10785       </div>
10786       <div class="date">
10787          1st June 2010
10788       </div>
10789       <div class="body">
10790         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
10791 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
10792 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
10793 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
10794 wait.</p>
10795
10796 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
10797 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
10798 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
10799 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
10800 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
10801 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
10802
10803 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
10804 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
10805 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
10806 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
10807 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
10808 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
10809 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
10810 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
10811
10812 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
10813
10814       </div>
10815       <div class="tags">
10816
10817
10818         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>.
10819
10820
10821       </div>
10822     </div>
10823     <div class="padding"></div>
10824
10825     <div class="entry">
10826       <div class="title">
10827         <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>
10828       </div>
10829       <div class="date">
10830         27th May 2010
10831       </div>
10832       <div class="body">
10833         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
10834 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
10835 issues are known and should be solved:
10836
10837 <p><ul>
10838
10839 <li>The wicd package seen to
10840 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
10841 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
10842 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
10843 seem to be on the case.</li>
10844
10845 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
10846 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
10847 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
10848 maintainer is on the case.</li>
10849
10850 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
10851 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
10852 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
10853 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
10854 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
10855 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
10856 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
10857 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
10858
10859 </ul></p>
10860
10861 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
10862 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
10863 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
10864 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
10865
10866 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10867 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10868 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10869 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
10870
10871 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
10872
10873       </div>
10874       <div class="tags">
10875
10876
10877         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>.
10878
10879
10880       </div>
10881     </div>
10882     <div class="padding"></div>
10883
10884     <div class="entry">
10885       <div class="title">
10886         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
10887       </div>
10888       <div class="date">
10889         22nd May 2010
10890       </div>
10891       <div class="body">
10892         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
10893 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
10894 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
10895 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
10896
10897 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
10898 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
10899 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
10900 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
10901 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
10902 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
10903 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
10904 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
10905 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
10906 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
10907 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
10908 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
10909 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
10910 going to work.</p>
10911
10912 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
10913 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
10914 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
10915 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
10916 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
10917 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
10918 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
10919 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
10920 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
10921 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
10922 Edu.</p>
10923
10924 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
10925 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
10926 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
10927 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
10928 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
10929 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
10930
10931 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
10932 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
10933
10934       </div>
10935       <div class="tags">
10936
10937
10938         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>.
10939
10940
10941       </div>
10942     </div>
10943     <div class="padding"></div>
10944
10945     <div class="entry">
10946       <div class="title">
10947         <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>
10948       </div>
10949       <div class="date">
10950         19th May 2010
10951       </div>
10952       <div class="body">
10953         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
10954 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
10955 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
10956 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
10957 into unstable.  The
10958 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
10959 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
10960 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
10961 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
10962 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
10963 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
10964 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
10965
10966 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
10967 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
10968 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
10969 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
10970 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
10971 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
10972 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
10973 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
10974
10975 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
10976 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
10977 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
10978 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
10979 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
10980 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
10981 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
10982
10983 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
10984 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
10985 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
10986 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
10987 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
10988 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
10989 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
10990 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
10991 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
10992 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
10993 on the home directory servers.</p>
10994
10995 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
10996 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
10997 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
10998 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
10999 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
11000 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
11001
11002 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11003 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11004
11005       </div>
11006       <div class="tags">
11007
11008
11009         Tags: <a href="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>.
11010
11011
11012       </div>
11013     </div>
11014     <div class="padding"></div>
11015
11016     <div class="entry">
11017       <div class="title">
11018         <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>
11019       </div>
11020       <div class="date">
11021         14th May 2010
11022       </div>
11023       <div class="body">
11024         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
11025 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
11026 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
11027 expected, if I am to believe the
11028 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11029 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
11030 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
11031 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
11032 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
11033 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
11034 version.</p>
11035
11036 More information about
11037 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11038 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
11039 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
11040 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
11041
11042 <blockquote><pre>
11043 CONCURRENCY=none
11044 </pre></blockquote>
11045
11046 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11047 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11048 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11049 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
11050
11051       </div>
11052       <div class="tags">
11053
11054
11055         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>.
11056
11057
11058       </div>
11059     </div>
11060     <div class="padding"></div>
11061
11062     <div class="entry">
11063       <div class="title">
11064         <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>
11065       </div>
11066       <div class="date">
11067         14th May 2010
11068       </div>
11069       <div class="body">
11070         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
11071 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
11072 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
11073 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
11074 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
11075 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
11076 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
11077 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
11078
11079 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
11080 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
11081 this on the collector host:</p>
11082
11083 <blockquote><pre>
11084 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
11085 </pre></blockquote>
11086
11087 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
11088 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
11089
11090 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
11091 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
11092 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
11093 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
11094 written yet.</p>
11095
11096       </div>
11097       <div class="tags">
11098
11099
11100         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>.
11101
11102
11103       </div>
11104     </div>
11105     <div class="padding"></div>
11106
11107     <div class="entry">
11108       <div class="title">
11109         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
11110       </div>
11111       <div class="date">
11112         13th May 2010
11113       </div>
11114       <div class="body">
11115         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
11116 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
11117 has been
11118 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
11119
11120 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
11121 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
11122 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
11123 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
11124 based boot system.  Tollef is
11125 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
11126 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
11127 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
11128 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
11129 at the moment do not.</p>
11130
11131 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
11132 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
11133 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
11134 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
11135 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
11136 way forward.</p>
11137
11138 <p>In the mean time, based on the
11139 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11140 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
11141 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
11142 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
11143 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
11144 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
11145 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
11146 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
11147
11148       </div>
11149       <div class="tags">
11150
11151
11152         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>.
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/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</a>
11162       </div>
11163       <div class="date">
11164          6th May 2010
11165       </div>
11166       <div class="body">
11167         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
11168 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
11169 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
11170 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
11171 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11172 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
11173 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
11174
11175 <blockquote><pre>
11176 CONCURRENCY=makefile
11177 </pre></blockquote>
11178
11179 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
11180 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
11181 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
11182 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
11183 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
11184 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
11185 make this happen.</p>
11186
11187 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
11188 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
11189 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
11190 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
11191 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
11192
11193 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
11194 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
11195 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
11196 fix the remaining issues.</p>
11197
11198 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11199 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11200 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11201 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
11202
11203       </div>
11204       <div class="tags">
11205
11206
11207         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>.
11208
11209
11210       </div>
11211     </div>
11212     <div class="padding"></div>
11213
11214     <div class="entry">
11215       <div class="title">
11216         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Forcing_new_users_to_change_their_password_on_first_login.html">Forcing new users to change their password on first login</a>
11217       </div>
11218       <div class="date">
11219          2nd May 2010
11220       </div>
11221       <div class="body">
11222         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
11223 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
11224 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
11225
11226 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
11227 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
11228 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
11229 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
11230 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
11231
11232 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
11233 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
11234
11235 <blockquote><pre>
11236 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
11237 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
11238 Password expires                                        : never
11239 Password inactive                                       : never
11240 Account expires                                         : never
11241 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
11242 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
11243 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
11244 root@tjener:~#
11245 </pre></blockquote>
11246
11247 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
11248 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
11249 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
11250 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
11251 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
11252 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
11253
11254 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
11255 intended:</p>
11256
11257 <blockquote><pre>
11258 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
11259 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
11260 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
11261 Password expires                                        : never
11262 Password inactive                                       : never
11263 Account expires                                         : never
11264 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
11265 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
11266 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
11267 root@tjener:~#
11268 </pre></blockquote>
11269
11270 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
11271 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
11272 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
11273
11274 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
11275 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
11276
11277 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
11278 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11279
11280 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
11281 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
11282 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
11283 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
11284 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
11285 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
11286 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
11287
11288 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
11289 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
11290 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
11291 change.</p>
11292
11293       </div>
11294       <div class="tags">
11295
11296
11297         Tags: <a href="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>.
11298
11299
11300       </div>
11301     </div>
11302     <div class="padding"></div>
11303
11304     <div class="entry">
11305       <div class="title">
11306         <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>
11307       </div>
11308       <div class="date">
11309         28th April 2010
11310       </div>
11311       <div class="body">
11312         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
11313 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
11314 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
11315 and go.</p>
11316
11317 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
11318 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
11319 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
11320 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
11321
11322 <ul>
11323
11324  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
11325    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
11326    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
11327    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
11328    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
11329    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
11330    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
11331    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
11332    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
11333    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
11334    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
11335    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
11336
11337  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
11338    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
11339    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
11340    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
11341    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
11342    or the Fedora developed
11343    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
11344    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
11345
11346  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
11347    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
11348    directory, using unison.</li>
11349
11350  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
11351    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
11352    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
11353    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
11354    implemented.</li>
11355
11356  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
11357    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
11358
11359  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
11360    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
11361    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
11362
11363 </ul>
11364
11365 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
11366 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
11367 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
11368 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
11369 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
11370 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
11371 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
11372 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
11373 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
11374
11375 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11376 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11377
11378       </div>
11379       <div class="tags">
11380
11381
11382         Tags: <a href="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>.
11383
11384
11385       </div>
11386     </div>
11387     <div class="padding"></div>
11388
11389     <div class="entry">
11390       <div class="title">
11391         <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>
11392       </div>
11393       <div class="date">
11394         19th April 2010
11395       </div>
11396       <div class="body">
11397         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
11398 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
11399 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
11400 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
11401 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
11402 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
11403 restrictions on the web, for example from
11404 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
11405 epub-version from
11406 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
11407 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
11408 strongly recommend this book.</p>
11409
11410       </div>
11411       <div class="tags">
11412
11413
11414         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>.
11415
11416
11417       </div>
11418     </div>
11419     <div class="padding"></div>
11420
11421     <div class="entry">
11422       <div class="title">
11423         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
11424       </div>
11425       <div class="date">
11426         14th April 2010
11427       </div>
11428       <div class="body">
11429         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
11430 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
11431 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
11432 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
11433 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
11434 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
11435 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
11436 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
11437 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
11438
11439 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
11440 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
11441 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
11442 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
11443 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
11444
11445 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
11446 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
11447
11448 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
11449 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
11450 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
11451 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
11452 to work properly.</p>
11453
11454 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
11455 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
11456 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
11457 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
11458 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
11459 time.</p>
11460
11461 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
11462 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
11463 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
11464 up in a few days.</p>
11465
11466       </div>
11467       <div class="tags">
11468
11469
11470         Tags: <a href="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>.
11471
11472
11473       </div>
11474     </div>
11475     <div class="padding"></div>
11476
11477     <div class="entry">
11478       <div class="title">
11479         <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>
11480       </div>
11481       <div class="date">
11482          6th March 2010
11483       </div>
11484       <div class="body">
11485         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
11486 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
11487 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
11488 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
11489 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
11490 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
11491
11492 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
11493 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
11494 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
11495 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
11496
11497 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
11498 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
11499 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
11500 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
11501 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
11502 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
11503
11504       </div>
11505       <div class="tags">
11506
11507
11508         Tags: <a href="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>.
11509
11510
11511       </div>
11512     </div>
11513     <div class="padding"></div>
11514
11515     <div class="entry">
11516       <div class="title">
11517         <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>
11518       </div>
11519       <div class="date">
11520         11th February 2010
11521       </div>
11522       <div class="body">
11523         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
11524 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
11525 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
11526 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
11527 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
11528 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
11529 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
11530
11531 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
11532
11533 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
11534 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
11535 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
11536 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
11537
11538       </div>
11539       <div class="tags">
11540
11541
11542         Tags: <a href="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>.
11543
11544
11545       </div>
11546     </div>
11547     <div class="padding"></div>
11548
11549     <div class="entry">
11550       <div class="title">
11551         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
11552       </div>
11553       <div class="date">
11554         27th January 2010
11555       </div>
11556       <div class="body">
11557         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
11558 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
11559 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
11560 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
11561 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
11562 further.</p>
11563
11564 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
11565 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
11566 configured to be a server for the
11567 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
11568 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
11569 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
11570 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
11571 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
11572 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
11573 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
11574 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
11575 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
11576 and Nagios configuration.</p>
11577
11578 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
11579 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
11580 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
11581 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
11582
11583 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
11584 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
11585 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
11586 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
11587 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
11588 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
11589 the machine.</p>
11590
11591 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
11592 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
11593 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
11594 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
11595
11596 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
11597 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
11598 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
11599 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
11600 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
11601 everything is taken care of.</p>
11602
11603       </div>
11604       <div class="tags">
11605
11606
11607         Tags: <a href="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>.
11608
11609
11610       </div>
11611     </div>
11612     <div class="padding"></div>
11613
11614     <div class="entry">
11615       <div class="title">
11616         <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>
11617       </div>
11618       <div class="date">
11619         12th August 2009
11620       </div>
11621       <div class="body">
11622         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
11623 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
11624 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
11625 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
11626
11627 <table>
11628 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
11629 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
11630 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
11631 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
11632 </table>
11633
11634 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
11635 got these numbers:</p>
11636
11637 <table>
11638 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
11639 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
11640 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
11641 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
11642 </table>
11643
11644 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
11645
11646 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
11647 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
11648 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
11649 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
11650 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
11651
11652
11653 <table>
11654 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
11655 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
11656 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
11657 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
11658 </table>
11659
11660 <p>And with 'site:no':
11661
11662 <table>
11663 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
11664 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
11665 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
11666 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
11667 </table>
11668
11669 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
11670 numbers.</p>
11671
11672       </div>
11673       <div class="tags">
11674
11675
11676         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>.
11677
11678
11679       </div>
11680     </div>
11681     <div class="padding"></div>
11682
11683     <div class="entry">
11684       <div class="title">
11685         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
11686       </div>
11687       <div class="date">
11688          8th August 2009
11689       </div>
11690       <div class="body">
11691         <p>According to <a
11692 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
11693 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
11694 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
11695 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
11696 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
11697 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
11698 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
11699 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
11700 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
11701 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
11702
11703 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
11704 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
11705 seminar this autumn.</p>
11706
11707       </div>
11708       <div class="tags">
11709
11710
11711         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>.
11712
11713
11714       </div>
11715     </div>
11716     <div class="padding"></div>
11717
11718     <div class="entry">
11719       <div class="title">
11720         <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>
11721       </div>
11722       <div class="date">
11723         27th July 2009
11724       </div>
11725       <div class="body">
11726         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
11727 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
11728 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
11729 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
11730 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
11731 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
11732 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
11733
11734 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
11735 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
11736 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
11737
11738       </div>
11739       <div class="tags">
11740
11741
11742         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>.
11743
11744
11745       </div>
11746     </div>
11747     <div class="padding"></div>
11748
11749     <div class="entry">
11750       <div class="title">
11751         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
11752       </div>
11753       <div class="date">
11754         22nd July 2009
11755       </div>
11756       <div class="body">
11757         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
11758 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
11759 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
11760 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
11761 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
11762 the package up to date.</p>
11763
11764 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
11765 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
11766 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
11767 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
11768 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
11769 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
11770 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
11771 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
11772 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
11773 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
11774 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
11775 working on the future release.</p>
11776
11777 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
11778 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
11779
11780       </div>
11781       <div class="tags">
11782
11783
11784         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>.
11785
11786
11787       </div>
11788     </div>
11789     <div class="padding"></div>
11790
11791     <div class="entry">
11792       <div class="title">
11793         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
11794       </div>
11795       <div class="date">
11796         24th June 2009
11797       </div>
11798       <div class="body">
11799         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
11800 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
11801 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
11802 funded
11803 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
11804 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
11805 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
11806 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
11807 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
11808 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
11809
11810 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
11811 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
11812 boot:</p>
11813
11814 <ul>
11815
11816 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
11817
11818 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
11819    clock is in UTC.</li>
11820
11821 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
11822    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11823    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
11824
11825 </ul>
11826
11827 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
11828 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
11829 Villegas</a>.
11830
11831 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
11832 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
11833 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
11834 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
11835 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
11836 using this.</p>
11837
11838 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
11839 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
11840 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
11841 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
11842 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
11843 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
11844 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
11845
11846       </div>
11847       <div class="tags">
11848
11849
11850         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>.
11851
11852
11853       </div>
11854     </div>
11855     <div class="padding"></div>
11856
11857     <div class="entry">
11858       <div class="title">
11859         <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>
11860       </div>
11861       <div class="date">
11862          2nd May 2009
11863       </div>
11864       <div class="body">
11865         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
11866 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
11867 do not yet know them.</p>
11868
11869 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
11870 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
11871 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
11872 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
11873 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
11874 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
11875 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
11876 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
11877 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
11878 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
11879 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
11880
11881 <p>The second one is
11882 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
11883 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
11884 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
11885 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
11886 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
11887 and the company behind it is running
11888 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
11889 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
11890 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
11891 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
11892 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
11893 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
11894 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
11895 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
11896
11897 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
11898 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
11899 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
11900 surrounded by today.</p>
11901
11902       </div>
11903       <div class="tags">
11904
11905
11906         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>.
11907
11908
11909       </div>
11910     </div>
11911     <div class="padding"></div>
11912
11913     <div class="entry">
11914       <div class="title">
11915         <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>
11916       </div>
11917       <div class="date">
11918         28th April 2009
11919       </div>
11920       <div class="body">
11921         <p>Julien Blache
11922 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
11923 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
11924 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
11925 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
11926 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
11927 properties.</p>
11928
11929       </div>
11930       <div class="tags">
11931
11932
11933         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>.
11934
11935
11936       </div>
11937     </div>
11938     <div class="padding"></div>
11939
11940     <div class="entry">
11941       <div class="title">
11942         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
11943       </div>
11944       <div class="date">
11945          5th April 2009
11946       </div>
11947       <div class="body">
11948         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
11949 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
11950 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
11951 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
11952 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
11953 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
11954 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
11955 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
11956
11957 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
11958 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
11959 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
11960   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
11961   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
11962
11963 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
11964 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
11965 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
11966 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
11967
11968 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
11969 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
11970 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
11971 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
11972
11973 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
11974 set -e
11975 URL="$1"
11976 SAVEFILE="$2"
11977 DURATION="$3"
11978 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
11979   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
11980   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
11981 pid=$!
11982 sleep $DURATION
11983 kill $pid
11984 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
11985
11986       </div>
11987       <div class="tags">
11988
11989
11990         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>.
11991
11992
11993       </div>
11994     </div>
11995     <div class="padding"></div>
11996
11997     <div class="entry">
11998       <div class="title">
11999         <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>
12000       </div>
12001       <div class="date">
12002         30th March 2009
12003       </div>
12004       <div class="body">
12005         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
12006 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
12007 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
12008 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
12009 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
12010 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
12011 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
12012 application.</p>
12013
12014 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
12015 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
12016 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
12017 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
12018 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
12019 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
12020 blocked from doing so.</p>
12021
12022 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
12023 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
12024 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
12025 requirements change.</p>
12026
12027 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
12028 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
12029 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
12030
12031       </div>
12032       <div class="tags">
12033
12034
12035         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>.
12036
12037
12038       </div>
12039     </div>
12040     <div class="padding"></div>
12041
12042     <div class="entry">
12043       <div class="title">
12044         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
12045       </div>
12046       <div class="date">
12047         29th March 2009
12048       </div>
12049       <div class="body">
12050         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
12051 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
12052 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
12053 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
12054 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
12055 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
12056 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
12057 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
12058 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
12059 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
12060 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
12061 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
12062 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
12063 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
12064 now. :)</p>
12065
12066       </div>
12067       <div class="tags">
12068
12069
12070         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>.
12071
12072
12073       </div>
12074     </div>
12075     <div class="padding"></div>
12076
12077     <div class="entry">
12078       <div class="title">
12079         <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>
12080       </div>
12081       <div class="date">
12082         29th March 2009
12083       </div>
12084       <div class="body">
12085         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
12086 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
12087 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
12088 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
12089 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
12090 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
12091
12092 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
12093 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
12094 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
12095 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
12096 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
12097 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
12098 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
12099 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
12100 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
12101 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
12102 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
12103 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
12104 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
12105
12106 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
12107 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
12108 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
12109 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
12110
12111 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
12112 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
12113
12114 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
12115 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
12116 new IETF work group?</p>
12117
12118       </div>
12119       <div class="tags">
12120
12121
12122         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>.
12123
12124
12125       </div>
12126     </div>
12127     <div class="padding"></div>
12128
12129     <div class="entry">
12130       <div class="title">
12131         <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>
12132       </div>
12133       <div class="date">
12134         28th February 2009
12135       </div>
12136       <div class="body">
12137         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
12138 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
12139 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
12140 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
12141 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
12142 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
12143 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
12144 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
12145 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
12146 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
12147 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
12148 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
12149 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
12150 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
12151 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
12152 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
12153 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
12154 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
12155 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
12156 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
12157 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
12158 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
12159 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
12160 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
12161 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
12162 machine.</p>
12163
12164 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
12165 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
12166 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
12167 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
12168 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
12169 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
12170 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
12171
12172 <pre>
12173 use LWP::Simple;
12174 use POSIX;
12175 use WWW::Mechanize;
12176 use Date::Parse;
12177 [...]
12178 sub get_support_info {
12179     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
12180     my $str;
12181
12182     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
12183         # fetch website from Dell support
12184         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";
12185         my $webpage = get($url);
12186         return undef unless ($webpage);
12187
12188         my $daysleft = -1;
12189         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
12190         foreach my $line (@lines) {
12191             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
12192             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
12193             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
12194
12195             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
12196             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
12197             my $lastend = "";
12198             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
12199                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
12200
12201                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
12202                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
12203                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
12204                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
12205                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
12206                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
12207                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
12208             }
12209             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
12210             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
12211                 if ($lastend lt $today);
12212         }
12213     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
12214         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
12215         my $url =
12216             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
12217         $mech->get($url);
12218         my $fields = {
12219             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
12220             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
12221             'country' => 'NO',
12222             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
12223             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
12224         };
12225         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
12226                             fields      => $fields );
12227         # Next step is screen scraping
12228         my $content = $mech->content();
12229
12230         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
12231         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
12232         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
12233         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
12234
12235         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
12236
12237         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
12238             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
12239                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
12240             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
12241             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
12242                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
12243             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
12244                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
12245
12246             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
12247
12248             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
12249                 if ($end lt $today);
12250         }
12251     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
12252         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
12253         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
12254         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
12255             my $content =
12256                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
12257             if ($content) {
12258                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
12259                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
12260                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
12261                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
12262
12263                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
12264                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
12265
12266                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
12267
12268                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
12269                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
12270                     if ($end lt $today);
12271             }
12272         }
12273     }
12274     return $str;
12275 }
12276 </pre>
12277
12278 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
12279 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
12280 from dmidecode.</p>
12281
12282 <pre>
12283 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
12284                        "447707-B21");
12285 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
12286 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
12287                        "1234567");
12288 </pre>
12289
12290 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
12291 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
12292
12293 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
12294 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
12295 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
12296 do so.</p>
12297
12298       </div>
12299       <div class="tags">
12300
12301
12302         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>.
12303
12304
12305       </div>
12306     </div>
12307     <div class="padding"></div>
12308
12309     <div class="entry">
12310       <div class="title">
12311         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
12312       </div>
12313       <div class="date">
12314         20th February 2009
12315       </div>
12316       <div class="body">
12317         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
12318 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
12319 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
12320 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
12321 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
12322 the "missing" computer.</p>
12323
12324 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
12325 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
12326 code blocks as defined in the
12327 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
12328 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
12329 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
12330 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
12331 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
12332 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
12333 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
12334 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
12335 codes.</p>
12336
12337 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
12338 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
12339 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
12340 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
12341 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
12342 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
12343
12344 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
12345 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
12346 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
12347 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
12348 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
12349 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
12350 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
12351 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
12352 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
12353 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
12354
12355 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
12356 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
12357 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
12358
12359       </div>
12360       <div class="tags">
12361
12362
12363         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>.
12364
12365
12366       </div>
12367     </div>
12368     <div class="padding"></div>
12369
12370     <div class="entry">
12371       <div class="title">
12372         <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>
12373       </div>
12374       <div class="date">
12375         17th January 2009
12376       </div>
12377       <div class="body">
12378         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
12379 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
12380 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
12381 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
12382 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
12383 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
12384 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
12385 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
12386 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
12387 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
12388 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
12389 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
12390 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
12391 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
12392
12393 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
12394 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
12395 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
12396 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
12397 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
12398 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
12399 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
12400 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
12401 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
12402 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
12403 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
12404 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
12405 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
12406 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
12407 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
12408 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
12409 playing when the download is done.</p>
12410
12411 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
12412 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
12413 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
12414 too.</p>
12415
12416 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
12417 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
12418 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
12419 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
12420
12421       </div>
12422       <div class="tags">
12423
12424
12425         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>.
12426
12427
12428       </div>
12429     </div>
12430     <div class="padding"></div>
12431
12432     <div class="entry">
12433       <div class="title">
12434         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
12435       </div>
12436       <div class="date">
12437         28th December 2008
12438       </div>
12439       <div class="body">
12440         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
12441 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
12442 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
12443 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
12444 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
12445 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
12446 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
12447 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
12448 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
12449 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
12450 source, sink and mixer applications and
12451 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
12452 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
12453 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
12454 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
12455 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
12456 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
12457 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
12458 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
12459 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
12460
12461 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
12462 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
12463 larger stick as well.</p>
12464
12465       </div>
12466       <div class="tags">
12467
12468
12469         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>.
12470
12471
12472       </div>
12473     </div>
12474     <div class="padding"></div>
12475
12476     <div class="entry">
12477       <div class="title">
12478         <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>
12479       </div>
12480       <div class="date">
12481          7th December 2008
12482       </div>
12483       <div class="body">
12484         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
12485 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
12486 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
12487 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
12488 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
12489 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
12490 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
12491 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
12492
12493 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
12494 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
12495 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
12496 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
12497 of these cards.</p>
12498
12499       </div>
12500       <div class="tags">
12501
12502
12503         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>.
12504
12505
12506       </div>
12507     </div>
12508     <div class="padding"></div>
12509
12510     <div class="entry">
12511       <div class="title">
12512         <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>
12513       </div>
12514       <div class="date">
12515         25th November 2008
12516       </div>
12517       <div class="body">
12518         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
12519 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
12520 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
12521 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
12522 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
12523 notes are available on
12524 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
12525 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
12526 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
12527 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
12528 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
12529 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
12530 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
12531 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
12532 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
12533
12534 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
12535 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
12536
12537       </div>
12538       <div class="tags">
12539
12540
12541         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>.
12542
12543
12544       </div>
12545     </div>
12546     <div class="padding"></div>
12547
12548     <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>
12549     <div id="sidebar">
12550
12551
12552
12553 <h2>Archive</h2>
12554 <ul>
12555
12556 <li>2013
12557 <ul>
12558
12559 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (2)</a></li>
12560
12561 </ul></li>
12562
12563 <li>2012
12564 <ul>
12565
12566 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
12567
12568 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
12569
12570 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
12571
12572 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
12573
12574 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
12575
12576 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
12577
12578 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
12579
12580 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
12581
12582 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
12583
12584 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
12585
12586 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
12587
12588 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
12589
12590 </ul></li>
12591
12592 <li>2011
12593 <ul>
12594
12595 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
12596
12597 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
12598
12599 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
12600
12601 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
12602
12603 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
12604
12605 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
12606
12607 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
12608
12609 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
12610
12611 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
12612
12613 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
12614
12615 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
12616
12617 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
12618
12619 </ul></li>
12620
12621 <li>2010
12622 <ul>
12623
12624 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
12625
12626 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
12627
12628 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
12629
12630 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
12631
12632 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
12633
12634 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
12635
12636 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
12637
12638 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
12639
12640 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
12641
12642 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
12643
12644 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
12645
12646 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
12647
12648 </ul></li>
12649
12650 <li>2009
12651 <ul>
12652
12653 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
12654
12655 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
12656
12657 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
12658
12659 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
12660
12661 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
12662
12663 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
12664
12665 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
12666
12667 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
12668
12669 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
12670
12671 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
12672
12673 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
12674
12675 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
12676
12677 </ul></li>
12678
12679 <li>2008
12680 <ul>
12681
12682 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
12683
12684 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
12685
12686 </ul></li>
12687
12688 </ul>
12689
12690
12691
12692 <h2>Tags</h2>
12693 <ul>
12694
12695  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
12696
12697  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
12698
12699  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
12700
12701  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
12702
12703  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (5)</a></li>
12704
12705  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
12706
12707  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
12708
12709  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (59)</a></li>
12710
12711  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (118)</a></li>
12712
12713  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (9)</a></li>
12714
12715  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (7)</a></li>
12716
12717  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
12718
12719  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (166)</a></li>
12720
12721  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
12722
12723  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
12724
12725  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (10)</a></li>
12726
12727  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (9)</a></li>
12728
12729  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (32)</a></li>
12730
12731  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (17)</a></li>
12732
12733  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
12734
12735  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
12736
12737  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
12738
12739  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
12740
12741  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (219)</a></li>
12742
12743  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (148)</a></li>
12744
12745  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (6)</a></li>
12746
12747  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
12748
12749  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (41)</a></li>
12750
12751  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (61)</a></li>
12752
12753  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
12754
12755  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
12756
12757  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
12758
12759  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (4)</a></li>
12760
12761  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
12762
12763  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
12764
12765  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
12766
12767  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (28)</a></li>
12768
12769  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
12770
12771  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
12772
12773  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (39)</a></li>
12774
12775  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
12776
12777  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (5)</a></li>
12778
12779  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (12)</a></li>
12780
12781  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
12782
12783  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (7)</a></li>
12784
12785  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (35)</a></li>
12786
12787  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
12788
12789  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (26)</a></li>
12790
12791 </ul>
12792
12793
12794     </div>
12795     <p style="text-align: right">
12796  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4</a>
12797 </p>
12798
12799   </body>
12800 </html>