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4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries tagged english
</title>
5 <description>Entries tagged english
</description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
10 <title>12 years of outages - summarised by Stuart Kendrick
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Fri,
26 Oct
2012 14:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>I work at the
<a href=
"http://www.uio.no/
">University of Oslo
</a
>
15 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
16 all over the place. I am also a member (and currently leader) of
17 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">the NUUG association
</a
>, which in turn
18 make me a member of
<a href=
"http://www.usenix.org/
">USENIX
</a
>. NUUG
19 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
20 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
21 is a US based member organisation with similar targets. And thanks to
22 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
23 <a href=
"https://www.usenix.org/publications/login
">;login:
</a
> in the
24 mail several times a year. The magazine is great, and I read most of
25 it every time.
</p
>
27 <p
>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
28 article by
<a href=
"http://www.skendric.com/
">Stuart Kendrick
</a
> from
29 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
30 "<a href=
"https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-
2012-volume-
37-number-
5/what-takes-us-down
">What
31 Takes Us Down
</a
>" (also
32 <a href=
"http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/
2012-
06-
30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf
">available
33 from his own site
</a
>), where he report what he found when he
34 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
35 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
36 etc etc. The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
37 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
38 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since
2000.
<p
>
40 <p
>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
41 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
42 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
43 assumtions on scope and user impact. Here is the two example from the
44 article: First the unplanned outage:
46 <blockquote
><pre
>
47 Subject: Exchange
2003 Cluster Issues
48 Severity: Critical (Unplanned)
49 Start: Monday, May
7,
2012,
11:
58
50 End: Monday, May
7,
2012,
12:
38
53 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
56 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
57 access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
59 </pre
></blockquote
>
61 Next the planned outage:
63 <blockquote
><pre
>
64 Subject: H Building Switch Upgrades
65 Severity: Major (Planned)
66 Start: Saturday, June
16,
2012,
06:
00
67 End: Saturday, June
16,
2012,
16:
00
70 Description: Currently, Catalyst
4006s provide
10/
100 Ethernet to end-
71 stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
73 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
74 this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
77 </pre
></blockquote
>
79 <p
>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
80 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
81 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO
8601
82 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
83 people to write
'2012-
06-
16 06:
00 +
0000' instead of the start time
84 format listed above). There are also other issues with the format
85 that could be improved, read the article for the details.
</p
>
87 <p
>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
88 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
89 university too. We do register
90 <a href=
"http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/
">planned
91 changes and outages in a calendar
</a
>, and report the to a mailing
92 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
93 report to the same location for unplanned outages. Perhaps something
94 for other sites to consider too?
</p
>
99 <title>Amazon steal books from customer and throw out her out without any explanation
</title>
100 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html
</link>
101 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html
</guid>
102 <pubDate>Mon,
22 Oct
2012 20:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
103 <description><p
>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
104 <a href=
"http://www.bekkelund.net/
2012/
10/
22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/
">how
105 Amazon erased the books from a customer
's kindle, locked the account
106 and refuse to tell the customer why
</a
>. If a real book store did
107 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
108 and theft. The story has spread around the net today. A bit more
109 background information is available in Norwegian from
110 <a href=
"http://www.digi.no/
904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon
">digi.no
</a
>.
111 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
112 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
113 introduced many years back. And Amazon proved in
2009 that it was
115 <a href=
"http://boingboing.net/
2009/
07/
20/amazons-orwellian-de.html
">
116 break into customers equipment and remove the books
</a
> people had
117 bought, when it removed the book
1984 by George Orwell from all the
118 customers who had bought it. From the official comments, it even
120 <a href=
"http://www.nytimes.com/
2009/
07/
18/technology/companies/
18amazon.html
">Amazon
121 would never do that again
</a
>. And here we are, three years
124 <p
>And thought this action is
125 <a href=
"http://www.itavisen.no/
904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende
">against
126 Norwegian regulations and law
</a
>, it is according to the terms of use
127 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
128 Norwegian laws. It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
129 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
132 <p
>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
133 unacceptable terms. For example
134 <a href=
"http://www.gutenberg.org/
">Project Gutenberg
</a
> (about
40,
000
135 books),
<a href=
"http://runeberg.org/
">Project Runenberg
</a
> (
1,
652
136 books) and
<a href=
"http://www.archive.org/details/texts
">The Internet
137 Archive
</a
> (
3,
641,
797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
138 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.
</p
>
140 <p
>Update
2012-
10-
23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
141 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
142 restored the account of the user, as reported by
143 <a href=
"http://www.digi.no/
904675/helomvending-fra-amazon
">digi.no
</a
>
144 and
<a href=
"http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/
1.8368487">NRK
</a
>.
145 Apparently public pressure work. The story from Martin have seen
146 several twitter messages per minute the last
24 hours, which is quite
147 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention. But even when the
148 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist. I recommend
149 reading two opinions from
150 <a href=
"http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/
2012/
10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm
">Simon
152 <a href=
"http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/
2012/
10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm
">Glen
153 Moody
</a
> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
154 details about the original story.
</p
>
159 <title>The fight for freedom and privacy
</title>
160 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html
</link>
161 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html
</guid>
162 <pubDate>Thu,
18 Oct
2012 10:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
163 <description><p
>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
164 drain, and it is hard to fight against it. I try to do my best, but
165 time is limited. I hope you do your best too. A few years ago I came
166 across a marvellous drawing by
167 <a href=
"http://www.claybennett.com/about.html
">Clay Bennett
</a
>
168 visualising some of what is going on.
170 <p
><a href=
"http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html
">
171 <img src=
"http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg
"></a
></p
>
174 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
175 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
178 <p
>Do you feel safe at the airport? I do not. Do you feel safe when
179 you see a surveillance camera? I do not. Do you feel safe when you
180 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions? I do not. I
181 just remember
<a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
">the
182 Panopticom
</a
>, and can not help help to think that we are slowly
183 transforming our society to a huge Panopticom on our own.
</p
>
188 <title>ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic
</title>
189 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html
</link>
190 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html
</guid>
191 <pubDate>Fri,
12 Oct
2012 23:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
192 <description><p
>Thanks to a blog post by
193 <a href=
"http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/
2012/
10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html
">Eddy
194 Petrișor
</a
>, I became aware of yet another
"alternative medicine
"
195 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
196 According to the originating blog post about the detox
"cure
"
197 <a href=
"http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/
2012/
10/
11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/
">ColonHelp
198 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions
</a
>, the producer
199 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information. To check if
200 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
201 wordpress.com, and they reply was
"We can confirm that Zenyth is
202 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic. However, we
203 don
't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
204 matter
".
</p
>
206 <p
>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
207 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
208 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
209 health of its users. This caused the company behind the product,
210 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
211 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
212 to argue its side.
</p
>
214 <p
>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
215 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly. Lets hope the
216 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
">Streisand
217 effect
</a
> can make it rethink its strategy.
</p
>
219 <p
>What is the harm, you might think. I suggest you take a look at
220 <a href=
"http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html
">a list of
221 victims of detoxification
</a
>.
</p
>
226 <title>Why is your local library collecting the
"wrong
" computer books?
</title>
227 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_is_your_local_library_collecting_the__wrong__computer_books_.html
</link>
228 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_is_your_local_library_collecting_the__wrong__computer_books_.html
</guid>
229 <pubDate>Wed,
3 Oct
2012 10:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
230 <description><p
>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
231 <a href=
"http://retout.co.uk/blog/
2012/
10/
02/the-library-challenge
">about
232 the computer science book collection available in his local
233 library
</a
>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
234 computer books becoming obsolete so soon. That is part of the reason
235 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
236 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
237 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
238 computer classic from trash. And they need to know which one will
239 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
240 recently published books.
</p
>
242 <p
>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
243 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
244 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
245 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess. Once, just
246 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
247 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
248 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection. I
249 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
250 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
251 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens
">Stevens
252 collection
</a
>). I picked several of the generic O
'Reilly books (ie
253 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
254 products) and stayed away from the
'teach yourself X in N days
' class.
255 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
256 for the library that evening.
</p
>
258 <p
>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
259 going to know that for example
260 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming
">The
261 Practice of Programming
</a
> is a must-have in any computer library,
262 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
263 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
264 the suggestions for books to get? I know they would love to hear from
265 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
266 book right away.
</p
>
271 <title>Seventy percent done with Norwegian docbook version of Free Culture
</title>
272 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Seventy_percent_done_with_Norwegian_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html
</link>
273 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Seventy_percent_done_with_Norwegian_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html
</guid>
274 <pubDate>Sun,
23 Sep
2012 09:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
275 <description><p
>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian
<a
276 href=
"http://www.docbook.org/
">docbook
</a
> version of the
2004 book
<a
277 href=
"http://free-culture.cc/
">Free Culture
</a
> by Lawrence Lessig.
278 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
279 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
280 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
283 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html
">called
284 for volunteers
</a
> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
285 and progress is a bit slow. Anyway, today I broken the
70 percent
286 mark for the first rough translation. At the moment, less than
700
287 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate. With
288 my current progress of
10-
20 strings per day, it will take a while to
289 complete the translation. This graph show the updated progress:
</p
>
291 <img width=
"80%
" align=
"center
" src=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png
">
293 <p
>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
294 commitments. If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
295 the project files currently available from
296 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig
">github
</a
>.
</p
>
298 <p
>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
300 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true
">PDF
</a
>
302 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true
">EPUB
</a
>
303 are published on github. The HTML version is published as well, but
304 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
305 saw no point in linking to that version.
</p
>
310 <title>Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda
</title>
311 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html
</link>
312 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html
</guid>
313 <pubDate>Mon,
17 Sep
2012 14:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
314 <description><p
>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
315 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a
>
316 community, I finally found time to wrap up another. This time it is
317 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
318 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
319 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
320 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.
</p
>
322 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
324 <p
>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
325 in secondary (
15-
18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of
"light
"
326 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
327 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
328 IT.
3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
329 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
330 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
331 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
332 training is anyway very important
</p
>
334 <p
>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
335 <a href=
"http://www.spse.ch/
">SPSE school
</a
> (secondary) is a very
336 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
337 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
338 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
340 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
341 project?
</strong
></p
>
343 <p
>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
344 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
345 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn
't
346 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
347 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
350 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
351 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
353 <p
>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
354 very generous for help and hints. Chat help is crucial, together with
355 the mailing list. Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
356 engineered platform and you don
't have to start to build up your PDC
357 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I
've already done this once and I
358 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
359 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
360 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
363 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
364 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
366 <p
>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
367 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
368 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
369 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
370 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
371 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
372 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
373 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)
</p
>
375 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
377 <p
>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
378 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
379 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
380 <a href=
"http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html
">Perceus
</a
>
381 has the same...
</p
>
383 <p
>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
384 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
385 something breaks. Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
386 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.
</p
>
388 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
389 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
391 <P
>I think that the only real argument that school managers
"hear
" is
392 cost reduction. They don
't give too much weight on quality, stability,
393 just because they are normally not open to change.
</p
>
395 <p
>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
396 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
399 <p
>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
400 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
401 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had
20
402 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
403 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
404 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
405 Those who don
't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.
</p
>
410 <title>IETF activity to standardise video codec
</title>
411 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html
</link>
412 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html
</guid>
413 <pubDate>Sat,
15 Sep
2012 20:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
414 <description><p
>After the
415 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html
">Opus
416 codec made
</a
> it into
<a href=
"http://www.ietf.org/
">IETF
</a
> as
417 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716
">RFC
6716</a
>, I had a look
418 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
419 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
420 area. A non-
"working group
" mailing list
421 <a href=
"https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec
">video-codec
</a
>
423 <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
424 formal working group should be formed.
</p
>
426 <p
>I look forward to see how this plays out. There is already
427 <a href=
"http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html
">an
428 email from someone
</a
> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
429 participate in the ISO group. Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
430 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
431 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
432 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
433 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.
</p
>
435 <p
>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
436 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
442 <title>IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus
</title>
443 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html
</link>
444 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html
</guid>
445 <pubDate>Wed,
12 Sep
2012 13:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
446 <description><p
>Yesterday,
<a href=
"http://www.ietf.org/
">IETF
</a
> announced the
448 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716
">RFC
6716, the Definition
449 of the Opus Audio Codec
</a
>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
450 intended for both VoIP, film and music. This is the first time, as
451 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec. In
452 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533
">RFC
3533</a
>, IETF
453 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
454 royalty free container for audio, video and movies. I hope IETF will
455 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
456 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
457 multimedia content on the Internet.
</p
>
459 <p
>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
460 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
461 free specifications. Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
462 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.
</p
>
464 <p
>Visit the
<a href=
"http://opus-codec.org/
">Opus project page
</a
> if
465 you want to learn more about the solution.
</p
>
470 <title>Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists
</title>
471 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html
</link>
472 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html
</guid>
473 <pubDate>Fri,
7 Sep
2012 13:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
474 <description><p
>As I
475 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html
">mentioned
476 this summer
</a
>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
477 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
478 <a href=
"https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook
">Gitorious
479 repository for the project
</a
>.
</p
>
481 <p
>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
482 to the HTML version. To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
483 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
484 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.
</p
>
486 <p
>Want to sing? You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
487 PostScript formats at
488 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/
">Petter
's Computer
489 Science Songbook
</a
>.
</p
>
494 <title>Free software forced Microsoft to open Office (and don
't forget Officeshots)
</title>
495 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_forced_Microsoft_to_open_Office__and_don_t_forget_Officeshots_.html
</link>
496 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_forced_Microsoft_to_open_Office__and_don_t_forget_Officeshots_.html
</guid>
497 <pubDate>Thu,
23 Aug
2012 14:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
498 <description><p
>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
499 <a href=
"http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-
200233">Microsoft
500 have been forced to open Office
</a
>, and it made me remember and
501 revisit the great site
502 <a href=
"http://www.officeshots.org/
">officeshots
</a
> which allow you
503 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format. I
504 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)
</p
>
509 <title>Half way there with translated docbook version of Free Culture
</title>
510 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_way_there_with_translated_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html
</link>
511 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_way_there_with_translated_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html
</guid>
512 <pubDate>Fri,
17 Aug
2012 21:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
513 <description><p
>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
514 <a href=
"http://www.docbook.org/
">docbook
</a
> version of the
2004 book
515 <a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/
">Free Culture
</a
> by Lawrence Lessig,
516 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
517 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
518 English book. It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
519 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society. When the
520 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
521 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
522 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law. This
524 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html
">called
525 for volunteers
</a
> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
526 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.
</p
>
528 <p
>Two days ago, we finally broke the
50% mark. Then more than
50% of
529 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
530 titles and index entries are also counted). All parts from the
531 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated. So is
532 chapters six, seven and the conclusion. I created a graph to show the
535 <img width=
"80%
" align=
"center
" src=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png
">
537 <p
>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
538 entries into the docbook. They were missing with the docbook version
539 I initially started with. There are still quite a few index entries
540 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done. I
541 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
542 english version of the docbook source.
</p
>
544 <p
>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
545 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
546 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
547 translation and proof reading. And I would like the figures to be
548 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them. Any SVG master
549 around? I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
550 me. If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
551 project files currently available from
<a
552 href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig
">github
</a
>.
</p
>
554 <p
>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
556 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true
">PDF
</a
>
558 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true
">EPUB
</a
>
559 are published on github. The HTML version is published as well, but
560 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
561 saw no point in linking to that version.
</p
>
566 <title>Notes on language codes for Norwegian docbook processing...
</title>
567 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Notes_on_language_codes_for_Norwegian_docbook_processing___.html
</link>
568 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Notes_on_language_codes_for_Norwegian_docbook_processing___.html
</guid>
569 <pubDate>Fri,
10 Aug
2012 21:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
570 <description><p
>In
<a href=
"http://www.docbook.org/
">docbook
</a
> one can specify
571 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
572 this information to pick the correct translations for
'chapter
',
'see
573 also
',
'index
' etc. And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
574 this work just fine. For example a German user can start the document
575 with
&lt;book lang=
"de
"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
576 correct content with any of the docbook processors. This is not the
577 case for the language
578 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html
">I
579 am working with at the moment
</a
>, Norwegian Bokmål.
</p
>
581 <p
>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
582 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
583 all tools. I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
584 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way. Some
585 of them do not handle it at all.
</p
>
587 <p
>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
588 this mess. Norwegian is not one, but two written variants. The
589 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål. There are three
590 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
591 is
'no
', Norwegian Nynorsk is
'nn
' and Norwegian Bokmål is
'nb
'.
592 Historically the
'no
' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
593 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
594 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
595 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure
'no
' was an
596 alias for
'nb
'.
</p
>
598 <p
>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian. The dblatex tool only
599 understand
'nn
'. There are translations for
'no
', but not
'nb
' (BTS
600 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
684391">#
684391</a
>), but due to a bug
601 (BTS
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
682936">#
682936</a
>) the
'no
'
602 language code is not recognised. The docbook-xsl tool chain only
603 recognise
'nn
' and
'nb
', but not
'no
'. The xmlto tool only recognise
604 'nn
' and
'nb
', but not
'no
'. The end result that there is no language
605 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
606 at the same time. :(
</p
>
608 <p
>The correct solution is to use
&lt;book lang=
"nb
"&gt;, but it will
609 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
610 processors. :(
</p
>
612 <p
>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/
</p
>
617 <title>Best way to create a docbook book?
</title>
618 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html
</link>
619 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html
</guid>
620 <pubDate>Tue,
31 Jul
2012 22:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
621 <description><p
>I tried to send this text to the
622 <a href=
"https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/
">docbook-apps
623 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org
</a
>, but it only accept messages
624 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
625 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
626 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
629 <p
>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
630 learning curve at the moment.
</p
>
632 <p
>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
633 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
634 docbook to handle the process. The files to build the book are
636 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig
">github
</a
>.
637 The book got around
400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
638 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
639 software docbook processors. My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
642 <p
>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
643 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
644 formats. I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
649 <li
>Using dblatex, the
&lt;part
&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
650 as
&lt;/part
&gt; do not really end the
&lt;part
&gt;. (See
651 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
683166">BTS report #
683166</a
>), the
652 xetex backend (needed to process UTF-
8) give incorrect hyphens in
653 index references spanning several pages (See
654 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
682901">BTS report #
682901</a
>), and
655 I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
656 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
682936">BTS report #
682936</a
>).
</li
>
658 <li
>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
659 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
683163">BTS report
660 #
683163</a
>).
</li
>
662 <li
>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
663 show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
664 footnote and text body, see
665 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
683197">BTS report #
683197</a
>), and
666 fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
667 refs listed are not right).
</li
>
669 <li
>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.
</li
>
671 <li
>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
672 index problems the xmlto + fop processing.
</li
>
676 <p
>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
677 of this book? Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
678 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?
</p
>
680 <p
>What about HTML and EPUB versions?
</p
>
685 <title>Free Culture in Norwegian -
5 chapters done,
74 percent left to do
</title>
686 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html
</link>
687 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html
</guid>
688 <pubDate>Sat,
21 Jul
2012 20:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
689 <description><p
>I reported earlier that I am working on
690 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html
">a
691 norwegian version
</a
> of the book
692 <a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/
">Free Culture
</a
> by Lawrence Lessig.
693 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
694 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six. The source files as well as a
695 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
696 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig
">github
</a
>.
</p
>
698 <p
>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
699 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
700 completely translated. This completes
26 percent of the number of
701 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus
74
702 percent left to translate. A graph of the progress is present at the
703 bottom of the github project page. There is still room for more
704 contributors. Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
705 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
708 <p
>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
709 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
715 <title>Call for help from docbook expert to tag Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig
</title>
716 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Call_for_help_from_docbook_expert_to_tag_Free_Culture_by_Lawrence_Lessig.html
</link>
717 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Call_for_help_from_docbook_expert_to_tag_Free_Culture_by_Lawrence_Lessig.html
</guid>
718 <pubDate>Mon,
16 Jul
2012 22:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
719 <description><p
>I am currently working on a
720 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html
">project
721 to translate
</a
> the book
722 <a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/
">Free Culture
</a
> by Lawrence Lessig
723 to Norwegian. And the source we base our translation on is the
724 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook
">docbook
</a
> version, to
725 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
726 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
727 tagged. The source files of this project is available from
728 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig
">github
</a
>.
</p
>
730 <p
>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
731 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert. Is there a
732 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
733 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
734 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book? This will provide a
735 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
736 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version. If you can and want
737 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
738 send pull requests with fixes. :)
</p
>
743 <title>Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg
</title>
744 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html
</link>
745 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html
</guid>
746 <pubDate>Mon,
9 Jul
2012 00:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
747 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu /
748 Skolelinux
</a
> project have users all over the globe, but until
749 recently we have not known about any users in Norway
's neighbour
750 country Sweden. This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
751 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
752 to adjust and scale the just released
753 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120311.html
">Debian Edu
754 Wheezy
</a
> setup to his liking. He granted me an interview, and I am
755 happy to share his answers with you here.
</p
>
757 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
759 <p
>I
'm a
44 year old country guy that have been working
12 years at
760 the same school as
50% IT-manager and
50% Teacher. My educational
761 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
762 "folkhighschool
" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups. In
763 Norwegian I believe it
's called
"Vuxenupplaring
". I also have a master
764 in
"Technology and social change
". So I
'm not really a tech guy, I
765 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
766 perspective when working with IT.
</p
>
768 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
769 project?
</strong
></p
>
771 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
772 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
773 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
774 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
775 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
776 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
778 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
779 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
781 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
782 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
783 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
784 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
785 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
786 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
787 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
788 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
789 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
790 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to
"beat around the bush
" by
791 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
792 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
793 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
794 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
795 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
796 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
797 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
798 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time. Our
799 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
800 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
801 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
802 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit
"oldish
" applications. Debian is
805 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
806 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
808 <p
>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
809 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
810 year (
2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
811 sound from working with them. It
's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
812 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
813 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.
</p
>
815 <p
>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
816 install time. In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
817 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
818 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
819 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
820 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
821 support for single-sign on. That will make the transition to free
822 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
823 need. No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
824 some applications can
't be open source. As for us we really need to
825 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes. We run a journalist
826 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
827 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association). Our
828 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
829 are done. This is important if you want to get a job.
</p
>
831 <p
>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
832 magazines. We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
833 market to Adobe. The only
"equivalent
" to InDesign in the opensource
834 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
835 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
836 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
837 edit and compile a newspaper. But politically at our school we are not
838 there yet. And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.
</p
>
840 <p
>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
841 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
842 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
843 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
844 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
845 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
846 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
847 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise. Those
848 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
849 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
850 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
851 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
852 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
853 sound file.
</p
>
855 <p
>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
856 will try. The problem is the students have certain expectations when
857 they start an education towards a profession. So the programs has to
858 look and feel professional. Good thing with radio, there are many
859 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
860 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
861 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
862 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
863 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.
</p
>
865 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
867 <p
>Myself I
'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days. I use almost
868 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
869 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
872 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
873 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
875 <p
>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
876 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
877 it
's also very important that the multimedia support is working
878 flawlessly. The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
879 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
880 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
881 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
882 idea. It
's also important that the open source software works even for
883 the administration. It
's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
884 open source, if the principal has to run Windows. It also creates a
885 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
886 will create a difference in
"status
" between classes, so a good
887 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
888 desktop is essential. At least at our school, where we have mixed
889 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.
</p
>
891 <p
>Update
2012-
07-
09 08:
30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
892 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
893 article
<a href=
"https://lwn.net/Articles/
481607/
">Radio station
894 management with Airtime
</a
>,
895 <a href=
"http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/
">Airtime
</a
> which
896 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
897 <a href=
"http://www.rivendellaudio.org/
">Rivendell
</a
> which claim to
898 be complete radio broadcast automation solution. All of them seem
899 useful to the aspiring radio producer.
</p
>
904 <title>Why do schools waste money on IT?
</title>
905 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html
</link>
906 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html
</guid>
907 <pubDate>Sun,
8 Jul
2012 09:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
908 <description><p
>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
909 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
910 in schools and municipalities. We provide what the happy users of
911 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
912 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution. I
913 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
914 Steinberg in his blog post
915 "<a href=
"http://www.mysociety.org/
2012/
06/
19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/
">Can
916 you recognize the million pound chair?
</a
>". Read it and weep for the
917 spending of your tax money.
</p
>
919 <p
>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
920 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
921 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
922 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
923 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
929 <title>Free Timetabling Software - nice free software
</title>
930 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html
</link>
931 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html
</guid>
932 <pubDate>Sat,
7 Jul
2012 09:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
933 <description><p
>Included in
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu /
934 Skolelinux
</a
> is a large collection of end user and school specific
935 software. It is one of the packages not installed by default but
936 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
937 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
938 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
939 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
940 receive. The software is
942 <a href=
"http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/
">named FET
</a
>, and it provide a
943 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
944 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
945 both teachers and students. It is available both for
946 <a href=
"http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html
">Linux, MacOSX and
947 Windows
</a
>.
</p
>
949 <p
>This is
<a href=
"http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html
">the
950 feature list
</a
>, liftet from the project web site:
</p
>
954 <li
>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
955 You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it
</li
>
957 <li
>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
958 (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
959 (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
960 (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
961 (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
962 (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
963 sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
964 (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
967 <li
>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
968 semi-automatic or manual allocation
</li
>
970 <li
>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
971 GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports
</li
>
973 <li
>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
974 with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)
</li
>
976 <li
>Import/export from CSV format
</li
>
978 <li
>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
981 <li
>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
982 and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
983 non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
984 (as separate sets)
</li
>
986 <li
>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from
0.0% to
100.0%
987 (but some special constraints are allowed to have only
100% weight
988 percentage)
</li
>
990 <li
>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
991 demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
994 <li
>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day:
60</li
>
995 <li
>Maximum number of working days per week:
35</li
>
996 <li
>Maximum total number of teachers:
6000</li
>
997 <li
>Maximum total number of sets of students:
30000</li
>
998 <li
>Maximum total number of subjects:
6000</li
>
999 <li
>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags
</li
>
1000 <li
>Maximum number of activities:
30000</li
>
1001 <li
>Maximum number of rooms:
6000</li
>
1002 <li
>Maximum number of buildings:
6000</li
>
1003 <li
>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
1004 students sets for each activity. (it is possible
1005 also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
1006 activity)
</li
>
1007 <li
>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints
</li
>
1008 <li
>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints
</li
>
1009 </ul
></li
>
1011 <li
>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
1013 <li
>Break periods
</li
>
1014 <li
>For teacher(s):
1016 <li
>Not available periods
</li
>
1017 <li
>Max/min days per week
</li
>
1018 <li
>Max gaps per day/week
</li
>
1019 <li
>Max hours daily/continuously
</li
>
1020 <li
>Min hours daily
</li
>
1021 <li
>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag
</li
>
1023 <li
>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
1024 days per week
</li
>
1025 </ul
></li
>
1026 <li
>For students (sets):
1028 <li
>Not available periods
</li
>
1029 <li
>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)
</li
>
1030 <li
>Max gaps per day/week
</li
>
1031 <li
>Max hours daily/continuously
</li
>
1032 <li
>Min hours daily
</li
>
1033 <li
>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag
</li
>
1035 <li
>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
1036 days per week
</li
>
1037 </ul
></li
>
1038 <li
>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
1040 <li
>A single preferred starting time
</li
>
1041 <li
>A set of preferred starting times
</li
>
1042 <li
>A set of preferred time slots
</li
>
1043 <li
>Min/max days between them
</li
>
1044 <li
>End(s) students day
</li
>
1045 <li
>Same starting time/day/hour
</li
>
1046 <li
>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
1047 flexible constraint, useful in many situations)
</li
>
1048 <li
>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for
2 or
3 (sub)activities)
</li
>
1049 <li
>Not overlapping
</li
>
1050 <li
>Max simultaneous in selected time slots
</li
>
1051 <li
>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities
</li
>
1052 </ul
></li
>
1053 </ul
></li
>
1055 <li
>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
1057 <li
>Room not available periods
</li
>
1058 <li
>For teacher(s):
1060 <li
>Home room(s)
</li
>
1061 <li
>Max building changes per day/week
</li
>
1062 <li
>Min gaps between building changes
</li
>
1066 <li
>For students (sets):
1068 <li
>Home room(s)
</li
>
1069 <li
>Max building changes per day/week
</li
>
1070 <li
>Min gaps between building changes
</li
>
1073 <li
>Preferred room(s):
1075 <li
>For a subject
</li
>
1076 <li
>For an activity tag
</li
>
1077 <li
>For a subject and an activity tag
</li
>
1078 <li
>Individually for a (sub)activity
</li
>
1082 <li
>For a set of activities:
1084 <li
>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms
</li
>
1089 </ul
></p
>
1091 <p
>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
1092 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it. If you
1093 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
1094 manually, check it out.
1096 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
1097 <a href=
"http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/
2012/
03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/
">a
1098 blog post from MarvelSoft
</a
>. If you find FET useful, please provide
1099 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
1100 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos
">Debian Edu HowTo
1101 section
</a
>.
</p
>
1106 <title>Can Zimbra be told to send autoreplies to the From: address?
</title>
1107 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Can_Zimbra_be_told_to_send_autoreplies_to_the_From__address_.html
</link>
1108 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Can_Zimbra_be_told_to_send_autoreplies_to_the_From__address_.html
</guid>
1109 <pubDate>Tue,
3 Jul
2012 23:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1110 <description><p
>In the NUUG
<a href=
"http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi
</a
>
1111 project (Norwegian version of
1112 <a href=
"http://www.fixmystreet.com/
">FixMyStreet
</a
> from
1113 <a href=
"http://www.mysociety.org/
">mySociety
</a
>), we have discovered
1114 a problem with the municipalities using
1115 <a href=
"http://www.zimbra.com/
">Zimbra
</a
>. When FiksGataMi send a
1116 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
1117 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
1118 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address. The intention is to make
1119 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
1120 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
1121 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
1122 Zimbra. Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
1123 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
1124 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
1125 the From: header.
</p
>
1127 <p
>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
1128 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
1129 problem. We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
1130 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
1131 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports. We have been in
1132 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
1133 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
1134 behaviour.
</p
>
1136 <p
>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
1137 to the specification in RFC
3834, which recommend that vacation
1138 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
1139 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
1140 differently. Anyone know? Please let us know at
1141 <a href=
"http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami
">fiksgatami
1142 (at) nuug.no
</a
>.
</p
>
1147 <title>Debian Edu interview: José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez
</title>
1148 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jos__Luis_Redrejo_Rodr_guez.html
</link>
1149 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jos__Luis_Redrejo_Rodr_guez.html
</guid>
1150 <pubDate>Tue,
26 Jun
2012 08:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1151 <description><p
>I
've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
1152 another interview with the people behind
1153 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a
>.
1154 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
1155 helpers from Spain. His effort was the reason we added support for
1156 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
1157 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
1158 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120311.html
">Debian Edu
1159 Squeeze
</a
> version.
</p
>
1161 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
1163 <p
>I
'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
1164 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
1165 ICT in schools
</p
>
1167 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1168 project?
</strong
></p
>
1170 <p
>At
2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
1171 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
1172 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
1173 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.
</p
>
1175 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1176 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
1178 <p
>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
1179 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
1180 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
1181 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.
</p
>
1183 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1184 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
1186 <p
>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
1187 economical and technical resources in the different countries don
't
1188 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
1189 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
1190 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
1191 technologies in school.
</p
>
1193 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
1195 <p
>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
1196 between Iceweasel,
<a href=
"http://www.geany.org/
">Geany
</a
> and
1197 <a href=
"http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator
">Terminator
</a
>.
</p
>
1199 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1200 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
1202 <p
>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
1203 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
1204 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
1205 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.
</p
>
1207 <p
>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
1208 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
1209 universities. So different strategies are needed.
</p
>
1211 <p
>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
1212 we
've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
1213 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
1214 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
1215 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
1216 using wireless. I think we
'll see more and more personal devices in
1217 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
1218 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
1219 working there.
</p
>
1224 <title>Song book for Computer Scientists
</title>
1225 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html
</link>
1226 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html
</guid>
1227 <pubDate>Sun,
24 Jun
2012 13:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1228 <description><p
>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
1229 <a href=
"http://www.uit.no/
">University of Tromsø
</a
>, I started
1230 collecting computer related songs for use at parties. The original
1231 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
1232 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
1233 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format. I have
1234 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
1235 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
1236 help me extend and update the book. If anyone is volunteering to help
1237 me with this, send me an email. Also let me know if there are songs
1238 missing in my book.
</p
>
1240 <p
>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
1241 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
1242 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
1243 Especially now that
<a href=
"http://debconf12.debconf.org/
">Debconf
1244 12</a
> is about to start (and I am not going). Want to sing? Check
1245 out
<a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/
">Petter
's
1246 Computer Science Songbook
</a
>.
1251 <title>Debian Edu - some ideas for the future versions
</title>
1252 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html
</link>
1253 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html
</guid>
1254 <pubDate>Mon,
11 Jun
2012 14:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1255 <description><p
>During my work on
1256 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120311.nb.html
">Debian Edu
1257 based on Squeeze
</a
>, I came across some issues that should be
1258 addressed in the Wheezy release. I finally found time to wrap up my
1259 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
1260 explanation.
</p
>
1264 <li
>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
1265 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
1266 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
1267 system depend on tasksel tasks in
1268 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
1269 installation.
</li
>
1271 <li
>Enable Kerberos login for more services. Now with the Kerberos
1272 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
1273 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions. We should
1274 at least try to enable it for these services:
1277 <li
>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
1279 <li
>Nagios for admins checking the system status.
</li
>
1280 <li
>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.
</li
>
1281 <li
>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.
</li
>
1282 <li
>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.
</li
>
1283 <li
>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.
</li
>
1285 </ul
></li
>
1287 <li
>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
1288 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
1289 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
1290 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind
</li
>
1292 <li
>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install. The split made
1293 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
1294 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.
</li
>
1296 <li
>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
1297 touching the disk if the disk is too small. This is
1298 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
653305">BTS report #
653305</a
> and the
1299 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
1300 it and upload. After this is done we need to adjust
1301 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.
</li
>
1303 <li
>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
1304 time config). LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
1305 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
1308 <li
>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
1309 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
1310 up KDE login on slow networks.
</li
>
1312 <li
>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
1313 change on first login. This is useful when handing out password on
1314 paper, to make sure only the user know the password. This require
1315 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.
</li
>
1317 <li
>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
1318 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
1319 familiar with GUIs. This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
1320 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..
</li
>
1322 <li
>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
1323 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses). None of the
1324 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.
</li
>
1326 <li
>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
1327 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
1328 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.
</li
>
1330 <li
>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
1331 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol. The hook was
1332 requested in
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
588968">BTS report
1333 #
588968</a
> and is now available in Wheezy. We might need to write a
1334 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.
</li
>
1336 <li
>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
1339 <li
>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers
</li
>
1340 <li
>consider dropping xpaint
</li
>
1341 <li
>and probably more?
</li
>
1342 </ul
></li
>
1344 <li
>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly. This is
1345 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
1346 examples too. For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
1347 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
1348 some GUI to do this. Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
1349 could consider using their packages. At the moment we have some
1350 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
1351 for the LTSP chroot).
</li
>
1354 <li
>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options. We
1355 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
1356 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
1359 <li
>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
1360 interesting educational packages. We should work on the package
1361 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
1362 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
1363 new applications with a simple mouse click.
</li
>
1365 <li
>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
1366 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
1367 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
1368 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled. We should
1369 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
1370 instead of the
"it is documented
" method of today.
</li
>
1372 <li
>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
1373 "take over
" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
1374 There are at least three implementations,
1375 <a href=
"italc.sourceforge.net/
">italc
</a
>,
1376 <a href=
"http://www.itais.net/help/en/
">controlaula
</a
> og
1377 <a href=
"http://www.epoptes.org/
">epoptes
</a
> and we should pick one of
1378 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school. The challenges is
1379 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
1380 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
1381 given room.
</li
>
1383 <li
>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
1384 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
1385 the Debian Edu network. Not quite sure how. Perhaps we should
1386 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
1387 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
1388 configuration and data with the central server. This should be
1389 investigated.
</li
>
1391 </ul
></p
>
1393 <p
>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
1399 <title>TV with face recognition, for improved viewer experience
</title>
1400 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html
</link>
1401 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html
</guid>
1402 <pubDate>Sat,
9 Jun
2012 22:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1403 <description><p
>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
1404 <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
1405 with face recognition
</a
> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
1406 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
1407 recognition on the TV image itself. It could let the viewer know who
1408 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
1409 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
1410 evaluate what is being said and done. That would be a feature I would
1411 be willing to pay for.
</p
>
1413 <p
>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
1414 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
1415 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
1416 <a href=
"http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/
0100021.txt
">1984 by George
1417 Orwell
</a
>.
</p
>
1422 <title>Web service to look up HP and Dell computer hardware support status
</title>
1423 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html
</link>
1424 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html
</guid>
1425 <pubDate>Wed,
6 Jun
2012 23:
15:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1426 <description><p
>A few days ago
1427 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html
">I
1428 reported how to get
</a
> the support status out of Dell using an
1429 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
1430 <a href=
"http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/
2012-February/
045959.html
">discovered
1431 by Daniel De Marco in february
</a
>. Combined with my web scraping
1432 code for HP, Dell and IBM
1433 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html
">from
1434 2009</a
>, I got inspired and wrote
1435 <a href=
"https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/
">a
1436 web service
</a
> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
1437 support status and get a machine readable result back.
</p
>
1439 <p
>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
1442 <blockquote
><pre
>
1443 % 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
>
1444 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
":
""})
1446 </pre
></blockquote
>
1448 <p
>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
1449 support for other vendors. The python source is available on
1450 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.
</p
>
1455 <title>Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel
</title>
1456 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html
</link>
1457 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html
</guid>
1458 <pubDate>Sat,
2 Jun
2012 15:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1459 <description><p
>Back in
2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
1460 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a
>
1461 mailing list. He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
1462 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
1463 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120311.html
">Debian Edu
1464 Squeeze
</a
> version.
</p
>
1466 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
1468 <p
>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am
38 years old and live near Kiel,
1469 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
1470 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
1471 by Angela).
</p
>
1473 <p
>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
1474 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
1475 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
1476 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
1477 becoming an osteopath.
</p
>
1479 <p
>Starting in
2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
1480 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
1481 introducing free software into schools. The project
's name is
1482 "IT-Zukunft Schule
" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
1483 skills with communication skills.
</p
>
1485 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1486 project?
</strong
></p
>
1488 <p
>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
1489 "IT-Zukunft Schule
" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
1490 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
1491 people said. From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
1492 distributions that target being used for school networks.
</p
>
1494 <p
>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
1495 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
1496 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between
12/
2010 and
03/
2011 we
1497 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
1498 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
1499 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
1500 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
1501 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
1502 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.
</p
>
1504 <p
>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
1505 people. People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
1506 protection experts, other IT professionals.
</p
>
1508 <p
>We came to two conclusions:
</p
>
1510 <p
>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
1511 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
1512 by
100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
1513 whereas most of each school
's requirements could mapped by a standard
1514 IT solution. The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
1515 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
1516 possible. In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
1517 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
1518 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
1519 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
1522 <p
>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
1523 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
1524 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
1525 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
1526 of people into using IT and teaching with IT.
"IT-Zukunft Schule
"
1527 tries to provide an approach for this.
</p
>
1529 <p
>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
1530 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
1531 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school
's IT
1532 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
1533 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
1534 spare time.
</p
>
1536 <p
>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
1537 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
1538 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
1539 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
1540 non-existent until
2010/
2011.
</p
>
1542 <p
>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
1543 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
1544 avoidance do exist.
</p
>
1546 <p
>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
1547 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
1548 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
1549 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
1550 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
1551 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
1552 and probably a gain for all.
</p
>
1554 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1555 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
1557 <p
>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
1558 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
1559 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
1560 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
1561 project communication, honest communication within the group of
1562 developers, etc.
</p
>
1564 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1565 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
1567 <p
>Every coin has two sides:
</p
>
1569 <p
>Technically:
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
311188">BTS issue
1570 #
311188</a
>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
1571 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
1572 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
1573 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
1574 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
1575 contribute).
</p
>
1577 <p
>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
1578 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
1579 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
1580 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
1581 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
1582 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
1583 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
1584 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
1585 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
1586 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.
</p
>
1588 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
1590 <p
>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.
</p
>
1592 <p
>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
1593 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
1594 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.
</p
>
1596 <p
>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In
2010 I started the
1597 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
1598 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
1599 is being integrated in Ubuntu
's software center.
</p
>
1601 <p
>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
1602 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
1603 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
1604 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
1605 whiteboard.
</p
>
1607 <p
>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE
's Yakuake.
</p
>
1609 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1610 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
1612 <p
>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
1613 enrol people.
</p
>
1618 <title>SOAP based webservice from Dell to check server support status
</title>
1619 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html
</link>
1620 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html
</guid>
1621 <pubDate>Fri,
1 Jun
2012 15:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1622 <description><p
>A few years ago I wrote
1623 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html
">how
1624 to extract support status
</a
> for your Dell and HP servers. Recently
1625 I have learned from colleges here at the
1626 <a href=
"http://www.uio.no/
">University of Oslo
</a
> that Dell have
1627 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service. Given
1628 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
1629 readable information about the support status. This perl code
1630 demonstrate how to do it:
</p
>
1632 <p
><pre
>
1637 my $GUID =
'11111111-
1111-
1111-
1111-
111111111111';
1638 my $App =
'test
';
1639 my $servicetag = $ARGV[
0] or die
"Please supply a servicetag. $!\n
";
1640 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
1642 -
> uri(
'http://support.dell.com/WebServices/
')
1643 -
> on_action( sub { join
'', @_ } )
1644 -
> proxy(
'http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx
')
1646 my $a = $s-
>GetAssetInformation(
1647 SOAP::Data-
>name(
'guid
')-
>value($GUID)-
>type(
''),
1648 SOAP::Data-
>name(
'applicationName
')-
>value($App)-
>type(
''),
1649 SOAP::Data-
>name(
'serviceTags
')-
>value($servicetag)-
>type(
''),
1651 print Dumper($a -
> result) ;
1652 </pre
></p
>
1654 <p
>The output can look like this:
</p
>
1656 <p
><pre
>
1658 'Asset
' =
> {
1659 'Entitlements
' =
> {
1660 'EntitlementData
' =
> [
1662 'EntitlementType
' =
> 'Expired
',
1663 'EndDate
' =
> '2009-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
1664 'Provider
' =
> '',
1665 'StartDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
1666 'DaysLeft
' =
> '0'
1669 'EntitlementType
' =
> 'Expired
',
1670 'EndDate
' =
> '2009-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
1671 'Provider
' =
> '',
1672 'StartDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
1673 'DaysLeft
' =
> '0'
1676 'EntitlementType
' =
> 'Expired
',
1677 'EndDate
' =
> '2007-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
1678 'Provider
' =
> '',
1679 'StartDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
1680 'DaysLeft
' =
> '0'
1684 'AssetHeaderData
' =
> {
1685 'SystemModel
' =
> 'GX620
',
1686 'ServiceTag
' =
> '8DSGD2J
',
1687 'SystemShipDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T19:
00:
00-
05:
00',
1688 'Buid
' =
> '2323',
1689 'Region
' =
> 'Europe
',
1690 'SystemID
' =
> 'PLX_GX620
',
1691 'SystemType
' =
> 'OptiPlex
'
1695 </pre
></p
>
1697 <p
>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
1699 <a href=
"http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation
">inline
1700 documentation
</a
>, and according to
1701 <a href=
"http://iboyd.net/index.php/
2012/
02/
14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/
">one
1702 comment
</a
> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
1703 scraping HTML pages. :)
</p
>
1705 <p
>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service. If
1706 you know of one, drop me an email. :)
</p
>
1711 <title>First monitor calibration using ColorHug
</title>
1712 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html
</link>
1713 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html
</guid>
1714 <pubDate>Thu,
31 May
2012 22:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1715 <description><p
>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
1716 <a href=
"http://www.hughski.com/index.html
">ColorHug
</a
> arrived in the
1717 mail, and I
've had a few days to test it. As all my machines are
1718 running Debian Squeeze, where
1719 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html
">the
1720 calibration software
</a
> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
1721 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD. This worked
1722 just fine. So far I have only done the quick calibration. It was
1723 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
1724 another day.
</p
>
1726 <p
>After calibration, I get a
1727 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile
">ICC color
1728 profile
</a
> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
1729 tools. KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
1730 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
1731 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
1732 monitor setups. But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
1733 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
1734 monitor. After searching a bit, I
1735 <a href=
"http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=
1347896">discovered
</a
>
1736 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
1737 and a simple
</p
>
1739 <p
><pre
>
1740 dispwin -d
1 profile.icc
1741 </pre
></p
>
1743 <p
>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor. The
1744 result was a bit more pink than I expected. I guess I picked the
1745 wrong monitor type for the
"led
" monitor I got, but the result is good
1746 enough for now.
</p
>
1751 <title>Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter
</title>
1752 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html
</link>
1753 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html
</guid>
1754 <pubDate>Sun,
27 May
2012 17:
15:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1755 <description><p
>In
2003, a German teacher showed up on the
1756 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a
>
1757 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
1758 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils. His name was Ralf
1759 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
1760 since then, helping to make sure the
1761 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120311.html
">Debian Edu
1762 Squeeze
</a
> release became as good as it is..
</p
>
1764 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
1766 <p
>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
1767 Mathematics, and Computer Science (
"Informatik
"). During the past
12
1768 years (since
2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
1769 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
1770 O- or A-level (
"Abitur
"). For quite as long, I
've been taking care of
1771 our computer network.
</p
>
1773 <p
>Now, in my early
40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
1774 spare time together with my wife, our son (
3 years) and our daughter
1775 (
4 months).
</p
>
1777 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1778 project?
</strong
></p
>
1780 <p
>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
1781 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
1782 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
1783 (
"Best Newcomer Distribution
", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
1784 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt,
2005 (IIRC). Few
1785 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
1786 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others. For more
1787 than
7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
1788 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
1789 approximately
50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
1790 locally installed Skolelinux image. As a consequence, I joined quite
1791 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
1792 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
1793 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.
</p
>
1795 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1796 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
1798 <p
>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
1799 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
1800 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
1801 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
1802 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
1803 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
1804 labs). Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
1805 administration costs tend towards zero.
</p
>
1807 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1808 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
1810 <p
>While Debian
's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
1811 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
1812 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
1813 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
1814 office packages or desktop environments. These schools have the
1815 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
1816 capacity to do so. Another issue is that Debian release cycles
1817 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
1818 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
1819 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
1820 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
1821 i.e. harder to understand for novices.
</p
>
1823 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
1825 <p
>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
1826 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
1827 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)
</p
>
1829 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1830 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
1834 <li
>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
1835 people really
"own
" their hardware, to make them understand the
1836 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
1837 developing.
</li
>
1839 <li
>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany
's public schools
1840 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
1841 licenses), so schools won
't benefit from any savings here. This
1842 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
1843 share among German Skolelinux schools.
</li
>
1845 <li
>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
1846 trained. In many cases, teachers
' software customs are respected by
1847 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.
</li
>
1849 <li
>Don
't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
1850 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
1851 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
1852 shared world wide (school books e.g.).
</li
>
1854 <li
>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
1855 office suites is much above
20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don
't
1856 need to know the
"ribbon menu
" in order to get employed.
</li
>
1858 <li
>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.
</li
>
1860 <li
>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
1861 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
1862 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials. And
1863 keep sending documents in ODF formats.
</li
>
1865 </ol
></p
>
1870 <title>The cost of ODF and OOXML
</title>
1871 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html
</link>
1872 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html
</guid>
1873 <pubDate>Sat,
26 May
2012 18:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1874 <description><p
>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
1875 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
1876 government. I just sent him an email to let him know that his
1877 assumption are most likely wrong. Sharing it here in case some of my
1878 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.
</p
>
1880 <p
><blockquote
> <p
>Hi. I just noted your
1881 <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
>
1884 <p
><blockquote
>"They
're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
1885 with the help of Google Translate I can
't find any figures about the
1886 savings of
"moving to a flexible two standard
" as claimed by the
1887 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let
's take
1888 it, and the £
500 million figure for the UK, on trust.
"
1889 </blockquote
></p
>
1891 <p
>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated. I believe it is
1892 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around
2007,
1893 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
1894 at the content. In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
1895 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
1896 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
1897 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
1898 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
1899 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver. In
1900 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
1901 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
1902 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not
20 minutes
1903 of wasted effort.
</p
>
1905 <p
>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
1906 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending
10
1907 minutes converting to ODF. :)
</p
>
1910 <a href=
"http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php
">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php
</a
>
1912 <a href=
"http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php
">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php
</a
>
1913 for background information. Norwegian only, sorry. :)
</p
>
1914 </blockquote
></p
>
1919 <title>ColorHug - USB and free software based screen color calibration
</title>
1920 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColorHug___USB_and_free_software_based_screen_color_calibration.html
</link>
1921 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColorHug___USB_and_free_software_based_screen_color_calibration.html
</guid>
1922 <pubDate>Fri,
18 May
2012 10:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1923 <description><p
>In january, I
1924 <a href=
"http://blog.cihar.com/archives/
2012/
01/
17/colorhug-has-arrived/
">discovered
1925 the ColorHug
</a
>, a USB dongle from
1926 <a href=
"http://www.hughski.com/index.html
">Hughski
</a
> to calibrate
1927 the color on a computer screen. The software required is
1928 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html
">included
1929 in Debian
</a
>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
1930 batch. Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
1931 opportunity to order. Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
1932 delivery. I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
1933 should go in the mail on monday. :)
</p
>
1935 <p
>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
1936 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
1937 drivers. :)
</p
>
1942 <title>Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner
</title>
1943 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html
</link>
1944 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html
</guid>
1945 <pubDate>Sun,
13 May
2012 20:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1946 <description><p
>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
1947 publish another interview with the people behind
1948 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a
>.
1949 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
1950 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
1951 details get right before release.
1953 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
1955 <p
>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I
'm
49 years old and living in
1956 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany. I worked nearly
20 years as
1957 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
1958 international company for machinery and equipment. Since
2011 I
'm a
1959 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
1960 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer. From April this year
1961 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
1962 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.
</p
>
1964 <p
>My first contact with linux was around
1993. Since that time I used
1965 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
1966 home since
2006.
</p
>
1968 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1969 project?
</strong
></p
>
1971 <p
>Once a day in the early year of
2001 when I wanted to fetch my
1972 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
1973 middle of
20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
1974 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
1975 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
1976 computers in use. I answered:
"Yes
".
</p
>
1978 <p
>Some weeks later every of the
10 classrooms had one computer
1979 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
1980 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
1981 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
1982 and with a lot of fun. About one year later the school was connected
1983 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
1984 building. That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
1985 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
1986 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
1987 costs for things like licence and software. So I searched for a
1988 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
1989 people nearby who founded
'skolelinux.de
'. It was the Skolelinux
1990 prerelease
32 I first tried out for being used at the school. I
1991 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
1992 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
1993 Bielefeld in December of
2006.
</p
>
1995 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1996 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
1998 <p
>When I
'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
1999 for me as today.
</p
>
2001 <p
>In the past there were advantages like:
</p
>
2005 <li
>I don
't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
2006 they had little money to spent for computers and software.
</li
>
2008 <li
>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
2011 <li
>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
2012 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
2013 clients because of it
's preconfigured overall concept of being a
2014 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
2017 <li
>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
2020 </ul
></p
>
2022 <p
>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
2023 came up in this way:
</p
>
2027 <li
>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
2030 <li
>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
2031 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
2032 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.
</li
>
2034 <li
>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
2035 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
2036 interfaces used in the past.
</li
>
2038 <li
>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
2039 different needs.
</li
>
2041 <li
>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.
</li
>
2043 <li
>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
2044 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
2045 is sharing knowledge and minds.
</li
>
2047 <li
>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
2048 solved today by Debian Edu.
</li
>
2050 </ul
></p
>
2052 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2053 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
2057 <li
>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
2058 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
2059 whole municipality areas.
</li
>
2061 <li
>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
2062 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
2063 politicians.
</li
>
2065 <li
>Technically there are no disadvantages I
'm aware of.
</li
>
2067 </ul
></p
>
2069 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
2071 <p
>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
2072 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
2073 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
2074 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
2075 need from the KDE environment. On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
2076 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.
</p
>
2078 <p
>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
2079 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
2080 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
2081 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
2082 and the whole family. I probably forgot something.
</p
>
2084 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2085 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
2087 <p
>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
2088 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
2089 countries and areas all over the world.
</p
>
2094 <title>Cutting it short - and picking the right tool for the job
</title>
2095 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cutting_it_short___and_picking_the_right_tool_for_the_job.html
</link>
2096 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cutting_it_short___and_picking_the_right_tool_for_the_job.html
</guid>
2097 <pubDate>Mon,
30 Apr
2012 23:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2098 <description><p
><!-- IMG_5869.JPG --
>
2099 <img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-
1611.jpeg
"></p
>
2101 <p
>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
2102 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
2103 But the last ones have not really been up to the task. My last
2104 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
2105 time, and cutting my head took forever. And the one before that did
2106 not work very well either. We have looked for something better for a
2107 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
2108 discovered that there are indeed better tools available. But these
2109 are not marketed and sold to
"regular consumers
". The hair saloons
2110 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
2111 companies. The models they sell, are very different from the ones
2112 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal. The main difference is their
2113 efficiency. It would cut my hair in
5 minutes, instead of the
30-
40
2114 minutes required by my impotent Braun. The hairdresser I visited had
2115 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
2116 producer. But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.
</p
>
2118 <p
>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it. This was not
2119 straight forward. The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
2120 did not want to sell anything to me. But searching for the model on
2121 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
2122 around NOK
4000,-. This was a bit much. We kept searching and
2123 finally found a Danish supplier
2124 <a href=
"http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-
1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html
">selling
2125 it for around NOK
1800,-
</a
>. We ordered one, and it arrived a few
2128 <p
>The instructions said it had to charge for
8 hours when we started
2129 to use it, so we left it charging over night. Normally it will only
2130 need one hour to charge. The following evening we successfully tested
2131 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
2132 cutter. The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
2138 <title>HTC One X - Your video? What do you mean?
</title>
2139 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/HTC_One_X___Your_video___What_do_you_mean_.html
</link>
2140 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/HTC_One_X___Your_video___What_do_you_mean_.html
</guid>
2141 <pubDate>Thu,
26 Apr
2012 13:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2142 <description><p
>In
<a href=
"http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece
">an
2143 article today
</a
> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
2144 <a href=
"http://www.urke.com/eirik/
">Eirik Helland Urke
</a
> reports
2145 that the video editor application included with
2146 <a href=
"http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs
">HTC One
2147 X
</a
> have some quite surprising terms of use. The article is mostly
2148 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
2150 <p
><blockquote
>
2151 "<a href=
"http://twitter.com/urke/status/
194062269724897280">Drøy
2152 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
2153 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.
</a
>"
2154 </blockquote
></p
>
2156 <p
>I quickly translated it to this English message:
</p
>
2158 <p
><blockquote
>
2159 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
2160 commercially. Although I can ONLY use them privately.
"
2161 </blockquote
></p
>
2163 <p
>I
've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
2164 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
2165 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html
">discovered
2166 with my Canon IXUS
130</a
>. The HTC One X specification specifies that
2167 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
2169 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues
">Adaptive
2170 Multi-Rate audio codec
</a
> with patents which according to the
2171 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
2172 <a href=
"http://www.voiceage.com/
">VoiceAge
</a
>. MP4 is
2173 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H
.264/MPEG-
4_AVC#Patent_licensing
">MPEG4 with
2174 H
.264</a
>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
2175 with
<a href=
"http://www.mpegla.com/
">MPEG-LA
</a
>.
</p
>
2177 <p
>I know why I prefer
2178 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">free and open
2179 standards
</a
> also for video.
</p
>
2184 <title>RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory
</title>
2185 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html
</link>
2186 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html
</guid>
2187 <pubDate>Thu,
19 Apr
2012 22:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2188 <description><p
>Here in Norway, the
2189 <a href=
"http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=
339"> Ministry of
2190 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs
</a
> is behind
2191 a
<a href=
"http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder
">directory of
2192 standards
</a
> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
2193 government. When the directory was created, the people behind it made
2194 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
2195 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
2196 to the government. Free software and non-free software could compete
2197 on the same level.
</p
>
2199 <p
>But recently, some standards with RAND
2200 (
<a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing
">Reasonable
2201 And Non-Discriminatory
</a
>) terms have made their way into the
2202 directory. And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
2203 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
2204 implementing them. The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
2205 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
2206 willing to pay will get a license. Both sound great in theory. In
2207 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
2208 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user. By
2209 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
2210 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
2211 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
2212 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
2213 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
2214 to implement a standard when the income available is zero. The result
2215 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
2216 implementing standards with RAND terms.
</p
>
2218 <p
>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
2219 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
2220 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory. Because free
2221 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
2222 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
2223 in Norway. The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
2224 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
2225 attention to these issues in the future.
</p
>
2227 <p
>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
2229 (
<a href=
"http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/
2010/
11/rand-not-so-reasonable/
">RAND:
2230 Not So Reasonable?
</a
>).
</p
>
2232 <p
>Update
2012-
04-
21: Just came across a
2233 <a href=
"http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/
2012/
04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm
">blog
2234 post from Glyn Moody
</a
> over at Computer World UK warning about the
2235 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government. I
2236 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
2237 <a href=
"http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder
">the
2238 hearing taking place at the moment
</a
> (respond before
2012-
04-
27).
2239 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
2240 specifications with RAND terms.
</p
>
2245 <title>Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt
</title>
2246 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html
</link>
2247 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html
</guid>
2248 <pubDate>Sun,
15 Apr
2012 12:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2249 <description><p
>Behind
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and
2250 Skolelinux
</a
> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
2251 setting together all the pieces. This time I present to you Andreas
2252 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
2253 years. He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
2254 up in the recently released
2255 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze
">Debian
2256 Edu Squeeze
</a
> version.
</p
>
2258 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
2260 <p
>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany. After
2261 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
2262 Quantum Optics. After that I worked some years in an optics company.
2263 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
2264 teaching
10 to
19 years old kids at school. I teach math, physics,
2265 information technology and science/technology.
</p
>
2267 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2268 project?
</strong
></p
>
2270 <p
>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
2271 project because of my interest in education and Debian. Within the
2272 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
2273 contributing.
</p
>
2275 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2276 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
2278 <p
>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
2279 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
2280 Debian Project!
</p
>
2282 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2283 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
2285 <p
>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
2286 downside, too. In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
2287 setup, if you need or want that. Further more, it is not easily
2288 possible to upgrade the system to a new release. It takes much too
2289 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
2290 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
2291 rather small and often busy elsewhere.
</p
>
2293 <p
>The
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN
">Debian LAN
</a
>
2294 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.
</p
>
2296 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
2298 <p
>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
2299 on all my machines. For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
2300 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing. At school I
2301 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.
</p
>
2303 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2304 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
2306 <p
>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
2307 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
2308 politicians, this works out great for the
"market-leader
". The school
2309 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
2310 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats. Even
2311 free browsers do not work for the school administration. Publishers
2312 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.
</p
>
2314 <p
>To change this, political work is very important. Parts of the
2315 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
2316 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to
'free
'
2317 the system. There is currently some discussion about
"Open Data
" and
2318 "Free/Open Standards
". I am not sure if all the involved parties have
2319 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
2320 fraction takes them seriously. However it might slowly make free
2321 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.
</p
>
2326 <title>Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye
</title>
2327 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html
</link>
2328 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html
</guid>
2329 <pubDate>Sun,
8 Apr
2012 10:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2330 <description><p
>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
2331 like
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
>,
2332 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
2334 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze
">Debian
2335 Edu Squeeze release manual
</a
>.
2337 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
2339 <p
>I
'm a
44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
2340 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.
</p
>
2342 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2343 project?
</strong
></p
>
2345 <p
>I
'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user! The only
2346 reason my name
's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
2347 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
2348 they
'd like a native English speaker to proofread... So I did a sweep
2349 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
2350 "localisation
".
</p
>
2352 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2353 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
2355 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2356 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
2358 <p
>These questions are too hard for me - I don
't use it! In fact I
2359 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I
'd got out of the
2360 education system.
</p
>
2362 <p
>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
2363 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
2364 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
2365 money on the latest hardware.
</p
>
2367 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
2369 <p
>I
've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
2370 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
2371 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).
</p
>
2373 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2374 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
2376 <p
>Well, I don
't know. I suppose I
'd be inclined to try reasoning
2377 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
2378 you would hardly need a strategy.
</p
>
2383 <title>Why the KDE menu is slow when /usr/ is NFS mounted - and a workaround
</title>
2384 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_the_KDE_menu_is_slow_when__usr__is_NFS_mounted___and_a_workaround.html
</link>
2385 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_the_KDE_menu_is_slow_when__usr__is_NFS_mounted___and_a_workaround.html
</guid>
2386 <pubDate>Fri,
6 Apr
2012 22:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2387 <description><p
>Recently I have spent time with
2388 <a href=
"http://www.slxdrift.no/
">Skolelinux Drift AS
</a
> on speeding
2389 up a
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
>
2390 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
2391 process I discovered something very surprising. The reason the KDE
2392 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
2393 due to the way KDE find application icons. I discovered that showing
2394 the Multimedia menu would cause more than
20 000 IP packages to be
2395 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server. Most of these were
2397 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response. Because the
2398 ping times between the client and the server were in the range
2-
20
2399 ms, the menus would be very slow. Looking at the strace of kicker in
2400 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
2401 the source of these NFS calls are access(
2) system calls for
2402 non-existing files. KDE can do hundreds of access(
2) calls to find
2403 one icon file. In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
2404 around
230 access(
2) calls.
</p
>
2406 <p
>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
2407 directories, and the list of possible directories is large. In
2408 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
2409 and .xpm. The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
2410 mounted. Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
2411 requests. I am not the first one to discover this. I found a
2412 <a href=
"https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=
211416">KDE bug report
2413 from
2009</a
> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.
</p
>
2415 <p
>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
2416 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
2417 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
2418 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
2419 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/. Finally, I add symlinks to
2420 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
2421 for them. This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
2422 one icon from several hundred to less than
5, and make the KDE menu
2423 almost instantaneous. I
'm not quite sure where to make the package
2424 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.
</p
>
2426 <p
>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
2427 and icon handling, but also the login process. Not quite sure how to
2428 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
2429 that is not really an option at the moment.
</p
>
2431 <p
>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
2432 (at) lists.debian.org.
</p
>
2437 <title>Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News
</title>
2438 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html
</link>
2439 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html
</guid>
2440 <pubDate>Thu,
5 Apr
2012 08:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2441 <description><p
>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
2442 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a
> by
2443 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News. The result was made public for
2444 non-subscribers today. I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
2445 for schools. Check out his article
2446 <a href=
"https://lwn.net/Articles/
488805/
">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
2447 distribution for education
</a
> if you want to learn more.
</p
>
2452 <title>Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer
</title>
2453 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html
</link>
2454 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html
</guid>
2455 <pubDate>Sun,
1 Apr
2012 23:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2456 <description><p
>Germany is a core area for the
2457 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a
>
2458 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
2459 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
2461 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
2463 <p
>I
've studied Mathematics at the university
'Ruhr-Universität
' in
2464 Bochum, Germany. Since
1981 I
'm working as a teacher at the school
2465 "<a href=
"http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/
">Westfalen-Kolleg
2466 Dortmund
</a
>", a second chance school. Here, young adults is given
2467 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
2468 examination
'Abitur
', which will allow to study at a university. This
2469 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
2470 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.
</p
>
2472 <p
>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
2473 blended learning project called
'abitur-online.nrw
' and in some other
2474 information technology related projects. For about ten years I
've been
2475 teacher and coordinator for the
'abitur-online
' project at my
2476 school. Being now in my early sixties, I
've decided to leave school at
2477 the end of April this year.
</p
>
2479 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2480 project?
</strong
></p
>
2482 <p
>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
2483 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
2484 Project). At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of
1997
2485 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
2486 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
2487 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
2488 reach. At home I
'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
2489 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
2490 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
2491 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
2492 Skolelinux.
</p
>
2494 <p
>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
2495 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
2496 clients. The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
2497 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
2498 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
2499 the admin teachers.
</p
>
2501 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2502 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
2504 <p
>It
's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it
's
2505 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
2506 So it was a perfect choice.
</p
>
2508 <p
>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it
's
2509 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
2510 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp. It
's of
2511 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
2512 a school and to choose where to get support for this.
</p
>
2514 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2515 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
2517 <p
>Nothing yet.
</p
>
2519 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
2521 <p
>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
2522 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
2523 Annotator). At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
2524 LibreOffice.
</p
>
2526 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2527 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
2529 <p
>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
2530 that doesn
't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
2531 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.
</p
>
2536 <title>Debian Edu screencast: Checking email with kmail using Kerberos authentication
</title>
2537 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Checking_email_with_kmail_using_Kerberos_authentication.html
</link>
2538 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Checking_email_with_kmail_using_Kerberos_authentication.html
</guid>
2539 <pubDate>Sun,
25 Mar
2012 10:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2540 <description><!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html --
>
2542 <p
>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
2543 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
2544 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
2545 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
2546 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
2547 and also available from
<a href=
"https://vimeo.com/
38601767">vimeo
</a
>
2549 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/
2012-
03-
14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv
">Ogg
2550 Theora
</a
> file. Check it out below.
</p
>
2552 <p
><video id=
"kmail-kerberos-movie
" width=
"256" height=
"184" preload controls
>
2553 <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
"' /
>
2554 <p
>Download video as
2555 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/
2012-
03-
14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv
">Ogg
</a
>.
</p
>
2556 </video
></p
>
2561 <title>Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby
</title>
2562 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html
</link>
2563 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html
</guid>
2564 <pubDate>Mon,
19 Mar
2012 21:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2565 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
>
2566 users are spread all across the globe. The second inteview after
2567 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2012/
03/msg00001.html
">the
2568 Squeeze release
</a
> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
2569 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.
</p
>
2571 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
2573 <p
>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
2574 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
2575 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
2576 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
2577 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
2578 years ago we had about
50 schools interested in some way, but we
2579 weren
't able to convert many of them into sustainable
2580 installations.
</p
>
2582 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2583 project?
</strong
></p
>
2585 <p
>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
2586 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
2587 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP
4 and GNOME. When LTSP
5 came
2588 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
2589 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
2590 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
2591 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
2592 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
2593 these things we decided to try it.
</p
>
2595 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2596 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
2598 <p
>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
2599 from that I have always believed in the same
"sustainable computing
"
2600 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
2601 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
2602 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
2603 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about
25
2604 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
2605 proprietary software everywhere.
</p
>
2607 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2608 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
2610 <p
>As a newcomer I
'm just finding out who
's who in the community and
2611 how you
're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
2612 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
2613 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
2614 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!
</p
>
2616 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
2618 <p
>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
2619 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
2620 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
2621 use Ubuntu and an Android
4 eePad Transformer (but I
'm not sure if
2622 that counts...)
</p
>
2624 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2625 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
2627 <p
>That
's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
2628 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
2629 the notion of
"computer
" means simply
"proprietary office
2630 applications
". However, schools today are experiencing budget
2631 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
2632 XP. At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
2633 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
2634 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
2635 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they
're
2636 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it
's encouraging that the
2637 first
10,
000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in
2 hours.
</p
>
2639 <p
>I don
't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
2640 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
2641 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.
</p
>
2646 <title>Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu
</title>
2647 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html
</link>
2648 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html
</guid>
2649 <pubDate>Fri,
16 Mar
2012 09:
55:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2650 <description><p
>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
2651 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
2652 translated versions in sync. To do this we have come up with what we
2653 believe is a very efficient work flow.
</p
>
2657 <li
>The documentation is written in a
2658 <a href=
"http://moinmo.in
">moinmoin wiki
</a
> (see for example
2659 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze
">the
2660 Squeeze release manual
</a
>) with support for exporting the content as
2661 docbook XML.
</li
>
2663 <li
>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
2664 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
2665 with the translated text.
</li
>
2667 <li
>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
2668 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed. They can
2669 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
2670 the translation. There is even a system in place to handle translated
2673 <li
>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
2674 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.
</li
>
2676 <li
>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
2677 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.
</li
>
2681 <p
>This setup work very well, but have a few issues. The biggest
2682 issue is that
<a href=
"http://moinmo.in/DocBook
">the docbook support
2683 we use in moinmoin
</a
> is not actively maintained. The docbook
2684 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
2685 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.
</p
>
2687 <p
>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
2688 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc
">debian-edu-doc
2689 package
</a
>.
</p
>
2694 <title>Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!
</title>
2695 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html
</link>
2696 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html
</guid>
2697 <pubDate>Sun,
11 Mar
2012 23:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2698 <description><p
>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
2699 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Skolelinux / Debian Edu
</a
> based
2700 on Debian/Squeeze. The full announcement is
2701 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2012/
03/msg00001.html
">available
</a
>
2702 from the project announcement list. Now is a good time to test if it
2703 you have not done so already.
</p
>
2705 <p
>I plan to present the new version at
2706 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/
20120313-skolelinux/
">a NUUG
2707 meeting
</a
> on tuesday. I look forward to seeing you there if you are
2708 in Oslo, Norway.
</p
>
2713 <title>Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker
</title>
2714 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html
</link>
2715 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html
</guid>
2716 <pubDate>Fri,
9 Mar
2012 11:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2717 <description><p
>Inspired by
<a href=
"http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/
">the
2718 interview series
</a
> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
2719 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2720 community. This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
2721 more international audience.
</p
>
2723 <p
>While
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and
2724 Skolelinux
</a
> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
2725 Europe, there are users all around the globe. One of those far away
2726 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
2727 and contributor. It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
2728 work out of the box in Japan. I got him to answer a few questions,
2729 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
2732 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
2734 <p
>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
2735 and we have three lovely children, aged
15,
14 and
4(!) I am the IT
2736 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
2737 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
2738 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
2739 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
2740 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
2741 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
2742 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
2743 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
2744 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.
</p
>
2746 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2747 project?
</strong
></p
>
2749 <p
>In around
2004 or
5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
2750 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
2751 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
2752 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn
't really improve my setup. I
2753 did various desperate searches for things like
"school Linux server
"
2754 and ended up in a document called
"Drift
" something or other. Reading
2755 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
2756 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
2757 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
2758 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
2759 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
2760 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
2761 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.
</p
>
2763 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2764 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
2766 <p
>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
2767 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
2768 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
2769 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
2770 doesn
't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
2771 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
2774 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2775 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
2777 <p
>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
2778 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
2779 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
2780 who don
't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
2781 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
2782 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
2783 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
2784 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
2785 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is. A
2786 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
2787 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
2788 multiplies. For example, backup wasn
't working properly in Lenny. It
2789 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
2790 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
2793 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
2795 <p
>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
2796 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
2797 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
2798 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
2799 house, that
's very useful for the family photos and music. At school
2800 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
2801 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
2802 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
2803 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS. We also
2804 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
2805 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.
</p
>
2807 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2808 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
2810 <p
>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
2811 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
2812 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
2813 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
2814 file formats and Word than they did
5 years ago. The Edu aspect is
2815 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
2816 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu? But of course the main attraction is
2817 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
2818 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
2819 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
2820 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn
't work, or their browser
2821 doesn
't play flash, for example.
</p
>
2826 <title>Debian Edu screencast: Mass creation of user accounts in Squeeze
</title>
2827 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Mass_creation_of_user_accounts_in_Squeeze.html
</link>
2828 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Mass_creation_of_user_accounts_in_Squeeze.html
</guid>
2829 <pubDate>Wed,
7 Mar
2012 13:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2830 <description><!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html --
>
2832 <p
>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
2833 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
2834 Debian Edu Squeeze. The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
2835 also available from
<a href=
"http://vimeo.com/
37675399">vimeo
</a
> and
2837 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/
2012-
02-
29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv
">Ogg
2838 Theora
</a
> file. Check it out below.
</p
>
2840 <p
><video id=
"gosa-mass-user-create-movie
" width=
"256" height=
"184" preload controls
>
2841 <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
"' /
>
2842 <p
>Download video as
2843 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/
2012-
02-
29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv
">Ogg
</a
>.
</p
>
2844 </video
></p
>
2849 <title>Third release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze
</title>
2850 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html
</link>
2851 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html
</guid>
2852 <pubDate>Sun,
4 Mar
2012 18:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2853 <description><p
>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
2854 candidate for
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu /
2855 Skolelinux
</a
> based on Squeeze. The full announcement is
2856 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2012/
03/msg00000.html
">available
</a
>
2857 from the project announcement list. Check it out if you
2858 need a software solution for your school.
</p
>
2863 <title>Stopmotion for making stop motion animations on Linux - reloaded
</title>
2864 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Stopmotion_for_making_stop_motion_animations_on_Linux___reloaded.html
</link>
2865 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Stopmotion_for_making_stop_motion_animations_on_Linux___reloaded.html
</guid>
2866 <pubDate>Sat,
3 Mar
2012 12:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2867 <description><p
>Many years ago, the
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Skolelinux
2868 / Debian Edu project
</a
> initiated a student project to create a tool
2869 for making stop motion movies. The proposal came from a teacher
2870 needing such tool on Skolelinux. The project, called
"stopmotion
",
2871 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
2872 national aware with this great project. The project was initiated and
2873 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
2874 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad. They got in touch with people at Aardman
2875 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
2876 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
2877 animators around the globe. But as is usual after studying, both got
2878 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
2879 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now. Until last
2882 <p
>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
2883 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
2885 <a href=
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/
">linuxstopmotion
</a
>.
2886 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
2887 Internet search engines (try to search for
'stopmotion
' to see what I
2888 mean). I
've been following
2889 <a href=
"https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community
">the
2890 mailing list
</a
> and the improvement already in place and planned for
2891 the future is encouraging. If you want to make stop motion movies.
2892 Check it out. :)
</p
>
2897 <title>Second release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze
</title>
2898 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html
</link>
2899 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html
</guid>
2900 <pubDate>Mon,
27 Feb
2012 14:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2901 <description><p
>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
2902 candidate for
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu /
2903 Skolelinux
</a
> based on Squeeze. The full announcement did for some
2904 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
2905 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/
2012/
02/msg00015.html
">available
</a
>
2906 from the Debian development announcement list. Check it out if you
2907 need a software solution for your school.
</p
>
2912 <title>First release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze
</title>
2913 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html
</link>
2914 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html
</guid>
2915 <pubDate>Sun,
19 Feb
2012 23:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2916 <description><p
>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
2917 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
2918 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
> based
2919 on Squeeze. The full announcement is
2920 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2012/
02/msg00001.html
">available
</a
>
2921 on the project announcement list. Check it out if you need a software
2922 solution for your school.
</p
>
2927 <title>How to figure out which RAID disk to replace when it fail
</title>
2928 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_figure_out_which_RAID_disk_to_replace_when_it_fail.html
</link>
2929 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_figure_out_which_RAID_disk_to_replace_when_it_fail.html
</guid>
2930 <pubDate>Tue,
14 Feb
2012 21:
25:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2931 <description><p
>Once in a while my home server have disk problems. Thanks to Linux
2932 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
2933 <a href=
"http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/
34532">I was
2934 close
</a
> this summer :). But once a disk is starting to behave
2935 funny, a practical problem present itself. How to get from the Linux
2936 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
2937 the disk when the computer is turned off? In my case I have SATA
2938 disks with a unique ID printed on the label. All I need is a way to
2939 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.
</p
>
2941 <p
>After fumbling a bit, I
2942 <a href=
"http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/
">found
2943 that hdparm -I
</a
> will report the disk serial number, which is
2944 printed on the disk label. The following (almost) one-liner can be
2945 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:
</p
>
2947 <blockquote
><pre
>
2948 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep
'(F)
'|tr
' ' "\n
"|grep
'(F)
'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
2950 printf
"Failed disk $d:
"
2951 hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep
'Serial Num
'
2953 </blockquote
></pre
>
2955 <p
>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
2956 next time, and in case other find it useful.
</p
>
2958 <p
>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(
</p
>
2960 <blockquote
><pre
>
2961 Failed disk sdd1: Serial Number: WD-WCASJ1860823
2962 Failed disk sdd2: Serial Number: WD-WCASJ1860823
2963 Failed disk sde2: Serial Number: WD-WCASJ1840589
2964 </blockquote
></pre
>
2966 <p
>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
2967 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
2968 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
2969 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label. The vendor
2970 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
2971 mounted inside my box.
</p
>
2973 <p
>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
2974 Software RAID in the
2975 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html
">nagios-plugins-standard
</a
>
2976 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
2977 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail. At the moment
2978 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
2979 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
2980 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.
</p
>
2985 <title>Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</title>
2986 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html
</link>
2987 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html
</guid>
2988 <pubDate>Mon,
13 Feb
2012 23:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2989 <description><p
>New in the Squeeze version of
2990 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
> is the
2991 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
2992 based on their environment. We want all systems on the client to use
2993 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from
<tt
>http://wpad/wpad.dat
</tt
>, to
2994 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
2995 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings. The schools can
2996 change the global proxy setting by editing
2997 <tt
>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat
</tt
> and the change propagate
2998 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.
</p
>
3000 <p
>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
3001 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
3002 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):
</p
>
3004 <blockquote
><pre
>
3005 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
3007 if (!isResolvable(host) ||
3008 isPlainHostName(host) ||
3009 dnsDomainIs(host,
".intern
"))
3010 return
"DIRECT
";
3012 return
"PROXY webcache:
3128; DIRECT
";
3014 </pre
></blockquote
>
3016 <p
>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:
</p
>
3018 <blockquote
><pre
>
3019 http_proxy=http://webcache:
3128/
3020 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:
3128/
3021 </pre
></blockquote
>
3023 <p
>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
3024 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
3026 <tt
><a href=
"http://www.debian.org/
">http://www.debian.org/
</a
></tt
>,
3027 and insert this extracted proxy URL in
<tt
>/etc/environment
</tt
> and
3028 <tt
>/etc/apt/apt.conf
</tt
>. The perl script wpad-extract work just
3029 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
3030 javascript code is
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
631045">no longer
3031 able to build
</a
> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
3032 library. I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
3033 is frozen. An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
3034 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
3035 known alternative is known at the moment.
</p
>
3037 <p
>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
3038 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
3039 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
3040 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
3041 feature when it is connected to other networks. And if no proxy is
3042 announced, direct connections will be used instead.
</p
>
3044 <p
>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
3045 or security problem. But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
3046 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
3047 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
3048 distinction to be academic. If you are afraid of using the wrong
3049 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
3050 first place. In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
3051 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
3052 the network setup changes.
</p
>
3054 <p
>The WPAD system is documented in a
3055 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-
01">IETF
3056 draft
</a
> and a
3057 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol
">Wikipedia
3058 page
</a
> for those that want to learn more.
</p
>
3063 <title>Saving power with Debian Edu / Skolelinux using shutdown-at-night
</title>
3064 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Saving_power_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_using_shutdown_at_night.html
</link>
3065 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Saving_power_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_using_shutdown_at_night.html
</guid>
3066 <pubDate>Sun,
5 Feb
2012 09:
45:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3067 <description><p
>Since the Lenny version of
3068 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
>, a
3069 feature to save power have been included. It is as simple as it is
3070 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
3071 in the morning. This is done using the
3072 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html
">shutdown-at-night
</a
> Debian package.
</p
>
3074 <p
>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
3075 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts. For Debian Edu, this is done in
3076 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
3077 every hour from
16:
00 until
06:
00 to see if the machine is unused, and
3078 shut it down if it is. If the hardware in question is supported by
3080 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html
">nvram-wakeup
</a
>
3081 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around
07:
00 +-
3082 10 minutes. If this isn
't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
3083 try to turn on the client. The wake-on-lan option is only documented
3084 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.
</p
>
3086 <p
>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
3087 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
3088 the common setup for a classroom. The nvram-wakeup method only work
3089 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock. I
've seen old
3090 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
3091 starting from
0 (or was it
1990?) every boot. If you have one of
3092 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.
</p
>
3094 <p
>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
3095 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment. For those without a
3096 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
3097 <tt
>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night
</tt
> to enable it.
3098 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?
</p
>
3103 <title>Third beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze
</title>
3104 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html
</link>
3105 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html
</guid>
3106 <pubDate>Sat,
4 Feb
2012 13:
25:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3107 <description><p
>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
3108 publish the third beta version of
3109 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
> based
3110 on Squeeze. If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
3111 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
3112 installing new machines, check it out. If you need a software
3113 solution for your school, check it out too. The full announcement is
3114 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2012/
02/msg00000.html
">available
</a
>
3115 on the project announcement list.
</p
>
3117 <p
>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
3118 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):
</p
>
3122 <li
>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
3123 10.0.0.0/
8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
3124 the installation.
</li
>
3126 <li
>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
3127 Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.
</li
>
3129 <li
>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
3130 disabled queues are restarted every hour. This should cut down on
3131 the amount of manual administration needed for printers.
</li
>
3133 <li
>The set of initial users have been changed. Now a personal user
3134 for the local system administrator is created during installation
3135 instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
3136 and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
3137 membership. This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
3138 up to date on the system.
</li
>
3142 <p
>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
3143 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home. I will use it look
3144 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
3145 final Squeeze release is published.
</p
>
3147 <p
>Next weekend the project organise a
3148 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2012/
01/msg00001.html
">developer
3149 gathering
</a
> in Oslo. We will continue the work on the Squeeze
3150 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version. Perhaps I
3151 will see you there?
</p
>
3156 <title>Handling non-free firmware in Debian Edu/Squeeze
</title>
3157 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Handling_non_free_firmware_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html
</link>
3158 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Handling_non_free_firmware_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html
</guid>
3159 <pubDate>Fri,
27 Jan
2012 23:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3160 <description><p
>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
3161 This is the sad fact of todays computers. In the next version of
3162 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
> based
3163 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
3164 firmware blobs easier to handle. The common use case I run into is a
3165 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
3166 work, but there are other use cases as well.
</p
>
3168 <p
>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
3169 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
3170 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
3171 during installation. This take care firmware for network devices used
3172 by the installer when installing from from local media. But for
3173 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
3174 not taken care of by this.
</p
>
3176 <p
>For non-network devices, we provide the script
3177 <tt
>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware
</tt
> which
3178 search through the
<tt
>dmesg
</tt
> output for drivers requesting extra
3179 firmware. The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
3180 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
3181 the requested firmware file(s) is installed. I have proposed to do
3182 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
3183 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
655507">#
655507</a
>), to allow PXE
3184 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better. Run the
3185 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
3186 firmware packages.
</p
>
3188 <p
>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
3189 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
3190 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
3191 included to be able to install at all. To fill the PXE installation
3192 initrd with extra firmware, the
3193 <tt
>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware
</tt
> script is
3194 provided. Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
3195 PXE initrd with firmware packages.
</p
>
3197 <p
>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
3198 network cards working. For this,
3199 <tt
>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware
</tt
> is
3200 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs. It is used
3201 the same way as the other firmware related tools.
</p
>
3203 <p
>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation. We
3204 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
3205 non-free software, and it is their choice.
</p
>
3207 <p
>We plan to release beta3 this weekend. You might want to give it a
3213 <title>Setting up a new school with Debian Edu/Squeeze
</title>
3214 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Setting_up_a_new_school_with_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html
</link>
3215 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Setting_up_a_new_school_with_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html
</guid>
3216 <pubDate>Wed,
25 Jan
2012 21:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3217 <description><p
>The next version of
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu
3218 / Skolelinux
</a
> will include a new tool
3219 <tt
>sitesummary2ldapdhcp
</tt
>, which can be used to quickly set up all
3220 the computers in a school without much manual labour. Here is a short
3221 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.
</p
>
3223 <p
>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
3224 central server in the network. Next, PXE boot all the client machines
3225 as thin clients and wait
5 minutes after the last client booted to
3226 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server. When
3227 this is done, log on to the central server and run
3228 <tt
>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
</tt
> in the
<tt
>konsole
</tt
> to use the
3229 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP. The output
3230 will look similar to this:
</p
>
3232 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
3233 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
3234 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [
10.0.2.2] id ether-
00:
01:
02:
03:
04:
05.
3235 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.
3237 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
3239 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3240 enter password: *******
3242 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
3244 <p
>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
3245 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
3246 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
3247 automatically generated names. The final step to set up the school is
3248 then to log into
<a href=
"https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/
">GOsa
</a
>,
3249 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
3250 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
3251 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems. All clients that should be used
3252 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
3253 group. After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
3254 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
3255 automatically.
</p
>
3257 <p
>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
3258 enabled this weekend. You might want to give it a try.
</p
>
3260 <p
>Update
2012-
01-
28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
3261 hosts, one need to add the option -a. I forgot to mention this in my
3262 original text, and have added it to the text now.
</p
>
3267 <title>Changing the default Iceweasel start page in Debian Edu/Squeeze
</title>
3268 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Changing_the_default_Iceweasel_start_page_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html
</link>
3269 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Changing_the_default_Iceweasel_start_page_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html
</guid>
3270 <pubDate>Tue,
10 Jan
2012 15:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3271 <description><p
>In the Squeeze version of
3272 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
> soon
3273 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
3274 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
3275 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP. In
3276 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
3277 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
3278 first time.
</p
>
3280 <p
>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
3281 labeledURI with
"http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux
" as the
3282 default content. By changing this value to another URL, all users get
3283 to see the page behind this new URL.
</p
>
3285 <p
>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool. It can be
3286 called as
"<tt
>ldapvi -ZD
'(cn=admin)
'</tt
>' to update LDAP with the
3287 new setting.
</p
>
3289 <p
>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
3290 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
3291 from within Iceweasel instead.
</p
>
3296 <title>Second beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze
</title>
3297 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html
</link>
3298 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html
</guid>
3299 <pubDate>Sat,
7 Jan
2012 22:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3300 <description><p
>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
3301 the second beta version of
3302 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
>. If
3303 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
3304 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
3305 machines, check it out. If you need a software solution for your
3306 school, check it out too. The full announcement is
3307 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2012/
01/msg00000.html
">available
</a
>
3308 on the project announcement list.
</p
>
3313 <title>Fixing an hanging debian installer for Debian Edu
</title>
3314 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_an_hanging_debian_installer_for_Debian_Edu.html
</link>
3315 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_an_hanging_debian_installer_for_Debian_Edu.html
</guid>
3316 <pubDate>Tue,
3 Jan
2012 11:
25:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3317 <description><p
>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
3318 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
> ready
3319 for release. The initial problem I looked at was particularly
3320 interesting.
</p
>
3322 <P
>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
3323 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
3324 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
3325 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
3326 scratch. I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
3327 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
3328 wrap up its tasks.
</p
>
3330 <p
>Eventually the cause was found. The kernel was simply running out
3331 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
3332 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
3333 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
3334 because I was typing.
</P
>
3336 <p
>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
3337 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
3338 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
3339 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do
'find /
' to
3340 generate some disk IO. Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
3341 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
3342 generate entropy.
</p
>
3344 <p
>The fix is in
3345 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation
">beta1
3346 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze
</a
> version, and we
3347 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu
">welcome more testers and
3348 developers
</a
>. We plan to release beta2 this weekend.
</p
>
3353 <title>Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge
</title>
3354 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html
</link>
3355 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html
</guid>
3356 <pubDate>Mon,
21 Nov
2011 12:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3357 <description><p
>At work we have heaps of servers. I believe the total count is
3358 around
1000 at the moment. To be able to get help from the vendors
3359 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
3360 up to date. If the firmware isn
't the latest and greatest, the
3361 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
3362 firmware is upgraded. So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
3363 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
3364 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
3365 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
3366 the tools to do so.
</p
>
3368 <p
>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
3369 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got. Most of
3370 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
3371 so far. This blog post is about the Dell part.
</P
>
3373 <p
>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
3374 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz
">an XML file
</a
>
3375 with firmware information for all
11th generation servers, listing
3376 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
3377 site I can find it. Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
3378 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
3379 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
3380 be activated on the first reboot.
</p
>
3382 <p
>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
3383 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
3384 servers at a site? Please get in touch and lets share resources.
</p
>
3386 <p
><pre
>
3390 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
3392 # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
3394 'XML::Simple
' =
> 'perl-XML-Simple
',
3396 for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
3397 eval
"use $module;
";
3399 my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
3400 system(
"yum install -y $pkg
");
3401 eval
"use $module;
";
3405 my $errorsto =
'pere@hungry.com
';
3411 sub run_firmware_script {
3412 my ($opts, $script) = @_;
3414 print STDERR
"fail: missing script name\n
";
3417 print STDERR
"Running $script\n\n
";
3419 if (
0 == system(
"sh $script $opts
")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
3420 print STDERR
"success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n
";
3422 print STDERR
"fail: firmware script returned error\n
";
3426 sub run_firmware_scripts {
3427 my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
3428 # Run firmware packages
3429 for my $dir (@dirs) {
3430 print STDERR
"info: Running scripts in $dir\n
";
3431 opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die
"Unable to open directory $dir: $!
";
3432 while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
3433 next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
3434 run_firmware_script($opts,
"$dir/$s
");
3442 print STDERR
"info: Downloading $url\n
";
3443 system(
"wget --quiet \
"$url\
"");
3448 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
3451 if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
3453 # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
3454 system(
'yum install -y compat-libstdc++-
33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail
');
3456 my $tmpdir = tempdir(
3460 fetch_dell_fw(
'catalog/Catalog.xml.gz
');
3461 system(
'gunzip Catalog.xml.gz
');
3462 my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list(
'Catalog.xml
');
3463 # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
3464 my $fwopts =
"-q
";
3466 for my $url (@paths) {
3467 fetch_dell_fw($url);
3469 run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
3471 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model
'$product
'.\n
";
3472 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n
";
3476 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model
'$product
'.\n
";
3477 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n
";
3483 my $url =
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path
";
3487 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
3488 # firmware packages to download from Dell. Only work for Linux
3489 # machines and
11th generation Dell servers.
3490 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
3491 my $filename = shift;
3493 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
3495 my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
3497 print STDERR
"Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n
";
3499 my $xml = XMLin($filename);
3501 for my $bundle (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareBundle}}) {
3502 my $brand = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
3503 my $model = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Model}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
3505 if (
"ARRAY
" eq ref $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}) {
3506 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}[
0]-
>{osCode};
3508 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}-
>{osCode};
3510 if ($mybrand eq $brand
&& $mymodel eq $model
&& "LIN
" eq $oscode)
3512 @paths = map { $_-
>{path} } @{$bundle-
>{Contents}-
>{Package}};
3515 for my $component (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareComponent}}) {
3516 my $componenttype = $component-
>{ComponentType}-
>{value};
3518 # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
3519 next if
'APAC
' eq $componenttype;
3521 my $cpath = $component-
>{path};
3522 for my $path (@paths) {
3523 if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
3524 push(@paths, $cpath);
3532 <p
>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
3533 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking. Anyone know a
3534 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers? At the
3535 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
3541 <title>Free e-book kiosk for the public libraries?
</title>
3542 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_e_book_kiosk_for_the_public_libraries_.html
</link>
3543 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_e_book_kiosk_for_the_public_libraries_.html
</guid>
3544 <pubDate>Fri,
7 Oct
2011 19:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
3545 <description><p
>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
3546 publishing houses how to handle electronic books. Surprisingly, the
3547 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
3548 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
3549 publishing houses. Time limited renting (
2-
3 years) is one proposed
3550 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
3551 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
3554 <p
>Anyway, while reading
<a href=
"http://boklaben.no/?p=
220">part of
3555 this debate
</a
>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
3556 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
3557 to a better model. The idea is simple:
</p
>
3559 <p
>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
3560 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
3561 solution to hand out free e-books. As a start, the books distributed
3562 by
<a href=
"http://www.gutenberg.org/
">Project Gutenberg
</a
> (about
3563 36,
000 books),
<a href=
"http://runeberg.org/
">Project Runenberg
</a
>
3564 (
1149 books) and
<a href=
"http://www.archive.org/details/texts
">The
3565 Internet Archive
</a
> (
3,
033,
748 books) could be included, but any book
3566 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
3567 distributed.
</p
>
3569 <p
>The computer system would make it easy to:
</p
>
3573 <li
>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
3574 other relevant equipment.
</li
>
3576 <li
>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.
</li
>
3580 <p
>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
3581 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
3582 visiting the library. The site would be the distribution point for
3583 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
3584 books available.
</p
>
3586 <p
>Are there anyone working on a system like this? I guess it would
3587 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
3588 libraries. :)
</p
>
3593 <title>Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage
</title>
3594 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html
</link>
3595 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html
</guid>
3596 <pubDate>Sat,
17 Sep
2011 20:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
3597 <description><p
>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
3598 server. It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
3599 movie collection easily available. It also make it possible to let
3600 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
3601 down. I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
3602 subtitle options intact. It also ensure that the entire film is one
3603 file on the disk. As this is for personal use, the ripping is
3604 perfectly legal here in Norway.
</p
>
3606 <p
>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:
</p
>
3608 <blockquote
><pre
>
3610 # apt-get install lsdvd
3611 title=$(lsdvd
2>/dev/null|awk
'/Disc Title: / {print $
3}
')
3612 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=
1M
3613 </pre
></blockquote
>
3615 <p
>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
3616 been looking for a better alternative. I have no idea why this I/O
3617 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
3618 something fishy with the DVDs in question. Or perhaps all three.
</p
>
3620 <p
>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
3621 genisoimage. This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
3622 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
3625 <blockquote
><pre
>
3627 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
3629 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
3630 title=$(lsdvd
2>/dev/null|awk
'/Disc Title: / {print $
3}
')
3631 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
3632 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
3633 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
3634 </pre
></blockquote
>
3636 <p
>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?
</p
>
3638 <p
>Update
2011-
09-
18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
3639 readom program from the wodim package. It is specially written to
3640 read optical media, and is called like this:
<tt
>readom dev=/dev/dvd
3641 f=image.iso
</tt
>. It got
6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
3642 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.
</p
>
3644 <p
>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
3645 <a href=
"http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo
">his
3646 program python-dvdvideo
</a
>, which seem to be just what I am looking
3647 for. Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
3648 creating a ISO image. The git source built and installed just fine in
3649 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.
</p
>
3654 <title>How is booting into runlevel
1 different from single user boots?
</title>
3655 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html
</link>
3656 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html
</guid>
3657 <pubDate>Thu,
4 Aug
2011 12:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
3658 <description><p
>Wouter Verhelst have some
3659 <a href=
"http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot
">interesting
3660 comments and opinions
</a
> on my blog post on
3661 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html
">the
3662 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian
</a
> and my blog post about
3663 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html
">the
3664 default KDE desktop in Debian
</a
>. I only have time to address one
3665 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
3666 misunderstanding he bring forward:
</p
>
3668 <p
><blockquote
>
3669 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
3670 single-user system (by adding
'single
' to the kernel command line;
3671 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
3672 </blockquote
></p
>
3674 <p
>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
3675 and booting into runlevel
1 is the same. I am not surprised he
3676 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
3677 thing to believe. But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
3678 runlevel
1 do not work properly and it isn
't the same as single user
3679 mode. I
'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
3680 hard to explain.
</p
>
3682 <p
>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
3683 "<tt
>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin
</tt
>". This means the only thing that is
3684 executed in single user mode is sulogin. Single user mode is a boot
3685 state
"between
" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
3686 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
3687 enters the single user state. When switching to runlevel
1, the state
3688 is in fact not ending in runlevel
1, but it passes through runlevel
1
3689 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
3690 runs
"init -t1 S
" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
3691 1. It is confusing that the
'S
' (single user) init mode is not the
3692 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
3695 <p
>This summary might make it clearer. When booting for the first
3696 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
3697 "<tt
>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin
</tt
>". When booting into
3698 runlevel
1, the following commands are executed:
"<tt
>/etc/init.d/rc
3699 S; /etc/init.d/rc
1; /sbin/sulogin
</tt
>". A problem show up when
3700 trying to continue after visiting single user mode. Not all services
3701 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
3702 unpredicatble state. This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
3703 after visiting single user mode.
</p
>
3705 <p
>A similar problem with runlevel
1 is caused by the amount of
3706 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/. When switching from say runlevel
2
3707 to runlevel
1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
3708 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
3709 started again when switching away from runlevel
1 to the runlevels
3710 2-
5. I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
3711 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not
<strong
>required
</strong
> to get a
3712 functioning single user mode during boot.
</p
>
3714 <p
>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
3715 and discovered this problem a few years ago. I suspect it originates
3716 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.
</p
>
3721 <title>What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing
</title>
3722 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html
</link>
3723 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html
</guid>
3724 <pubDate>Sat,
30 Jul
2011 14:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
3725 <description><p
>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
3726 are started from /etc/rcS.d/. In fact, there is a bite more of them
3727 than make sense, and this causes a few problems. What kind of
3728 problems, you might ask. There are at least two problems. The first
3729 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
3730 runlevel
1. One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
3731 the expected state. The other is that single user boot will sometimes
3732 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
3733 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
3734 machine from a problem in that subsystem. A minor additional point is
3735 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
3736 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
3737 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.
</p
>
3739 <p
>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/. In short, only the
3740 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
3741 presented during a single user boot should go there. Everything else
3742 should go into the numeric runlevels. This means things like
3743 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
3744 the numeric runlevels. Today in Debian, there are around
115 init.d
3745 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
3746 out. Do your package have one of them? Please help us make single
3747 user and runlevel
1 better by moving it.
</p
>
3749 <p
>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
3750 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
3751 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
3752 is presented.
</p
>
3754 <p
>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound. To keep
3755 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
3756 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
3757 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
3758 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
3759 moved first. This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
3760 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
3761 the system state correct. This will require some coordination when it
3762 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
3763 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
3764 on them. Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
3765 package, while others are still left to do. I wish I had time to work
3766 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
3767 find time to push this forward.
</p
>
3772 <title>What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu
</title>
3773 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html
</link>
3774 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html
</guid>
3775 <pubDate>Fri,
29 Jul
2011 08:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
3776 <description><p
>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
3777 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
3778 desktop to be useful for more people. The use case for this is my
3779 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
3782 <p
>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
3783 implement. After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
3784 do this in Debian we would have a source.
</p
>
3788 <li
><strong
>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.
</strong
> When there
3789 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
3790 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
3791 tool to handle it. I have no problem guiding both of my parents
3792 through the process over the phone. If a kernel reboot is required,
3793 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool. Last
3794 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
3797 <li
><strong
>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
3798 plugins.
</strong
> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
3799 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
3800 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
3801 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
3802 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
3803 Packages file in the APT archive). If one or more packages are found,
3804 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
3805 type. If the package require the user to accept some non-free
3806 license, this is explained to the user. The entire process make it
3807 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
3808 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
3809 not the browser for any missing features.
</li
>
3811 <li
><strong
>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
3812 handlers.
</strong
> When the media players encounter a format or codec
3813 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
3814 should search for a package that would add support for it. This
3815 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H
.264. The selection
3816 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
3817 plugin handling. This is as far as I know implemented using a
3818 gstreamer hook. The end result is that the user easily get access to
3819 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
3820 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.
</li
>
3822 <li
><strong
>Better browser handling of some MIME types.
</strong
> When
3823 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
3824 start emacs to show it. If I remember correctly, when doing the same
3825 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser. At least I
3826 know Opera will show text files within the browser. I much prefer the
3827 latter behaviour.
</li
>
3831 <p
>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
3832 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
3833 it do not matter much.
</p
>
3835 <p
>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
3836 Debian release. It would require the coordinated effort of several
3837 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.
</p
>
3842 <title>Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze
</title>
3843 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html
</link>
3844 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html
</guid>
3845 <pubDate>Tue,
26 Jul
2011 12:
25:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
3846 <description><p
>The Norwegian
<a href=
"http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi
</A
>
3847 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
3848 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around
10
3849 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
3850 security support for a few years.
</p
>
3852 <p
>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
3853 that are missing in Debian at the moment. It would be great if these
3854 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
3855 their own
<a href=
"http://www.fixmystreet.com
">FixMyStreet
</a
> clone
3856 in their own country using only Debian packages. The list of modules
3857 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn
't very long, and I hope the perl group
3858 will find time to package the
12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
3859 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
3860 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
3861 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
3862 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
3863 easier in the future.
</p
>
3865 <p
>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
3866 installed on my server was a simple call to
'cpan2deb Module::Name
'
3867 and
'dpkg -i
' to install the resulting package. But this leave me
3868 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
3869 do not have time for.
</p
>
3874 <title>Free Software vs. proprietary softare...
</title>
3875 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html
</link>
3876 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html
</guid>
3877 <pubDate>Mon,
20 Jun
2011 12:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
3878 <description><p
>Reading
3879 <a href=
"http://blog.thingiverse.com/
2011/
06/
20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/
">the
3880 thingiverse blog
</a
>, I came across two highlights of interesting
3882 <a href=
"http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA
">Autodesk
</a
>
3884 <a href=
"http://blog.makezine.com/archive/
2011/
06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html
">Microsoft
3885 Kinect
</a
> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
3886 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs. Whenever I take
3887 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.
</p
>
3892 <title>Experimental Open311 API for the mySociety fixmystreet system
</title>
3893 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experimental_Open311_API_for_the_mySociety_fixmystreet_system.html
</link>
3894 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experimental_Open311_API_for_the_mySociety_fixmystreet_system.html
</guid>
3895 <pubDate>Sat,
30 Apr
2011 17:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
3896 <description><p
>Today, the first draft implementation of an
3897 <a href=
"http://www.open311.org/
">Open311 API
</a
> for the Norwegian
3898 service
<a href=
"http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi
</a
> started to
3899 work. It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
3900 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
3901 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
3902 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
3903 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
3904 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
3905 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.
</p
>
3907 <p
>Where is it? Visit
3908 <a href=
"http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/
">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/
</a
>
3909 to have a look. Please send feedback to the
3910 <a href=
"http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami
">fiksgatami
3911 (at) nuug.no
</a
> mailing list.
</p
>
3916 <title>Initial notes on adding Open311 server API on FixMyStreet
</title>
3917 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Initial_notes_on_adding_Open311_server_API_on_FixMyStreet.html
</link>
3918 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Initial_notes_on_adding_Open311_server_API_on_FixMyStreet.html
</guid>
3919 <pubDate>Fri,
29 Apr
2011 10:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
3920 <description><p
>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
3921 the
<a href=
"http://www.open311.org/
">Open311 API
</a
> in the
3922 <a href=
"http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">Norwegian FixMyStreet service
</a
>.
3923 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
3924 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
3925 <a href=
"http://fixmystreet.org.nz/
">New Zealand version
</a
> of
3926 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
3927 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
3928 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
3929 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
3930 FixMyStreet. The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
3931 to get a draft limping along. In the process, I have discovered a few
3932 issues with the Open311 specification.
</p
>
3934 <p
>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
3935 handling in the specification. The specification seem to assume all
3936 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
3937 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there. To be
3938 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
3939 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
3940 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
3941 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
3942 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
3943 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
3944 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
3945 know which language to use when writing a problem report. I suspect
3946 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.
</p
>
3948 <p
>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
3949 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet. One issue I
3950 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
3951 each category. The specification do not state that the identifier
3952 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
3953 here. In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
3954 category. As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
3955 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
3958 <p
>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
3959 differ in a key part. FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
3960 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title. I
'm not
3961 quite sure how to best handle this yet. When asking for a FixMyStreet
3962 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
3963 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
3964 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.
</p
>
3966 <p
>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
3967 near a geographic location. I believe this is important if one is to
3968 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units. The specification
3969 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
3970 and range= options.
</p
>
3972 <p
>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
3973 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
3974 to assume only one administration. For FixMyStreet, this mean a
3975 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
3976 available depend on the location of the problem. Not quite sure how
3977 to best handle this. I
've noticed
3978 <a href=
"http://seeclickfix.com/open311/
">SeeClickFix
</a
> added
3979 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
3980 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
3981 Will have to investigate this a bit more.
</p
>
3983 <p
>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
3984 up with the open311 developer group. I really wish they had a email
3985 list available via
<a href=
"http://www.gmane.org/
">Gmane
</a
> to use for
3986 discussions instead of only
3987 <a href=
"http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss
">a forum
<a/
>. Oh,
3988 well. That will probably resolve itself, one way or another. I
've
3989 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
3990 seem to reply to my questions there. This make me wonder if I just
3991 fail to understand how the open311 community work. It sure do not
3992 work like the free software project communities I am used to.
</p
>
3997 <title>Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code
2011</title>
3998 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html
</link>
3999 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html
</guid>
4000 <pubDate>Wed,
6 Apr
2011 09:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
4001 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.getgnash.org/
">The Gnash project
</a
> is still
4002 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
4003 A few days ago the project
4004 <a href=
"http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/
2011-
04/msg00011.html
">announced
</a
>
4005 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code. I hope many
4006 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
4007 into Gnash.
</p
>
4012 <title>A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks
</title>
4013 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html
</link>
4014 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html
</guid>
4015 <pubDate>Sun,
3 Apr
2011 22:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
4016 <description><p
>Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog
4017 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
4018 update in English.
</p
>
4020 <p
>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
4021 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
4022 of the British service
4023 <a href=
"http://www.fixmystreet.com/
">FixMyStreet
</a
> up and running,
4024 and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been
4025 organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
4026 to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with
4027 <a href=
"http://www.mysociety.org/
">mySociety
</a
> on what to develop,
4028 and in February the development took place. Most of it involved
4029 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
4030 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
4031 running in any country by now. The Norwegian
4032 <a href=
"http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi
</a
> is using
4033 <a href=
"http://www.openstreetmap.org/
">OpenStreetmap
</a
> as the map
4034 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
4035 support for this had to be added/fixed.
</p
>
4037 <p
>The Norwegian version went live March
3th, and we spent the weekend
4038 polishing the system before we announced it March
7th. The system is
4039 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost
3000
4040 problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android
4041 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
4042 public infrastructure.
</p
>
4044 <p
>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
4045 such service?
</p
>
4050 <title>Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software
</title>
4051 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html
</link>
4052 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html
</guid>
4053 <pubDate>Fri,
28 Jan
2011 15:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4054 <description><p
>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
4055 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo. My idea is that
4056 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
4057 available on the Internet, and check our locally
4058 maintained/distributed software against this information. It should
4059 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten. The
4060 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
4061 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
4062 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
4063 out which security holes were present in our free software
4064 collection.
</p
>
4066 <p
>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
4067 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
4068 consistent way across data sources. I considered several ways to do
4069 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
4070 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
4071 existing naming scheme. And it seem like I am not the first one to
4072 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
4073 solution. Enter the
<a href=
"http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html
">Common
4074 Platform Enumeration
</a
> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
4075 software, hardware and other platform components. The CPE ids are
4076 mapped to CVEs in the
<a href=
"http://web.nvd.nist.gov/
">National
4077 Vulnerability Database
</a
>, allowing me to look up know security
4078 issues for any CPE name. With this in place, all I need to do is to
4079 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
4080 This is fairly trivial (I google for
'cve cpe $package
' and check the
4081 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).
</p
>
4083 <p
>To give you an example. The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
4084 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip. If the old version
1.3.3 was the package to
4085 check out, one could look up
4086 <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
4087 in NVD
</a
> and get a list of
6 security holes with public CVE entries.
4088 The most recent one is
4089 <a href=
"http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-
2010-
0001">CVE-
2010-
0001</a
>,
4090 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
4091 list of affected versions is provided.
</p
>
4093 <p
>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
4094 for offline processing of issues. Using this dump, I
've written a
4095 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
4096 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs. One give it CPEs
4097 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
4098 security issues out.
</p
>
4100 <p
>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
4101 information need to be high. For that to happen, I believe as many as
4102 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database. I notice
4104 <a href=
"https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt
">a
4105 map from CVE to CPE
</a
>, indicating that they are using the CPE
4106 information. I
'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.
</p
>
4108 <p
>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
4109 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
4110 the CVE database in NVD. The result look fairly good, but there are
4111 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
4112 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
4113 Debian believe are affected by a CVE). Hope to find time to improve
4114 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
4115 someone maintaining it. So far my three emails with questions and
4116 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
4117 established soon.
</p
>
4119 <p
>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
4120 mapping. It would be useful to know which packages in for example
4121 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
4122 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
4123 for their packages.
</p
>
4128 <title>Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?
</title>
4129 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html
</link>
4130 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html
</guid>
4131 <pubDate>Sun,
23 Jan
2011 00:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4132 <description><p
>In the
4133 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data
">discover-data
</a
>
4134 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
4135 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
4136 information. One part of this script that I find very useful when
4137 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
4138 to the PCI device it claims. It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
4139 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with. To see
4140 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
4141 <tt
>/usr/share/bug/discover-data
3>&1</tt
>. The relevant output on
4142 one of my machines like this:
</p
>
4146 10de:
03eb i2c_nforce2
4149 10de:
03f0 snd_hda_intel
4158 <p
>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
4159 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor
3:
</p
>
4162 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
4163 echo loaded pci modules:
4165 cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
4166 for address in * ; do
4167 if [ -d
"$address/driver/module
" ] ; then
4168 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4169 if grep -q
"^$module
" /proc/modules ; then
4170 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
4171 id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk
'{print $
3}
'`
4172 echo
"$id $module
"
4181 <p
>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
4185 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
4186 echo loaded usb modules:
4188 cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
4189 for address in * ; do
4190 if [ -d
"$address/driver/module
" ] ; then
4191 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4192 if grep -q
"^$module
" /proc/modules ; then
4193 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
4194 id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk
'{print $
6}
')
4195 if [
"$id
" ] ; then
4196 echo
"$id $module
"
4206 <p
>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
4212 <title>The video format most supported in web browsers?
</title>
4213 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_video_format_most_supported_in_web_browsers_.html
</link>
4214 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_video_format_most_supported_in_web_browsers_.html
</guid>
4215 <pubDate>Sun,
16 Jan
2011 00:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4216 <description><p
>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
4217 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H
.264 and WebM. Most video sites
4218 seem to use H
.264, while others use Ogg Theora. Interestingly enough,
4219 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
4220 H
.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
4221 the Wikipedia article on
4222 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video
">HTML5 video
</a
>,
4223 this is not true. Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
4224 different browsers there. The format supported by most browsers is
4225 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
4226 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
4227 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
4228 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
4229 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
4230 Firefox. H
.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
4231 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
4232 Explorer. Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
4233 Safari can install plugins to get it.
</p
>
4235 <p
>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
4236 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
4237 HTML5 video tag. Of course to reach all those without a browser
4238 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms. In
4239 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">NUUG
</a
>, we provide first fallback to a
4240 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
4241 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
4242 Theora. This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an
<a
4243 href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/
20110111-semantic-web/
">example
4244 from last week
</a
>.
</p
>
4246 <p
>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H
.264 is
4247 the least supported is simple. Implementing and using H
.264
4248 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
4249 are incompatible with free software licensing. If you believed H
.264
4250 was without royalties and license terms, check out
4251 "<a href=
"http://webmink.com/essays/h-
264/
">H
.264 – Not The Kind Of
4252 Free That Matters
</a
>" by Simon Phipps.
</p
>
4254 <p
>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
4256 <a href=
"http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos
">the
4257 Xiph.org wiki
</a
>, if you want to have a look. I
'm not aware of a
4258 similar list for WebM nor H
.264.
</p
>
4260 <p
>Update
2011-
01-
16 09:
40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
4261 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
4262 &lt;video
&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
4263 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.
</p
>
4268 <title>Chrome plan to drop H
.264 support for HTML5
&lt;video
&gt;
</title>
4269 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html
</link>
4270 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html
</guid>
4271 <pubDate>Wed,
12 Jan
2011 22:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4272 <description><p
>Today I discovered
4273 <a href=
"http://www.digi.no/
860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome
">via
4274 digi.no
</a
> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
4275 <a href=
"http://blog.chromium.org/
2011/
01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html
">yesterday
4276 announced
</a
> plans to drop H
.264 support for HTML5
&lt;video
&gt; in
4277 the browser. The argument used is that H
.264 is not a
"completely
4278 open
" codec technology. If you believe H
.264 was free for everyone
4279 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
4280 "<a href=
"http://webmink.com/essays/h-
264/
">H
.264 – Not The Kind Of
4281 Free That Matters
</a
>". It is not free of cost for creators of video
4282 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
4283 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
4284 licensing the patents needed for H
.264. Some background information
4285 on the Google announcement is available from
4286 <a href=
"http://www.osnews.com/story/
24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome
">OSnews
</a
>.
4287 A good read. :)
</p
>
4289 <p
>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
4290 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
4291 the Internet. This can only be done by publishing using free and open
4292 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
4293 for these free and open standards. At the moment there seem to be two
4294 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support. Some
4295 browsers support H
.264, and others support
4296 <a href=
"http://www.theora.org/
">Ogg Theora
</a
> and
4297 <a href=
"http://www.webmproject.org/
">WebM
</a
>
4298 (
<a href=
"http://www.diracvideo.org/
">Dirac
</a
> is not really an option
4299 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
4300 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
4301 H
.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
4302 Wikipedia keep
<a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video
">an
4303 updated summary
</a
> of the current browser support.
</p
>
4305 <p
>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
4306 promoting H
.264, and John Gruber
4307 <a href=
"http://daringfireball.net/
2011/
01/simple_questions
">presents
4308 the mind set
</a
> of these people quite well. His rhetorical questions
4309 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
4310 <a href=
"http://www.osnews.com/story/
24245/
10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM
">presenting
4311 the issues with H
.264</a
>. Both are worth a read.
</p
>
4313 <p
>Some argue that if Google is dropping H
.264 because it isn
't free,
4314 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin. This
4315 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
4316 <a href=
"http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/
2011/
01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm
">todays
4317 blog post
</a
>, which I find to put the issue in context. To me it
4318 make perfect sense to drop native H
.264 support for HTML5 in the
4319 browser while still allowing plugins.
</p
>
4321 <p
>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
4322 is that all the users and promoters of H
.264 suddenly get an uneasy
4323 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse. A lot of TV
4324 broadcasters have been moving to H
.264 the last few years, and a lot
4325 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
4326 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
4327 publishing. Suddenly this belief is shaken.
</p
>
4329 <p
>An interesting question is why Google is doing this. While the
4330 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
4331 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
4332 perspective. One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
4333 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
4334 feeling that dropping H
.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
4335 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
4336 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
4337 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
4338 video format not requiring royalties at all. A third reason might be
4339 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
4340 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
4341 I guess time will tell.
</p
>
4343 <p
>Update
2011-
01-
15: The Google Chrome team provided
4344 <a href=
"http://blog.chromium.org/
2011/
01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html
">more
4345 background and information on the move
</a
> it a blog post yesterday.
</p
>
4350 <title>What standards are Free and Open as defined by Digistan?
</title>
4351 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_standards_are_Free_and_Open_as_defined_by_Digistan_.html
</link>
4352 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_standards_are_Free_and_Open_as_defined_by_Digistan_.html
</guid>
4353 <pubDate>Thu,
30 Dec
2010 23:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4354 <description><p
>After trying to
4355 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html
">compare
4356 Ogg Theora
</a
> to
4357 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">the Digistan
4358 definition
</a
> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
4359 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
4360 this. As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
4361 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-
8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
4362 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others. But to be able to complete this in a
4363 reasonable time frame, I will need help.
</p
>
4365 <p
>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
4366 <a href=
"http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse
">the
4367 wiki pages I have set up for this
</a
>, and let me know that you want
4368 to help out. The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
4369 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
4370 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
4371 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).
</p
>
4373 <p
>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do. Do not be
4374 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)
</p
>
4379 <title>The many definitions of a open standard
</title>
4380 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html
</link>
4381 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html
</guid>
4382 <pubDate>Mon,
27 Dec
2010 14:
45:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4383 <description><p
>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
4384 "<a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">Free and
4385 Open Standard
</a
>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
4386 the term has been decided by Digistan. The term
"Open Standard
" has
4387 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
4388 about standards. One end up discussing which definition is the best
4389 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
4390 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.
</p
>
4392 <p
>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
4393 standards, here are a few that I know about. This list is not
4394 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
4395 complete survey. More definitions are available on the
4396 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard
">wikipedia
4397 page
</a
>.
</p
>
4399 <p
>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
4400 Interoperability Framework version
1.0. Really sad to notice that BSA
4401 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version
2.0 of the
4402 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
4403 their own people. Anyway, the definition is still available and it
4404 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
4405 specification on equal terms.
</p
>
4409 <p
>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
4410 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
4411 open standard:
</p
>
4415 <li
>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
4416 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
4417 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
4418 (consensus or majority decision etc.).
</li
>
4420 <li
>The standard has been published and the standard specification
4421 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
4422 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
4423 nominal fee.
</li
>
4425 <li
>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
4426 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
4427 free basis.
</li
>
4429 <li
>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
</li
>
4434 <p
>Another one originates from my friends over at
4435 <a href=
"http://www.dkuug.dk/
">DKUUG
</a
>, who coined and gathered
4436 support for
<a href=
"http://www.aaben-standard.dk/
">this
4437 definition
</a
> in
2004. It even made it into the Danish parlament as
4438 <a href=
"http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/
20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm
">their
4439 definition of a open standard
</a
>. Another from a different part of
4440 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.
</p
>
4444 <p
>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:
</p
>
4448 <li
>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
4449 tilgængelig.
</li
>
4451 <li
>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
4452 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.
</li
>
4454 <li
>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
4455 "standardiseringsorganisation
") via en åben proces.
</li
>
4461 <p
>Then there is
<a href=
"http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html
">the
4462 definition
</a
> from Free Software Foundation Europe.
</p
>
4466 <p
>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is
</p
>
4470 <li
>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
4471 manner equally available to all parties;
</li
>
4473 <li
>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
4474 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
4475 Standard themselves;
</li
>
4477 <li
>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
4478 any party or in any business model;
</li
>
4480 <li
>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
4481 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
4484 <li
>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
4485 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
4492 <p
>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
4494 <a href=
"http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%
20Standard%
20Definition.pdf
">Open
4495 Standards Checklist
</a
> with a fairly detailed description.
</p
>
4498 <p
>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
4502 <li
>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
4507 <li
>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
4508 participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
4509 imposed by the organization under which it is developed
4510 and managed.
</li
>
4512 <li
>The processes must be documented and, through a known
4513 method, can be changed through input from all
4514 participants.
</li
>
4516 <li
>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
4517 the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.
</li
>
4519 <li
>Development and management should strive for consensus,
4520 and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.
</li
>
4522 <li
>The standard specification must be open to extensive
4523 public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
4524 comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.
</li
>
4532 <p
>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard
</p
>
4535 <li
>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
4536 and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
4537 implementations to the interface described in the standard without
4538 undue or restrictive constraints. Interfaces include APIs,
4539 protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.
</li
>
4541 <li
> The standard must not contain any proprietary
"hooks
" that create
4542 a technical or economic barriers
</li
>
4544 <li
>Faithful implementations of the standard must
4545 interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
4546 program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
4547 programs and mutually to use the information which has been
4548 exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
4549 file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
4550 conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
4551 computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
4552 intended to function.
</li
>
4554 <li
>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
4555 standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
4556 must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.
</li
>
4558 <li
>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
4559 fees; also known as
"royalty free
"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
4560 perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
4561 sell products based on the standard. The only exceptions are
4562 terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
4563 outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
4564 patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
4565 only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
4569 <li
> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
4570 licensees
' patent claims essential to practice that standard
4571 (also known as a reciprocity clause)
</li
>
4573 <li
> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
4574 or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
4575 essential to practice that standard (also known as a
4576 "defensive suspension
" clause)
</li
>
4578 <li
> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
4584 <li
>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
4585 implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
4586 or restricted licensing terms
</li
>
4592 <p
>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
4593 there are so many of them. As you can see, the same holds true for
4594 open standard definitions. Most of the definitions have a lot in
4595 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
4596 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
4597 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
4598 competition to downplay the significance of open standards. I hope we
4599 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
4600 Standards.
</p
>
4605 <title>Is Ogg Theora a free and open standard?
</title>
4606 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html
</link>
4607 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html
</guid>
4608 <pubDate>Sat,
25 Dec
2010 20:
25:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4609 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">The
4610 Digistan definition
</a
> of a free and open standard reads like this:
</p
>
4614 <p
>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
4615 as follows:
</p
>
4619 <li
>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
4620 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
4621 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.
</li
>
4623 <li
>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
4624 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
4625 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
4628 <li
>The standard has been published and the standard specification
4629 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
4630 distribute, and use it freely.
</li
>
4632 <li
>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
4633 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
</li
>
4635 <li
>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
</li
>
4639 <p
>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
4640 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
4641 products based on the standard.
</p
>
4644 <p
>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
4645 and open standard according to this definition. Here is a short
4646 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far. I brought up the
4647 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
4648 <a href=
"http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/
2009-July/
001632.html
">in
4649 July
2009</a
>, for those that want to see some background information.
4650 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
4651 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.
</p
>
4653 <p
><strong
>Free from vendor capture?
</strong
></p
>
4655 <p
>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
4656 Ogg Theora specification. It can be argued that the
4657 <a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/
">Xiph foundation
</A
> is such vendor, but
4658 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
4659 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
4660 obvious that this is a real risk. One issue with the Xiph
4661 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
4662 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web. I
've
4663 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
4664 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
4665 where is is spent in the foundation. It is thus not obvious for an
4666 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
4667 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
4668 specification. But it seem unlikely.
</p
>
4670 <p
><strong
>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?
</strong
></p
>
4672 <p
>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
4673 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled. If Xiph foundation is
4674 controlled by a single vendor, it isn
't, but I have not found any
4675 documentation indicating this.
</p
>
4677 <p
>According to
4678 <a href=
"http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf
">a report
</a
>
4679 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
4680 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
4681 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
4682 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
4683 report is correct.
</p
>
4685 <p
><strong
>Specification freely available?
</strong
></p
>
4687 <p
>The specification for the
<a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/
">Ogg
4688 container format
</a
> and both the
4689 <a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/
">Vorbis
</a
> and
4690 <a href=
"http://theora.org/doc/
">Theora
</a
> codeces are available on
4691 the web. This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
4695 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
4696 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
4697 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
4698 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
4699 specification compliance.
4703 <p
>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
4704 <a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt
">RFC
3533</a
>, and
4705 this is the term:
<p
>
4709 <p
>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
4710 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
4711 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
4712 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
4713 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
4714 included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
4715 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
4716 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
4717 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
4718 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
4719 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
4720 translate it into languages other than English.
</p
>
4722 <p
>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
4723 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
</p
>
4726 <p
>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
4727 this term seem to be fulfilled. There might be a problem with the
4728 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
4729 thus reuse it in other specifications. Not quite sure if that is a
4730 requirement for the Digistan definition.
</p
>
4732 <p
><strong
>Royalty-free?
</strong
></p
>
4734 <p
>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
4736 <a href=
"http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=
65782">MPEG-LA
</a
>
4738 <a href=
"http://yro.slashdot.org/story/
10/
04/
30/
237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit
">Steve
4739 Jobs
</a
> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
4740 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
4741 them. Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
4742 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
4743 without paying any royalties. For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
4744 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H
.264 codec
4745 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.
</p
>
4747 <p
><strong
>No constraints on re-use?
</strong
></p
>
4749 <p
>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.
</p
>
4751 <p
><strong
>Conclusion
</strong
></p
>
4753 <p
>3 of
5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining
2
4754 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation. Given the
4755 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
4756 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
4757 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
4760 <p
>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
4761 see if they are free and open standards.
</p
>
4766 <title>The reply from Edgar Villanueva to Microsoft in Peru
</title>
4767 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_reply_from_Edgar_Villanueva_to_Microsoft_in_Peru.html
</link>
4768 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_reply_from_Edgar_Villanueva_to_Microsoft_in_Peru.html
</guid>
4769 <pubDate>Sat,
25 Dec
2010 10:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4770 <description><p
>A few days ago
4771 <a href=
"http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece
">an
4772 article
</a
> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
4774 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework
">European
4775 Interoperability Framework
</a
> has been successfully lobbied by the
4776 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
4777 Nothing very surprising there, given
4778 <a href=
"http://news.slashdot.org/story/
10/
03/
29/
2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe
">earlier
4779 reports
</a
> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
4780 this work. But I find this very sad. The definition of
4781 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-
200506.txt
">an
4782 open standard from version
1</a
> was very good, and something I
4783 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
4784 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">the
4785 definition from Digistan
</A
>. Version
2 have removed the open
4786 standard definition from its content.
</p
>
4788 <p
>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
4789 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
4790 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
4791 in the public sector in Peru. As the text was not available from a
4792 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
4793 <a href=
"http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html
">my
4794 source
</a
> to ensure it is available also in the future. Some
4795 background information about that story is available in
4796 <a href=
"http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/
6099">an article
</a
> from
4797 Linux Journal in
2002.
</p
>
4800 <p
>Lima,
8th of April,
2002<br
>
4801 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ
<br
>
4802 General Manager of Microsoft Perú
</p
>
4804 <p
>Dear Sir:
</p
>
4806 <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
>
4808 <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
>
4810 <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
>
4812 <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
>
4816 <li
>Free access to public information by the citizen.
</li
>
4817 <li
>Permanence of public data.
</li
>
4818 <li
>Security of the State and citizens.
</li
>
4822 <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
>
4824 <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
>
4826 <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
>
4828 <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
>
4830 <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
>
4833 <p
>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:
<br
>
4834 <li
>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software
</li
>
4835 <li
>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software
</li
>
4836 <li
>the law does not specify which concrete software to use
</li
>
4837 <li
>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought
</li
>
4838 <li
>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.
</li
>
4842 <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
>
4844 <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
>
4846 <p
>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:
</p
>
4848 <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
>
4850 <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
>
4852 <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
>
4854 <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
>
4856 <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
>
4858 <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
>
4860 <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
>
4862 <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
>
4864 <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
>
4866 <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
>
4868 <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
>
4870 <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
>
4872 <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
>
4874 <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
>
4876 <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
>
4878 <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
>
4880 <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
>
4882 <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
>
4884 <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
>
4886 <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
>
4888 <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
>
4890 <p
>On security:
</p
>
4892 <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
>
4894 <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
>
4896 <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
>
4898 <p
>In respect of the guarantee:
</p
>
4900 <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
>
4902 <p
>On Intellectual Property:
</p
>
4904 <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
>
4906 <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
>
4908 <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
>
4910 <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
>
4912 <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
>
4914 <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
>
4916 <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
>
4918 <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
>
4920 <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
>
4922 <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
>
4924 <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
>
4926 <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
>
4928 <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
>
4930 <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
>
4932 <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
>
4934 <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
>
4936 <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
>
4938 <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
>
4940 <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
>
4942 <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
>
4944 <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
>
4946 <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
>
4948 <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
>
4950 <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
>
4952 <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
>
4954 <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
>
4956 <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
>
4958 <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
>
4960 <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
>
4962 <p
>Cordially,
<br
>
4963 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ
<br
>
4964 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.
</p
>
4970 <title>Officeshots still going strong
</title>
4971 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html
</link>
4972 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html
</guid>
4973 <pubDate>Sat,
25 Dec
2010 09:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4974 <description><p
>Half a year ago I
4975 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html
">wrote
4976 a bit
</a
> about
<a href=
"http://www.officeshots.org/
">OfficeShots
</a
>,
4977 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
4978 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.
</p
>
4980 <p
>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
4981 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
4982 different Office implementations handle different ODF features. Sad
4983 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
4984 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
4985 for OfficeShots users yet). I am glad to see that the ODF community
4986 got such a great test tool available.
</p
>
4991 <title>How to test if a laptop is working with Linux
</title>
4992 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html
</link>
4993 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html
</guid>
4994 <pubDate>Wed,
22 Dec
2010 14:
55:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4995 <description><p
>The last few days I have spent at work here at the
<a
4996 href=
"http://www.uio.no/
">University of Oslo
</a
> testing if the new
4997 batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
4998 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
4999 computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
5000 five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
5001 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5002 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5003 university.
</p
>
5005 <p
>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5006 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
5007 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5008 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
5009 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5010 on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5011 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5012 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.
</p
>
5014 <p
>Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
5015 I perform on a new model.
</p
>
5019 <li
>Is PXE installation working? I
'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5020 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
5021 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.
</li
>
5023 <li
>Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
5024 installation, X.org is working.
</li
>
5026 <li
>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
5027 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5028 reported by the program.
</li
>
5030 <li
>Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5031 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
5032 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5033 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
5034 normally test this by playing
5035 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/
20101012-chef/
">a HTML5
5036 video
</a
> in Firefox/Iceweasel.
</li
>
5038 <li
>Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
5039 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li
>
5041 <li
>Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5042 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li
>
5044 <li
>Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
5045 picture from the v4l device show up.
</li
>
5047 <li
>Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5048 any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
5051 <li
>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
5052 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5053 notice this.
</li
>
5055 <li
>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working? I
'm testing if the
5056 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5059 <li
>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5060 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5061 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
5062 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5065 <li
>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5066 acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5067 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5068 existence.
</li
>
5072 <p
>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5073 for the HP machines I am testing. I
'm not done yet, so I will report
5074 the test results later. For now I can report that HP
8100 Elite work
5075 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook
8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5076 and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with
8440p. As you
5077 can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
5078 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5079 RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.
</p
>
5084 <title>Some thoughts on BitCoins
</title>
5085 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html
</link>
5086 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html
</guid>
5087 <pubDate>Sat,
11 Dec
2010 15:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5088 <description><p
>As I continue to explore
5089 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/
">BitCoin
</a
>, I
've starting to wonder
5090 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5091 and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.
</p
>
5093 <p
>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5094 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5095 is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5096 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5097 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5098 that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for
5099 all transactions. There I can see that my address
5100 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
>
5101 have received
16.06 Bitcoin, the
5102 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/
1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv
8MHqvwst
3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv
8MHqvwst
3</a
>
5103 address of Simon Phipps have received
181.97 BitCoin and the address
5104 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/
1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt
">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt
</A
>
5105 of EFF have received
2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and
5106 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5107 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5108 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5109 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I
'm told
5110 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5111 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5112 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.
</p
>
5114 <p
>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5115 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5116 without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5117 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5118 If the Skolelinux foundation
5119 (
<a href=
"http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html
">SLX
5120 Debian Labs
</a
>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5121 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5122 Given that it is impossible to know if money can across the border or
5123 not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate
5124 should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay
5125 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5126 BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.
</p
>
5128 <p
>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5129 accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to
5130 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5131 easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5132 access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
5133 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5134 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
5135 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5136 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5137 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5138 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I
'm sure they
5139 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5140 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5141 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5142 currencies.
</p
>
5144 <p
>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5145 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5146 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5147 to see which one get the next lump of cash). The
"winner
" get
50
5148 BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5149 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5150 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5151 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the
50
5153 <a href=
"http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/
">BitCoin Pool
</a
>
5154 if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
5155 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5156 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5159 <p
>Update
2010-
12-
15: Found an
<a
5160 href=
"http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi
">interesting
5161 criticism
</a
> of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5162 it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
5163 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.
</p
>
5168 <title>Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money
</title>
5169 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html
</link>
5170 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html
</guid>
5171 <pubDate>Fri,
10 Dec
2010 08:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5172 <description><p
>With this weeks lawless
5173 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
2010/
12/
06/wikileaks/index.html
">governmental
5174 attacks
</a
> on Wikileak and
5175 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/
2010/
12/
06/war_on_speech
">free
5176 speech
</a
>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5177 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5179 <a href=
"http://webmink.com/
2010/
12/
06/now-accepting-bitcoin/
">Simon
5180 Phipps on bitcoin
</a
> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5181 mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon
's example, and get
5182 involved with
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/
">BitCoin
</a
>. I got
5183 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5184 some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5185 for helping me remember BitCoin.
</p
>
5187 <p
>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital
5188 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5189 networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5190 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5191 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The
5192 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets
2.9
5193 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5194 line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas
5195 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
578157">will get the package into
5196 Debian
</a
> soon.
</p
>
5198 <p
>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5199 There are
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/trade
">companies accepting
5200 bitcoins
</a
> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5201 currency
"stock
" markets where the exchange rate is decided. There
5202 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you
5203 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5205 <a href=
"https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/
">some for free
</a
> (
0.05
5206 bitcoin at the time of writing). Use
5207 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/
">BitcoinWatch
</a
> to keep an eye
5208 on the current exchange rates.
</p
>
5210 <p
>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5211 machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5212 donations to the address
5213 <b
>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</b
>. Thank you!
</p
>
5218 <title>Student group continue the work on my Reprap
3D printer
</title>
5219 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Student_group_continue_the_work_on_my_Reprap_3D_printer.html
</link>
5220 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Student_group_continue_the_work_on_my_Reprap_3D_printer.html
</guid>
5221 <pubDate>Thu,
9 Dec
2010 19:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5222 <description><p
>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
5223 student assosiation
<a href=
"http://www.robotica.no/
">Robotica
5224 Osloensis
</a
> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
5225 get their own
3D printer. They wanted to learn from me based on my
5226 work in the area. After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
5227 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
5228 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon. I look
5229 forward to see how this goes. This monday their volunteer driver
5230 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
5231 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the
3D printer
5232 operational.
</p
>
5234 <p
>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
5235 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational. I really look
5236 forward to being able to print all the cool
3D designs published on
5237 <a href=
"http://www.thingiverse.com/
">Thingiverse
</a
>. I even got
5238 some
3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
5239 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
5240 very cool
3D scanner.
</p
>
5245 <title>Debian Edu development gathering and General Assembly for FRiSK
</title>
5246 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_development_gathering_and_General_Assembly_for_FRiSK.html
</link>
5247 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_development_gathering_and_General_Assembly_for_FRiSK.html
</guid>
5248 <pubDate>Mon,
29 Nov
2010 18:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5249 <description><p
>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5250 <a href=
"http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/
2010-
12-
03-
05-Oslo
">development
5251 gathering
</a
> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway. I
5252 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
5253 Squeeze release. The gathering is open for everyone interested in
5254 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.
</p
>
5256 <p
>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
5257 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
5259 <a href=
"http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/
2010">General Assembly
5260 for
2010</a
>. Membership is open for all, and currently there are
388
5261 people registered as members. Last year
32 members cast their vote in
5262 the memberdb based election system. I hope more people find time to
5263 vote this year.
</p
>
5268 <title>Why isn
't Debian Edu using VLC?
</title>
5269 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html
</link>
5270 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html
</guid>
5271 <pubDate>Sat,
27 Nov
2010 11:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5272 <description><p
>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5273 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5274 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5275 to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5276 gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure
5277 model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5278 reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5279 just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.
<p
>
5281 <p
>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5282 mplayer in
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian
5283 Edu/Skolelinux
</a
>. The reason is simple. We need a good browser
5284 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5285 not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5286 is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I
5287 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia
">last
5288 tested the browser plugins
</a
> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5289 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If
5290 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5291 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.
</P
>
5293 <p
>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5294 annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5295 keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its
5296 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5297 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I
5298 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5299 window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5300 the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5301 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5302 what is going on.
</p
>
5307 <title>Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove
</title>
5308 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html
</link>
5309 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html
</guid>
5310 <pubDate>Mon,
22 Nov
2010 14:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5311 <description><p
>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
5312 upgrade testing of the
5313 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">Lenny
5314 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a
> to do
<tt
>apt-get autoremove
</tt
> when using apt-get.
5315 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
5316 can now present the updated result from today:
</p
>
5318 <p
>This is for Gnome:
</p
>
5320 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
5322 <blockquote
><p
>
5327 browser-plugin-gnash
5334 freedesktop-sound-theme
5336 gconf-defaults-service
5351 gnome-desktop-environment
5355 gnome-session-canberra
5360 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5366 libapache2-mod-dnssd
5369 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
5372 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
5373 libboost-python1.42
.0
5374 libboost-thread1.42
.0
5376 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0
5378 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
5385 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5400 libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5405 libgtksourceview2.0-common
5406 libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5407 libmono-addins0.2-cil
5408 libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5409 libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5410 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5411 libmono-posix2.0-cil
5412 libmono-security2.0-cil
5413 libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5414 libmono-system2.0-cil
5417 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5418 libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5428 libtelepathy-farsight0
5437 nautilus-sendto-empathy
5441 python-aptdaemon-gtk
5443 python-beautifulsoup
5458 python-gtksourceview2
5469 python-pkg-resources
5476 python-twisted-conch
5482 python-zope.interface
5487 rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5494 system-config-printer-udev
5496 telepathy-mission-control-
5
5507 </p
></blockquote
>
5509 <p
>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p
>
5511 <blockquote
><p
>
5517 fast-user-switch-applet
5536 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
5538 libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5544 system-config-printer
5549 </p
></blockquote
>
5551 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
5553 <blockquote
><p
>
5554 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5555 </p
></blockquote
>
5557 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
5559 <blockquote
><p
>
5561 </p
></blockquote
>
5563 <p
>This is for KDE:
</p
>
5565 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
5567 <blockquote
><p
>
5569 </p
></blockquote
>
5571 <p
>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p
>
5573 <blockquote
><p
>
5576 </p
></blockquote
>
5578 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
5580 <blockquote
><p
>
5594 kdeartwork-emoticons
5596 kdeartwork-theme-icon
5600 kdebase-workspace-bin
5601 kdebase-workspace-data
5615 kscreensaver-xsavers
5630 plasma-dataengines-workspace
5632 plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
5633 plasma-runners-addons
5634 plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
5635 plasma-scriptengine-python
5636 plasma-scriptengine-qedje
5637 plasma-scriptengine-ruby
5638 plasma-scriptengine-webkit
5639 plasma-scriptengines
5640 plasma-wallpapers-addons
5641 plasma-widget-folderview
5642 plasma-widget-networkmanagement
5646 xscreensaver-data-extra
5648 xscreensaver-gl-extra
5649 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
5650 </p
></blockquote
>
5652 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
5654 <blockquote
><p
>
5656 google-gadgets-common
5674 libggadget-qt-
1.0-
0b
5679 libkonqsidebarplugin4a
5688 libplasma-geolocation-interface4
5690 libplasmagenericshell4
5704 libsmokeknewstuff2-
3
5705 libsmokeknewstuff3-
3
5707 libsmokektexteditor3
5715 libsmokeqtnetwork4-
3
5721 libsmokeqtuitools4-
3
5733 plasma-dataengines-addons
5734 plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
5735 plasma-widget-lancelot
5736 plasma-widgets-addons
5737 plasma-widgets-workspace
5741 update-notifier-common
5742 </p
></blockquote
>
5744 <p
>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
5745 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
5746 differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after
5747 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.
</p
>
5752 <title>Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images
</title>
5753 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html
</link>
5754 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html
</guid>
5755 <pubDate>Mon,
22 Nov
2010 11:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5756 <description><p
>Most of the computers in use by the
5757 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project
</a
>
5758 are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a
5759 fairly old IBM eserver xseries
345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
5760 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge
2950 host machine. This was a
5761 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
5762 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
5763 know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert
5764 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.
</p
>
5767 <a href=
"http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/
35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
">a
5768 nice recipe
</a
> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
5769 migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
5770 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
5771 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the
5772 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.
</p
>
5778 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/
35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
5783 if [ -z
"$
1" ] ; then
5784 echo
"Usage: $
0 &lt;hostname
&gt;
"
5790 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
5791 echo
"error: unable to find LVM volume for $host
"
5795 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
5796 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk
'{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }
')
5797 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk
'{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }
')
5798 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
5801 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=
1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
5802 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
5804 parted $img mklabel msdos
5805 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap
0 $disksize
5806 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
5807 parted $img set
1 boot on
5810 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
5811 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
5813 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=
1M
5814 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
5815 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
5817 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
5818 losetup -d /dev/loop0
5821 <p
>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
5822 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.
</p
>
5824 <p
>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
5825 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-
686 and
5826 set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines
5827 seem to work just fine.
</p
>
5832 <title>Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop
</title>
5833 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html
</link>
5834 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html
</guid>
5835 <pubDate>Sat,
20 Nov
2010 22:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5836 <description><p
>I
'm still running upgrade testing of the
5837 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">Lenny
5838 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a
>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
5839 status. Here is a short update based on a test I ran
20101118.
</p
>
5841 <p
>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
5842 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
5843 can see if anything should be changed.
</p
>
5845 <p
>This is for Gnome:
</p
>
5847 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
5849 <blockquote
><p
>
5850 apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
5851 browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-
4.3 cups-pk-helper
5852 dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
5853 freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
5854 gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
5855 geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
5856 gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
5857 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
5858 gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
5859 gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
5860 gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5861 gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5862 gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
5863 libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
5864 libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-
0 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
5865 libboost-python1.42
.0 libboost-thread1.42
.0 libchamplain-
0.4-
0
5866 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
5867 libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-
1.0-
2
5868 libepc-common libepc-ui-
1.0-
2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5869 libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
5870 libgdl-
1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-
0 libgif4
5871 libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5872 libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
5873 libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
5874 libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
5875 libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5876 libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5877 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
5878 libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5879 libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-
6
5880 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6
.8
5881 libpolkit-gtk-
1-
0 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
5882 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6
.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
5883 libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-
4
5884 libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-
0.99-
0
5885 libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
5886 mono-
2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
5887 nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
5888 openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-
4suite-xml
5889 python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
5890 python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
5891 python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
5892 python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
5893 python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
5894 python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
5895 python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
5896 python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
5897 python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
5898 python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
5899 python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
5900 python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
5901 python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
5902 remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5903 rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
5904 software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
5905 telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-
5 telepathy-salut tomboy
5906 totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
5907 transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
5909 </p
></blockquote
>
5911 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
5913 <blockquote
><p
>
5914 arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
5915 epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
5916 fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
5917 gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
5918 gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
5919 gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
5920 guile-
1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
5921 libavahi-ui0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7
5922 libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
5923 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1
5924 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3 libfaad0 libgadu3
5925 libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
5926 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
5927 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
5928 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-
1.0-
0
5929 libgtkhtml2-
0 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
5930 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
5931 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
5932 libmagick++
10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
5933 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
5934 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9
5935 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8
5936 libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
5937 libspeexdsp1 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libsvga1
5938 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
5939 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
5940 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
5941 sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
5942 totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
5943 </p
></blockquote
>
5945 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
5947 <blockquote
><p
>
5948 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5949 </p
></blockquote
>
5951 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
5953 <blockquote
><p
>
5955 </p
></blockquote
>
5957 <p
>This is for KDE:
</p
>
5959 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
5961 <blockquote
><p
>
5962 autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-
4.3 dcoprss
5963 edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
5964 ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
5965 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
5966 kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
5967 kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
5968 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
5969 kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
5970 kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
5971 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
5972 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
5973 kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
5974 killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
5975 kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
5976 ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42
.0
5977 libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
5978 libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
5979 libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
5980 libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
5981 libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
5982 libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
5983 libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
5984 libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
5985 libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
5986 lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
5987 openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
5988 parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
5989 pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
5990 speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
5992 </p
></blockquote
>
5994 <p
>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p
>
5996 <blockquote
><p
>
5997 amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
5998 dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
5999 kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6000 kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6001 keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6002 kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6003 kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6004 klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6005 kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6006 kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6007 kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6008 ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6009 ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6010 kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6011 kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6012 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6013 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-
0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2
6014 libboost-python1.34
.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6015 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6016 libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-
0 libicu38
6017 libiec61883-
0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6018 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6019 libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6020 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6021 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6022 libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6023 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6024 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-
8 librss1 libsensors3
6025 libsmbios2 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90
6026 libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6027 mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6028 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6029 ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6030 </p
></blockquote
>
6032 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
6034 <blockquote
><p
>
6035 dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6036 kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6037 kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6038 kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6039 netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6040 xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6041 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6042 </p
></blockquote
>
6044 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
6046 <blockquote
><p
>
6047 kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6048 </p
></blockquote
>
6053 <title>Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd
</title>
6054 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html
</link>
6055 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html
</guid>
6056 <pubDate>Sat,
20 Nov
2010 07:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
6057 <description><p
>Answering
6058 <a href=
"http://www.listware.net/
201011/gnash-dev/
67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html
">the
6059 call from the Gnash project
</a
> for
6060 <a href=
"http://www.gnashdev.org:
8010">buildbot
</a
> slaves to test the
6061 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6062 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6063 Debian/Squeeze. I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6064 releases out more often.
</p
>
6066 <p
>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6067 I have considered setting up a
<a
6068 href=
"http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/
">Debian/kfreebsd
</a
>
6069 machine as well. I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6070 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the
5
6071 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video. Because of this, I
6072 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6073 kfreebsd. Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6074 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6075 screen at random locations). Have not gotten very far with the
6076 testing. Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6077 fatal problem. Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6078 useful as a file server for NUUG. Will try to find time to set up a
6079 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.
</p
>
6084 <title>Debian in
3D
</title>
6085 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html
</link>
6086 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html
</guid>
6087 <pubDate>Tue,
9 Nov
2010 16:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
6088 <description><p
><img src=
"http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/
23/e0/c4/f9/
2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg
"></p
>
6090 <p
>3D printing is just great. I just came across this Debian logo in
6092 <a href=
"http://blog.thingiverse.com/
2010/
11/
09/participatory-branding/
">the
6093 thingiverse blog
</a
>.
</p
>
6098 <title>Making room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
</title>
6099 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_room_on_the_Debian_Edu_Sqeeze_DVD.html
</link>
6100 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_room_on_the_Debian_Edu_Sqeeze_DVD.html
</guid>
6101 <pubDate>Sun,
7 Nov
2010 11:
45:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
6102 <description><p
>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
6103 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Skolelinux
</a
> DVD, which is
6104 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
6105 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard. Even
6106 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
6107 working using this DVD.
</p
>
6109 <p
>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
6110 installing recommended packages by default. We want the same set of
6111 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
6112 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD. I created
6113 a patch for debian-cd in
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
601203">BTS
6114 report #
601203</a
> to do this, and since this change was applied to
6115 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.
</p
>
6117 <p
>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
6118 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
6119 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
6120 Debian archive.
</p
>
6122 <p
>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
6123 were using most space. A few large packages are well know;
6124 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont. But I also
6125 discovered that lilypond used
106 MiB and fglrx-driver used
53 MiB.
6126 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
6127 when looking a bit closer I discovered that
99 MiB of the
106 MiB were
6128 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
6129 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
6130 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
6131 documentation. Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
6132 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
6133 free X driver should work.
</p
>
6135 <p
>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
6136 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
6137 DVD more useful again.
</p
>
6142 <title>Software updates
2010-
10-
24</title>
6143 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html
</link>
6144 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html
</guid>
6145 <pubDate>Sun,
24 Oct
2010 22:
45:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6146 <description><p
>Some updates.
</p
>
6148 <p
>My
<a href=
"http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2
">gnash pledge
</a
> to
6149 raise money for the project is going well. The lower limit of
10
6150 signers was reached in
24 hours, and so far
13 people have signed it.
6151 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6152 how far we can get before the time limit of December
24 is reached.
6155 <p
>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6156 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6157 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6159 <a href=
"http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html
">kcov
</a
>,
6160 and can be used using
<tt
>kcov
&lt;directory
&gt;
&lt;binary
&gt;
</tt
>.
6161 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6162 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6163 libglib2.0-dev. Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6164 solvable. I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.
</p
>
6166 <p
>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for
<a
6167 href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2010/
10/msg00002.html
">a
6168 new alpha release of Debian Edu
</a
>, and just published the second
6169 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6170 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Skolelinux
</a
>
6171 release. Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6172 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6173 client servers and diskless workstations. A nice touch added
6174 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6175 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.
</p
>
6180 <title>Pledge for funding to the Gnash project to get AVM2 support
</title>
6181 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pledge_for_funding_to_the_Gnash_project_to_get_AVM2_support.html
</link>
6182 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pledge_for_funding_to_the_Gnash_project_to_get_AVM2_support.html
</guid>
6183 <pubDate>Tue,
19 Oct
2010 14:
45:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6184 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.getgnash.org/
">The Gnash project
</a
> is the
6185 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
6186 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
6187 funding has dried up. I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
6188 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
6189 AVM2 flash files.
</p
>
6191 <p
>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
6192 <a href=
"http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2
">a pledge
</a
> with the
6193 following text:
</P
>
6195 <p
><blockquote
>
6197 <p
>"I will pay
100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
6198 only if
10 other people will do the same.
"</p
>
6200 <p
>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer
</p
>
6202 <p
>Deadline to sign up by:
24th December
2010</p
>
6204 <p
>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
6205 format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
6206 web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
6207 format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
6208 days. The project web page is available from
6209 http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
6210 of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
6211 the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.
</p
>
6213 <p
>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
6214 time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
6215 to get this to happen.
</p
>
6217 <p
>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
6218 <a href=
"http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/
32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/
32</a
> .
</p
>
6220 </blockquote
></p
>
6222 <p
>I hope you will support this effort too. I hope more than
10
6223 people will participate to make this happen. The more money the
6224 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
6230 <title>First version of a Perl library to control the Spykee robot
</title>
6231 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_version_of_a_Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot.html
</link>
6232 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_version_of_a_Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot.html
</guid>
6233 <pubDate>Sat,
9 Oct
2010 14:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6234 <description><p
>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
6235 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
6236 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
6237 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
6238 I
've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
6239 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
6242 <p
>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
6243 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them. There are
6244 a few less important features too.
</p
>
6246 <p
>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
6247 but I never got around to releasing the current source. I decided
6248 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
6249 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.
</p
>
6251 <p
>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
6252 published the source and deb. If you got a spykee robot, grab the
6253 source or binary package:
</p
>
6256 <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
>
6257 <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
>
6258 <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
>
6259 </ul
></p
>
6261 <p
>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
6262 please let me know.
</p
>
6267 <title>Links for
2010-
10-
03</title>
6268 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html
</link>
6269 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html
</guid>
6270 <pubDate>Sun,
3 Oct
2010 22:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6271 <description><p
><ul
>
6273 <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
6274 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly
</a
></li
>
6276 <li
>Scanner looking under clothes
6277 <a href=
"http://www.dagbladet.no/
2010/
10/
03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/
13667192/
">has
6278 already been misused at Heathrow
</a
>.
</li
>
6280 <li
><a href=
"http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell
">Landell
6281 Webcasting
</a
> - interesting alternative for
6282 <ahref=
"http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/
">DVSwitch
</a
> with
6285 </ul
></p
>
6290 <title>Terms of use for video produced by a Canon IXUS
130 digital camera
</title>
6291 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html
</link>
6292 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html
</guid>
6293 <pubDate>Thu,
9 Sep
2010 23:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6294 <description><p
>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
6295 camera, a Canon IXUS
130. It was instructive and very disturbing to
6296 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
6297 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
6298 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
6299 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway. What is the
6300 problem, you might ask? It is software patents, MPEG-
4, H
.264 and the
6301 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
6302 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
6304 <p
>On page
27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
6308 <p
>This product is licensed under AT
&T patents for the MPEG-
4 standard
6309 and may be used for encoding MPEG-
4 compliant video and/or decoding
6310 MPEG-
4 compliant video that was encoded only (
1) for a personal and
6311 non-commercial purpose or (
2) by a video provider licensed under the
6312 AT
&T patents to provide MPEG-
4 compliant video.
</p
>
6314 <p
>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-
4
6318 <p
>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
6319 (MPEG-
4/H
.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
6320 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
6321 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.
</p
>
6323 <p
>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
6325 "<a href=
"http://www.osnews.com/story/
23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA
">Why
6326 Our Civilization
's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
6327 MPEG-LA
</a
>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
6328 "<a href=
"http://webmink.com/
2010/
09/
03/h-
264-and-foss/
">H
.264 Is Not
6329 The Sort Of Free That Matters
</a
>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
6330 the issue. The solution is to support the
6331 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">free and
6332 open standards
</a
> for video, like
<a href=
"http://www.theora.org/
">Ogg
6333 Theora
</a
>, and avoid MPEG-
4 and H
.264 if you can.
</p
>
6338 <title>Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu
</title>
6339 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html
</link>
6340 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html
</guid>
6341 <pubDate>Sat,
4 Sep
2010 10:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6342 <description><p
>In the
<a href=
"http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote
">Debian
6343 popularity-contest numbers
</a
>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6344 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian. The sixth
6345 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla. This is a clear indication that
6346 working flash is important for Debian users. Around
10 percent of the
6347 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6348 installed.
</p
>
6350 <p
>In the report written by Lars Risan in August
2008
6351 («
<a href=
"http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile
&do=view
&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf
">Skolelinux
6352 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6353 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs
</a
>»), one of the most important problems
6354 schools experienced with
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian
6355 Edu/Skolelinux
</a
> was the lack of working Flash. A lot of educational
6356 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6357 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6358 good reason to stay with Windows.
</p
>
6360 <p
>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6361 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6362 everything you told him but could work fairly well. This was a
6363 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6364 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6365 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6366 example Internet Explorer
6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6367 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6368 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6369 pages they want to visit.
</p
>
6371 <p
>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6372 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6373 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6374 Video to working out of the box. For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6375 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6376 the new release
0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6377 unstable. The new version work with more sites that version
0.8.7.
6378 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6379 release team have not had time to reply to it yet. I hope they agree
6380 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6381 accept the new package into Squeeze.
</p
>
6386 <title>My first perl GUI application - controlling a Spykee robot
</title>
6387 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_first_perl_GUI_application___controlling_a_Spykee_robot.html
</link>
6388 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_first_perl_GUI_application___controlling_a_Spykee_robot.html
</guid>
6389 <pubDate>Wed,
1 Sep
2010 21:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6390 <description><p
>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application. The last few
6391 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
6392 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
6393 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
6394 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
6395 allow me to drive the robot around. I picked PerlQt as I have had
6396 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
6397 browsing the web for examples. Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
6398 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
6399 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
6400 libqt-perl. Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
6401 drive around.
</p
>
6403 <p
>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
6404 controlling the robot. Here is an small example on how to use it:
</p
>
6406 <p
><pre
>
6408 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[
0]} = $_[
1]});
6409 my $host = (keys %robot)[
0];
6410 my $spykee = Spykee-
>new();
6411 $spykee-
>contact($host,
"admin
",
"admin
");
6414 $spykee-
>right();
6416 $spykee-
>forward();
6421 </pre
></p
>
6423 <p
>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
6424 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
6425 implement the protocol used by the robot. I
've implemented several of
6426 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
6427 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote. First I
6428 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
6429 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
6430 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
6431 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
6432 going. :).
</p
>
6434 <p
>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
6435 where to make it available first. I will add a link to
6436 <a href=
"http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/
">the NUUG wiki
</a
> for
6437 those that want to check back later to find it.
</p
>
6442 <title>Broken hard link handling with sshfs
</title>
6443 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html
</link>
6444 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html
</guid>
6445 <pubDate>Mon,
30 Aug
2010 19:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6446 <description><p
>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
6447 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html
">previous
6448 post about sshfs
</a
>. He reported another problem with sshfs. It
6449 fail to handle hard links properly. A simple way to spot this is to
6450 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree. These should have
6451 a link count
>1, but on sshfs the count is
1. I just tested to see
6452 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:
</p
>
6456 ln: creating hard link `bar
' =
> `foo
': Function not implemented
6460 <p
>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
6461 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
6462 avoid surprised unix programs. Not as useful as working file locking
6463 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
6464 nevertheless. :)
</p
>
6466 <p
>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
6468 <a href=
"http://github.com/gebi/fs-test
">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test
</a
></p
>
6473 <title>Broken umask handling with sshfs
</title>
6474 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html
</link>
6475 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html
</guid>
6476 <pubDate>Thu,
26 Aug
2010 13:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6477 <description><p
>My file system sematics program
6478 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html
">presented
6479 a few days ago
</a
> is very useful to verify that a file system can
6480 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit. I
'm
6481 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
6482 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs. My friend
6483 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
6484 Edu, but stopped because of problems. I asked today what the problems
6485 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
6486 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
6490 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
6492 int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
6495 struct stat statbuf;
6496 if (-
1 != fstat(fd,
&statbuf)) {
6497 retval = statbuf.st_mode
& 0x1ff;
6504 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
6505 int test_umask(void) {
6506 printf(
"info: testing umask effect on file creation\n
");
6508 mode_t orig_umask = umask(
000);
6510 if (
0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode(
"foobar
",
0666))) {
6511 printf(
" error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode
666 and umask
000\n
",
6515 if (
0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode(
"foobar
",
0666))) {
6516 printf(
" error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode
666 and umask
007\n
",
6524 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
6531 <p
>Sure enough. On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:
</p
>
6534 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
6535 info: testing symlink creation
6536 info: testing subdirectory creation
6537 info: testing fcntl locking
6538 Read-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
6539 Read-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
6540 Unlocking
1 byte from
1073741824
6541 Write-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
6542 Write-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
6543 Unlocking
2 byte from
1073741824
6544 info: testing umask effect on file creation
6547 <p
>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
6551 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
6552 info: testing symlink creation
6553 info: testing subdirectory creation
6554 info: testing fcntl locking
6555 Read-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
6556 Read-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
6557 Unlocking
1 byte from
1073741824
6558 Write-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
6559 Write-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
6560 Unlocking
2 byte from
1073741824
6561 info: testing umask effect on file creation
6562 error: Wrong file mode
644 when creating using mode
666 and umask
000
6563 error: Wrong file mode
640 when creating using mode
666 and umask
007
6566 <p
>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
6567 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
6568 directory.
</p
>
6570 <p
>Update
2010-
08-
26: Reported the issue in
6571 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
594498">BTS report #
594498</a
></p
>
6573 <p
>Update
2010-
08-
27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
6574 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
6575 <a href=
"http://github.com/gebi/fs-test
">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test
</a
>.
</p
>
6580 <title>Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent
</title>
6581 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html
</link>
6582 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html
</guid>
6583 <pubDate>Sun,
15 Aug
2010 22:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6584 <description><p
>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
6585 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~
3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html
">how
6586 to crush dissent
</a
> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
6587 well. Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
6588 should go down. In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
6589 long time.
</p
>
6594 <title>No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients
</title>
6595 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html
</link>
6596 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html
</guid>
6597 <pubDate>Mon,
9 Aug
2010 20:
15:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6598 <description><p
>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
6599 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
6600 configuration settings on the clients. I believe the work to be
6601 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
6602 generated configuration.
</p
>
6604 <p
>What is the point, you might ask? The point is to allow a Debian
6605 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
6606 without any manual configuration.
</p
>
6608 <p
>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
6609 the University of Oslo using PXE. With the PXE installation, I am
6610 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
6611 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
6612 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
6613 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret). After answering
6614 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
6615 after around
50 minutes it is done. I press enter to finish the
6616 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE. When the machine is
6617 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
6618 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
6619 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
6620 same username and password to the KDE
4.4 desktop. At no point during
6621 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
6622 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
6623 fetched via DHCP and DNS. The roaming workstation is now ready for
6626 <p
>How was this done, you might wonder? First of all, here is the
6627 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
6628 working properly out of the box:
</p
>
6631 <li
>IP address/netmask and DNS server.
</li
>
6632 <li
>Web proxy URL.
</li
>
6633 <li
>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).
</li
>
6634 <li
>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.
</li
>
6635 <li
>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)
</li
>
6636 <li
>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)
</li
>
6637 <li
>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)
</li
>
6640 <p
>(Hm, did I forget anything? Let me knew if I did.)
</p
>
6642 <p
>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
6643 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
6644 administrators to track their machines. Since yesterday, everything
6645 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
6646 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.
</p
>
6648 <p
>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
6649 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
6650 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
6651 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
6652 /etc/apt/apt.conf. I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
6653 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
6654 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
6655 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.
</p
>
6657 <p
>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
6658 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot. First the
6659 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain. If
6660 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead. If an
6661 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
6662 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
6663 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS. If there are several
6664 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
6665 LDAP subtree is used as the base. If defaultNamingContext is missing,
6666 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
6667 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
6668 such an object is used as the LDAP base. For Kerberos, a similar
6669 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
6670 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record. I
've been unable to find a way to
6671 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
6672 current DNS domain is used.
</p
>
6674 <p
>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
6675 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
6676 found. This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
6677 Oslo. A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
6678 server, but have not been implemented yet. I decided to fetch and
6679 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
6680 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
6681 log in nor the passwords required to log in. Usernames and passwords
6682 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
6683 network, and will not change as the laptop move around. For a
6684 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
6685 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much. Perhaps we
6686 should switch those to use sssd too?
</p
>
6688 <p
>The user
's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
6689 located when the user logs in for the first time. The LDAP server is
6690 consulted to look for the user
's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
6691 attribute is used if found. If it isn
't found, the home directory
6692 path fetched from NSS is used instead. Assuming the path is of the
6693 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
6694 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
6695 smb://server.domain/username. This algorithm works for both Debian
6696 edu and the University of Oslo. Perhaps there are better attributes
6697 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
6698 do for now. :)
</p
>
6700 <p
>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
6701 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
6702 more flexible than before. I suspect it will also work for thin
6703 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
6704 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
6707 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
6708 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
6710 <p
>Update
2010-
08-
09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
6711 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
6712 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name. Will have to
6713 implement it for Debian Edu. :)
</p
>
6718 <title>Testing if a file system can be used for home directories...
</title>
6719 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html
</link>
6720 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html
</guid>
6721 <pubDate>Sun,
8 Aug
2010 21:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6722 <description><p
>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
6723 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
6724 Edu/Skolelinux machines. This was thought to be no problem, as the
6725 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
6726 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
6727 mount home directories without any problems. But, after months of
6728 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.
</p
>
6730 <p
>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
6731 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
6732 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
6733 underlying file system is a unix file system. When using a Windows
6734 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
6735 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
6736 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.
</p
>
6738 <p
>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
6739 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
6740 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
6741 it should. If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
6742 help you find your way out again. This is the fs-test.c source:
</p
>
6746 * Some tests to check the file system sematics. Used to verify that
6747 * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
6749 * License: GPL v2 or later
6751 * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
6752 * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
6755 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS
64
6756 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE
1
6757 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE
1
6759 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
6761 #include
&lt;errno.h
>
6762 #include
&lt;fcntl.h
>
6763 #include
&lt;stdio.h
>
6764 #include
&lt;string.h
>
6765 #include
&lt;stdlib.h
>
6766 #include
&lt;sys/file.h
>
6767 #include
&lt;sys/stat.h
>
6768 #include
&lt;sys/types.h
>
6769 #include
&lt;unistd.h
>
6773 * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
6774 * package and linking with -lsqlite3. A more low level test is
6776 * See also
&lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5
>.
6778 #include
&lt;sqlite3.h
>
6779 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS \
6780 "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT );
"
6781 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
6783 char *name =
"testsqlite.db
";
6786 int rc = sqlite3_open(name,
&db);
6788 printf(
"error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n
", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
6794 rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,
0,
&zErrMsg);
6795 if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
6796 printf(
"error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n
", zErrMsg);
6800 printf(
"info: sqlite worked\n
");
6804 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
6807 * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3. This
6808 * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows
2003. This is
6809 * done in the sqlite3 library.
6811 *
&lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/
2001-
08/msg00854.html
> and the
6812 * POSIX specification
6813 *
&lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/
009695399/functions/fcntl.html
>.
6815 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
6817 char *name =
"testsqlite.db
";
6819 int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE,
0644);
6820 printf(
"info: testing fcntl locking\n
");
6822 fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
6823 fl.l_pid = getpid();
6824 printf(
" Read-locking
1 byte from
1073741824");
6825 fl.l_start =
1073741824;
6827 fl.l_type = F_RDLCK;
6828 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK,
&fl) ) printf(
" - error!\n
"); else printf(
"\n
");
6830 printf(
" Read-locking
510 byte from
1073741826");
6831 fl.l_start =
1073741826;
6833 fl.l_type = F_RDLCK;
6834 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK,
&fl) ) printf(
" - error!\n
"); else printf(
"\n
");
6836 printf(
" Unlocking
1 byte from
1073741824");
6837 fl.l_start =
1073741824;
6839 fl.l_type = F_UNLCK;
6840 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK,
&fl) ) printf(
" - error!\n
"); else printf(
"\n
");
6842 printf(
" Write-locking
1 byte from
1073741824");
6843 fl.l_start =
1073741824;
6845 fl.l_type = F_WRLCK;
6846 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK,
&fl) ) printf(
" - error!\n
"); else printf(
"\n
");
6848 printf(
" Write-locking
510 byte from
1073741826");
6849 fl.l_start =
1073741826;
6851 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK,
&fl) ) printf(
" - error!\n
"); else printf(
"\n
");
6853 printf(
" Unlocking
2 byte from
1073741824");
6854 fl.l_start =
1073741824;
6856 fl.l_type = F_UNLCK;
6857 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK,
&fl) ) printf(
" - error!\n
"); else printf(
"\n
");
6864 * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
6865 * below them. This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
6866 * Mounting with option
'sync
' seem to solve this problem while
6867 * slowing down file operations.
6869 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
6871 char *path = strdup(
"test
");
6874 printf(
"info: testing subdirectory creation\n
");
6875 for (level =
0; level
&lt; LEVELS; level++) {
6876 char *newpath = NULL;
6877 if (-
1 == mkdir(path,
0777)) {
6878 printf(
" error: Unable to create directory
'%s
': %s\n
",
6879 path, strerror(errno));
6882 asprintf(
&newpath,
"%s/%s
", path,
"test
");
6890 * Test if symlinks can be created. This was a problem detected with
6893 int test_symlinks(void) {
6894 printf(
"info: testing symlink creation\n
");
6895 unlink(
"symlink
");
6896 if (-
1 == symlink(
"file
",
"symlink
"))
6897 printf(
" error: Unable to create symlink\n
");
6901 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
6902 printf(
"Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n
");
6904 test_subdirectory_creation();
6907 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
6908 test_gcompris_locking();
6913 <p
>When everything is working, it should print something like
6917 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
6918 info: testing symlink creation
6919 info: testing subdirectory creation
6921 info: testing fcntl locking
6922 Read-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
6923 Read-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
6924 Unlocking
1 byte from
1073741824
6925 Write-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
6926 Write-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
6927 Unlocking
2 byte from
1073741824
6930 <p
>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
6931 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
6932 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
6933 the read-only lock (while Windows do not). Another was a bug in the
6934 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
6935 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
6936 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
6937 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.
</p
>
6939 <p
>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
6942 <p
>Update
2010-
08-
27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
6943 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
6944 <a href=
"http://github.com/gebi/fs-test
">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test
</a
>.
</p
>
6949 <title>Autodetecting Client setup for roaming workstations in Debian Edu
</title>
6950 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Autodetecting_Client_setup_for_roaming_workstations_in_Debian_Edu.html
</link>
6951 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Autodetecting_Client_setup_for_roaming_workstations_in_Debian_Edu.html
</guid>
6952 <pubDate>Sat,
7 Aug
2010 14:
45:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6953 <description><p
>A few days ago, I
6954 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html
">tried
6955 to install
</a
> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
6956 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
6957 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
6958 university infrastructure. It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
6959 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
6960 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
6961 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
6962 around it. Now I am a huge step further along that road.
</p
>
6964 <p
>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
6965 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
6966 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
6967 servers for Kerberos authentication. All this without any
6968 configuration at all during installation. My users home directory got
6969 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
6970 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured. In addition to
6971 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
6972 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
6973 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf. Iceweasel and KDE is
6974 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
6975 a proxy when at the university network. If the machine is moved to a
6976 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
6977 gave it a IP address.
</p
>
6979 <p
>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
6980 entry ldap.$domain. If this do not exist, it look for the
6981 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
6982 server. Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
6983 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
6984 pick the first one as the LDAP base. For Kerberos, a similar
6985 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
6986 uppercase version of $domain.
</p
>
6988 <p
>So, what is not working, you might ask. SMB mounting my home
6989 directory do not work. No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
6990 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
6991 the cause. These are not properly configured during installation, and
6992 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
6993 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(
</p
>
6995 <p
>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
6996 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
6997 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
6998 authentication. It should also work out of the box in a Active
6999 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
7000 with UID and GID values.
</p
>
7002 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
7003 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
7008 <title>Debian Edu roaming workstation - at the university of Oslo
</title>
7009 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html
</link>
7010 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html
</guid>
7011 <pubDate>Tue,
3 Aug
2010 23:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7012 <description><p
>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
7013 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
7014 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
7015 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
7016 infrastructure. In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
7017 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
7020 <p
>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
7021 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
7022 /etc/mklocaluser.d/
20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
7023 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
7024 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
7025 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
7026 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
7029 <p
>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
7030 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
7031 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
7032 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
7033 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
7034 university servers.
</p
>
7036 <p
>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
7037 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
7038 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
7039 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
7040 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
7046 <title>Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery
</title>
7047 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html
</link>
7048 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html
</guid>
7049 <pubDate>Tue,
27 Jul
2010 23:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7050 <description><p
>I discovered this while doing
7051 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">automated
7052 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze
</a
>. A few packages
7053 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
7054 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
7055 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.
</p
>
7057 <p
>An example is from todays
7058 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-
20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt
">upgrade
7059 of KDE using aptitude
</a
>. In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
7060 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade. The cause is simple. If a
7061 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
7062 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
7063 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
7064 because its dependencies are unavailable.
</p
>
7066 <p
>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:
</p
>
7068 <blockquote
><pre
>
7069 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
7070 perl-modules depends on perl (
>=
5.10.1-
1); however:
7071 Version of perl on system is
5.10.0-
19lenny
2.
7072 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
7073 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
7074 </pre
></blockquote
>
7076 <p
>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
7077 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
527917">reported as a bug
</a
>, and will
7078 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
7079 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
7080 failures. Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
7081 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
7082 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
7083 of dependency loops.
</p
>
7086 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
06/msg00116.html
">the
7087 tireless effort by Bill Allombert
</a
>, the number of circular
7089 <a href=
"http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html
">left in Debian
7090 is dropping
</a
>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)
</p
>
7092 <p
>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
7093 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
590605">update-notifier
</a
> and
7094 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
590604">different behaviour
</a
> between
7095 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
7096 dependency. Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
7102 <title>First Debian Edu test release (alpha0) based on Squeeze is released
</title>
7103 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu_test_release__alpha0__based_on_Squeeze_is_released.html
</link>
7104 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu_test_release__alpha0__based_on_Squeeze_is_released.html
</guid>
7105 <pubDate>Tue,
27 Jul
2010 17:
45:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7106 <description><p
>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
7107 with the next Debian Edu release. Not nearly done, but one major step
7108 completed.
</p
>
7111 <p
>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
7112 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
7113 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
7114 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
7115 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
7116 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
7117 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
7118 language of choice, please let us know too.
</p
>
7120 <p
>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
7121 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
7122 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.
</p
>
7124 <p
>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
7125 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
7128 <p
>Changes compared to the lenny based version
</p
>
7131 <li
>Everything from Debian Squeeze
7133 <li
>Desktop environment KDE
4.4 =
> the new KDE desktop in
7134 combination with some new artwork
7135 <li
>Web browser Iceweasel
3.5
7136 <li
>OpenOffice.org
3.2
7137 <li
>Educational toolbox GCompris
9.3
7138 <li
>Music creator Rosegarden
10.04.2
7139 <li
>Image editor Gimp
2.6.10
7140 <li
>Virtual universe Celestia
1.6.0
7141 <li
>Virtual stargazer Stellarium
0.10.4
7142 <li
>3D modeler Blender
2.49.2 (new application)
7143 <li
>Video editor Kdenlive
0.7.7 (new application)
7144 </ul
></li
>
7145 <li
>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
7151 <li
>SMTP (sender verification)
7154 <li
>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.
</li
>
7155 <li
>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
7156 fetched from LDAP.
</li
>
7157 <li
>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.
</li
>
7158 <li
>General cleanup (not finished)
</li
>
7160 <p
>The following features are not working as they should
</p
>
7163 <li
>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
7164 scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
7165 for testing.
</li
>
7166 <li
>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
7167 and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
7168 clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.
</li
>
7169 <li
>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.
</li
>
7170 <li
>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.
</li
>
7171 <li
>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.
</li
>
7172 <li
>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
7173 netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.
</li
>
7174 <li
>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
7175 some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
7176 jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.
</li
>
7177 <li
>Some packages lack translations. See
7178 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
7179 and help out with translations.
</li
>
7182 <p
>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use
</p
>
7185 <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
>
7186 <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
>
7187 <li
>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso
</li
>
7189 <p
>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use
</p
>
7192 <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
>
7193 <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
>
7194 <li
>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso
</li
>
7197 <p
>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
7198 get closer to the final release.
</p
>
7200 <p
>The MD5SUM of these images are
</p
>
7203 <li
>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso
</li
>
7204 <li
>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso
</li
>
7207 <p
>The SHA1SUM of these images are
</p
>
7209 <li
>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso
</li
>
7210 <li
>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso
</li
>
7212 <p
>How to report bugs:
7213 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla
</p
>
7215 <p
>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org
</p
>
7221 <title>One step closer to single signon in Debian Edu
</title>
7222 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_step_closer_to_single_signon_in_Debian_Edu.html
</link>
7223 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_step_closer_to_single_signon_in_Debian_Edu.html
</guid>
7224 <pubDate>Sun,
25 Jul
2010 10:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7225 <description><p
>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
7226 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
7227 Edu/Skolelinux into shape. This future version will use Kerberos for
7228 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
7229 getting rid of password questions one at the time.
</p
>
7231 <p
>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
7232 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
7233 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
7234 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server. This
7235 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
7236 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
7237 package. I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.
</p
>
7239 <p
>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
7240 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
7241 password when mounting the SMB volume. A simple click on the shortcut
7242 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
7245 <p
>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
7246 Debian Edu. We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
7247 also Samba. Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.
</p
>
7249 <p
>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
7250 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
7251 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
7252 the release. It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
7253 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
7254 time for a alpha0 release today. As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
7255 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
7256 release another day.
</p
>
7258 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
7259 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
7264 <title>OpenStreetmap one step closer to having routing on its front page
</title>
7265 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenStreetmap_one_step_closer_to_having_routing_on_its_front_page.html
</link>
7266 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenStreetmap_one_step_closer_to_having_routing_on_its_front_page.html
</guid>
7267 <pubDate>Sun,
18 Jul
2010 16:
45:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7268 <description><p
>Thanks to
7269 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~
3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home
">todays
7270 opengeodata blog entry
</a
>, I just discovered that the
7271 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
7272 <a href=
"http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT
">support
7273 for calculating routes
</a
>. The support is still experimental and
7274 only available from the development server, until more experience is
7275 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.
</p
>
7277 <p
>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
7278 was provided by
<a href=
"http://maps.cloudmade.com/
">Cloudmade
</a
>,
7279 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
7280 the issue. I
've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
7281 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
7282 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
7283 www.openstreetmap.org front page.
</p
>
7288 <title>What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP
</title>
7289 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html
</link>
7290 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html
</guid>
7291 <pubDate>Sat,
17 Jul
2010 21:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7292 <description><p
>This is a
7293 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html
">followup
</a
>
7295 <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
7297 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html
">merging
7298 all
</a
> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.
</p
>
7300 <p
>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
7301 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
7302 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server. The two
7303 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.
</p
>
7305 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
7306 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
7307 on a Debian Edu main-server. Here is a summary.
7309 <p
><strong
>powerdns
</strong
></p
>
7311 <a href=
"http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend
">Clues
7312 on how to
</a
> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
7315 <p
>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
7316 One
"strict
" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
7317 using the same LDAP objects, and a
"tree
" mode where the forward and
7318 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
7319 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
7320 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.
</p
>
7322 <p
>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
7323 base, and uses a
"base
" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
7324 "dc=tjener,dc=intern,
" to the base with a filter for
7325 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)
" for the forward entry and
7326 "dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,
" with a filter for
7327 "(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)
" for the reverse entry. For
7328 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
7329 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
7330 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
7331 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
7332 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
7333 spfrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entries it is looking for
7334 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
7335 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
7336 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. The equivalent
7337 ldapsearch commands could look like this:
</p
>
7339 <blockquote
><pre
>
7340 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7341 -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7342 -s base -x
'(associateddomain=tjener.intern)
' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7343 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7344 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7345 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7346 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7348 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7349 -b dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7350 -s base -x
'(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)
'
7351 dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
7352 hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
7353 srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
7354 </pre
></blockquote
>
7356 <p
>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
7357 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
7358 example LDAP objects used there. In addition to these objects, the
7359 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7360 also exist.
</p
>
7362 <blockquote
><pre
>
7363 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7365 objectclass: dnsdomain
7366 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7369 associateddomain: tjener.intern
7371 dn: dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7373 objectclass: dnsdomain2
7374 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7376 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
7377 associateddomain:
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
7378 </pre
></blockquote
>
7380 <p
>In strict mode, the server behaves differently. When looking for
7381 forward DNS entries, it is doing a
"subtree
" scoped search with the
7382 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
7383 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)
" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
7384 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
7385 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
7386 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entires it also do a
7387 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is
"(arecord=
10.0.2.2)
"
7388 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
7389 modifytimestamp. In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
7390 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
7393 <p
>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
7394 like this:
</p
>
7396 <blockquote
><pre
>
7397 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7398 '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)
' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7399 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7400 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7401 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7402 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7404 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7405 '(arecord=
10.0.2.2)
' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
7406 </pre
></blockquote
>
7408 <p
>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
7409 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
7410 reverse lookups.
</p
>
7412 <p
>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
7413 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
7414 need to generate a DNS reply. This make it able to work with any
7415 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.
</p
>
7417 <p
>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC
1274) and
7418 dnsdomain2 schemas. The latter is used for reverse entries like
7419 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.
</p
>
7421 <p
>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
7422 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
7423 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain). The use
7424 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
7425 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.
</p
>
7427 <p
>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
7428 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
7429 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
7430 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
7431 (zonename and relativedomainname).
</p
>
7433 <p
>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
7434 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
7435 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
7436 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
7437 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
7438 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):
</p
>
7440 <blockquote
><pre
>
7441 objectclass ( some-oid NAME
'dnsDomainAux
'
7444 MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
7445 DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
7446 TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
7447 NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
7448 A6Record $ DNAMERecord
7450 </pre
></blockquote
>
7452 <p
>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
7453 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
7454 all the attributes PowerDNS wants. I
've sent an email to the PowerDNS
7455 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
7456 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
7457 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.
</p
>
7459 <p
><strong
>ISC dhcp
</strong
></p
>
7461 <p
>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
7462 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want. This
7463 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
7464 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
7465 what is needed without having to read the source code.
</p
>
7467 <p
>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
7468 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
7469 stored. These are the relevant entries from
7470 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:
</p
>
7472 <blockquote
><pre
>
7473 ldap-base-dn
"dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
";
7474 ldap-dhcp-server-cn
"dhcp
";
7475 </pre
></blockquote
>
7477 <p
>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
7478 configuration it need. The cn
"dhcp
" is located using the given LDAP
7479 base and the filter
"(
&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))
". The
7480 search result is this entry:
</p
>
7482 <blockquote
><pre
>
7483 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7486 objectClass: dhcpServer
7487 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7488 </pre
></blockquote
>
7490 <p
>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
7491 subtree with DHCP configuration. The DHCP configuration subtree base
7492 is located using a base scope search with base
"cn=DHCP
7493 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
" and filter
7494 "(
&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))
".
7495 The search result is this entry:
</p
>
7497 <blockquote
><pre
>
7498 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7501 objectClass: dhcpService
7502 objectClass: dhcpOptions
7503 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7504 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
7505 dhcpStatements: authoritative
7506 dhcpOption: smtp-server code
69 = array of ip-address
7507 dhcpOption: www-server code
72 = array of ip-address
7508 dhcpOption: wpad-url code
252 = text
7509 </pre
></blockquote
>
7511 <p
>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time. When
7512 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
7513 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
7514 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
7515 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost. These provide options
7516 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc. Leaving out the
7517 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
7518 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
7519 related computer objects.
</p
>
7521 <p
>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
7522 of the client (
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00 in this example), using a subtree
7523 scoped search with
"cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
" as
7524 the base and
"(
&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
7525 00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00))
" as the filter. This is what a host object look
7528 <blockquote
><pre
>
7529 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7532 objectClass: dhcpHost
7533 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
7534 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
7535 </pre
></blockquote
>
7537 <p
>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
7538 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
7539 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure. On the
7540 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
7541 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries. The latter should make
7542 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
7543 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
7544 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
7545 structural object class.
7547 <p
><strong
>Conclusion
</strong
></p
>
7549 <p
>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
7550 to which LDAP schemas to use. While its
"tree
" mode is rigid when it
7551 come to the the LDAP structure, the
"strict
" mode is very flexible,
7552 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
7553 in the configuration.
</p
>
7555 <p
>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
7556 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
7557 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
7558 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
7559 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
7560 structure.
</p
>
7562 <p
>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
7563 this might work for Debian Edu:
</p
>
7565 <blockquote
><pre
>
7567 cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
7568 cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
7569 cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7570 cn=
10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7571 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7572 cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7573 cn=
192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7574 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7575 ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
7576 cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
7577 </pre
></blockquote
>
7579 <P
>This is not tested yet. If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
7580 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
7581 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
7582 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.
</p
>
7584 <p
>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
7585 like this:
</p
>
7587 <blockquote
><pre
>
7588 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7591 objectClass: dhcpHost
7592 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7593 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
7594 associateddomain: hostname.intern
7595 arecord:
10.11.12.13
7596 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
7597 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
7598 </pre
></blockquote
>
7600 </p
>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
7601 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
7602 auxiliary object class.
</p
>
7607 <title>Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects
</title>
7608 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html
</link>
7609 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html
</guid>
7610 <pubDate>Wed,
14 Jul
2010 23:
45:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7611 <description><p
>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
7612 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
7613 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
7614 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
7615 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.
</p
>
7617 <p
>I
've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
7618 information finally found a solution that seem to work.
</p
>
7620 <p
>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
7621 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry. If
7622 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
7623 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
7624 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
7625 to a slave DNS server.
</p
>
7627 <p
>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
7628 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
7629 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
7630 I
've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
7631 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup. It
7632 seem to work.
</p
>
7634 <p
>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
7635 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
7636 an earlier email. The combined LDAP object will look something like
7639 <blockquote
><pre
>
7640 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7642 objectClass: dhcphost
7643 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7644 objectclass: dnsdomainaux
7645 associateddomain: hostname.intern
7646 arecord:
10.11.12.13
7647 dhcphwaddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
7648 dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
7650 </pre
></blockquote
>
7652 <p
>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
7653 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
7654 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress. LTSP will use
7655 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.
</p
>
7657 <p
>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
7658 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
7659 outside the
"DHCP Config
" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
7660 that. If I can
't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
7661 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
7662 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
7663 content. I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
7664 might be a good place to put it.
</p
>
7666 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7667 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
7672 <title>Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP
</title>
7673 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html
</link>
7674 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html
</guid>
7675 <pubDate>Sun,
11 Jul
2010 22:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7676 <description><p
>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
7677 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
7678 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
7679 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.
</p
>
7681 <p
>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
7682 to get configuration from LDAP. The idea is to look up the MAC
7683 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
7684 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
7685 LTSP clients.
</p
>
7687 <p
>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
7688 in a
"computer
" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
7689 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.
</p
>
7691 <p
>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
7692 this approach. A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
7693 need to be written. Comments, suggestions, etc?
</p
>
7695 <blockquote
><pre
>
7696 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
7698 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
7700 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
7701 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
7702 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
7704 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
7705 # existence of attribute names.
7707 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
7708 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
7709 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
7711 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
7712 # configuration settings. Something like this should work:
7714 # objectclass (
1.1.2.2 NAME
'ltspClientAux
'
7717 # MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
7719 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
7720 if [
"$LDAPSERVER
" ] ; then
7721 LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
7722 for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk
'{print $
5}
'|sort -u) ; do
7723 filter=
"(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))
"
7724 ldapsearch -h
"$LDAPSERVER
" -b
"$LDAPBASE
" -v -x
"$filter
" | \
7725 grep
'^ltspConfig
' | while read attr value ; do
7726 # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
7727 attr=$(echo $attr | sed
's/^ltspConfig//i
' | tr a-z A-Z)
7728 # bass value on to clients
7729 eval
"$attr=$value; export $attr
"
7733 </pre
></blockquote
>
7735 <p
>I
'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
7736 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
7737 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
7738 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
7739 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)
</p
>
7741 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7742 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
7744 <p
>Update
2010-
07-
17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
7745 configuration in LDAP that was created around year
2000 by
7746 <a href=
"http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html
">PC
7747 Xperience, Inc.,
2000</a
>. I found its
7748 <a href=
"http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/
">files
</a
> on a
7749 personal home page over at redhat.com.
</p
>
7754 <title>jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI
</title>
7755 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html
</link>
7756 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html
</guid>
7757 <pubDate>Fri,
9 Jul
2010 12:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7758 <description><p
>Since
7759 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html
">my
7760 last post
</a
> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
7761 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma. The java application
7762 <a href=
"http://jxplorer.org/
">jXplorer
</a
> is claimed to be capable of
7763 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
7764 authenticate using Kerberos. I have only tested the Kerberos
7765 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
7766 LDAP with my test user yet. It is
7767 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html
">available in
7768 Debian
</a
> testing and unstable at the moment. The only problem I
7769 have with it is how it handle errors. If something go wrong, its
7770 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
7771 and remove the failing query. Nothing big, but very annoying.
</p
>
7776 <title>Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop
</title>
7777 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html
</link>
7778 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html
</guid>
7779 <pubDate>Sat,
3 Jul
2010 23:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7780 <description><p
>Here is a short update on my
<a
7781 href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">my
7782 Debian Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrade testing
</a
>. Here is a summary of the
7783 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude. I
'm
7784 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
7785 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
7786 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
584861">#
584861</a
> and
7787 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
585716">#
585716</a
>).
</p
>
7789 <p
>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
7790 complete list of the installed packages. Based on this I see these
7791 differences when I did a test run today. As usual, I do not really
7792 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
7793 publish the difference.
</p
>
7795 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
7797 <blockquote
><p
>
7798 at-spi cpp-
4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7799 libatspi1.0-
0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-
1-common
7800 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
7801 libgtksourceview-common libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7802 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
7803 libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7804 python-
4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
7805 python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
7806 </p
></blockquote
>
7808 <p
>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p
>
7810 <blockquote
><p
>
7811 bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
7812 gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
7813 libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-
50
7814 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
7815 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9
7816 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3
7817 libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7818 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
7819 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
7820 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-
0
7821 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
7822 libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++
10
7823 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
7824 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5
7825 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
7826 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
7827 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1
7828 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
7829 libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
7830 mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
7831 </p
></blockquote
>
7833 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
7835 <blockquote
><p
>
7836 gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
7837 python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
7838 xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7839 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7840 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
7841 xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
7842 xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
7843 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7844 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7845 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7846 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7847 xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
7848 xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
7849 xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
7850 xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
7851 xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
7852 xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
7853 xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
7854 xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
7855 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
7856 xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
7857 </p
></blockquote
>
7859 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
7861 <blockquote
><p
>
7862 deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
7863 xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
7864 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
7865 </p
></blockquote
>
7867 <p
>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
7868 <a href=
"http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=
9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120
">changed
7869 in git
</a
> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
7870 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
7871 the difference somewhat.
7876 <title>Caching password, user and group on a roaming Debian laptop
</title>
7877 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Caching_password__user_and_group_on_a_roaming_Debian_laptop.html
</link>
7878 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Caching_password__user_and_group_on_a_roaming_Debian_laptop.html
</guid>
7879 <pubDate>Thu,
1 Jul
2010 11:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7880 <description><p
>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
7881 a bit troubling. Laptops are typically used also when not connected
7882 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
7883 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
7884 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
7885 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
7886 in Debian. Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
7887 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
7888 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.
</p
>
7890 <h2
>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir
</h2
>
7892 This is the traditional method with a twist. The password caching is
7893 provided by libpam-ccreds (version
10-
4 or later is needed on
7894 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd. The directory
7895 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP. If one want to use
7896 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
7897 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal. If one is happy having a
7898 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
7899 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
7900 using libpam-mklocaluser. A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
7901 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
7902 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
568577">bug #
568577</a
> is in the
7903 archive. Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
7904 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
7905 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/. This
7906 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.
</p
>
7908 <p
>These packages need to be installed and configured
</p
>
7910 <blockquote
><pre
>
7911 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
7912 </pre
></blockquote
>
7914 <p
>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
7915 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site. Make sure the
7916 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
7917 sent in clear text to the LDAP server. I
've been unable to get TLS
7918 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
7919 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
7920 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
7921 on how to get this working.
</p
>
7923 <p
>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
7924 caching until
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
485282">bug #
485282</a
>
7925 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
7926 currently in /etc/nscd.conf. The changes are in the fields
7927 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
7928 instructions I found in the
7929 <a href=
"http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/
">LDAP for Mobile Laptops
</a
>
7930 instructions by Flyn Computing.
</p
>
7932 <blockquote
><pre
>
7934 reload-count unlimited
7937 enable-cache passwd yes
7938 positive-time-to-live passwd
2592000
7939 negative-time-to-live passwd
20
7940 suggested-size passwd
211
7941 check-files passwd yes
7942 persistent passwd yes
7944 max-db-size passwd
33554432
7945 auto-propagate passwd yes
7947 enable-cache group yes
7948 positive-time-to-live group
2592000
7949 negative-time-to-live group
20
7950 suggested-size group
211
7951 check-files group yes
7952 persistent group yes
7954 max-db-size group
33554432
7955 auto-propagate group yes
7957 enable-cache hosts no
7958 positive-time-to-live hosts
2592000
7959 negative-time-to-live hosts
20
7960 suggested-size hosts
211
7961 check-files hosts yes
7962 persistent hosts yes
7964 max-db-size hosts
33554432
7966 enable-cache services yes
7967 positive-time-to-live services
2592000
7968 negative-time-to-live services
20
7969 suggested-size services
211
7970 check-files services yes
7971 persistent services yes
7973 max-db-size services
33554432
7974 </pre
></blockquote
>
7976 <p
>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
7977 automatically like the one provided in
7978 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
496915">bug #
496915</a
>, the file
7979 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
7980 directory service on the machine. /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
7981 look like this:
</p
>
7983 <blockquote
><pre
>
7987 hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
7993 netgroup: files ldap
7994 </pre
></blockquote
>
7996 <p
>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
7997 shadow and netgroup.
</p
>
7999 <p
>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
8000 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
8001 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
8004 <h2
>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
8005 libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir
</h2
>
8007 <p
>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
8008 problems doing proper caching, I
've seen suggestions and recipes to
8009 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
8010 LDAP database is available. I have not tested such setup, because I
8011 discovered sssd.
</p
>
8013 <h2
>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser
</h2
>
8015 <p
>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
8016 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
8017 <a href=
"https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/
">sssd
</a
> package from Redhat.
8018 It is part of the
<a href=
"http://www.freeipa.org/
">FreeIPA
</A
> project
8019 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
8020 machines. The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
8021 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
8022 libpam-ccreds. It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS. Version
8023 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
8024 in version
1.5 expected to show up later in
2010. Because the
8025 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html
">sssd package
</a
>
8026 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
8027 version
1.2 is now in testing.
8029 <p
>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
8030 roaming setup I want
</p
>
8032 <blockquote
><pre
>
8033 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
8034 </pre
></blockquote
>
8036 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
8037 <tt
>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf
</tt
>.
8039 <blockquote
><pre
>
8041 config_file_version =
2
8042 reconnection_retries =
3
8048 filter_groups = root
8050 reconnection_retries =
3
8053 reconnection_retries =
3
8057 cache_credentials = true
8060 auth_provider = ldap
8061 chpass_provider = ldap
8063 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
8064 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8065 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
8066 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
8067 </pre
></blockquote
>
8069 <p
>I got the same problem here with certificate checking. Had to set
8070 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never
" to get it working.
</p
>
8072 <p
>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
8073 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
8074 modify it manually.
</p
>
8076 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8077 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
8082 <title>LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI
</title>
8083 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html
</link>
8084 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html
</guid>
8085 <pubDate>Mon,
28 Jun
2010 00:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8086 <description><p
>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
8087 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
8088 tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in
8089 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
8090 <a href=
"http://luma.sourceforge.net/
">LUMA
</a
>, which has proved to
8091 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
8092 populated by default in Skolelinux. Thanks to it, I have been able to
8093 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
8094 objects. It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze. If you
8095 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)
</p
>
8097 <p
>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
8098 the BTS yet. There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
8099 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
8100 Debian submenu in KDE. I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
8103 <p
>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet. I would
8104 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
8105 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet. So in the mean time, I use
8106 <a href=
"http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/
">ldapvi
</a
> for that.
</p
>
8108 <p
>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
8109 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
8111 <p
>Update
2010-
06-
29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
8112 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html
">gq
</a
> package as a
8113 useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
8114 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that
8115 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.
</p
>
8120 <title>Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object
</title>
8121 <link>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
</link>
8122 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">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
</guid>
8123 <pubDate>Thu,
24 Jun
2010 00:
35:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8124 <description><p
>A while back, I
8125 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html
">complained
8126 about the fact
</a
> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
8127 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
8128 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.
</p
>
8130 <p
>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
8131 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
8132 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
8133 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.
</p
>
8135 <p
>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
8136 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
8137 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
8138 Debian Edu.
</p
>
8140 <p
>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
8142 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-
00">DHCP
8143 schema
</a
> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
8144 available today from IETF.
</p
>
8147 --- dhcp.schema (revision
65192)
8148 +++ dhcp.schema (working copy)
8150 objectclass (
2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
8151 NAME
'dhcpHost
'
8152 DESC
'This represents information about a particular client
'
8156 MAY (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
8157 X-NDS_CONTAINMENT (
'dhcpService
' 'dhcpSubnet
' 'dhcpGroup
') )
8160 <p
>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
8161 Edu/Squeeze. We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
8162 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.
</p
>
8164 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8165 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
8170 <title>Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output
</title>
8171 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html
</link>
8172 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html
</guid>
8173 <pubDate>Wed,
16 Jun
2010 14:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8174 <description><p
>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
8175 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now,
8176 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
8177 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
8178 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
8181 <blockquote
><pre
>
8182 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8183 tasksel --new-install
8184 </pre
></blockquote
>
8186 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
8187 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
8188 any output what so ever.
8190 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
8191 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
8192 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
8193 happen. Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
8194 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
8195 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run. I ended up using
8198 <blockquote
><pre
>
8199 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8200 cmd=
"$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed
's/debconf-apt-progress -- //
')
"
8202 </pre
></blockquote
>
8204 <p
>The content of $cmd is typically something like
"<tt
>aptitude -q
8205 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
8206 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
8207 ~pimportant
</tt
>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
8208 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
8209 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
8210 installation.
</p
>
8212 <p
>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
8213 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
8214 like this.
</p
>
8219 <title>Officeshots taking shape
</title>
8220 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html
</link>
8221 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html
</guid>
8222 <pubDate>Sun,
13 Jun
2010 11:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8223 <description><p
>For those of us caring about document exchange and
8224 interoperability,
<a href=
"http://www.officeshots.org/
">OfficeShots
</a
>
8225 is a great service. It is to ODF documents what
8226 <a href=
"http://browsershots.org/
">BrowserShots
</a
> is for web
8229 <p
>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
8230 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
8231 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
8232 interested in supporting the project. I helped him to navigate his
8233 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
8234 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
8235 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot. The machine is
8236 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
8237 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
8238 see how the project is doing.
</p
>
8240 <p
>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
8241 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
8242 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
8243 in
17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
8244 Windows. This is great.
</p
>
8249 <title>Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude
</title>
8250 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html
</link>
8251 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html
</guid>
8252 <pubDate>Sun,
13 Jun
2010 09:
05:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8253 <description><p
>My
8254 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">testing
8255 of Debian upgrades
</a
> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I
've
8256 finally made the upgrade logs available from
8257 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
</a
>.
8258 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
8259 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting. This time
8260 I will only focus on their removal plans.
</p
>
8262 <p
>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
8263 to remove
72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze. The
8264 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
8265 xserver-xorg-video* drivers. Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
8266 sure why. When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove
129
8267 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
8268 longer needed. Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
8269 I do not know. Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?
</p
>
8271 <p
>For KDE, apt-get want to remove
82 packages, among them kdebase
8272 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
8273 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove
192 packages, none which are
8274 too surprising.
</p
>
8276 <p
>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
8277 and avoided, and perhaps others as well. Here are the complete list
8278 of planned removals. The complete logs is available from the URL
8279 above. Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
8280 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
8281 conffile questions. No idea why. I worked around it by using
8282 '<tt
>echo
>> /proc/
<em
>pidofdpkg
</em
>/fd/
0</tt
>' to tell dpkg to
8285 <p
><b
>apt-get gnome
72</b
>
8286 <br
>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
8287 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
8288 iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-
1-
0
8289 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
8290 nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
8291 serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
8292 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8293 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8294 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
8295 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
8296 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
8297 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
8298 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8299 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8300 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8301 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8302 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8303 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
8304 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
8305 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
8306 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
8307 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
8308 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
8309 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
8310 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
8311 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
8312 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
8313 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-
1.9
8314 xulrunner-
1.9-gnome-support
</p
>
8316 <p
><b
>aptitude gnome
129</b
>
8318 <br
>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-
4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
8319 djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
8320 gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
8321 gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
8322 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
8323 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
8324 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-
9 libeel2-
2.20
8325 libeel2-data libepc-
1.0-
1 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libfaad0 libgail-common
8326 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libgdl-
1-
0 libgdl-
1-common
8327 libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0
8328 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
8329 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
8330 libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-
0
8331 libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgucharmap6
8332 libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++
10
8333 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
8334 libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2
8335 libosp5 libparted1.8-
10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-
1.10.10
8336 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-
8
8337 libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8 libssh2-
1
8338 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
8339 libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
8340 libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
8341 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
8342 openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
8343 python-
4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
8344 python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
8345 python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
8346 swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
8347 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8348 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
8351 <p
><b
>apt-get kde
82</b
>
8353 <br
>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
8354 kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
8355 kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
8356 kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
8357 kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
8358 libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
8359 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8360 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8361 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
8362 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
8363 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
8364 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
8365 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8366 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8367 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8368 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8369 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8370 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
8371 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
8372 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
8373 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
8374 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
8375 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
8376 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
8377 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
8378 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
8379 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
8380 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-
1.9</p
>
8382 <p
><b
>aptitude kde
192</b
>
8383 <br
>bluez-utils cpp-
4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
8384 djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8385 ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
8386 kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
8387 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
8388 kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
8389 kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
8390 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8391 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
8392 kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
8393 kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
8394 klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
8395 kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
8396 krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
8397 ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
8398 kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
8399 kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8400 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8401 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-
0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
8402 libboost-python1.34
.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
8403 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8404 libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-
0
8405 libicu38 libiec61883-
0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
8406 libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8407 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8408 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
8409 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
8410 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-
8 libsmbios2
8411 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
8412 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
8413 libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
8414 openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
8415 superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
8416 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
8417 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8418 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
8419 xulrunner-
1.9</p
>
8425 <title>Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze
</title>
8426 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
</link>
8427 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
</guid>
8428 <pubDate>Fri,
11 Jun
2010 22:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8429 <description><p
>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
8430 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs
8431 have been discovered and reported in the process
8432 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
585410">#
585410</a
> in nagios3-cgi,
8433 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
584879">#
584879</a
> already fixed in
8434 enscript and
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
584861">#
584861</a
> in
8435 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
8436 am working on a script to automate the test.
</p
>
8438 <p
>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
8439 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
8440 it. To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
8441 script is inserted. To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
8442 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
8443 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).
</p
>
8445 <p
>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
8446 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
8447 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8448 is created. The bug report
8449 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
566000">#
566000</a
> make me suspect
8450 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
8451 to make sure the upgrade go well. Testing on virtual and real
8452 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
8453 do the trick in such settings anyway. This is a
8454 <a href=
"http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-
26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-
804130/
">known
8455 issue
</a
> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
8456 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
8457 working with old kernels or something like that. I really wish the
8458 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
8459 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
8460 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
8461 Debian Squeeze.
</p
>
8463 <p
>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades. This test
8464 script, which I call
<tt
>upgrade-test
</tt
> for now, is doing the
8467 <blockquote
><pre
>
8471 if [
"$
1" ] ; then
8480 exec
&lt; /dev/null
8482 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
8483 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
8485 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
8486 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8487 cat
> $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
&lt;
&lt;EOF
8491 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
8495 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
8496 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
8497 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
8499 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
8501 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger. It need the test scripts
8502 # to return the correct answers.
8503 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
8504 chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
8506 # Include the desktop and laptop task
8507 for test in desktop laptop ; do
8508 echo
> $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
&lt;
&lt;EOF
8512 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
8515 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8516 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
8517 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
8518 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
8520 echo deb $mirror $to main
> $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
8521 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8522 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8523 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
8525 </pre
></blockquote
>
8527 <p
>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
8528 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
8529 differently so far. I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
8530 regularly and post the result on the web. The Gnome upgrade currently
8531 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
8532 kdebase-workspace-data
</p
>
8534 <p
>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
8535 (KDE
167 KiB, Gnome
516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
8536 post, so I will refrain from trying. I can report that for Gnome,
8537 aptitude report
760 packages upgraded,
448 newly installed,
129 to
8538 remove and
1 not upgraded and
1024MB need to be downloaded while for
8539 KDE the same numbers are
702 packages upgraded,
507 newly installed,
8540 193 to remove and
0 not upgraded and
1117MB need to be downloaded
</p
>
8542 <p
>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
8543 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
8544 booting without a hitch. Was unsure if there were still bugs with
8545 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
8546 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
8552 <title>Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it
</title>
8553 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html
</link>
8554 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html
</guid>
8555 <pubDate>Sun,
6 Jun
2010 23:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8556 <description><p
>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
8557 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
8558 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such
8559 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
8560 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart. Because of
8561 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
8562 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.
</p
>
8564 <p
>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
8565 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
8568 <blockquote
><pre
>
8574 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
8576 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
8577 </pre
></blockquote
>
8579 <p
>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
8582 <blockquote
><pre
>
8583 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-
2.88
8588 </pre
></blockquote
>
8590 <p
>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
8591 sysvinit are not set by upstart. Not sure if it is intentional or not
8592 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.
</p
>
8594 <p
>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
8595 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
8601 <title>A manual for standards wars...
</title>
8602 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html
</link>
8603 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html
</guid>
8604 <pubDate>Sun,
6 Jun
2010 14:
15:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8605 <description><p
>Via the
8606 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~
3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-
10.html
">blog
8607 of Rob Weir
</a
> I came across the very interesting essay named
8608 <a href=
"http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf
">The Art of
8609 Standards Wars
</a
> (PDF
25 pages). I recommend it for everyone
8610 following the standards wars of today.
</p
>
8615 <title>Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site
</title>
8616 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html
</link>
8617 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html
</guid>
8618 <pubDate>Thu,
3 Jun
2010 12:
05:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8619 <description><p
>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
8620 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
8621 information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is
8622 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
8623 the Skolelinux build servers:
</p
>
8625 <blockquote
><pre
>
8626 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
8628 Dell Computer Corporation
1
8631 eserver xSeries
345 -[
8670M1X]-
1
8635 </pre
></blockquote
>
8637 <p
>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
8638 provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model
8639 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
8640 machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line
8641 option to list the individual machines.
</p
>
8643 <p
>A larger list is
8644 <a href=
"http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/
">available from the the
8645 city of Narvik
</a
>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
8646 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly. In their report there
8647 are ~
1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
8648 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
8649 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
8650 collector.
</p
>
8655 <title>KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?
</title>
8656 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html
</link>
8657 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html
</guid>
8658 <pubDate>Tue,
1 Jun
2010 17:
05:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8659 <description><p
>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
8660 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The
8661 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
8662 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
8665 <p
>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
8666 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
583312">#
583312</a
> initially filed
8667 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
8668 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
8669 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
524751">#
524751</a
> initially filed against
8670 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.
</p
>
8672 <p
>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
8673 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
8674 distribution work out of the box for these users. The nvidia driver
8675 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
8676 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
8677 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
8678 distribution that work for them. I have no idea what the solution is,
8679 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.
</p
>
8681 <p
>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.
</p
>
8686 <title>Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing
</title>
8687 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html
</link>
8688 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html
</guid>
8689 <pubDate>Thu,
27 May
2010 23:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8690 <description><p
>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
8691 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
8692 issues are known and should be solved:
8696 <li
>The wicd package seen to
8697 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
508289">break NFS mounting
</a
> and
8698 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
581586">network setup
</a
> when
8699 parallel booting is enabled. No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
8700 seem to be on the case.
</li
>
8702 <li
>The nvidia X driver seem to
8703 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
583312">have a race condition
</a
>
8704 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect. The
8705 maintainer is on the case.
</li
>
8707 <li
>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
8708 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
8709 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
575080">try to switch back
</a
> to
8710 sysv-rc. One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
8711 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
8712 sysv-rc more robust. Will investigate some more and probably upload a
8713 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
8714 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.
</li
>
8716 </ul
></p
>
8718 <p
>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
8719 solvable before Squeeze is released. In addition to these there are
8720 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
8721 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.
</p
>
8723 <p
>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8724 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8725 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
">the
8726 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a
>.
</p
>
8728 <p
>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.
</p
>
8733 <title>More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer
</title>
8734 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html
</link>
8735 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html
</guid>
8736 <pubDate>Sat,
22 May
2010 21:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8737 <description><p
>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
8738 found time today to return to the project. Having to spend less time
8739 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
8740 definitely helped freeing some time.
</p
>
8742 <p
>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu. We
8743 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
8744 get disk and network controllers working. Without having these
8745 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
8746 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
8747 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
8748 an external medium is a support pain. Initially, I expected it to be
8749 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
8750 debian-installer to find and use them. This proved to be wrong.
8751 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
8752 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
8753 /cdrom/firmware/). This also proved to not work, and at this point I
8754 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
8755 going to work.
</p
>
8757 <p
>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
8758 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
8759 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
8760 packages. It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
8761 "external
" media devices. Today I changed it to also look in the
8762 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
8763 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu. I also changed it to
8764 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
8765 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
8766 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
8769 <p
>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
8770 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
8771 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
8772 run these before activating the firmware during installation. The
8773 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
8774 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.
</p
>
8776 <p
>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
8777 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
8782 <title>Pieces of the roaming laptop puzzle in Debian
</title>
8783 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pieces_of_the_roaming_laptop_puzzle_in_Debian.html
</link>
8784 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pieces_of_the_roaming_laptop_puzzle_in_Debian.html
</guid>
8785 <pubDate>Wed,
19 May
2010 19:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8786 <description><p
>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
8787 Edu finally entered the Debian archive. Today, the new
8788 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html
">libpam-mklocaluser
</a
>
8789 package was accepted. Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
8791 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html
">pam-python
</a
>
8792 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
8793 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html
">sssd
</a
> package
8794 passed NEW on Monday. In addition, the
8795 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html
">libpam-ccreds
</a
>
8796 package we need is in experimental (version
10-
4) since Saturday, and
8797 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.
</p
>
8799 <p
>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
8800 roaming laptops. The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
8801 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
8802 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
8803 for nscd in
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
485282">BTS report
8804 #
485282</a
> is implemented. The alternative setup is to use sssd with
8805 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
8806 care of the caching of passwords and group information.
</p
>
8808 <p
>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
8809 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
8810 problem with the server certificate. I plan to update the Debian
8811 package to version
1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
8812 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
8813 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches. Upstream is friendly and responsive,
8814 and I am sure we will find a good solution.
</p
>
8816 <p
>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
8817 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
8818 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
8819 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
8820 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information. The
8821 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
8822 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
8823 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used. To avoid confusion
8824 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
8825 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
8826 on the home directory servers.
</p
>
8828 <p
>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
8829 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
8830 is created. Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
8831 message. The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
8832 a bug in gdm. Have not investigated if there is some other message
8833 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.
</p
>
8835 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8836 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
8841 <title>Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable
</title>
8842 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html
</link>
8843 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html
</guid>
8844 <pubDate>Fri,
14 May
2010 22:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8845 <description><p
>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
8846 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
8847 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
8848 expected, if I am to believe the
8849 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg00122.html
">input
8850 on debian-devel@
</a
>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
8851 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
8852 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen. If serious problems are
8853 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
8854 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
8857 More information about
8858 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot
">dependency
8859 based boot sequencing
</a
> is available from the Debian wiki. It is
8860 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
8861 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:
</p
>
8863 <blockquote
><pre
>
8865 </pre
></blockquote
>
8867 <p
>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8868 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8869 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
">the
8870 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a
>.
</p
>
8875 <title>Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients
</title>
8876 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html
</link>
8877 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html
</guid>
8878 <pubDate>Fri,
14 May
2010 21:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8879 <description><p
>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
8880 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary
">sitesummary
8881 system
</a
> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
8882 network. Each machine will automatically report its status to the
8883 central server after boot and once per night. The network setup is
8884 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
8885 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines. This is useful
8886 to update the DHCP configuration.
</p
>
8888 <p
>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
8889 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary. Run
8890 this on the collector host:
</p
>
8892 <blockquote
><pre
>
8893 perl -MSiteSummary -e
'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(
" ", get_macaddresses(shift)),
"\n
"; });
'
8894 </pre
></blockquote
>
8896 <p
>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
8897 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.
</p
>
8899 <p
>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
8900 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
8901 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
8902 tables in LDAP using this information. Such tool is unfortunately not
8903 written yet.
</p
>
8908 <title>systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart
</title>
8909 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html
</link>
8910 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html
</guid>
8911 <pubDate>Thu,
13 May
2010 22:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8912 <description><p
>The last few days a new boot system called
8913 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd
">systemd
</a
>
8915 <a href=
"http://
0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html
">introduced
</a
>
8917 to the free software world. I have not yet had time to play around
8918 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
8919 <a href=
"http://upstart.ubuntu.com/
">upstart
</a
>, and might prove to be
8920 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
8921 based boot system. Tollef is
8922 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
580814">in the process
</a
> of getting
8923 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work. I
8924 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
8925 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
8926 at the moment do not.
</p
>
8928 <p
>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
8929 platform support. It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
8930 some new kernel features enabled to function properly. This means
8931 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
8932 system. Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
8933 way forward.
</p
>
8935 <p
>In the mean time, based on the
8936 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg00122.html
">input
8937 on debian-devel@
</a
> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
8938 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
8939 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
8940 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies. A
8941 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
8942 already in experimental. If all go well, Squeeze will be released
8943 with parallel booting enabled by default.
</p
>
8948 <title>Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing
</title>
8949 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html
</link>
8950 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html
</guid>
8951 <pubDate>Thu,
6 May
2010 23:
25:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8952 <description><p
>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
8953 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
8954 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies. If you want
8955 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
8956 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot
">dependency
8957 based boot sequencing
</a
> is enabled, and add this line to
8958 /etc/default/rcS:
</p
>
8960 <blockquote
><pre
>
8961 CONCURRENCY=makefile
8962 </pre
></blockquote
>
8964 <p
>That is it. It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
8965 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
8966 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
8967 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts. Startpar is configured
8968 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
8969 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
8970 make this happen.
</p
>
8972 <p
>Give it a try, and see if you like the result. If some services
8973 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
8974 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
8975 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies). Report bugs and get
8976 the package maintainers to fix it. :)
</p
>
8978 <p
>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
8979 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct. I
8980 expect we will get there in Squeeze+
1, if we get manage to test and
8981 fix the remaining issues.
</p
>
8983 <p
>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8984 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8985 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
">the
8986 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a
>.
</p
>
8991 <title>Forcing new users to change their password on first login
</title>
8992 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Forcing_new_users_to_change_their_password_on_first_login.html
</link>
8993 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Forcing_new_users_to_change_their_password_on_first_login.html
</guid>
8994 <pubDate>Sun,
2 May
2010 13:
47:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
8995 <description><p
>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
8996 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
8997 change the password on the first login attempt.
</p
>
8999 <p
>I
'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
9000 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account. The account
9001 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
9002 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
9003 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.
</p
>
9005 <p
>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
9006 settings in /etc/shadow:
</p
>
9008 <blockquote
><pre
>
9009 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
9010 Last password change : May
02,
2010
9011 Password expires : never
9012 Password inactive : never
9013 Account expires : never
9014 Minimum number of days between password change :
0
9015 Maximum number of days between password change :
99999
9016 Number of days of warning before password expires :
7
9018 </pre
></blockquote
>
9020 <p
>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
9021 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
9022 lowest value possible (January
1th
1970), and the maximum password age
9023 to the difference in days between that date and today. To make it
9024 simple, I went for
30 years (
30 *
365 =
10950) and January
2th (to
9025 avoid testing if
0 is a valid value).
</p
>
9027 <p
>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
9030 <blockquote
><pre
>
9031 root@tjener:~# chage -d
1 test; chage -M
10950 test
9032 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
9033 Last password change : Jan
02,
1970
9034 Password expires : never
9035 Password inactive : never
9036 Account expires : never
9037 Minimum number of days between password change :
0
9038 Maximum number of days between password change :
10950
9039 Number of days of warning before password expires :
7
9041 </pre
></blockquote
>
9043 <p
>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
9044 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
9045 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).
</p
>
9047 <p
>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
9048 sure only the user itself have the account password?
</p
>
9050 <p
>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
9051 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
9053 <p
>Update
2010-
05-
02 17:
20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
9054 shadow(
8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
9055 last password change to zero (
0) will force the password to be changed
9056 on the first login. This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
9057 I did not notice this in my initial testing. I have tested it on
9058 Squeeze, and
'<tt
>chage -d
0 username
</tt
>' do work there. I have not
9059 tested it on Lenny yet.
</p
>
9061 <p
>Update
2010-
05-
02-
19:
05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
9062 equivalent command to expire a password is
'<tt
>passwd -e
9063 username
</tt
>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
9069 <title>Thoughts on roaming laptop setup for Debian Edu
</title>
9070 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thoughts_on_roaming_laptop_setup_for_Debian_Edu.html
</link>
9071 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thoughts_on_roaming_laptop_setup_for_Debian_Edu.html
</guid>
9072 <pubDate>Wed,
28 Apr
2010 20:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9073 <description><p
>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
9074 Debian Edu. The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
9075 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
9078 <p
>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
9079 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
9080 example called Roaming Workstations. Here are my thought on this.
9081 The setup would consist of the following:
</p
>
9085 <li
>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
9086 the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
9087 the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
9088 server. This allow the user to work also when offline. The
9089 central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
9090 request, for example mounted via CIFS. It could be mounted
9091 automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
9092 and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
9093 hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
9094 request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
9095 can be used to access it when needed. Perhaps it is enough to use
9096 the fish protocol in KDE?
</li
>
9098 <li
>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
9099 authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
9100 to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
9101 to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server. This can be done using
9102 <a href=
"http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html
">libpam-ccreds
</a
>
9103 or the Fedora developed
9104 <a href=
"https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD
">System
9105 Security Services Daemon
</a
> packages.
</li
>
9107 <li
>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
9108 using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
9109 directory, using unison.
</li
>
9111 <li
>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
9112 their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
9113 the box with CUPS. For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
9114 system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
9115 implemented.
</li
>
9117 <li
>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
9118 sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.
</li
>
9120 <li
>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
9121 cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
9122 local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.
</li
>
9126 <p
>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
9127 the moment. If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
9128 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze. Some of the pieces need
9129 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
9130 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
566718">#
566718</a
>) and nslcd (or
9131 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
9132 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
9133 when disconnected from the net. If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
9134 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.
</p
>
9136 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9137 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
9142 <title>Great book:
"Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future
"</title>
9143 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Great_book___Content__Selected_Essays_on_Technology__Creativity__Copyright__and_the_Future_of_the_Future_.html
</link>
9144 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Great_book___Content__Selected_Essays_on_Technology__Creativity__Copyright__and_the_Future_of_the_Future_.html
</guid>
9145 <pubDate>Mon,
19 Apr
2010 17:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9146 <description><p
>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
9147 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
9148 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
9149 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
9150 book titled
"Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
9151 Copyright, and the Future of the Future
" is available with few
9152 restrictions on the web, for example from
9153 <a href=
"http://craphound.com/content/
">his own site
</a
>. I read the
9155 <a href=
"http://www.feedbooks.com/book/
2883">feedbooks
</a
> using
9156 <a href=
"http://www.fbreader.org/
">fbreader
</a
> and my N810. I
9157 strongly recommend this book.
</p
>
9162 <title>Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?
</title>
9163 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html
</link>
9164 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html
</guid>
9165 <pubDate>Wed,
14 Apr
2010 17:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9166 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/
20100413-kerberos/
">Yesterdays
9167 NUUG presentation
</a
> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
9168 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux. Setting up a
9169 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
9170 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
9171 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
9172 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
9173 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
9174 users and cryptographic keys instead.
</p
>
9176 <p
>A challenge will be integration and administration. Is there a
9177 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
9178 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups? With it, the
9179 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
9180 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.
</p
>
9182 <p
>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
9183 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together. Anyone know?
</p
>
9185 <p
>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
9186 Nagios. I have no idea how much work that will be to implement. We
9187 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
9188 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
9189 to work properly.
</p
>
9191 <p
>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
9192 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
9193 configuration and integration. A natural starting point would be
9194 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
9195 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
9198 <p
>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
9199 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
9200 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home. The video show show
9201 up in a few days.
</p
>
9206 <title>After
6 years of waiting, the Xreset.d feature is implemented
</title>
9207 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/After_6_years_of_waiting__the_Xreset_d_feature_is_implemented.html
</link>
9208 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/After_6_years_of_waiting__the_Xreset_d_feature_is_implemented.html
</guid>
9209 <pubDate>Sat,
6 Mar
2010 18:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
9210 <description><p
>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
9211 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
9212 when the user log out. A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
9213 package in
2004 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
230422">#
230422</a
>),
9214 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
9215 Today, this finally paid off.
</p
>
9217 <p
>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
9218 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
9219 been updated to use this framework. Next on my agenda is to make sure
9220 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.
</p
>
9222 <p
>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
9223 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
9224 after a user. With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
9225 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
9226 framework. My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
9227 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.
<p
>
9232 <title>Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Lenny released, work continues
</title>
9233 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Lenny_released__work_continues.html
</link>
9234 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Lenny_released__work_continues.html
</guid>
9235 <pubDate>Thu,
11 Feb
2010 17:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
9236 <description><p
>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
9237 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Skolelinux
</a
> was finally
9238 shipped. This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
9239 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up. Work on the first
9240 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
9241 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
9242 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.
</p
>
9244 <p
>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?
</p
>
9246 <p
>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
9247 next major release, based on Squeeze. We will try to get as many of
9248 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
9249 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.
</p
>
9254 <title>Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration
</title>
9255 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html
</link>
9256 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html
</guid>
9257 <pubDate>Wed,
27 Jan
2010 15:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
9258 <description><p
>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
9259 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
9260 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
9261 Nagios. The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
9262 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
9265 <p
>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
9266 configured as a Munin and Nagios server. In addition, it is
9267 configured to be a server for the
9268 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary
">SiteSummary
9269 system
</a
> I have written for use in Debian Edu. The SiteSummary
9270 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
9271 work. In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
9272 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
9273 computer submitting information to this collector. This allow for
9274 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
9275 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
9276 packages got etc. This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
9277 and Nagios configuration.
</p
>
9279 <p
>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
9280 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
9281 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
9282 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.
</p
>
9284 <p
>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
9285 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
9286 services detected). In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
9287 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
9288 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
9289 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
9290 the machine.
</p
>
9292 <p
>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
9293 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
9294 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
9295 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.
</p
>
9297 <p
>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
9298 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP. The system
9299 administrator need to run
"<tt
>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
9300 nagiosadmin
</tt
>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
9301 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages. After that,
9302 everything is taken care of.
</p
>
9307 <title>Relative popularity of document formats (MS Office vs. ODF)
</title>
9308 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Relative_popularity_of_document_formats__MS_Office_vs__ODF_.html
</link>
9309 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Relative_popularity_of_document_formats__MS_Office_vs__ODF_.html
</guid>
9310 <pubDate>Wed,
12 Aug
2009 15:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9311 <description><p
>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
9312 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
9313 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage. I searched using
9314 'filetype:odt
' and equvalent terms, and got these results:
</P
>
9317 <tr
><th
>Type
</th
><th
>ODF
</th
><th
>MS Office
</th
></tr
>
9318 <tr
><td
>Tekst
</td
> <td
>odt:
282000</td
> <td
>docx:
308000</td
></tr
>
9319 <tr
><td
>Presentasjon
</td
> <td
>odp:
75600</td
> <td
>pptx:
183000</td
></tr
>
9320 <tr
><td
>Regneark
</td
> <td
>ods:
26500 </td
> <td
>xlsx:
145000</td
></tr
>
9323 <p
>Next, I added a
'site:no
' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
9324 got these numbers:
</p
>
9327 <tr
><th
>Type
</th
><th
>ODF
</th
><th
>MS Office
</th
></tr
>
9328 <tr
><td
>Tekst
</td
> <td
>odt:
2480 </td
> <td
>docx:
4460</td
></tr
>
9329 <tr
><td
>Presentasjon
</td
> <td
>odp:
299 </td
> <td
>pptx:
741</td
></tr
>
9330 <tr
><td
>Regneark
</td
> <td
>ods:
187 </td
> <td
>xlsx:
372</td
></tr
>
9333 <p
>I wonder how these numbers change over time.
</p
>
9335 <p
>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
9336 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
9337 they are conduced in another country. Because of this, I did the same
9338 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
9339 search done from a machine here in Norway.
</p
>
9343 <tr
><th
>Type
</th
><th
>ODF
</th
><th
>MS Office
</th
></tr
>
9344 <tr
><td
>Tekst
</td
> <td
>odt:
129000</td
> <td
>docx:
308000</td
></tr
>
9345 <tr
><td
>Presentasjon
</td
> <td
>odp:
44200</td
> <td
>pptx:
93900</td
></tr
>
9346 <tr
><td
>Regneark
</td
> <td
>ods:
26500 </td
> <td
>xlsx:
82400</td
></tr
>
9349 <p
>And with
'site:no
':
9352 <tr
><th
>Type
</th
><th
>ODF
</th
><th
>MS Office
</th
></tr
>
9353 <tr
><td
>Tekst
</td
> <td
>odt:
2480</td
> <td
>docx:
3410</td
></tr
>
9354 <tr
><td
>Presentasjon
</td
> <td
>odp:
175</td
> <td
>pptx:
604</td
></tr
>
9355 <tr
><td
>Regneark
</td
> <td
>ods:
186 </td
> <td
>xlsx:
296</td
></tr
>
9358 <p
>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
9364 <title>ISO still hope to fix OOXML
</title>
9365 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html
</link>
9366 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html
</guid>
9367 <pubDate>Sat,
8 Aug
2009 14:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9368 <description><p
>According to
<a
9369 href=
"http://twerner.blogspot.com/
2009/
08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html
">a
9370 blog post from Torsten Werner
</a
>, the current defect report for ISO
9371 29500 (ISO OOXML) is
809 pages. His interesting point is that the
9372 defect report is
71 pages more than the full ODF
1.1 specification.
9373 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
9374 can be fixed in ISO. Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
9375 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
9376 close to solving the problems. I was part of the Norwegian committee
9377 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
9378 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.
</p
>
9380 <p
>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
9381 with the future ahead of it. We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
9382 seminar this autumn.
</p
>
9387 <title>Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing
</title>
9388 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html
</link>
9389 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html
</guid>
9390 <pubDate>Mon,
27 Jul
2009 23:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9391 <description><p
>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version
2.87dsf-
2,
9392 and the upload of insserv version
1.12.0-
10 yesterday, Debian unstable
9393 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing. This
9394 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
9395 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
9396 installation. Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
9397 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.
</p
>
9399 <p
>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
9400 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
9401 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.
</p
>
9406 <title>Taking over sysvinit development
</title>
9407 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html
</link>
9408 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html
</guid>
9409 <pubDate>Wed,
22 Jul
2009 23:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9410 <description><p
>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
9411 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
9412 take over the package and become the new upstream. The number of
9413 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
9414 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
9415 the package up to date.
</p
>
9417 <p
>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
9418 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman. About
10 days ago, I made
9419 a new upstream tarball with version number
2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
9420 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
9421 distributions. We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
9422 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge. Since the
9423 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
9424 upstream project at
<a href=
"http://savannah.nongnu.org/
">Savannah
</a
>, and continue
9425 development there. The project is registered and currently waiting
9426 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
9427 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
9428 working on the future release.
</p
>
9430 <p
>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
9431 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.
</p
>
9436 <title>Debian boots quicker and quicker
</title>
9437 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html
</link>
9438 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html
</guid>
9439 <pubDate>Wed,
24 Jun
2009 21:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9440 <description><p
>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
9441 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
9442 could find more ways to speed up the boot system. This was an Ubuntu
9444 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint
">developer
9445 gathering
</a
>. It was quite productive. We also discussed the future
9446 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
9447 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
9448 asynchronous and event base. The Ubuntu approach using udev and
9449 upstart might be a good way forward. Time will show.
</p
>
9451 <p
>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
9452 process in Debian. All of these should be applied to get a quick
9457 <li
>Use dash as /bin/sh.
</li
>
9459 <li
>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
9460 clock is in UTC.
</li
>
9462 <li
>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
9463 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot
">dependency
9464 based boot sequencing
</a
>, and enable concurrent booting.
</li
>
9468 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
9469 <a href=
"http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/
">Carlos
9472 <p
>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
9473 unstable yesterday. When we tested it, we were able to cut
6 seconds
9474 from the boot sequence. It depend on very correct dependency
9475 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
9476 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
9477 using this.
</p
>
9479 <p
>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
9480 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
9481 startup speed as well. Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
9482 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
9483 possible to run a of them in the same process. A quick way to test
9484 this would be to enable insserv and run
'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
9485 insserv
'. Will need to test if that work. :)
</p
>
9490 <title>Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot
</title>
9491 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html
</link>
9492 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html
</guid>
9493 <pubDate>Sat,
2 May
2009 15:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9494 <description><p
>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
9495 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
9496 do not yet know them.
</p
>
9498 <p
>The first one is
<a href=
"http://valgrind.org/
">valgrind
</a
>, a
9499 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
9500 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run
'valgrind program
',
9501 and it will report any problems on stdout. It is even better if the
9502 program include debug information. With debug information, it is able
9503 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
9504 occurs. It can report things like
'reading past memory block in file
9505 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M
', and
9506 'using uninitialised value in control logic
'. This tool has made it
9507 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
9508 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
9510 <p
>The second one is
9511 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity
">Coverity
</a
> which is
9512 a source code checker. It is able to process the source of a program
9513 and find problems in the logic without running the program. It
9514 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
9515 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel. It is now a commercial tool
9516 and the company behind it is running
9517 <a href=
"http://www.scan.coverity.com/
">a community service
</a
> for the
9518 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
9519 their source checked for free. Several thousand defects have been
9520 found and fixed so far. It can find errors like
'lock L taken in file
9521 X line N is never released if exiting in line M
', or
'the code in file
9522 Y lines O to P can never be executed
'. The projects included in the
9523 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
9524 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.
</p
>
9526 <p
>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
9527 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
9528 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
9529 surrounded by today.
</p
>
9534 <title>No patch is not better than a useless patch
</title>
9535 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html
</link>
9536 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html
</guid>
9537 <pubDate>Tue,
28 Apr
2009 09:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9538 <description><p
>Julien Blache
9539 <a href=
"http://blog.technologeek.org/
2009/
04/
12/
214">claim that no
9540 patch is better than a useless patch
</a
>. I completely disagree, as a
9541 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
9542 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
9543 time on fixing it. No patch do not provide any of these positive
9544 properties.
</p
>
9549 <title>Recording video from cron using VLC
</title>
9550 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html
</link>
9551 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html
</guid>
9552 <pubDate>Sun,
5 Apr
2009 10:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9553 <description><p
>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
9554 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net. The
9555 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
9556 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
9557 vlc. I finally found a way to do it today. I spent an hour or so
9558 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation. The
9559 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
9560 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:
</p
>
9562 <blockquote
><pre
>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
9564 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
9565 --sout=
"#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url=
'$SAVEFILE
'},dst=nodisplay}
" \
9566 --intf=dummy
</pre
></blockquote
>
9568 <p
>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
9569 duplicating the output stream to
"nodisplay
" and the file, using the
9570 dummy interface. The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
9571 sure no X interface is needed.
</p
>
9573 <p
>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
9574 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
9575 the vlc process with SIGTERM. Here is a complete script
9576 <tt
>vlc-record
</tt
> to use from
<tt
>at
</tt
> or
<tt
>cron
</tt
>:
</p
>
9578 <blockquote
><pre
>#!/bin/sh
9581 SAVEFILE=
"$
2"
9582 DURATION=
"$
3"
9583 DISPLAY= vlc -q
"$URL
" \
9584 --sout=
"#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url=
'$SAVEFILE
'},dst=nodisplay}
" \
9585 --intf=dummy
< /dev/null
> /dev/null
2>&1 &
9589 wait $pid
</pre
></blockquote
>
9594 <title>Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications
</title>
9595 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html
</link>
9596 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html
</guid>
9597 <pubDate>Mon,
30 Mar
2009 11:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9598 <description><p
>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
9599 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure. It is the
9600 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
9601 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
9602 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
9603 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
9604 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
9605 application.
</p
>
9607 <p
>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
9608 independently of the server applications. One can even allow users to
9609 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
9610 protocol and format. In the normal case, only one client application
9611 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
9612 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
9613 blocked from doing so.
</p
>
9615 <p
>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
9616 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
9617 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
9618 requirements change.
</p
>
9620 <p
>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
9621 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
9622 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.
</p
>
9627 <title>Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering
</title>
9628 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html
</link>
9629 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html
</guid>
9630 <pubDate>Sun,
29 Mar
2009 21:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9631 <description><p
>I
'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
9632 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering. I got a bit done tuning the
9633 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
9634 implementation avahi. It look like it could be useful for us. Almost
9635 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
9636 get to know the Skolelinux system. Walter Bender, involved in the
9637 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
9638 also helped me improve my OLPC installation. He also showed me that
9639 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
9640 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian. As a
9641 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu. We also
9642 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
9643 proved to be too hard for us. The application seem to need more work
9644 before it is ready for me. I look forward to getting home and relax
9650 <title>Time for new LDAP schemas replacing RFC
2307?
</title>
9651 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html
</link>
9652 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html
</guid>
9653 <pubDate>Sun,
29 Mar
2009 20:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
9654 <description><p
>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
9655 optimal. There is RFC
2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
9656 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC
2307bis, with
9657 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory. The RFC
9658 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
9659 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.
</p
>
9661 <p
>In
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu/Skolelinux
</a
>,
9662 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
9663 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
9664 and LTSP configuration in LDAP. These objects have a lot in common,
9665 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
9666 object per entity. For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
9667 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
9668 DNS information and another with DHCP information. The schemas
9669 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
9670 object. In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
9671 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
9672 It just do not scale. I believe it is time for a few RFC
9673 specifications to cleam up this mess.
</p
>
9675 <p
>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
9676 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
9677 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
9678 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.
</p
>
9680 <p
>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
9681 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.
</p
>
9683 <p
>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
9684 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up. Time to start a
9685 new IETF work group?
</p
>
9690 <title>Checking server hardware support status for Dell, HP and IBM servers
</title>
9691 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html
</link>
9692 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html
</guid>
9693 <pubDate>Sat,
28 Feb
2009 23:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
9694 <description><p
>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
9695 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
9696 contract expire for each server. We have a machine (and service)
9697 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
9698 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
9699 each machine. To make it easier for us to track support contract
9700 status, I
've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
9701 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
9702 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
9703 machines. I extended a perl script already being used to import
9704 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
9705 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
9706 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
9707 for the relevant machines. This make the support status information
9708 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
9709 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
9710 The result of this work documented that
27% of the machines in the
9711 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
9712 them.
27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
9713 using machines a bit longer than the
3 years a normal support contract
9714 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
9715 services. After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
9716 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
9717 them break down. When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
9718 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
9721 <p
>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
9722 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
9723 Werner Forsbring. The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
9724 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
9725 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code. I know the HTML
9726 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
9727 introduce more dependencies. This is the current incarnation:
</p
>
9735 sub get_support_info {
9736 my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
9739 if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
9740 # fetch website from Dell support
9741 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
";
9742 my $webpage = get($url);
9743 return undef unless ($webpage);
9746 my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
9747 foreach my $line (@lines) {
9748 next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
9749 $line =~ s/
&lt;[^
>]+?
>/;/gm;
9750 $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$
1/;
9752 my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
9754 my $lastend =
"";
9755 while ($f[
3] eq
"DELL
") {
9756 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[
0,
5,
7,
10];
9758 my $start = POSIX::strftime(
"%Y-%m-%d
",
9759 localtime(str2time($startstr)));
9760 my $end = POSIX::strftime(
"%Y-%m-%d
",
9761 localtime(str2time($endstr)));
9762 $str .=
"$type $start -
> $end
";
9764 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
9766 my $today = POSIX::strftime(
"%Y-%m-%d
", localtime(time));
9767 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
9768 if ($lastend lt $today);
9770 } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
9771 my $mech = WWW::Mechanize-
>new();
9773 'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do
';
9774 $mech-
>get($url);
9776 'BODServiceID
' =
> 'NA
',
9777 'RegisteredPurchaseDate
' =
> '',
9778 'country
' =
> 'NO
',
9779 'productNumber
' =
> $productnumber,
9780 'serialNumber1
' =
> $serial,
9782 $mech-
>submit_form( form_number =
> 2,
9783 fields =
> $fields );
9784 # Next step is screen scraping
9785 my $content = $mech-
>content();
9787 $content =~ s/
&lt;[^
>]+?
>/;/gm;
9788 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
9789 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
9790 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
9792 my $today = POSIX::strftime(
"%Y-%m-%d
", localtime(time));
9794 while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
9795 my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
9796 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
9797 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
9798 my $start = POSIX::strftime(
"%Y-%m-%d
",
9799 localtime(str2time($startstr)));
9800 my $end = POSIX::strftime(
"%Y-%m-%d
",
9801 localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
9803 $str .=
"$type ($status) $start -
> $end
";
9805 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
9806 if ($end lt $today);
9808 } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
9809 # This code ignore extended support contracts.
9810 my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{
4}).+\]-/;
9811 if ($producttype
&amp;
&amp; $serial) {
9813 get(
"http://www-
947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty
&amp;brandind=
5000008&amp;Submit=Submit
&amp;type=$producttype
&amp;serial=$serial
");
9815 $content =~ s/
&lt;[^
>]+?
>/;/gm;
9816 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
9817 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
9818 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
9820 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
9821 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
9823 $str .=
"($status) -
> $end
";
9825 my $today = POSIX::strftime(
"%Y-%m-%d
", localtime(time));
9826 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
9827 if ($end lt $today);
9835 <p
>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
9836 serial numbers. The information passed in as arguments are fetched
9837 from dmidecode.
</p
>
9840 print get_support_info(
"hp.host
",
"HP ProLiant BL460c G1
",
"1234567890"
9841 "447707-B21
");
9842 print get_support_info(
"dell.host
",
"Dell Inc. PowerEdge
2950",
"1234567");
9843 print get_support_info(
"ibm.host
",
"IBM eserver xSeries
345 -[
867061X]-
",
9844 "1234567");
9847 <p
>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
9848 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)
</p
>
9850 <p
>Update
2009-
03-
06: The IBM page do not include extended support
9851 contracts, so it is useless in that case. The original Dell code do
9852 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
9858 <title>Using bar codes at a computing center
</title>
9859 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html
</link>
9860 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html
</guid>
9861 <pubDate>Fri,
20 Feb
2009 08:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
9862 <description><p
>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
9863 in our computing center. This give us a challenge in tracking the
9864 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
9865 removed. Some times the location register is not updated when a
9866 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
9867 the
"missing
" computer.
</p
>
9869 <p
>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
9870 <a href=
"http://www.libdmtx.org/
">libdmtx
</a
> to write and read bar
9871 code blocks as defined in the
9872 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix
">The Data Matrix
9873 Standard
</a
>. This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
9874 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
9875 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture. The bar code standard
9876 allow up to
2 KiB to be written in the tag. There is another project
9877 with
<a href=
"http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/
">a bar code
9878 writer written in postscript
</a
> capable of creating such bar codes,
9879 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
9882 <p
>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
9883 machines in our computing center. If both racks and computers are
9884 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
9885 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
9886 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
9887 locations, and can detect movements and removals.
</p
>
9889 <p
>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
9890 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names. Next, I
9891 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
9892 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read. This worked
9893 fairly well. If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
9894 side, all tags in the image could be read. Because of limited space
9895 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
9896 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
9897 about half the rack. I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
9898 to
60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.
</p
>
9900 <p
>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
9901 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
9902 easier automatic tracking of computers.
</p
>
9907 <title>When web browser developers make a video player...
</title>
9908 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html
</link>
9909 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html
</guid>
9910 <pubDate>Sat,
17 Jan
2009 18:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
9911 <description><p
>As part of the work we do in
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no
">NUUG
</a
>
9912 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
9913 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording. Putting a
9914 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
9915 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy. I hope this
9916 will become easier when the
&lt;video
&gt; tag is implemented in all
9917 browsers, but I am not sure. We provide the recordings in several
9918 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H
.264 and Quicktime, and want the
9919 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
9920 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
9921 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
9922 &lt;video
&gt; tag, the
&lt;object
&gt; tag, the
&lt;embed
&gt; tag and
9923 the
&lt;applet
&gt; tag. All of these take a lot of options, and
9924 finding the best options is a major challenge.
</p
>
9926 <p
>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from
<a
9927 href=
"http://labs.opera.com
">labs.opera.com
</a
>, to see how it handled
9928 a
&lt;video
&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
9929 I was not very impressed. The browser start by fetching a picture
9930 from the video stream. Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
9931 definitely very early in the recording. So far, so good. Next,
9932 instead of streaming the
76 MiB video file, it start to download all
9933 of it, but do not start to play the video. This mean I have to wait
9934 for several minutes for the downloading to finish. When the download
9935 is done, the playing of the video do not start! Waiting for the
9936 download, but I do not get to see the video? Some testing later, I
9937 discover that I have to add the controls=
"true
" attribute to be able
9938 to get a play button to pres to start the video. Adding
9939 autoplay=
"true
" did not help. I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
9940 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
9941 &lt;video
&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
9942 playing when the download is done.
</p
>
9944 <p
>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
9945 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/
20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/
">available
9946 from the nuug site
</a
>. Will have to test it with the new Firefox
9949 <p
>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature. I was unable
9950 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
9951 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video. I
9952 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)
</p
>
9957 <title>Software video mixer on a USB stick
</title>
9958 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html
</link>
9959 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html
</guid>
9960 <pubDate>Sun,
28 Dec
2008 15:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
9961 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">Norwegian Unix User Group
</a
> is
9962 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
9963 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
9964 directly with the video stream. For this, we use the
9965 <a href=
"http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/
">dvswitch
</a
> package from
9966 the Debian video team. As this require quite one computer per video
9967 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
9968 borrow laptops. And to avoid having to install extra software on
9969 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
9970 bootable USB stick. The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
9971 source, sink and mixer applications and
9972 <a href=
"http://www.kinodv.org/
">dvgrab
</a
>. To allow this setup to
9973 work without any configuration, I
've patched dvswitch to use
9974 <a href=
"http://www.avahi.org/
">avahi
</a
> to connect the various parts
9975 together. And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
9976 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
9977 with USB sources. We have not yet tested this setup in a production
9978 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
9979 video mixer in a very short time frame. We will need it for
9980 <a href=
"http://www.goopen.no/
">Go Open
2009</a
>.
</p
>
9982 <p
><a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz
">The
9983 USB image
</a
> is for a
1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
9984 larger stick as well.
</p
>
9989 <title>Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release
</title>
9990 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html
</link>
9991 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html
</guid>
9992 <pubDate>Sun,
7 Dec
2008 12:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
9993 <description><p
>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
9994 Oslo. Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
9995 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
9996 LTSP installation. LTSP now work out of the box on the
10-network.
9997 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
9998 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box. Was working on getting the
9999 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
10000 finish it before the weekend was up.
</p
>
10002 <p
>Did not find time to look at the
4 VGA cards in one box we got from
10003 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
10004 development gathering. Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
10005 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
10006 of these cards.
</p
>
10011 <title>The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian
</title>
10012 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html
</link>
10013 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html
</guid>
10014 <pubDate>Tue,
25 Nov
2008 00:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
10015 <description><p
>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
10016 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
10017 default in Debian Edu. We need an embedded video playing plugin with
10018 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
10019 all the multimedia content available on the web. The test results and
10020 notes are available on
10021 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia
">the
10022 Debian wiki
</a
>. I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
10023 fill this need. My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
10024 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages. A lot of the MIME
10025 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
10026 video/ogg), just do not work. And simple formats like the
10027 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn
't supported by the
10028 totem and vlc plugins. I hope the situation will improve soon. No
10029 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.
</p
>
10031 <p
>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin. It seem to
10032 be the only one fitting our needs. :/
</p
>
projects / homepage.git / blob