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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "english".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_m_going_to_the_Open_Source_Developers__Conference_Nordic_2015_.html">I'm going to the Open Source Developers' Conference Nordic 2015!</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          7th April 2015
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>I am happy to let you all know that I'm going to the <a
  32 href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/">Open Source Developers'
  33 Conference Nordic 2015</a>!</p>
  34
  35 <p>It take place Friday 8th to Sunday 10th of May in Oslo next to
  36 where I work, and I finally got around to submitting
  37 <a href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/talk/6192">a talk proposal for
  38 it</a> (dead link for most people until the talk is accepted).  As
  39 part of my involvement with the
  40 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group member
  41 association</a> I have been slightly involved in the planning of this
  42 conference for a while now, with a focus on organising a Civic Hacking
  43 Hackathon with our friends
  44 over at <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> and
  45 <a href="http://www.holderdeord.no/">Holder de ord</a>.  This part is
  46 named the 'My Society' track in the program.  There is still space for
  47 more talks and participants.  I hope to see you there.</p>
  48
  49 <p>Check out <a href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/talks">the talks
  50 submitted and accepted so far</a>.</p>
  51
  52       </div>
  53       <div class="tags">
  54
  55
  56         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>.
  57
  58
  59       </div>
  60     </div>
  61     <div class="padding"></div>
  62
  63     <div class="entry">
  64       <div class="title">
  65         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Proof_reading_the_Norwegian_translation_of_Free_Culture_by_Lessig.html">Proof reading the Norwegian translation of Free Culture by Lessig</a>
  66       </div>
  67       <div class="date">
  68          4th April 2015
  69       </div>
  70       <div class="body">
  71         <p>During eastern I had some time to continue working on the Norwegian
  72 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
  73 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
  74 At the moment I am proof reading the finished text, looking for typos,
  75 inconsistent wordings and sentences that do not flow as they should.
  76 I'm more than two thirds done with the text, and welcome others to
  77 check the text up to chapter 13.  The current status is available on the
  78 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
  79 project pages.  You can also check out the
  80 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>,
  81 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
  82 and HTML version available in the
  83 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/tree/master/archive">archive
  84 directory</a>.</p>
  85
  86 <p>Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if
  87 you find any.</p>
  88
  89       </div>
  90       <div class="tags">
  91
  92
  93         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
  94
  95
  96       </div>
  97     </div>
  98     <div class="padding"></div>
  99
 100     <div class="entry">
 101       <div class="title">
 102         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen__Norwegian_TV_channel_for_technical_topics.html">Frikanalen, Norwegian TV channel for technical topics</a>
 103       </div>
 104       <div class="date">
 105          9th March 2015
 106       </div>
 107       <div class="body">
 108         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a>,
 109 where I am a member, and where people interested in free software,
 110 open standards and UNIX like operating systems like Linux and the BSDs
 111 come together, record our monthly technical presentations on video.
 112 The purpose is to document the talks and spread them to a wider
 113 audience.  For this, the the Norwegian nationwide open channel
 114 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> is a useful venue.
 115 Since a few days ago, when I figured out the
 116 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/api/">REST API</a> to program the
 117 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/guide/">channel time schedule</a>,
 118 the channel has been filled with NUUG talks, related recordings and
 119 some Creative Commons licensed TED talks (from archive.org).  I fill
 120 all "leftover bits" on the channel with content from NUUG, which at
 121 the moment is almost 17 of 24 hours every day.</p>
 122
 123 <p>The list of NUUG videos
 124 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/organization/82">uploaded so far</a>
 125 include things like a
 126 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/625090">one hour talk by John
 127 Perry Barlow when he visited Oslo</a>, a presentation of
 128 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/624275">Haiku, the BeOS
 129 re-implementation</a>, the
 130 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/624493">history of FiksGataMi,
 131 the Norwegian version of FixMyStreet</a>, the good old
 132 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/623566">Warriors of the net
 133 video</A> and many others.</p>
 134
 135 <p>We have a large backlog of NUUG talks not yet uploaded to
 136 Frikanalen, and plan to upload every useful bit to the channel to
 137 spread the word there.  I also hope to find useful recordings from the
 138 Chaos Computer Club and Debian conferences and spread them on the
 139 channel as well.  But this require locating the videos and their meta
 140 information (title, description, license, etc), and preparing the
 141 recordings for broadcast, and I have not yet had the spare time to
 142 focus on this.  Perhaps you want to help.  Please join us on IRC,
 143 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
 144 if you want to help make this happen.</p>
 145
 146 <p>But as I said, already the channel is already almost exclusively
 147 filled with technical topics, and if you want to learn something new
 148 today, check out the <a href="http://www.frikanalen.tv/se">Ogg Theora
 149 web stream</a> or use one of the other ways to get access to the
 150 channel.  Unfortunately the Ogg Theora recoding for distribution still
 151 do not properly sync the video and sound.  It is generated by recoding
 152 a internal MPEG transport stream with MPEG4 coded video (ie H.264) to
 153 Ogg Theora / Vorbis, and we have not been able to find a way that
 154 produces acceptable quality.  Help needed, please get in touch if you
 155 know how to fix it using free software.</p>
 156
 157       </div>
 158       <div class="tags">
 159
 160
 161         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 162
 163
 164       </div>
 165     </div>
 166     <div class="padding"></div>
 167
 168     <div class="entry">
 169       <div class="title">
 170         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Citizenfour_documentary_on_the_Snowden_confirmations_to_Norway.html">The Citizenfour documentary on the Snowden confirmations to Norway</a>
 171       </div>
 172       <div class="date">
 173         28th February 2015
 174       </div>
 175       <div class="body">
 176         <p>Today I was happy to learn that the documentary
 177 <a href="https://citizenfourfilm.com/">Citizenfour</a> by
 178 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Poitras">Laura Poitras</a>
 179 finally will show up in Norway.  According to the magazine
 180 <a href="http://montages.no/">Montages</a>, a deal has finally been
 181 made for
 182 <a href="http://montages.no/nyheter/snowden-dokumentaren-citizenfour-far-norsk-kinodistribusjon/">Cinema
 183 distribution in Norway</a> and the movie will have its premiere soon.
 184 This is great news.  As part of my involvement with
 185 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the Norwegian Unix User Group</a>, me and
 186 a friend have
 187 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Dokumentar_om_Snowdenbekreftelsene_til_Norge_.shtml">tried
 188 to get the movie to Norway</a> ourselves, but obviously
 189 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Dokumentar_om_Snowdenbekreftelsene_endelig_til_Norge_.shtml">we
 190 were too late</a> and Tor Fosse beat us to it.  I am happy he did, as
 191 the movie will make its way to the public and we do not have to make
 192 it happen ourselves.
 193 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiGwAvd5mvM">The trailer</a>
 194 can be seen on youtube, if you are curious what kind of film this
 195 is.</p>
 196
 197 <p>The whistle blower Edward Snowden really deserve political asylum
 198 here in Norway, but I am afraid he would not be safe.</p>
 199
 200       </div>
 201       <div class="tags">
 202
 203
 204         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 205
 206
 207       </div>
 208     </div>
 209     <div class="padding"></div>
 210
 211     <div class="entry">
 212       <div class="title">
 213         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Norwegian_open_channel_Frikanalen___24x7_on_the_Internet.html">The Norwegian open channel Frikanalen - 24x7 on the Internet</a>
 214       </div>
 215       <div class="date">
 216         25th February 2015
 217       </div>
 218       <div class="body">
 219         <p>The Norwegian nationwide open channel
 220 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> is still going
 221 strong.  It allow everyone to send the video they want on national
 222 television.  It is a TV station administrated completely using a web
 223 browser, running only <ahref="https://github.com/Frikanalen">Free
 224 Software</a>, providing <ahref="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/api">a REST
 225 api</a> for administrators and members, and with distribution on the
 226 national DVB-T distribution network RiksTV.  But only between 12:00
 227 and 17:30 Norwegian time.  This has finally changed, after many years
 228 with limited distribution.  A few weeks ago, we set up a Ogg Theora
 229 stream via icecast to allow everyone with Internet access to check out
 230 the channel the rest of the day.  This is presented on
 231 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.tv/se">the Frikanalen web site now</a>.  And
 232 since a few days ago, the channel is also available
 233 via <a href="https://www.uninett.no/iptv-tilgang">multicast on
 234 UNINETT</a>, available for those using IPTV TVs and set-top boxes in
 235 the Norwegian National Research and Education network.</p>
 236
 237 <p>If you want to see what is on the channel, point your media player
 238 to one of these sources.  The first should work with most players and
 239 browsers, while as far as I know, the multicast UDP stream only work
 240 with VLC.</p>
 241
 242 <ul>
 243   <li><a href="http://video.nuug.no/frikanalen.ogv">http://video.nuug.no/frikanalen.ogv</a></li>
 244   <li>udp://@224.17.43.129:1234</li>
 245 </ul>
 246
 247 <p>The Ogg Theora / icecast stream is not working well, as the video
 248 and audio is slightly out of sync.  We have not been able to figure
 249 out how to fix it.  It is generated by recoding a internal MPEG
 250 transport stream with MPEG4 coded video (ie H.264) to Ogg Theora /
 251 Vorbis, and the result is less then stellar.  If you have ideas how to
 252 fix it, please let us know on frikanalen (at) nuug.no.  We currently
 253 use this with ffmpeg2theora 0.29:</p>
 254
 255 <blockquote><pre>
 256 ./ffmpeg2theora.linux &lt;OBE_gemini_URL.ts&gt; -F 25 -x 720 -y 405 \
 257  --deinterlace --inputfps 25 -c 1 -H 48000 --keyint 8 --buf-delay 100 \
 258  --nosync -V 700 -o - | oggfwd video.nuug.no 8000 &lt;pw&gt; /frikanalen.ogv
 259 </pre></blockquote>
 260
 261 <p>If you get the multicast UDP stream working, please let me know, as
 262 I am curious how far the multicast stream reach.  It do not make it to
 263 my home network, nor any other commercially available network in
 264 Norway that I am aware of.</p>
 265
 266       </div>
 267       <div class="tags">
 268
 269
 270         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 271
 272
 273       </div>
 274     </div>
 275     <div class="padding"></div>
 276
 277     <div class="entry">
 278       <div class="title">
 279         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Nude_body_scanner_now_present_on_Norwegian_airport.html">Nude body scanner now present on Norwegian airport</a>
 280       </div>
 281       <div class="date">
 282         10th February 2015
 283       </div>
 284       <div class="body">
 285         <p>Aftenposten, one of the largest newspapers in Norway, today report
 286 that
 287 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/reise/Slik-skannes-kroppen-din-i-fremtidens-sikkerhetskontroll-490666_1.snd">three
 288 of the nude body scanners now is put to use at Gardermoen</a>, the
 289 main airport in Norway.  This way the travelers can have their body
 290 photographed without cloths when visiting Norway.  Of course this
 291 horrible news is presented with a positive spin, stating that "now
 292 travelers can move past the security check point faster and more
 293 efficiently", but fail to mention that the machines in question take
 294 pictures of their nude bodies and store them internally in the
 295 computer, while only presenting sketch figure of the body to the
 296 public.  The article is written in a way that leave the impression
 297 that the new machines do not take these nude pictures and only create
 298 the sketch figures.  In reality the same nude pictures are still
 299 taken, but not presented to everyone.  They are still available for
 300 the owners of the system and the people doing maintenance of the
 301 scanners, as long as they are taken and stored.</p>
 302
 303 <p>Wikipedia have a more on
 304 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_body_scanner">Full body
 305 scanners</a>, including example images and a summary of the
 306 controversy about these scanners.</p>
 307
 308 <p>Personally I will decline to use these machines, as I believe strip
 309 searches of my body is a very intrusive attack on my privacy, and not
 310 something everyone should have to accept to travel.</p>
 311
 312       </div>
 313       <div class="tags">
 314
 315
 316         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
 317
 318
 319       </div>
 320     </div>
 321     <div class="padding"></div>
 322
 323     <div class="entry">
 324       <div class="title">
 325         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Nagios_module_to_check_if_the_Frikanalen_video_stream_is_working.html">Nagios module to check if the Frikanalen video stream is working</a>
 326       </div>
 327       <div class="date">
 328          8th February 2015
 329       </div>
 330       <div class="body">
 331         <p>When running a TV station with both broadcast and web stream
 332 distribution, it is useful to know that the stream is working.  As I
 333 am involved in the Norwegian open channel
 334 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> as part of my
 335 activity in the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member
 336 organisation</a>, I wrote a script to use mplayer to connect to a
 337 video stream, pick two images 35 seconds apart and compare them.  If
 338 the images are missing or identical, something is probably wrong with
 339 the stream and an alarm should be triggered.  The script is written as
 340 a Nagios plugin, allowing us to use Nagios to run the check regularly
 341 and sound the alarm when something is wrong.  It is able to detect
 342 both a hanging and a broken video stream.</p>
 343
 344 <p>I just uploaded the code for the script into the
 345 <a href="https://github.com/Frikanalen/frikanalen/blob/master/nagios-plugin/check_video_stream_images">Frikanalen
 346 git repository</a> on github.  If you run a TV station with web
 347 streaming, perhaps you can find it useful too.</p>
 348
 349 <p>Last year, the Frikanalen public TV station transformed into using
 350 only Linux based free software to administrate, schedule and
 351 distribute the TV content.  The
 352 <a href="https://github.com/Frikanalen">source code for the entire TV
 353 station</a> is available from the Github project page.  Everyone can
 354 use it to send their content on national TV, and we provide both a web
 355 GUI and <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/api/">a web API</a> to
 356 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/login/?next=/members/video/">add</a>
 357 and <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/members/plan/">schedule
 358 content</a>.  And thanks to last weeks developer gathering and
 359 following activity, we now have the schedule
 360 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/xmltv/2015/01/01">available as
 361 XMLTV</a> too.  Still a lot of work left to do, especially with the
 362 process to add videos and with the scheduling, so your contribution is
 363 most welcome.  Perhaps you want to set up your own TV station?</p>
 364
 365 <p>Update 2015-02-25: Got a tip from Uninett about their
 366 <a href="https://scm.uninett.no/maalepaaler/qstream/">qstream
 367 monitoring system</a>, which gather connection time, jitter, packet
 368 loss and burst bandwidth usage.  It look useful to check if UDP
 369 streams are working as they should.</p>
 370
 371       </div>
 372       <div class="tags">
 373
 374
 375         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 376
 377
 378       </div>
 379     </div>
 380     <div class="padding"></div>
 381
 382     <div class="entry">
 383       <div class="title">
 384         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_subtitles_for_the_FSF_video_User_Liberation.html">Norwegian Bokmål subtitles for the FSF video User Liberation</a>
 385       </div>
 386       <div class="date">
 387         12th January 2015
 388       </div>
 389       <div class="body">
 390         <p>A few days ago, the <a href="https://www.fsf.org/">Free Software
 391 Foundation</a> announced a new video
 392 <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/user-liberation-watch-and-share-our-new-video">explaining
 393 Free software</a> in simple terms.  The video named User Liberation is
 394 3 minutes long, and I recommend showing it to everyone you know as a
 395 way to explain what Free Software is all about.  Unfortunately several
 396 of the people I know do not understand English and Spanish, so it did
 397 not make sense to show it to them.</p>
 398
 399 <p>But today I was told that
 400 <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/user-liberation-watch-and-share-our-new-video">English
 401 subtitles were available</a> and set out to provide Norwegian Bokmål
 402 subtitles based on these.  The result has been sent to FSF and made
 403 available in
 404 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/fsf-video-user-liberation-subtitles">a
 405 git repository</a> provided by Github.  Please let me know if you find
 406 errors or have improvements to the subtitles.</p>
 407
 408 <p>Update 2015-02-03: Since I publised this post, FSF created a
 409 Libreplanet
 410 <a href="http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:FSF/User_Liberation_Video_Translation">project
 411 to track subtitles</A> for the video.</p>
 412
 413       </div>
 414       <div class="tags">
 415
 416
 417         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 418
 419
 420       </div>
 421     </div>
 422     <div class="padding"></div>
 423
 424     <div class="entry">
 425       <div class="title">
 426         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Updated_version_of_the_Norwegian_web_service_FiksGataMi.html">Updated version of the Norwegian web service FiksGataMi</a>
 427       </div>
 428       <div class="date">
 429         30th December 2014
 430       </div>
 431       <div class="body">
 432         <p>I am very happy that we in the
 433 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User group (NUUG)</a>,
 434 spearheaded by Marius Halden from NUUG and Matthew Somerville from
 435 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>, finally managed to
 436 upgrade the code base for the Norwegian version of
 437 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org/">FixMyStreet</a>.  This
 438 was the first major update since 2011. The refurbished
 439 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is already live, and
 440 seem to hold up the pressure.  The
 441 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Pressemelding__FiksGataMi_i_oppdatert_og_mobilvennlig_klesdrakt.shtml">press
 442 release and announcement</a> went out this morning.</p>
 443
 444 <p>FixMyStreet is a web platform for allowing the citizens to easily
 445 report problems with public infrastructure to the responsible
 446 authorities.  Think of it as a shared mail client with map support,
 447 allowing everyone to see what already was reported and comment on the
 448 reports in public.</p>
 449
 450       </div>
 451       <div class="tags">
 452
 453
 454         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 455
 456
 457       </div>
 458     </div>
 459     <div class="padding"></div>
 460
 461     <div class="entry">
 462       <div class="title">
 463         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Of_course_USA_loses_in_cyber_war___NSA_and_friends_made_sure_it_would_happen.html">Of course USA loses in cyber war - NSA and friends made sure it would happen</a>
 464       </div>
 465       <div class="date">
 466         19th December 2014
 467       </div>
 468       <div class="body">
 469         <p>So, Sony caved in
 470 (<a href="https://twitter.com/RobLowe/status/545338568512917504">according
 471 to Rob Lowe</a>) and demonstrated that America lost its first cyberwar
 472 (<a href="https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/545339074975109122">according
 473 to Newt Gingrich</a>).  It should not surprise anyone, after the
 474 whistle blower Edward Snowden documented that the government of USA
 475 and their allies for many years have done their best to make sure the
 476 technology used by its citizens is filled with security holes allowing
 477 the secret services to spy on its own population.  No one in their
 478 right minds could believe that the ability to snoop on the people all
 479 over the globe could only be used by the personnel authorized to do so
 480 by the president of the United States of America.  If the capabilities
 481 are there, they will be used by friend and foe alike, and now they are
 482 being used to bring Sony on its knees.</p>
 483
 484 <p>I doubt it will a lesson learned, and expect USA to lose its next
 485 cyber war too, given how eager the western intelligence communities
 486 (and probably the non-western too, but it is less in the news) seem to
 487 be to continue its current dragnet surveillance practice.</p>
 488
 489 <p>There is a reason why China and others are trying to move away from
 490 Windows to Linux and other alternatives, and it is not to avoid
 491 sending its hard earned dollars to Cayman Islands (or whatever
 492 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_haven">tax haven</a>
 493 Microsoft is using these days to collect the majority of its
 494 income. :)</p>
 495
 496       </div>
 497       <div class="tags">
 498
 499
 500         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 501
 502
 503       </div>
 504     </div>
 505     <div class="padding"></div>
 506
 507     <div class="entry">
 508       <div class="title">
 509         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
 510       </div>
 511       <div class="date">
 512         22nd November 2014
 513       </div>
 514       <div class="body">
 515         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
 516 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
 517 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
 518 courtesy of
 519 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
 520 Schubert</a> and
 521 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
 522 McVittie</a>.
 523
 524 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
 525 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
 526 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
 527 you upgrade:</p>
 528
 529 <p><blockquote><pre>
 530 Package: systemd-sysv
 531 Pin: release o=Debian
 532 Pin-Priority: -1
 533 </pre></blockquote><p>
 534
 535 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
 536 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
 537 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
 538 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
 539 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
 540
 541 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
 542 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
 543 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
 544 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
 545 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
 546 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
 547
 548 <p><blockquote><pre>
 549 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
 550 </pre></blockquote><p>
 551
 552 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
 553
 554 <p><blockquote><pre>
 555 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
 556 </pre></blockquote><p>
 557
 558 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
 559 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
 560
 561 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
 562 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
 563 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
 564 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
 565 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
 566 Jessie is released.</p>
 567
 568 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
 569 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
 570 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
 571 line.</p>
 572
 573       </div>
 574       <div class="tags">
 575
 576
 577         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 578
 579
 580       </div>
 581     </div>
 582     <div class="padding"></div>
 583
 584     <div class="entry">
 585       <div class="title">
 586         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
 587       </div>
 588       <div class="date">
 589         10th November 2014
 590       </div>
 591       <div class="body">
 592         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
 593 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
 594 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
 595
 596 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
 597 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
 598 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
 599 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
 600 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
 601 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
 602 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
 603 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
 604 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
 605 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
 606 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
 607 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
 608 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
 609 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
 610 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
 611
 612 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
 613 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
 614 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
 615 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
 616 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
 617 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
 618 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
 619 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
 620 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
 621 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
 622 were fairly easy, and
 623 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
 624 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
 625 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
 626 useful approach.</p>
 627
 628 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
 629 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
 630 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
 631 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
 632 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
 633 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
 634 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
 635 this:</p>
 636
 637 <p><blockquote><pre>
 638 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
 639   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
 640 </pre></blockquote></p>
 641
 642 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
 643 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
 644
 645 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
 646 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
 647 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
 648 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
 649 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
 650 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
 651 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
 652 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
 653 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
 654 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
 655 system.</p>
 656
 657 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
 658 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
 659 SMTorP. :)</p>
 660
 661       </div>
 662       <div class="tags">
 663
 664
 665         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 666
 667
 668       </div>
 669     </div>
 670     <div class="padding"></div>
 671
 672     <div class="entry">
 673       <div class="title">
 674         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html">First Jessie based Debian Edu released (alpha0)</a>
 675       </div>
 676       <div class="date">
 677         27th October 2014
 678       </div>
 679       <div class="body">
 680         <p>I am happy to report that I on behalf of the Debian Edu team just
 681 sent out
 682 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2014/10/msg00000.html">this
 683 announcement</a>:</p>
 684
 685 <pre>
 686 The Debian Edu Team is pleased to announce the release of Debian Edu
 687 Jessie 8.0+edu0~alpha0
 688
 689 Debian Edu is a complete operating system for schools. Through its
 690 various installation profiles you can install servers, workstations
 691 and laptops which will work together on the school network. With
 692 Debian Edu, the teachers themselves or their technical support can
 693 roll out a complete multi-user multi-machine study environment within
 694 hours or a few days. Debian Edu comes with hundreds of applications
 695 pre-installed, but you can always add more packages from Debian.
 696
 697 For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
 698 installation instructions are available, including detailed
 699 instructions in the manual[1] explaining the first steps, such as
 700 setting up a network or adding users. Please note that the password
 701 for the user your prompted for during installation must have a length
 702 of at least 5 characters!
 703
 704  [1] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie</a> &gt;
 705
 706 Would you like to give your school's computer a longer life? Are you
 707 tired of sneaker administration, running from computer to computer
 708 reinstalling the operating system? Would you like to administrate all
 709 the computers in your school using only a couple of hours every week?
 710 Check out Debian Edu Jessie!
 711
 712 Skolelinux is used by at least two hundred schools all over the world,
 713 mostly in Germany and Norway.
 714
 715 About Debian Edu and Skolelinux
 716 ===============================
 717
 718 Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux[2], is a Linux distribution based
 719 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
 720 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
 721 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
 722 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
 723 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
 724 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
 725 machines can be installed via the network.  The provided school server
 726 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
 727 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
 728 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
 729 packages[3] and more are available from the Debian archive, and
 730 schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
 731 environment.
 732
 733  [2] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">http://www.skolelinux.org/</a> &gt;
 734  [3] &lt;URL: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html</a> &gt;
 735
 736 Full release notes and manual
 737 =============================
 738
 739 Below the download URLs there is a list of some of the new features
 740 and bugfixes of Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie. The full
 741 list is part of the manual. (See the feature list in the manual[4] for
 742 the English version.) For some languages manual translations are
 743 available, see the manual translation overview[5].
 744
 745  [4] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features</a> &gt;
 746  [5] &lt;URL: <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/</a> &gt;
 747
 748 Where to get it
 749 ---------------
 750
 751 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release (624 MiB) you can use
 752
 753  * <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso</a>
 754  * <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso</a>
 755  * rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso .
 756
 757 The SHA1SUM of this image is: 361188818e036ce67280a572f757de82ebfeb095
 758
 759 New features for Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie released 2014-10-27
 760 ===============================================================================
 761
 762
 763 Installation changes
 764 --------------------
 765
 766  * PXE installation now installs firmware automatically for the hardware present.
 767
 768 Software updates
 769 ----------------
 770
 771 Everything which is new in Debian Jessie 8.0, eg:
 772
 773  * Linux kernel 3.16.x
 774  * Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.11.12, GNOME 3.14, Xfce 4.10,
 775    LXDE 0.5.6 and MATE 1.8 (KDE "Plasma" is installed by default; to
 776    choose one of the others see manual.)
 777  * the browsers Iceweasel 31 ESR and Chromium 38
 778  * !LibreOffice 4.3.3
 779  * GOsa 2.7.4
 780  * LTSP 5.5.4
 781  * CUPS print system 1.7.5
 782  * new boot framework: systemd
 783  * Educational toolbox GCompris 14.07
 784  * Music creator Rosegarden 14.02
 785  * Image editor Gimp 2.8.14
 786  * Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.13.0
 787  * golearn 0.9
 788  * tuxpaint 0.9.22
 789  * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
 790  * Debian Jessie includes about 42000 packages available for
 791    installation.
 792  * More information about Debian Jessie 8.0 is provided in the release
 793    notes[6] and the installation manual[7].
 794
 795  [6] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes</a> &gt;
 796  [7] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual</a> &gt;
 797
 798 Fixed bugs
 799 ----------
 800
 801  * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
 802    DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
 803    information is corrected (Debian bug #710362)
 804  * and many others.
 805
 806 Documentation and translation updates
 807 -------------------------------------
 808
 809  * The Debian Edu Jessie Manual is fully translated to German, French,
 810    Italian, Danish and Dutch. Partly translated versions exist for
 811    Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.
 812
 813 Other changes
 814 -------------
 815
 816  * Due to new Squid settings, powering off or rebooting the main
 817    server takes more time.
 818  * To manage printers localhost:631 has to be used, currently www:631
 819    doesn't work.
 820
 821 Regressions / known problems
 822 ----------------------------
 823
 824  * Installing LTSP chroot fails with a bug related to eatmydata about
 825    exim4-config failing to run its postinst (see Debian bug #765694
 826    and Debian bug #762103).
 827  * Munin collection is not properly configured on clients (Debian bug
 828    #764594).  The fix is available in a newer version of munin-node.
 829  * PXE setup for Main Server and Thin Client Server setup does not
 830    work when installing on a machine without direct Internet access.
 831    Will be fixed when Debian bug #766960 is fixed in Jessie.
 832
 833 See the status page[8] for the complete list.
 834
 835  [8] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie</a> &gt;
 836
 837 How to report bugs
 838 ------------------
 839
 840 &lt;URL: <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a> &gt;
 841
 842 About Debian
 843 ============
 844
 845 The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
 846 free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
 847 the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
 848 volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
 849 maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a
 850 huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
 851 operating system.
 852
 853 Contact Information
 854 For further information, please visit the Debian web pages[9] or send
 855 mail to press@debian.org.
 856
 857  [9] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a> &gt;
 858 </pre>
 859
 860       </div>
 861       <div class="tags">
 862
 863
 864         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 865
 866
 867       </div>
 868     </div>
 869     <div class="padding"></div>
 870
 871     <div class="entry">
 872       <div class="title">
 873         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_spent_last_weekend_recording_MakerCon_Nordic.html">I spent last weekend recording MakerCon Nordic</a>
 874       </div>
 875       <div class="date">
 876         23rd October 2014
 877       </div>
 878       <div class="body">
 879         <p>I spent last weekend at <a href="http://www.makercon.no/">Makercon
 880 Nordic</a>, a great conference and workshop for makers in Norway and
 881 the surrounding countries.  I had volunteered on behalf of the
 882 Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG) to video record the talks, and we
 883 had a great and exhausting time recording the entire day, two days in
 884 a row.  There were only two of us, Hans-Petter and me, and we used the
 885 regular video equipment for NUUG, with a
 886 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">dvswitch</a>, a
 887 camera and a VGA to DV convert box, and mixed video and slides
 888 live.</p>
 889
 890 <p>Hans-Petter did the post-processing, consisting of uploading the
 891 around 180 GiB of raw video to Youtube, and the result is
 892 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/">now becoming
 893 public</a> on the MakerConNordic account.  The videos have the license
 894 NUUG always use on our recordings, which is
 895 <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/no/">Creative
 896 Commons Navngivelse-Del på samme vilkår 3.0 Norge</a>.  Many great
 897 talks available.  Check it out! :)</p>
 898
 899       </div>
 900       <div class="tags">
 901
 902
 903         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 904
 905
 906       </div>
 907     </div>
 908     <div class="padding"></div>
 909
 910     <div class="entry">
 911       <div class="title">
 912         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
 913       </div>
 914       <div class="date">
 915         22nd October 2014
 916       </div>
 917       <div class="body">
 918         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
 919 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
 920 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
 921 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
 922 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
 923 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
 924 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
 925 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
 926 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
 927 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
 928 lists I recently took over:</p>
 929
 930 <p><blockquote><pre>
 931 % time listadmin xiph
 932 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 933 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 934
 935 real    0m1.709s
 936 user    0m0.232s
 937 sys     0m0.012s
 938 %
 939 </pre></blockquote></p>
 940
 941 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
 942 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
 943 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
 944 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
 945 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
 946 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
 947 program.</p>
 948
 949 <p>If you install
 950 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
 951 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
 952 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
 953
 954 <p><blockquote><pre>
 955 username username@example.org
 956 spamlevel 23
 957 default discard
 958 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
 959
 960 password secret
 961 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
 962 mailman-list@lists.example.com
 963
 964 password hidden
 965 other-list@otherserver.example.org
 966 </pre></blockquote></p>
 967
 968 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
 969 learn the details.</p>
 970
 971 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
 972 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
 973 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
 974 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
 975
 976 <p><blockquote><pre>
 977 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
 978 </pre></blockquote></p>
 979
 980 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
 981 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
 982 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
 983 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
 984 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
 985 email.</p>
 986
 987 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
 988 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
 989 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
 990 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
 991 software.</p>
 992
 993 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 994 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 995 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 996
 997 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
 998 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
 999 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
1000 sure why.</p>
1001
1002       </div>
1003       <div class="tags">
1004
1005
1006         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1007
1008
1009       </div>
1010     </div>
1011     <div class="padding"></div>
1012
1013     <div class="entry">
1014       <div class="title">
1015         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
1016       </div>
1017       <div class="date">
1018         17th October 2014
1019       </div>
1020       <div class="body">
1021         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
1022 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
1023 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
1024 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
1025 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
1026 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
1027 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
1028
1029 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
1030 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
1031 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
1032 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
1033 of this story.)</p>
1034
1035 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
1036 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
1037 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
1038 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
1039 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
1040 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
1041 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
1042 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
1043 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
1044 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
1045
1046 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
1047 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
1048 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
1049 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
1050
1051 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
1052 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
1053
1054 <p><blockquote><pre>
1055 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
1056 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
1057 </pre></blockquote></p>
1058
1059 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
1060 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
1061 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
1062 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
1063 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
1064 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
1065 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
1066 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
1067
1068 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
1069 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
1070
1071 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
1072 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
1073 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
1074 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
1075 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
1076
1077 <p><blockquote><pre>
1078 Task: isenkram-packages
1079 Section: hardware
1080 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1081  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1082  proposed.
1083 Test-new-install: show show
1084 Relevance: 8
1085 Packages: for-current-hardware
1086
1087 Task: isenkram-firmware
1088 Section: hardware
1089 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1090  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
1091  packages are proposed.
1092 Test-new-install: mark show
1093 Relevance: 8
1094 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
1095 </pre></blockquote></p>
1096
1097 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
1098 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
1099 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
1100 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
1101 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
1102
1103 <p><blockquote><pre>
1104 #!/bin/sh
1105 #
1106 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
1107 export PATH
1108 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1109 </pre></blockquote></p>
1110
1111 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
1112 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
1113
1114 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
1115 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
1116 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
1117 install.</p>
1118
1119 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
1120 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
1121 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
1122
1123       </div>
1124       <div class="tags">
1125
1126
1127         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
1128
1129
1130       </div>
1131     </div>
1132     <div class="padding"></div>
1133
1134     <div class="entry">
1135       <div class="title">
1136         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
1137       </div>
1138       <div class="date">
1139          4th October 2014
1140       </div>
1141       <div class="body">
1142         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
1143 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
1144 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
1145 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
1146
1147 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
1148
1149 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
1150 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
1151 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
1152
1153       </div>
1154       <div class="tags">
1155
1156
1157         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1158
1159
1160       </div>
1161     </div>
1162     <div class="padding"></div>
1163
1164     <div class="entry">
1165       <div class="title">
1166         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
1167       </div>
1168       <div class="date">
1169          4th October 2014
1170       </div>
1171       <div class="body">
1172         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
1173 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
1174 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
1175 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
1176 Dibb.</p>
1177
1178 <p>I just wrapped up
1179 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
1180 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
1181 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
1182 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
1183 0.17.</p>
1184
1185 <ul>
1186
1187  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
1188  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
1189    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
1190  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
1191  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
1192  <li>Fix include orders</li>
1193  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
1194  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
1195  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
1196    the palette size is the same.</li>
1197  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
1198  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
1199  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
1200  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
1201    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
1202
1203 </ul>
1204
1205 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
1206 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
1207 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
1208
1209       </div>
1210       <div class="tags">
1211
1212
1213         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
1214
1215
1216       </div>
1217     </div>
1218     <div class="padding"></div>
1219
1220     <div class="entry">
1221       <div class="title">
1222         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
1223       </div>
1224       <div class="date">
1225         26th September 2014
1226       </div>
1227       <div class="body">
1228         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1229 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
1230 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
1231 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
1232 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
1233 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
1234 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
1235 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
1236 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
1237 future.  The
1238 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
1239 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
1240 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
1241 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
1242 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
1243
1244 <p>First, download the test ISO via
1245 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
1246 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
1247 or rsync (use
1248 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
1249 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
1250 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
1251 install with some tweaking.</p>
1252
1253 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
1254 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
1255
1256 <p><blockquote><pre>
1257 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
1258 </pre></blockquote></p>
1259
1260 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
1261 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
1262 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
1263 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
1264
1265 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
1266 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
1267 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
1268 your need.</p>
1269
1270 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
1271 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
1272 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
1273 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
1274 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
1275 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
1276 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
1277 days.</p>
1278
1279 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
1280 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
1281 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
1282 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
1283 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
1284 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
1285 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
1286 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
1287 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
1288
1289 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
1290 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
1291 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
1292
1293       </div>
1294       <div class="tags">
1295
1296
1297         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1298
1299
1300       </div>
1301     </div>
1302     <div class="padding"></div>
1303
1304     <div class="entry">
1305       <div class="title">
1306         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
1307       </div>
1308       <div class="date">
1309         25th September 2014
1310       </div>
1311       <div class="body">
1312         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
1313 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
1314 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
1315 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
1316 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
1317 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
1318 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
1319 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
1320 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
1321 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
1322 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
1323 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
1324 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
1325
1326 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
1327 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
1328 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
1329 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
1330 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
1331 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
1332 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
1333 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
1334 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
1335 list</a>. :)</p>
1336
1337       </div>
1338       <div class="tags">
1339
1340
1341         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
1342
1343
1344       </div>
1345     </div>
1346     <div class="padding"></div>
1347
1348     <div class="entry">
1349       <div class="title">
1350         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
1351       </div>
1352       <div class="date">
1353         16th September 2014
1354       </div>
1355       <div class="body">
1356         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
1357 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
1358 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
1359 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
1360 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
1361 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
1362 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
1363 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
1364 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
1365 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
1366 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
1367 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
1368 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
1369 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
1370
1371 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
1372 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
1373 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
1374 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
1375 depend on the small and clever package
1376 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
1377 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
1378 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
1379 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
1380 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
1381 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
1382 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
1383 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
1384 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
1385 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
1386 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
1387
1388 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
1389 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
1390 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
1391 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
1392 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
1393 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
1394 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
1395 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
1396 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
1397 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
1398 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
1399 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
1400 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
1401 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
1402 dialog.</p>
1403
1404 <p><table>
1405
1406 <tr>
1407 <th>Machine/setup</th>
1408 <th>Original tasksel</th>
1409 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
1410 <th>Reduction</th>
1411 </tr>
1412
1413 <tr>
1414 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
1415 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
1416 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
1417 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
1418 </tr>
1419
1420 <tr>
1421 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
1422 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
1423 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
1424 <td>23 min 40%</td>
1425 </tr>
1426
1427 <tr>
1428 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
1429 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
1430 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
1431 <td>11 min 50%</td>
1432 </tr>
1433
1434 <tr>
1435 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
1436 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
1437 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
1438 <td>2 min 33%</td>
1439 </tr>
1440
1441 <tr>
1442 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
1443 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
1444 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
1445 <td>4 min 21%</td>
1446 </tr>
1447
1448 </table></p>
1449
1450 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
1451 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
1452 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
1453 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
1454 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
1455 installed.</p>
1456
1457 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
1458 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
1459 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
1460 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
1461 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
1462 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
1463 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
1464 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
1465 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
1466 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
1467 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
1468 for the entire installation.</p>
1469
1470 <p>I've implemented this in the
1471 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
1472 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
1473 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
1474 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
1475 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
1476
1477 <p><blockquote><pre>
1478 #!/bin/sh
1479 set -e
1480 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1481 info() {
1482     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
1483 }
1484 error() {
1485     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
1486 }
1487 override_install() {
1488     apt-install eatmydata || true
1489     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
1490         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1491             file=/usr/bin/$bin
1492             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
1493             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
1494                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
1495                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
1496                     > /target$file.edu
1497                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
1498                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1499                     --rename --quiet --add $file
1500                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
1501             else
1502                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
1503             fi
1504         done
1505     else
1506         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
1507     fi
1508 }
1509
1510 override_install
1511 </pre></blockquote></p>
1512
1513 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
1514 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
1515
1516 <p><blockquote><pre>
1517 #! /bin/sh -e
1518 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1519 error() {
1520     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
1521 }
1522 remove_install_override() {
1523     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1524         file=/usr/bin/$bin
1525         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
1526             rm /target$file
1527             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1528                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
1529             rm /target$file.edu
1530         else
1531             error "Missing divert for $file."
1532         fi
1533     done
1534     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
1535 }
1536
1537 remove_install_override
1538 </pre></blockquote></p>
1539
1540 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
1541 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
1542 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
1543
1544 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
1545 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
1546 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
1547 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
1548 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
1549 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
1550 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
1551 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
1552 everyone.</p>
1553
1554 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
1555 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
1556 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
1557 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
1558
1559 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
1560 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
1561 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
1562 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
1563 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
1564
1565 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
1566 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
1567 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
1568 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
1569 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
1570
1571       </div>
1572       <div class="tags">
1573
1574
1575         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1576
1577
1578       </div>
1579     </div>
1580     <div class="padding"></div>
1581
1582     <div class="entry">
1583       <div class="title">
1584         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
1585       </div>
1586       <div class="date">
1587         10th September 2014
1588       </div>
1589       <div class="body">
1590         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
1591 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
1592 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
1593 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
1594 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
1595 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
1596 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
1597 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
1598 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
1599 those problems are gone now.</p>
1600
1601 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
1602 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
1603 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
1604 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
1605 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
1606
1607 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
1608 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
1609 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
1610
1611 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
1612 line:</p>
1613
1614 <p><blockquote><pre>
1615 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
1616 </pre></blockquote></p>
1617
1618 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
1619 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
1620 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
1621 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
1622
1623 <p><blockquote><pre>
1624 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
1625 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
1626 %
1627 </pre></blockquote></p>
1628
1629 <p>Now if only
1630 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
1631 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
1632 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
1633 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
1634 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
1635 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
1636 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
1637 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
1638 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
1639
1640       </div>
1641       <div class="tags">
1642
1643
1644         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1645
1646
1647       </div>
1648     </div>
1649     <div class="padding"></div>
1650
1651     <div class="entry">
1652       <div class="title">
1653         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Do_you_need_an_agreement_with_MPEG_LA_to_publish_and_broadcast_H_264_video_in_Norway_.html">Do you need an agreement with MPEG-LA to publish and broadcast H.264 video in Norway?</a>
1654       </div>
1655       <div class="date">
1656         25th August 2014
1657       </div>
1658       <div class="body">
1659         <p>Two years later, I am still not sure if it is legal here in Norway
1660 to use or publish a video in H.264 or MPEG4 format edited by the
1661 commercially licensed video editors, without limiting the use to
1662 create "personal" or "non-commercial" videos or get a license
1663 agreement with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com">MPEG LA</a>.  If one
1664 want to publish and broadcast video in a non-personal or commercial
1665 setting, it might be that those tools can not be used, or that video
1666 format can not be used, without breaking their copyright license.  I
1667 am not sure.
1668 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html">Back
1669 then</a>, I found that the copyright license terms for Adobe Premiere
1670 and Apple Final Cut Pro both specified that one could not use the
1671 program to produce anything else without a patent license from MPEG
1672 LA.  The issue is not limited to those two products, though.  Other
1673 much used products like those from Avid and Sorenson Media have terms
1674 of use are similar to those from Adobe and Apple.  The complicating
1675 factor making me unsure if those terms have effect in Norway or not is
1676 that the patents in question are not valid in Norway, but copyright
1677 licenses are.</p>
1678
1679 <p>These are the terms for Avid Artist Suite, according to their
1680 <a href="http://www.avid.com/US/about-avid/legal-notices/legal-enduserlicense2">published
1681 end user</a>
1682 <a href="http://www.avid.com/static/resources/common/documents/corporate/LICENSE.pdf">license
1683 text</a> (converted to lower case text for easier reading):</p>
1684
1685 <p><blockquote>
1686 <p>18.2. MPEG-4. MPEG-4 technology may be included with the
1687 software. MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice: </p>
1688
1689 <p>This product is licensed under the MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio
1690 license for the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer for (i)
1691 encoding video in compliance with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4
1692 video”) and/or (ii) decoding MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a
1693 consumer engaged in a personal and non-commercial activity and/or was
1694 obtained from a video provider licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4
1695 video.  No license is granted or shall be implied for any other
1696 use. Additional information including that relating to promotional,
1697 internal and commercial uses and licensing may be obtained from MPEG
1698 LA, LLC.  See http://www.mpegla.com. This product is licensed under
1699 the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license for encoding in compliance
1700 with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except that an additional license
1701 and payment of royalties are necessary for encoding in connection with
1702 (i) data stored or replicated in physical media which is paid for on a
1703 title by title basis and/or (ii) data which is paid for on a title by
1704 title basis and is transmitted to an end user for permanent storage
1705 and/or use, such additional license may be obtained from MPEG LA,
1706 LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for additional details.</p>
1707
1708 <p>18.3. H.264/AVC. H.264/AVC technology may be included with the
1709 software.  MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice:</p>
1710
1711 <p>This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
1712 the personal use of a consumer or other uses in which it does not
1713 receive remuneration to (i) encode video in compliance with the AVC
1714 standard (“AVC video”) and/or (ii) decode AVC video that was encoded
1715 by a consumer engaged in a personal activity and/or was obtained from
1716 a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No license is granted
1717 or shall be implied for any other use. Additional information may be
1718 obtained from MPEG LA, L.L.C. See http://www.mpegla.com.</p>
1719 </blockquote></p>
1720
1721 <p>Note the requirement that the videos created can only be used for
1722 personal or non-commercial purposes.</p>
1723
1724 <p>The Sorenson Media software have
1725 <a href="http://www.sorensonmedia.com/terms/">similar terms</a>:</p>
1726
1727 <p><blockquote>
1728
1729 <p>With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4 Video
1730 Decoders and/or Encoders: Any such product is licensed under the
1731 MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio license for the personal and
1732 non-commercial use of a consumer for (i) encoding video in compliance
1733 with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4 video”) and/or (ii) decoding
1734 MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a personal and
1735 non-commercial activity and/or was obtained from a video provider
1736 licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4 video. No license is granted or
1737 shall be implied for any other use. Additional information including
1738 that relating to promotional, internal and commercial uses and
1739 licensing may be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See
1740 http://www.mpegla.com.</p>
1741
1742 <p>With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4
1743 Consumer Recorded Data Encoder, MPEG-4 Systems Internet Data Encoder,
1744 MPEG-4 Mobile Data Encoder, and/or MPEG-4 Unique Use Encoder: Any such
1745 product is licensed under the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license
1746 for encoding in compliance with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except
1747 that an additional license and payment of royalties are necessary for
1748 encoding in connection with (i) data stored or replicated in physical
1749 media which is paid for on a title by title basis and/or (ii) data
1750 which is paid for on a title by title basis and is transmitted to an
1751 end user for permanent storage and/or use. Such additional license may
1752 be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for
1753 additional details.</p>
1754
1755 </blockquote></p>
1756
1757 <p>Some free software like
1758 <a href="https://handbrake.fr/">Handbrake</A> and
1759 <a href="http://ffmpeg.org/">FFMPEG</a> uses GPL/LGPL licenses and do
1760 not have any such terms included, so for those, there is no
1761 requirement to limit the use to personal and non-commercial.</p>
1762
1763       </div>
1764       <div class="tags">
1765
1766
1767         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1768
1769
1770       </div>
1771     </div>
1772     <div class="padding"></div>
1773
1774     <div class="entry">
1775       <div class="title">
1776         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Bernd_Zeitzen.html">Debian Edu interview: Bernd Zeitzen</a>
1777       </div>
1778       <div class="date">
1779         31st July 2014
1780       </div>
1781       <div class="body">
1782         <p>The complete and free “out of the box” software solution for
1783 schools, <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
1784 Skolelinux</a>, is used quite a lot in Germany, and one of the people
1785 involved is Bernd Zeitzen, who show up on the project mailing lists
1786 from time to time with interesting questions and tips on how to adjust
1787 the setup.  I managed to interview him this summer.</p>
1788
1789 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1790
1791 <p>My name is Bernd Zeitzen and I'm married with Hedda, a self
1792 employed physiotherapist.  My former profession is tool maker, but I
1793 haven't worked for 30 years in this job.  30 years ago I started to
1794 support my wife and become her officeworker and a few years later the
1795 administrator for a small computer network, today based on Ubuntu
1796 Server (Samba, OpenVPN). For her daily work she has to use Windows
1797 Desktops because the software she needs to organize her business only
1798 works with Windows . :-(</p>
1799
1800 <p>In 1988 we started with one PC and DOS, then I learned to use
1801 Windows 98, 2000, XP, …, 8, Ubuntu, MacOSX.  Today we are running a
1802 Linux server with 6 Windows clients and 10 persons (teacher of
1803 children with special needs, speech therapist, occupational therapist,
1804 psychologist and officeworkers) using our Samba shares via OpenVPN to
1805 work with the documentations of our patients.</p>
1806
1807 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1808 project?</strong></p>
1809
1810 <p>Two years ago a friend of mine asked me, if I want to get a job in
1811 his school (<a href="http://www.gymnasium-harsewinkel.de/">Gymnasium
1812 Harsewinkel</a>).  They started with Skolelinux / Debian Edu and they
1813 were looking for people to give support to the teachers using the
1814 software and the network and teaching the pupils increasing their
1815 computer skills in optional lessons.  I'm spending 4-6 hours a week
1816 with this job.</p>
1817
1818 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1819 Edu?</strong></p>
1820
1821 <p>The independence.</p>
1822
1823 <p>First: Every person is allowed to use, share and develop the
1824 software. Even if you are poor, you are allowed to use the software
1825 included in Skolelinux/Debian Edu and all the other Free Software.</p>
1826
1827 <p>Second: The software runs on old machines and this gives us the
1828 possibility to recycle computers, weeded out from offices.  The
1829 servers and desktops are running for more than two years and they are
1830 working reliable. </p>
1831
1832 <p>We have two servers (one tjener and one terminal server), 45
1833 workstations in three classrooms and seven laptops as a mobile
1834 solution for all classrooms.  These machines are all booting from the
1835 terminal server.  In the moment we are installing 30 laptops as mobile
1836 workstations.  Then the pupils have the possibility to work with these
1837 machines in their classrooms.  Internet access is realized by a WLAN
1838 router, connected to the schools network. This is all done without a
1839 dedicated system administrator or a computer science teacher.</p>
1840
1841 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1842 Edu?</strong></p>
1843
1844 <p>Teachers and pupils are Windows users.  &lt;Irony on&gt; And Linux
1845 isn't cool. It's software for freaks using the command line. &lt;Irony
1846 off&gt; They don't realize the stability of the system. </p>
1847
1848 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1849
1850 <p>Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Ubuntu Server 12.04 (Samba,
1851 Apache, MySQL, Joomla!, … and Skolelinux / Debian Edu)</p>
1852
1853 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1854 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1855
1856 <p>In Germany we have the situation: every school is free to decide
1857 which software they want to use. This decision is influenced by
1858 teachers who learned to use Windows and MS Office. They buy a PC with
1859 Windows preinstalled and an additional testing version of MS
1860 Office. They don't know about the possibility to use Free Software
1861 instead.  Another problem are the publisher of school books.  They
1862 develop their software, added to the school books, for Windows.</p>
1863
1864       </div>
1865       <div class="tags">
1866
1867
1868         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
1869
1870
1871       </div>
1872     </div>
1873     <div class="padding"></div>
1874
1875     <div class="entry">
1876       <div class="title">
1877         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/98_6_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">98.6 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a>
1878       </div>
1879       <div class="date">
1880         23rd July 2014
1881       </div>
1882       <div class="body">
1883         <p>This summer I finally had time to continue working on the Norwegian
1884 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
1885 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
1886 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with todays copyright
1887 law.  Yesterday, I finally completed translated the book text.  There
1888 are still some foot/end notes left to translate, the colophon page
1889 need to be rewritten, and a few words and phrases still need to be
1890 translated, but the Norwegian text is ready for the first proof
1891 reading. :) More spell checking is needed, and several illustrations
1892 need to be cleaned up.  The work stopped up because I had to give
1893 priority to other projects the last year, and the progress graph of
1894 the translation show this very well:</p>
1895
1896 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
1897
1898 <p>If you want to read the result, check out the
1899 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
1900 project pages and the
1901 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>,
1902 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
1903 and HTML version available in the
1904 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/tree/master/archive">archive
1905 directory</a>.</p>
1906
1907 <p>Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if
1908 you find any.</p>
1909
1910       </div>
1911       <div class="tags">
1912
1913
1914         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
1915
1916
1917       </div>
1918     </div>
1919     <div class="padding"></div>
1920
1921     <div class="entry">
1922       <div class="title">
1923         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
1924       </div>
1925       <div class="date">
1926         17th June 2014
1927       </div>
1928       <div class="body">
1929         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1930 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
1931 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
1932 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
1933 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
1934
1935 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
1936 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
1937 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
1938 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
1939 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
1940 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
1941 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
1942 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
1943 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
1944 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
1945 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
1946 goals.</p>
1947
1948 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
1949 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
1950 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
1951 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
1952 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
1953 chapters together into one large web page (aka
1954 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
1955 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
1956 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
1957 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
1958 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
1959 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
1960 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
1961 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
1962 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
1963 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
1964 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
1965 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
1966 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
1967 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
1968 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
1969 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
1970 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
1971 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
1972
1973 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
1974 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
1975 track the English original.  For this we use the
1976 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
1977 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
1978 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
1979 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
1980 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
1981 files), which the translations update with the native language
1982 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
1983 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
1984 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
1985 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
1986 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
1987 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
1988 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
1989 of the documentation.</p>
1990
1991 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
1992 recommend using
1993 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
1994 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
1995 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
1996 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
1997 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
1998 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
1999 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
2000 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
2001
2002 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
2003 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
2004 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
2005 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
2006 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
2007 translated images by storing translated versions in
2008 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
2009 package maintainers know more.</p>
2010
2011 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
2012 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
2013 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
2014 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
2015 PDF version</a> or the
2016 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
2017 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
2018 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
2019
2020 <p>To learn more, check out
2021 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
2022 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
2023 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
2024 manual on the wiki</a> and
2025 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
2026 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
2027
2028       </div>
2029       <div class="tags">
2030
2031
2032         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2033
2034
2035       </div>
2036     </div>
2037     <div class="padding"></div>
2038
2039     <div class="entry">
2040       <div class="title">
2041         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_car_computer_solution_.html">Free software car computer solution?</a>
2042       </div>
2043       <div class="date">
2044         29th May 2014
2045       </div>
2046       <div class="body">
2047         <p>Dear lazyweb.  I'm planning to set up a small Raspberry Pi computer
2048 in my car, connected to
2049 <a href="http://www.dx.com/p/400a-4-0-tft-lcd-digital-monitor-for-vehicle-parking-reverse-camera-1440x272-12v-dc-57776">a
2050 small screen</a> next to the rear mirror.  I plan to hook it up with a
2051 GPS and a USB wifi card too.  The idea is to get my own
2052 "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carputer">Carputer</a>".  But I
2053 wonder if someone already created a good free software solution for
2054 such car computer.</p>
2055
2056 <p>This is my current wish list for such system:</p>
2057
2058 <ul>
2059
2060  <li>Work on Raspberry Pi.</li>
2061
2062  <li>Show current speed limit based on location, and warn if going too
2063    fast (for example using color codes yellow and red on the screen,
2064    or make a sound).  This could be done either using either data from
2065    <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">Openstreetmap</a> or OCR
2066    info gathered from a dashboard camera.</li>
2067
2068  <li>Track automatic toll road passes and their cost, show total spent
2069    and make it possible to calculate toll costs for planned
2070    route.</li>
2071
2072  <li>Collect GPX tracks for use with OpenStreetMap.</li>
2073
2074  <li>Automatically detect and use any wireless connection to connect
2075    to home server.  Try IP over DNS
2076    (<a href="http://dev.kryo.se/iodine/">iodine</a>) or ICMP
2077    (<a href="http://code.gerade.org/hans/">Hans</a>) if direct
2078    connection do not work.</li>
2079
2080  <li>Set up mesh network to talk to other cars with the same system,
2081    or some standard car mesh protocol.</li>
2082
2083  <li>Warn when approaching speed cameras and speed camera ranges
2084    (speed calculated between two cameras).</li>
2085
2086  <li>Suport dashboard/front facing camera to discover speed limits and
2087    run OCR to track registration number of passing cars.</li>
2088
2089 </ul>
2090
2091 <p>If you know of any free software car computer system supporting
2092 some or all of these features, please let me know.</p>
2093
2094       </div>
2095       <div class="tags">
2096
2097
2098         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2099
2100
2101       </div>
2102     </div>
2103     <div class="padding"></div>
2104
2105     <div class="entry">
2106       <div class="title">
2107         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_the_Coverity_issues_in_Gnash_fixed_in_the_next_release.html">Half the Coverity issues in Gnash fixed in the next release</a>
2108       </div>
2109       <div class="date">
2110         29th April 2014
2111       </div>
2112       <div class="body">
2113         <p>I've been following <a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">the Gnash
2114 project</a> for quite a while now.  It is a free software
2115 implementation of Adobe Flash, both a standalone player and a browser
2116 plugin.  Gnash implement support for the AVM1 format (and not the
2117 newer AVM2 format - see
2118 <a href="http://lightspark.github.io/">Lightspark</a> for that one),
2119 allowing several flash based sites to work.  Thanks to the friendly
2120 developers at Youtube, it also work with Youtube videos, because the
2121 Javascript code at Youtube detect Gnash and serve a AVM1 player to
2122 those users. :) Would be great if someone found time to implement AVM2
2123 support, but it has not happened yet.  If you install both Lightspark
2124 and Gnash, Lightspark will invoke Gnash if it find a AVM1 flash file,
2125 so you can get both handled as free software.  Unfortunately,
2126 Lightspark so far only implement a small subset of AVM2, and many
2127 sites do not work yet.</p>
2128
2129 <p>A few months ago, I started looking at
2130 <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/">Coverity</a>, the static source
2131 checker used to find heaps and heaps of bugs in free software (thanks
2132 to the donation of a scanning service to free software projects by the
2133 company developing this non-free code checker), and Gnash was one of
2134 the projects I decided to check out.  Coverity is able to find lock
2135 errors, memory errors, dead code and more.  A few days ago they even
2136 extended it to also be able to find the heartbleed bug in OpenSSL.
2137 There are heaps of checks being done on the instrumented code, and the
2138 amount of bogus warnings is quite low compared to the other static
2139 code checkers I have tested over the years.</p>
2140
2141 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I've been working with the other Gnash
2142 developers squashing bugs discovered by Coverity.  I was quite happy
2143 today when I checked the current status and saw that of the 777 issues
2144 detected so far, 374 are marked as fixed.  This make me confident that
2145 the next Gnash release will be more stable and more dependable than
2146 the previous one.  Most of the reported issues were and are in the
2147 test suite, but it also found a few in the rest of the code.</p>
2148
2149 <p>If you want to help out, you find us on
2150 <a href="https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash-dev">the
2151 gnash-dev mailing list</a> and on
2152 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#gnash">the #gnash channel on
2153 irc.freenode.net IRC server</a>.</p>
2154
2155       </div>
2156       <div class="tags">
2157
2158
2159         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2160
2161
2162       </div>
2163     </div>
2164     <div class="padding"></div>
2165
2166     <div class="entry">
2167       <div class="title">
2168         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
2169       </div>
2170       <div class="date">
2171         23rd April 2014
2172       </div>
2173       <div class="body">
2174         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
2175 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
2176 So I implemented one, using
2177 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
2178 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
2179 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
2180 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
2181 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
2182 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
2183
2184 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
2185 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
2186 packages to install.  The first part is in
2187 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
2188 this:</p>
2189
2190 <p><blockquote><pre>
2191 Task: isenkram
2192 Section: hardware
2193 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
2194  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
2195  proposed.
2196 Test-new-install: mark show
2197 Relevance: 8
2198 Packages: for-current-hardware
2199 </pre></blockquote></p>
2200
2201 <p>The second part is in
2202 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
2203 this:</p>
2204
2205 <p><blockquote><pre>
2206 #!/bin/sh
2207 #
2208 (
2209     isenkram-lookup
2210     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
2211 ) | sort -u
2212 </pre></blockquote></p>
2213
2214 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
2215 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
2216 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
2217 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
2218 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
2219 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
2220
2221 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
2222 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
2223 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
2224 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
2225 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
2226 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
2227 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
2228 the python-apt code (bug
2229 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
2230 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
2231 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
2232 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
2233 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
2234 unstable today.</p>
2235
2236 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
2237 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
2238 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
2239 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
2240 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
2241 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
2242 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
2243 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
2244 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
2245
2246 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
2247 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
2248 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
2249 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
2250 package.  See also
2251 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
2252 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
2253 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
2254 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
2255
2256       </div>
2257       <div class="tags">
2258
2259
2260         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2261
2262
2263       </div>
2264     </div>
2265     <div class="padding"></div>
2266
2267     <div class="entry">
2268       <div class="title">
2269         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
2270       </div>
2271       <div class="date">
2272         15th April 2014
2273       </div>
2274       <div class="body">
2275         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
2276 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
2277 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
2278 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
2279 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
2280 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
2281
2282 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
2283 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
2284 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
2285 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
2286 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
2287 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
2288 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
2289
2290 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
2291 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
2292 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
2293 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
2294 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
2295 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
2296 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
2297 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
2298 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
2299 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
2300 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
2301 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
2302
2303 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
2304 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
2305 become root:</p>
2306
2307 <p><pre>
2308 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
2309   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
2310   u-boot-tools
2311 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
2312   freedom-maker
2313 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
2314 </pre></p>
2315
2316 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
2317 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
2318 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
2319 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
2320 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
2321 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
2322 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
2323 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
2324
2325 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
2326 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
2327 the preseed values:</p>
2328
2329 <p><pre>
2330 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
2331 </pre></p>
2332
2333 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
2334 it still work.</p>
2335
2336 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
2337 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
2338 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
2339 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
2340 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
2341 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
2342 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
2343
2344 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
2345 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
2346 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
2347 irc.debian.org)</a> and
2348 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2349 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2350
2351       </div>
2352       <div class="tags">
2353
2354
2355         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2356
2357
2358       </div>
2359     </div>
2360     <div class="padding"></div>
2361
2362     <div class="entry">
2363       <div class="title">
2364         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
2365       </div>
2366       <div class="date">
2367          9th April 2014
2368       </div>
2369       <div class="body">
2370         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
2371 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
2372 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
2373 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
2374 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
2375 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
2376 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
2377 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
2378 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
2379 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
2380 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
2381 have looked at a system called
2382 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
2383 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
2384
2385 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
2386 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
2387 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
2388 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
2389 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
2390 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
2391 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
2392 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
2393 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
2394 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
2395 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
2396 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
2397 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
2398
2399 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
2400 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
2401 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
2402 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
2403 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
2404 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
2405 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
2406 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
2407 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
2408 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
2409 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
2410 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
2411 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
2412 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
2413 account.</p>
2414
2415 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
2416 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
2417 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
2418 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
2419 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
2420 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
2421 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
2422
2423 <p><blockquote><pre>
2424 [s3c]
2425 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
2426 backend-login: API-login
2427 backend-password: API-password
2428 fs-passphrase: local-password
2429 </pre></blockquote></p>
2430
2431 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
2432 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
2433 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
2434 details and password to create it:</p>
2435
2436 <p><blockquote><pre>
2437 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
2438 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
2439   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
2440 Enter backend login:
2441 Enter backend password:
2442 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
2443 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
2444 Enter encryption password:
2445 Confirm encryption password:
2446 Generating random encryption key...
2447 Creating metadata tables...
2448 Dumping metadata...
2449 ..objects..
2450 ..blocks..
2451 ..inodes..
2452 ..inode_blocks..
2453 ..symlink_targets..
2454 ..names..
2455 ..contents..
2456 ..ext_attributes..
2457 Compressing and uploading metadata...
2458 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
2459 # </pre></blockquote></p>
2460
2461 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
2462
2463 <p><blockquote><pre>
2464 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
2465   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
2466 Using 4 upload threads.
2467 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
2468 Reading metadata...
2469 ..objects..
2470 ..blocks..
2471 ..inodes..
2472 ..inode_blocks..
2473 ..symlink_targets..
2474 ..names..
2475 ..contents..
2476 ..ext_attributes..
2477 Mounting filesystem...
2478 # df -h /s3ql
2479 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
2480 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
2481 #
2482 </pre></blockquote></p>
2483
2484 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
2485 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
2486 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
2487 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
2488 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
2489 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
2490
2491 <p><blockquote><pre>
2492 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
2493 #
2494 </pre></blockquote></p>
2495
2496 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
2497 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
2498 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
2499 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
2500 file system:</p>
2501
2502 <p><blockquote><pre>
2503 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
2504 Using cached metadata.
2505 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
2506 Checking DB integrity...
2507 Creating temporary extra indices...
2508 Checking lost+found...
2509 Checking cached objects...
2510 Checking names (refcounts)...
2511 Checking contents (names)...
2512 Checking contents (inodes)...
2513 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
2514 Checking objects (reference counts)...
2515 Checking objects (backend)...
2516 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
2517 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
2518 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
2519 Checking objects (sizes)...
2520 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
2521 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
2522 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
2523 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
2524 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
2525 Checking inodes (sizes)...
2526 Checking extended attributes (names)...
2527 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
2528 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
2529 Checking directory reachability...
2530 Checking unix conventions...
2531 Checking referential integrity...
2532 Dropping temporary indices...
2533 Backing up old metadata...
2534 Dumping metadata...
2535 ..objects..
2536 ..blocks..
2537 ..inodes..
2538 ..inode_blocks..
2539 ..symlink_targets..
2540 ..names..
2541 ..contents..
2542 ..ext_attributes..
2543 Compressing and uploading metadata...
2544 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
2545 #
2546 </pre></blockquote></p>
2547
2548 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
2549 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
2550 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
2551 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
2552 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
2553 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
2554 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
2555 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
2556 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
2557 working set.</p>
2558
2559 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
2560 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
2561 busy:</p>
2562
2563 <p><blockquote><pre>
2564 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
2565   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
2566 Using 8 upload threads.
2567 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
2568 #
2569 </pre></blockquote></p>
2570
2571 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
2572 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
2573 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
2574 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
2575 s3qlctrl:
2576
2577 <p><blockquote><pre>
2578 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
2579 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
2580 #
2581 </pre></blockquote></p>
2582
2583 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
2584 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
2585 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
2586 a report:</p>
2587
2588 <p><blockquote><pre>
2589 # s3qlstat /s3ql
2590 Directory entries:    9141
2591 Inodes:               9143
2592 Data blocks:          8851
2593 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
2594 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
2595 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
2596 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
2597 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
2598 #
2599 </pre></blockquote></p>
2600
2601 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
2602 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
2603 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
2604 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
2605 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
2606 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
2607 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
2608 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
2609 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
2610 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
2611 best.</p>
2612
2613 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
2614 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
2615 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
2616 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
2617 poster is titled
2618 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
2619 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
2620 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
2621 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
2622 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
2623
2624 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
2625 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
2626 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
2627 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
2628 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
2629 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
2630 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
2631 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
2632
2633 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
2634 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
2635 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
2636 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
2637 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
2638 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
2639 only read from it.</p>
2640
2641 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2642 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2643 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2644
2645       </div>
2646       <div class="tags">
2647
2648
2649         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
2650
2651
2652       </div>
2653     </div>
2654     <div class="padding"></div>
2655
2656     <div class="entry">
2657       <div class="title">
2658         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ReactOS_Windows_clone___nice_free_software.html">ReactOS Windows clone - nice free software</a>
2659       </div>
2660       <div class="date">
2661          1st April 2014
2662       </div>
2663       <div class="body">
2664         <p>Microsoft have announced that Windows XP reaches its end of life
2665 2014-04-08, in 7 days.  But there are heaps of machines still running
2666 Windows XP, and depending on Windows XP to run their applications, and
2667 upgrading will be expensive, both when it comes to money and when it
2668 comes to the amount of effort needed to migrate from Windows XP to a
2669 new operating system.  Some obvious options (buy new a Windows
2670 machine, buy a MacOSX machine, install Linux on the existing machine)
2671 are already well known and covered elsewhere.  Most of them involve
2672 leaving the user applications installed on Windows XP behind and
2673 trying out replacements or updated versions. In this blog post I want
2674 to mention one strange bird that allow people to keep the hardware and
2675 the existing Windows XP applications and run them on a free software
2676 operating system that is Windows XP compatible.</p>
2677
2678 <p><a href="http://www.reactos.org/">ReactOS</a> is a free software
2679 operating system (GNU GPL licensed) working on providing a operating
2680 system that is binary compatible with Windows, able to run windows
2681 programs directly and to use Windows drivers for hardware directly.
2682 The project goal is for Windows user to keep their existing machines,
2683 drivers and software, and gain the advantages from user a operating
2684 system without usage limitations caused by non-free licensing.  It is
2685 a Windows clone running directly on the hardware, so quite different
2686 from the approach taken by <a href="http://www.winehq.org/">the Wine
2687 project</a>, which make it possible to run Windows binaries on
2688 Linux.</p>
2689
2690 <p>The ReactOS project share code with the Wine project, so most
2691 shared libraries available on Windows are already implemented already.
2692 There is also a software manager like the one we are used to on Linux,
2693 allowing the user to install free software applications with a simple
2694 click directly from the Internet.  Check out the
2695 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/screenshots">screen shots on the
2696 project web site</a> for an idea what it look like (it looks just like
2697 Windows before metro).</p>
2698
2699 <p>I do not use ReactOS myself, preferring Linux and Unix like
2700 operating systems.  I've tested it, and it work fine in a virt-manager
2701 virtual machine.  The browser, minesweeper, notepad etc is working
2702 fine as far as I can tell.  Unfortunately, my main test application
2703 is the software included on a CD with the Lego Mindstorms NXT, which
2704 seem to install just fine from CD but fail to leave any binaries on
2705 the disk after the installation.  So no luck with that test software.
2706 No idea why, but hope someone else figure out and fix the problem.
2707 I've tried the ReactOS Live ISO on a physical machine, and it seemed
2708 to work just fine.  If you like Windows and want to keep running your
2709 old Windows binaries, check it out by
2710 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/download">downloading</a> the
2711 installation CD, the live CD or the preinstalled virtual machine
2712 image.</p>
2713
2714       </div>
2715       <div class="tags">
2716
2717
2718         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos</a>.
2719
2720
2721       </div>
2722     </div>
2723     <div class="padding"></div>
2724
2725     <div class="entry">
2726       <div class="title">
2727         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html">Debian Edu interview: Roger Marsal</a>
2728       </div>
2729       <div class="date">
2730         30th March 2014
2731       </div>
2732       <div class="body">
2733         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
2734 keep gaining new users.  Some weeks ago, a person showed up on IRC,
2735 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>, with a
2736 wish to contribute, and I managed to get a interview with this great
2737 contributor Roger Marsal to learn more about his background.</p>
2738
2739 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2740
2741 <p>My name is Roger Marsal, I'm 27 years old (1986 generation) and I
2742 live in Barcelona, Spain. I've got a strong business background and I
2743 work as a patrimony manager and as a real estate agent.  Additionally,
2744 I've co-founded a British based tech company that is nowadays on the
2745 last development phase of a new social networking concept.</p>
2746
2747 <p>I'm a Linux enthusiast that started its journey with Ubuntu four years
2748 ago and have recently switched to Debian seeking rock solid stability
2749 and as a necessary step to gain expertise.</p>
2750
2751 <p>In a nutshell, I spend my days working and learning as much as I
2752 can to face both my job, entrepreneur project and feed my Linux
2753 hunger.</p>
2754
2755 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
2756 project?</strong></p>
2757
2758 <p>I discovered the <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP</a> advantages
2759 with "Ubuntu 12.04 alternate install" and after a year of use I
2760 started looking for an alternative.  Even though I highly value and
2761 respect the Ubuntu project, I thought it was necessary for me to
2762 change to a more robust and stable alternative.  As far as I was using
2763 Debian on my personal laptop I thought it would be fine to install
2764 Debian and configure an LTSP server myself.  Surprised, I discovered
2765 that the Debian project also supported a kind of Edubuntu equivalent,
2766 and after having some pain I obtained a Debian Edu network up and
2767 running.  I just loved it.</p>
2768
2769 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2770 Edu?</strong></p>
2771
2772 <p>I found a main advantage in that, once you know "the tips and
2773 tricks", a new installation just works out of the box. It's the most
2774 complete alternative I've found to create an LTSP network. All the
2775 other distributions seems to be made of plastic, Debian Edu seems to
2776 be made of steel.</p>
2777
2778 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2779 Edu?</strong></p>
2780
2781 <p>I found two main disadvantages.</p>
2782
2783 <p>I'm not an expert but I've got notions and I had to spent a considerable
2784 amount of time trying to bring up a standard network topology. I'm quite
2785 stubborn and I just worked until I did but I'm sure many people with few
2786 resources (not big schools, but academies for example) would have switched
2787 or dropped.</p>
2788
2789 <p>It's amazing how such a complex system like Debian Edu has achieved
2790 this out-of-the-box state. Even though tweaking without breaking gets
2791 more difficult, as more factors have to be considered. This can
2792 discourage many people too.</p>
2793
2794 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2795
2796 <p>I use Debian, Firefox, Okular, Inkscape, LibreOffice and
2797 Virtualbox.</p>
2798
2799
2800 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2801 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2802
2803 <p>I don't think there is a need for a particular strategy. The free
2804 attribute in both "freedom" and "no price" meanings is what will
2805 really bring free software to schools. In my experience I can think of
2806 the <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">"R" statistical language</a>; a
2807 few years a ago was an extremely nerd tool for university people.
2808 Today it's being increasingly used to teach statistics at many
2809 different level of studies.  I believe free and open software will
2810 increasingly gain popularity, but I'm sure schools will be one of the
2811 first scenarios where this will happen.</p>
2812
2813       </div>
2814       <div class="tags">
2815
2816
2817         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
2818
2819
2820       </div>
2821     </div>
2822     <div class="padding"></div>
2823
2824     <div class="entry">
2825       <div class="title">
2826         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Public_Trusted_Timestamping_services_for_everyone.html">Public Trusted Timestamping services for everyone</a>
2827       </div>
2828       <div class="date">
2829         25th March 2014
2830       </div>
2831       <div class="body">
2832         <p>Did you ever need to store logs or other files in a way that would
2833 allow it to be used as evidence in court, and needed a way to
2834 demonstrate without reasonable doubt that the file had not been
2835 changed since it was created?  Or, did you ever need to document that
2836 a given document was received at some point in time, like some
2837 archived document or the answer to an exam, and not changed after it
2838 was received?  The problem in these settings is to remove the need to
2839 trust yourself and your computers, while still being able to prove
2840 that a file is the same as it was at some given time in the past.</p>
2841
2842 <p>A solution to these problems is to have a trusted third party
2843 "stamp" the document and verify that at some given time the document
2844 looked a given way.  Such
2845 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notarius">notarius</a> service
2846 have been around for thousands of years, and its digital equivalent is
2847 called a
2848 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping">trusted
2849 timestamping service</a>.  <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">The Internet
2850 Engineering Task Force</a> standardised how such service could work a
2851 few years ago as <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3161">RFC
2852 3161</a>.  The mechanism is simple.  Create a hash of the file in
2853 question, send it to a trusted third party which add a time stamp to
2854 the hash and sign the result with its private key, and send back the
2855 signed hash + timestamp.  Both email, FTP and HTTP can be used to
2856 request such signature, depending on what is provided by the service
2857 used. Anyone with the document and the signature can then verify that
2858 the document matches the signature by creating their own hash and
2859 checking the signature using the trusted third party public key.
2860 There are several commercial services around providing such
2861 timestamping.  A quick search for
2862 "<a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rfc+3161+service">rfc 3161
2863 service</a>" pointed me to at least
2864 <a href="https://www.digistamp.com/technical/how-a-digital-time-stamp-works/">DigiStamp</a>,
2865 <a href="http://www.quovadisglobal.co.uk/CertificateServices/SigningServices/TimeStamp.aspx">Quo
2866 Vadis</a>,
2867 <a href="https://www.globalsign.com/timestamp-service/">Global Sign</a>
2868 and <a href="http://www.globaltrustfinder.com/TSADefault.aspx">Global
2869 Trust Finder</a>.  The system work as long as the private key of the
2870 trusted third party is not compromised.</p>
2871
2872 <p>But as far as I can tell, there are very few public trusted
2873 timestamp services available for everyone.  I've been looking for one
2874 for a while now. But yesterday I found one over at
2875 <a href="https://www.pki.dfn.de/zeitstempeldienst/">Deutches
2876 Forschungsnetz</a> mentioned in
2877 <a href="http://www.d-mueller.de/blog/dealing-with-trusted-timestamps-in-php-rfc-3161/">a
2878 blog by David Müller</a>.  I then found
2879 <a href="http://www.rz.uni-greifswald.de/support/dfn-pki-zertifikate/zeitstempeldienst.html">a
2880 good recipe on how to use the service</a> over at the University of
2881 Greifswald.</p>
2882
2883 <p><a href="http://www.openssl.org/">The OpenSSL library</a> contain
2884 both server and tools to use and set up your own signing service.  See
2885 the ts(1SSL), tsget(1SSL) manual pages for more details.  The
2886 following shell script demonstrate how to extract a signed timestamp
2887 for any file on the disk in a Debian environment:</p>
2888
2889 <p><blockquote><pre>
2890 #!/bin/sh
2891 set -e
2892 url="http://zeitstempel.dfn.de"
2893 caurl="https://pki.pca.dfn.de/global-services-ca/pub/cacert/chain.txt"
2894 reqfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsq)
2895 resfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsr)
2896 cafile=chain.txt
2897 if [ ! -f $cafile ] ; then
2898     wget -O $cafile "$caurl"
2899 fi
2900 openssl ts -query -data "$1" -cert | tee "$reqfile" \
2901     | /usr/lib/ssl/misc/tsget -h "$url" -o "$resfile"
2902 openssl ts -reply -in "$resfile" -text 1>&2
2903 openssl ts -verify -data "$1" -in "$resfile" -CAfile "$cafile" 1>&2
2904 base64 < "$resfile"
2905 rm "$reqfile" "$resfile"
2906 </pre></blockquote></p>
2907
2908 <p>The argument to the script is the file to timestamp, and the output
2909 is a base64 encoded version of the signature to STDOUT and details
2910 about the signature to STDERR.  Note that due to
2911 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=742553">a bug
2912 in the tsget script</a>, you might need to modify the included script
2913 and remove the last line.  Or just write your own HTTP uploader using
2914 curl. :) Now you too can prove and verify that files have not been
2915 changed.</p>
2916
2917 <p>But the Internet need more public trusted timestamp services.
2918 Perhaps something for <a href="http://www.uninett.no/">Uninett</a> or
2919 my work place the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
2920 to set up?</p>
2921
2922       </div>
2923       <div class="tags">
2924
2925
2926         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
2927
2928
2929       </div>
2930     </div>
2931     <div class="padding"></div>
2932
2933     <div class="entry">
2934       <div class="title">
2935         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Video_DVD_reader_library___python_dvdvideo___nice_free_software.html">Video DVD reader library / python-dvdvideo - nice free software</a>
2936       </div>
2937       <div class="date">
2938         21st March 2014
2939       </div>
2940       <div class="body">
2941         <p>Keeping your DVD collection safe from scratches and curious
2942 children fingers while still having it available when you want to see a
2943 movie is not straight forward.  My preferred method at the moment is
2944 to store a full copy of the ISO on a hard drive, and use VLC, Popcorn
2945 Hour or other useful players to view the resulting file.  This way the
2946 subtitles and bonus material are still available and using the ISO is
2947 just like inserting the original DVD record in the DVD player.</p>
2948
2949 <p>Earlier I used dd for taking security copies, but it do not handle
2950 DVDs giving read errors (which are quite a few of them).  I've also
2951 tried using
2952 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">dvdbackup
2953 and genisoimage</a>, but these days I use the marvellous python library
2954 and program
2955 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">python-dvdvideo</a>
2956 written by Bastian Blank.  It is
2957 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/python-dvdvideo.html">in Debian
2958 already</a> and the binary package name is python3-dvdvideo. Instead
2959 of trying to read every block from the DVD, it parses the file
2960 structure and figure out which block on the DVD is actually in used,
2961 and only read those blocks from the DVD.  This work surprisingly well,
2962 and I have been able to almost backup my entire DVD collection using
2963 this method.</p>
2964
2965 <p>So far, python-dvdvideo have failed on between 10 and
2966 20 DVDs, which is a small fraction of my collection.  The most common
2967 problem is
2968 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720831">DVDs
2969 using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8 characters</a>, which according to
2970 Bastian is against the DVD specification (and seem to cause some
2971 players to fail too).  A rarer problem is what seem to be inconsistent
2972 DVD structures, as the python library
2973 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=723079">claim
2974 there is a overlap between objects</a>.  An equally rare problem claim
2975 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=741878">some
2976 value is out of range</a>.  No idea what is going on there.  I wish I
2977 knew enough about the DVD format to fix these, to ensure my movie
2978 collection will stay with me in the future.</p>
2979
2980 <p>So, if you need to keep your DVDs safe, back them up using
2981 python-dvdvideo. :)</p>
2982
2983       </div>
2984       <div class="tags">
2985
2986
2987         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2988
2989
2990       </div>
2991     </div>
2992     <div class="padding"></div>
2993
2994     <div class="entry">
2995       <div class="title">
2996         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
2997       </div>
2998       <div class="date">
2999         14th March 2014
3000       </div>
3001       <div class="body">
3002         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
3003 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
3004 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
3005 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
3006 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
3007 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
3008 release (0.2).</p>
3009
3010 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
3011 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
3012 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
3013 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
3014 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
3015 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
3016 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
3017 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
3018 and build using
3019 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
3020 with a user with sudo access to become root:
3021
3022 <pre>
3023 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
3024   freedom-maker
3025 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
3026   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
3027   u-boot-tools
3028 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
3029 </pre>
3030
3031 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
3032 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
3033 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
3034 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
3035 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
3036 kpartx call.</p>
3037
3038 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
3039 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
3040 the preseed values:</p>
3041
3042 <pre>
3043 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
3044 </pre>
3045
3046 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
3047 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
3048 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
3049 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
3050 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
3051 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
3052
3053 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
3054 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
3055 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
3056 irc.debian.org)</a> and
3057 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
3058 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
3059
3060       </div>
3061       <div class="tags">
3062
3063
3064         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3065
3066
3067       </div>
3068     </div>
3069     <div class="padding"></div>
3070
3071     <div class="entry">
3072       <div class="title">
3073         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_add_extra_storage_servers_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">How to add extra storage servers in Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
3074       </div>
3075       <div class="date">
3076         12th March 2014
3077       </div>
3078       <div class="body">
3079         <p>On larger sites, it is useful to use a dedicated storage server for
3080 storing user home directories and data.  The design for handling this
3081 in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, is
3082 to update the automount rules in LDAP and let the automount daemon on
3083 the clients take care of the rest.  I was reminded about the need to
3084 document this better when one of the customers of
3085 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a>, where I am
3086 on the board of directors, asked about how to do this.  The steps to
3087 get this working are the following:</p>
3088
3089 <p><ol>
3090
3091 <li>Add new storage server in DNS.  I use nas-server.intern as the
3092 example host here.</li>
3093
3094 <li>Add automoun LDAP information about this server in LDAP, to allow
3095 all clients to automatically mount it on reqeust.</li>
3096
3097 <li>Add the relevant entries in tjener.intern:/etc/fstab, because
3098 tjener.intern do not use automount to avoid mounting loops.</li>
3099
3100 </ol></p>
3101
3102 <p>DNS entries are added in GOsa², and not described here.  Follow the
3103 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/GettingStarted">instructions
3104 in the manual</a> (Machine Management with GOsa² in section Getting
3105 started).</p>
3106
3107 <p>Ensure that the NFS export points on the server are exported to the
3108 relevant subnets or machines:</p>
3109
3110 <p><blockquote><pre>
3111 root@tjener:~# showmount -e nas-server
3112 Export list for nas-server:
3113 /storage         10.0.0.0/8
3114 root@tjener:~#
3115 </pre></blockquote></p>
3116
3117 <p>Here everything on the backbone network is granted access to the
3118 /storage export.  With NFSv3 it is slightly better to limit it to
3119 netgroup membership or single IP addresses to have some limits on the
3120 NFS access.</p>
3121
3122 <p>The next step is to update LDAP.  This can not be done using GOsa²,
3123 because it lack a module for automount.  Instead, use ldapvi and add
3124 the required LDAP objects using an editor.</p>
3125
3126 <p><blockquote><pre>
3127 ldapvi --ldap-conf -ZD '(cn=admin)' -b ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3128 </pre></blockquote></p>
3129
3130 <p>When the editor show up, add the following LDAP objects at the
3131 bottom of the document.  The "/&" part in the last LDAP object is a
3132 wild card matching everything the nas-server exports, removing the
3133 need to list individual mount points in LDAP.</p>
3134
3135 <p><blockquote><pre>
3136 add cn=nas-server,ou=auto.skole,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3137 objectClass: automount
3138 cn: nas-server
3139 automountInformation: -fstype=autofs --timeout=60 ldap:ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3140
3141 add ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3142 objectClass: top
3143 objectClass: automountMap
3144 ou: auto.nas-server
3145
3146 add cn=/,ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3147 objectClass: automount
3148 cn: /
3149 automountInformation: -fstype=nfs,tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,intr,hard,nodev,nosuid,noatime nas-server.intern:/&
3150 </pre></blockquote></p>
3151
3152 <p>The last step to remember is to mount the relevant mount points in
3153 tjener.intern by adding them to /etc/fstab, creating the mount
3154 directories using mkdir and running "mount -a" to mount them.</p>
3155
3156 <p>When this is done, your users should be able to access the files on
3157 the storage server directly by just visiting the
3158 /tjener/nas-server/storage/ directory using any application on any
3159 workstation, LTSP client or LTSP server.</p>
3160
3161       </div>
3162       <div class="tags">
3163
3164
3165         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>.
3166
3167
3168       </div>
3169     </div>
3170     <div class="padding"></div>
3171
3172     <div class="entry">
3173       <div class="title">
3174         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
3175       </div>
3176       <div class="date">
3177         22nd February 2014
3178       </div>
3179       <div class="body">
3180         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
3181 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
3182 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
3183 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
3184 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
3185 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
3186 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
3187 proper home since then.</p>
3188
3189 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
3190 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
3191 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
3192 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
3193 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
3194
3195 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
3196 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
3197 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
3198 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
3199 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
3200 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
3201 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
3202 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
3203 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
3204
3205       </div>
3206       <div class="tags">
3207
3208
3209         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3210
3211
3212       </div>
3213     </div>
3214     <div class="padding"></div>
3215
3216     <div class="entry">
3217       <div class="title">
3218         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
3219       </div>
3220       <div class="date">
3221          3rd February 2014
3222       </div>
3223       <div class="body">
3224         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
3225 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
3226 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
3227 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
3228 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
3229 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
3230 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
3231 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
3232 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
3233
3234 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
3235 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
3236 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
3237 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
3238 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
3239 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
3240
3241 <p><blockquote><pre>
3242 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
3243 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
3244 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
3245 dhclient /dev/eth0
3246 </pre></blockquote></p>
3247
3248 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
3249 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
3250 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
3251
3252 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
3253 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
3254 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
3255 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
3256 side.</p>
3257
3258 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
3259 stuff:</p>
3260
3261 <p><blockquote><pre>
3262 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
3263 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
3264 EOF
3265 apt-get update
3266 apt-get dist-upgrade
3267 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
3268     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
3269 update-alternatives --config runsystem
3270 </pre></blockquote></p>
3271
3272 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
3273 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
3274 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
3275 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
3276 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
3277 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
3278 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
3279 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
3280 ssh instead.
3281
3282 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
3283 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
3284 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
3285 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
3286 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
3287 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
3288
3289 <p><blockquote><pre>
3290 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
3291 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
3292 EOF
3293 </pre></blockquote></p>
3294
3295 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
3296 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
3297 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
3298 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
3299
3300 <p><blockquote><pre>
3301 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
3302 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
3303 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
3304 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
3305 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
3306 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
3307 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
3308 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
3309 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
3310 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
3311 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
3312 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
3313 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
3314 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
3315 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
3316 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
3317 #
3318 </pre></blockquote></p>
3319
3320 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
3321 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
3322 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
3323 command line stuff.<p>
3324
3325       </div>
3326       <div class="tags">
3327
3328
3329         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3330
3331
3332       </div>
3333     </div>
3334     <div class="padding"></div>
3335
3336     <div class="entry">
3337       <div class="title">
3338         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_fist_full_of_non_anonymous_Bitcoins.html">A fist full of non-anonymous Bitcoins</a>
3339       </div>
3340       <div class="date">
3341         29th January 2014
3342       </div>
3343       <div class="body">
3344         <p>Bitcoin is a incredible use of peer to peer communication and
3345 encryption, allowing direct and immediate money transfer without any
3346 central control.  It is sometimes claimed to be ideal for illegal
3347 activity, which I believe is quite a long way from the truth.  At least
3348 I would not conduct illegal money transfers using a system where the
3349 details of every transaction are kept forever.  This point is
3350 investigated in
3351 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">USENIX ;login:</a>
3352 from December 2013, in the article
3353 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/03_meiklejohn-online.pdf">A
3354 Fistful of Bitcoins - Characterizing Payments Among Men with No
3355 Names</a>" by Sarah Meiklejohn, Marjori Pomarole,Grant Jordan, Kirill
3356 Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker, and Stefan Savage.  They
3357 analyse the transaction log in the Bitcoin system, using it to find
3358 addresses belong to individuals and organisations and follow the flow
3359 of money from both Bitcoin theft and trades on Silk Road to where the
3360 money end up.  This is how they wrap up their article:</p>
3361
3362 <p><blockquote>
3363 <p>"To demonstrate the usefulness of this type of analysis, we turned
3364 our attention to criminal activity. In the Bitcoin economy, criminal
3365 activity can appear in a number of forms, such as dealing drugs on
3366 Silk Road or simply stealing someone else’s bitcoins. We followed the
3367 flow of bitcoins out of Silk Road (in particular, from one notorious
3368 address) and from a number of highly publicized thefts to see whether
3369 we could track the bitcoins to known services. Although some of the
3370 thieves attempted to use sophisticated mixing techniques (or possibly
3371 mix services) to obscure the flow of bitcoins, for the most part
3372 tracking the bitcoins was quite straightforward, and we ultimately saw
3373 large quantities of bitcoins flow to a variety of exchanges directly
3374 from the point of theft (or the withdrawal from Silk Road).</p>
3375
3376 <p>As acknowledged above, following stolen bitcoins to the point at
3377 which they are deposited into an exchange does not in itself identify
3378 the thief; however, it does enable further de-anonymization in the
3379 case in which certain agencies can determine (through, for example,
3380 subpoena power) the real-world owner of the account into which the
3381 stolen bitcoins were deposited.  Because such exchanges seem to serve
3382 as chokepoints into and out of the Bitcoin economy (i.e., there are
3383 few alternative ways to cash out), we conclude that using Bitcoin for
3384 money laundering or other illicit purposes does not (at least at
3385 present) seem to be particularly attractive."</p>
3386 </blockquote><p>
3387
3388 <p>These researches are not the first to analyse the Bitcoin
3389 transaction log.  The 2011 paper
3390 "<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4524">An Analysis of Anonymity in
3391 the Bitcoin System</A>" by Fergal Reid and Martin Harrigan is
3392 summarized like this:</p>
3393
3394 <p><blockquote>
3395 "Anonymity in Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic currency system, is a
3396 complicated issue. Within the system, users are identified by
3397 public-keys only. An attacker wishing to de-anonymize its users will
3398 attempt to construct the one-to-many mapping between users and
3399 public-keys and associate information external to the system with the
3400 users. Bitcoin tries to prevent this attack by storing the mapping of
3401 a user to his or her public-keys on that user's node only and by
3402 allowing each user to generate as many public-keys as required. In
3403 this chapter we consider the topological structure of two networks
3404 derived from Bitcoin's public transaction history. We show that the
3405 two networks have a non-trivial topological structure, provide
3406 complementary views of the Bitcoin system and have implications for
3407 anonymity. We combine these structures with external information and
3408 techniques such as context discovery and flow analysis to investigate
3409 an alleged theft of Bitcoins, which, at the time of the theft, had a
3410 market value of approximately half a million U.S. dollars."
3411 </blockquote></p>
3412
3413 <p>I hope these references can help kill the urban myth that Bitcoin
3414 is anonymous.  It isn't really a good fit for illegal activites.  Use
3415 cash if you need to stay anonymous, at least until regular DNA
3416 sampling of notes and coins become the norm. :)</p>
3417
3418 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3419 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3420 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3421
3422       </div>
3423       <div class="tags">
3424
3425
3426         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix</a>.
3427
3428
3429       </div>
3430     </div>
3431     <div class="padding"></div>
3432
3433     <div class="entry">
3434       <div class="title">
3435         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
3436       </div>
3437       <div class="date">
3438         14th January 2014
3439       </div>
3440       <div class="body">
3441         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
3442 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
3443 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
3444 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
3445 the source.  The company behind it provide
3446 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
3447 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
3448 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
3449 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
3450 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
3451 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
3452 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
3453 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
3454 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
3455 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
3456 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
3457 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
3458 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
3459 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
3460 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
3461 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
3462 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
3463 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
3464 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
3465
3466 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
3467
3468 <ul>
3469
3470   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
3471   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
3472   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
3473
3474 </ul>
3475
3476 <p>You can
3477 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
3478 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
3479 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
3480 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
3481 include a test suite check.</p>
3482
3483       </div>
3484       <div class="tags">
3485
3486
3487         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3488
3489
3490       </div>
3491     </div>
3492     <div class="padding"></div>
3493
3494     <div class="entry">
3495       <div class="title">
3496         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html">Debian Edu interview: Dominik George</a>
3497       </div>
3498       <div class="date">
3499         25th December 2013
3500       </div>
3501       <div class="body">
3502         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3503 project</a> consist of both newcomers and old timers, and this time I
3504 was able to get an interview with a newcomer in the project who showed
3505 up on the IRC channel a few weeks ago to let us know about his
3506 successful installation of Debian Edu Wheezy in his School.  Say hello
3507 to <a href="https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/Natureshadow">Dominik
3508 George</a>.</p>
3509
3510 <!-- http://www.dominik-george.de/images/foto.jpg -->
3511
3512 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3513
3514 <p>I am a 23 year-old student from Germany who has spent half of his
3515 life with open source. In "real life", I am, as already mentioned, a
3516 student in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
3517 Information Technologies and Anglistics. Due to my (only partially
3518 voluntary) huge engagement in the open source world, these things are
3519 a bit vacant right now however.</p>
3520
3521 <p>I also have been working as a project teacher at a Gymasnium
3522 (public school) for various years now. I took up that work some time
3523 around 2005 when still attending that school myself and have continued
3524 it until today. I also had been running the (kind of very advanced)
3525 network of that school together with a team of very interested and
3526 talented students in the age of 11 to 15 years, who took the chance to
3527 learn a lot about open source and networking before I left the school
3528 to help building another school's informational education concept from
3529 scratch.</p>
3530
3531 <p>That said, one might see me as a kind of "glue" between school kids
3532 and the elderly of teachers as well as between the open source
3533 ecosystem and the (even more complex) educational ecosystem.</p>
3534
3535 <p>When I am not busy with open source or education, I like Geocaching
3536 and cycling.</p>
3537
3538 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3539 project?</strong></p>
3540
3541 <p>I think that happened some time around 2009 when I first attended
3542 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">FrOSCon</a> and visited the project
3543 booth. I think I wasn't too interested back then because I used to
3544 have an attitude of disliking software that does too much stuff on its
3545 own. Maybe I was too inexperienced to realise the upsides of an
3546 "out-of-the-box" solution ;).</p>
3547
3548 <p>The first time I actively talked to Skolelinux people was at
3549 <a href="http://www.openrheinruhr.de">OpenRheinRuhr</a> 2011 when the
3550 BiscuIT project, a home-grewn software used by my school for various
3551 really cool things from timetables and class contact lists to lunch
3552 ordering, student ID card printing and project elections first got to
3553 a stage where it could have been published. I asked the Skolelinux
3554 guys running the booth if the project were interested in it and gave a
3555 small demonstration, but there wasn't any real feedback and the guys
3556 seemed rather uninterested.</p>
3557
3558 <p>After I left the school where I developed the software, it got
3559 mostly lost, but I am now reimplementing it for my new school. I have
3560 reusability and compatibility in mind, and I hop there will be a new
3561 basis for contributing it to the Skolelinux project ;)!</p>
3562
3563 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3564 Edu?</strong></p>
3565
3566 <p>The most important advantage seems to be that it "just
3567 works". After overcoming some minor (but still very annoying) glitches
3568 in the installer, I got a fully functional, working school network,
3569 without the month-long hassle I experienced when setting all that up
3570 from scratch in earlier years. And above that, it rocked - I didn't
3571 have any real hardware at hand, because the school was just founded
3572 and has no money whatsoever, so I installed a combined server (main
3573 server, terminal services and workstation) in a VM on my personal
3574 notebook, bridging the LTSP network interface to the ethernet port,
3575 and then PXE-booted the Windows notebooks that were lying around from
3576 it. I could use 8 clients without any performance issues, by using a
3577 tiny little VM on a tiny little notebook. I think that's enough to say
3578 that it rocks!</p>
3579
3580 <p>Secondly, there are marketing reasons. Life's bad, and so no
3581 politician will ever permit a setup described as "Debian, an universal
3582 operating system, with some really cool educational tools" while they
3583 will be jsut fine with "Skolelinux, a single-purpose solution for your
3584 school network", even if both turn out to be the very same thing (yes,
3585 this is unfair towards the Skolelinux project, and must not be taken
3586 too seriously - you get the idea, anyway).</p>
3587
3588 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3589 Edu?</strong></p>
3590
3591 <p>I have not been involved with Skolelinux long enough to really
3592 answer this question in a fair way. Thus, please allow me to put it in
3593 other words: "What do you expect from Skolelinux to keep liking it?" I
3594 can list a few points about that:</p>
3595
3596 <ul>
3597
3598  <li>always strive to get all things integrated into Debian upstream
3599  <li>be open to discussion about changes and the like, even with newcomers
3600  <li>be helpful at being helpful ;)
3601
3602 </ul>
3603
3604 <p>I'm really sorry I cannot say much more about that :(!</p>
3605
3606 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3607
3608 <p>First of all, all software I use is free and open. I have abandoned
3609 all non-free software (except for firmware on my darned phone) this
3610 year.</p>
3611
3612 <p>I run Debian GNU/Linux on all PC systems I use. On that, I mostly
3613 run text tools. I use
3614 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm">mksh</a> as shell,
3615 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm">jupp</a> as very advanced
3616 text editor (I even got the developer to help me write a script/macro
3617 based full-featured student management software with the two),
3618 <a href="http://mcabber.com/">mcabber</a> for XMPP and
3619 <a href="http://www.irssi.org/">irssi</a> for IRC. For that overly
3620 coloured world called the WWW, I use
3621 <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Iceweasel
3622 (Firefox)</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a> for
3623 e-mail.</p>
3624
3625 <p>However, while I am personally aware of the fact that text tools
3626 are more efficient and powerful than anything else, I also use (or at
3627 least operate) some tools that are suitable to bring open source to
3628 kids. One of these things is <a href="http://jappix.org/">Jappix</a>,
3629 which I already introduced to some kids even before they got aware of
3630 Facebook, making them see for themselves that they do not need
3631 Facebook now ;).</p>
3632
3633 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3634 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3635
3636 <p>Well, that's a two-sided thing. One side is what I believe, and one
3637 side is what I have experienced.</p>
3638
3639 <p>I believe that the right strategy is showing them the benefits. But
3640 that won't work out as long as the acceptance of free alternatives
3641 grows globally. What I mean is that if all the kids are almost forced
3642 to use Windows, Facebook, Skype, you name it at home, they will not
3643 see why they would want to use alternatives at school. I have seen
3644 students take seat in front of a fully-functional, modern Debian
3645 desktop that could do anything their Windows at home could do, and
3646 they jsut refused to use it because "Linux sucks". It is something
3647 that makes the council of our city spend around 600000 € to buy
3648 software - not including hardware, mind you - for operating school
3649 networks, and for installing a system that, as has been proved, does
3650 not work. For those of you readers who are good at maths, have you
3651 already found out how many lives could have been saved with that money
3652 if we had instead used it to bring education to parts of the world
3653 that need it? I have, and found it to be nothing less dramatic than
3654 plain criminal.</p>
3655
3656 <p>That said, the only feasible way appears to be the bottom up
3657 method. We have to bring free software to kids and parents. I have
3658 founded an association named
3659 <a href="https://www.teckids.org">Teckids</a> here in Germany that does
3660 just that. We organise several events for kids and adolescents in the
3661 area of free and open source software, for example the
3662 <a href="http://kids.froscon.org">FrogLabs</a>, which share staff with
3663 Teckids and are the youth programme of
3664 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">the Free and Open Source Software
3665 Conference (FrOSCon)</a>. We do a lot more than most other conferences
3666 - this year, we first offered the FrogLabs as a holiday camp for kids
3667 aged 10 to 16. It was a huge success, with approx. 30 kids taking part
3668 and learning with and about free software through a whole weekend. All
3669 of us had a lot of fun, and the results were really exciting.</p>
3670
3671 <p>Apart from that, we are preparing a campaign that is supposed to bring
3672 the message of free alternatives to stuff kids use every day to them and
3673 their parents, e.g. the use of Jabber / Jappix instead of Facebook and
3674 Skype. To make that possible, we are planning to get together a team of
3675 clever kids who understand very well what their peers need and can bring
3676 it across to them. So we will have a peer-driven network of adolescents
3677 who teach each other and collect feedback from the community of minors.
3678 We then take that feedback and our own experience to work closely with
3679 open source projects, such as Skolelinux or Jappix, at improving their
3680 software in a way that makes it more and more attractive for the target
3681 group. At least I hope that we will have good cooperation with
3682 Skolelinux in the future ;)!</p>
3683
3684 <p>So in conclusion, what I believe is that, if it weren't for the world
3685 being so bad, it should be very clear to the political decision makers
3686 that the only way to go nowadays is free software for various reasons,
3687 but I have learnt that the only way that seems to work is bottom up.</p>
3688
3689 <!--
3690
3691 >  * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
3692
3693 That's probably the hardest question of them all, as I do not know the
3694 community. However, I would be willing to do the following:
3695
3696  <li>Run an interview with a German headteacher who is very open to
3697    free software, and also prefers it, but cannot really use it because
3698    of the decision makers above;
3699  <li>Run interviews with some kids, both with and without previous
3700    knowledge about free software
3701
3702 If that is wanted, just let me know ;).
3703
3704 -->
3705
3706       </div>
3707       <div class="tags">
3708
3709
3710         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
3711
3712
3713       </div>
3714     </div>
3715     <div class="padding"></div>
3716
3717     <div class="entry">
3718       <div class="title">
3719         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html">Debian Edu interview: Klaus Knopper</a>
3720       </div>
3721       <div class="date">
3722          6th December 2013
3723       </div>
3724       <div class="body">
3725         <p>It has been a while since I managed to publish the last interview,
3726 but the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3727 Skolelinux</a> community is still going strong, and yesterday we even
3728 had a new school administrator show up on
3729 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a> to share
3730 his success story with installing Debian Edu at their school.  This
3731 time I have been able to get some helpful comments from the creator of
3732 Knoppix, Klaus Knopper, who was involved in a Skolelinux project in
3733 Germany a few years ago.</p>
3734
3735 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3736
3737 <p>I am Klaus Knopper.  I have a master degree in electrical
3738 engineering, and is currently professor in information management at
3739 the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
3740 freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.</p>
3741
3742 <p>All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
3743 from teaching, I'm also conducting some more or less experimental
3744 projects like the <a href="http://www.knoppix.org">Knoppix GNU/Linux live
3745 system</a> (Debian-based like Skolelinux),
3746 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html">ADRIANE</a>
3747 (a blind-friendly talking desktop system) and
3748 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/linbo/index-en.html">LINBO</a>
3749 (Linux-based network boot console, a fast remote install and repair
3750 system supporting various operating systems).</p>
3751
3752 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3753 project?</strong></p>
3754
3755 <p>The credit for this have to go to Kurt Gramlich, who is the German
3756 coordinator for Skolelinux.  We were looking for an all-in-one open
3757 source community-supported distribution for schools, and Kurt
3758 introduced us to Skolelinux for this purpose.</p>
3759
3760 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3761 Edu?</strong></p>
3762
3763 <ul>
3764   <li>Quick installation,</li>
3765   <li>works (almost) out of the box,</li>
3766   <li>contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,</li>
3767   <li>is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
3768     single company,</li>
3769   <li>has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
3770     experience and problem solutions.</li>
3771 </ul>
3772
3773 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3774 Edu?</strong></p>
3775
3776 <ul>
3777   <li>Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to
3778   the next version.  Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to
3779   a new version means a full new installation from scratch to get it
3780   working again reliably.
3781
3782   <li>Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a
3783   little outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or
3784   similar educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing
3785   as their base.
3786
3787   <li>Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
3788   configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is
3789   not always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network
3790   configuration is actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux
3791   and not easy to change, so schools sometimes have to change their
3792   network configuration to make it "Skolelinux-compatible".
3793
3794   <li>Some proposed extensions, which were made available as
3795   contribution, like secure examination mode and lecture material
3796   distribution and collection, were not accepted into the mainline
3797   Skolelinux development and are now not easy to maintain in the
3798   future because of Skolelinux somewhat undeterministic update
3799   schemes.</li>
3800
3801   <li>Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers
3802   compared to Debian.</li>
3803
3804 </ul>
3805
3806 <p>For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
3807 rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
3808 Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
3809 upgradeable without reinstallation.</p>
3810
3811 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3812
3813 <p>GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
3814 programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
3815 occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
3816 programming languages for teaching.</p>
3817
3818 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3819 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3820
3821 <p>Strong arguments are</p>
3822
3823 <ul>
3824
3825   <li>Knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
3826     teaching and learning.</li>
3827
3828   <li>Students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
3829     home, and at their working place without running into license or
3830     conversion problems.</li>
3831
3832   <li>Closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
3833     than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
3834     customers to certain products.  But teachers need to teach
3835     science, not products.</li>
3836
3837   <li>If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
3838     would you need proprietary software for?</li>
3839
3840 </ul>
3841
3842       </div>
3843       <div class="tags">
3844
3845
3846         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
3847
3848
3849       </div>
3850     </div>
3851     <div class="padding"></div>
3852
3853     <div class="entry">
3854       <div class="title">
3855         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle__a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo__take_shape.html">Dugnadsnett for alle, a wireless community network in Oslo, take shape</a>
3856       </div>
3857       <div class="date">
3858         30th November 2013
3859       </div>
3860       <div class="body">
3861         <p>If you want the ability to electronically communicate directly with
3862 your neighbors and friends using a network controlled by your peers in
3863 stead of centrally controlled by a few corporations, or would like to
3864 experiment with interesting network technology, the
3865 <a href="http://www.dugnadsnett.no/">Dugnasnett for alle i Oslo</a>
3866 might be project for you.  39 mesh nodes are currently being planned,
3867 in the freshly started initiative from NUUG and Hackeriet to create a
3868 wireless community network.  The work is inspired by
3869 <a href="http://freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a>,
3870 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan
3871 Network</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roofnet">Roofnet</a>
3872 and other successful mesh networks around the globe.  Two days ago we
3873 held a workshop to try to get people started on setting up their own
3874 mesh node, and there we decided to create a new mailing list
3875 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/dugnadsnett">dugnadsnett
3876 (at) nuug.no</a> and IRC channel
3877 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#dugnadsnett.no">#dugnadsnett.no</a> to
3878 coordinate the work.  See also the NUUG blog post
3879 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/E_postliste_og_IRC_kanal_for_Dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">announcing
3880 the mailing list and IRC channel</a>.</p>
3881
3882       </div>
3883       <div class="tags">
3884
3885
3886         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
3887
3888
3889       </div>
3890     </div>
3891     <div class="padding"></div>
3892
3893     <div class="entry">
3894       <div class="title">
3895         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
3896       </div>
3897       <div class="date">
3898         24th November 2013
3899       </div>
3900       <div class="body">
3901         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
3902 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
3903 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
3904 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
3905 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
3906 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
3907 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
3908 is working on.  I checked the
3909 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
3910 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
3911 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
3912 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
3913 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
3914 These are the release notes:</p>
3915
3916 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
3917
3918 <ul>
3919
3920   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
3921    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
3922    up.</li>
3923
3924   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
3925
3926   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
3927    Matthias Klose.</li>
3928
3929   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
3930    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
3931
3932   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
3933    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
3934    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
3935
3936 </ul>
3937
3938 <p>You can
3939 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
3940 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
3941 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
3942 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
3943 include a testsuite check.</p>
3944
3945       </div>
3946       <div class="tags">
3947
3948
3949         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3950
3951
3952       </div>
3953     </div>
3954     <div class="padding"></div>
3955
3956     <div class="entry">
3957       <div class="title">
3958         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/All_drones_should_be_radio_marked_with_what_they_do_and_who_they_belong_to.html">All drones should be radio marked with what they do and who they belong to</a>
3959       </div>
3960       <div class="date">
3961         21st November 2013
3962       </div>
3963       <div class="body">
3964         <p>Drones, flying robots, are getting more and more popular.  The most
3965 know ones are the killer drones used by some government to murder
3966 people they do not like without giving them the chance of a fair
3967 trial, but the technology have many good uses too, from mapping and
3968 forest maintenance to photography and search and rescue.  I am sure it
3969 is just a question of time before "bad drones" are in the hands of
3970 private enterprises and not only state criminals but petty criminals
3971 too.  The drone technology is very useful and very dangerous.  To have
3972 some control over the use of drones, I agree with Daniel Suarez in his
3973 TED talk
3974 "<a href="https://archive.org/details/DanielSuarez_2013G">The kill
3975 decision shouldn't belong to a robot</a>", where he suggested this
3976 little gem to keep the good while limiting the bad use of drones:</p>
3977
3978 <blockquote>
3979
3980 <p>Each robot and drone should have a cryptographically signed
3981 I.D. burned in at the factory that can be used to track its movement
3982 through public spaces. We have license plates on cars, tail numbers on
3983 aircraft. This is no different. And every citizen should be able to
3984 download an app that shows the population of drones and autonomous
3985 vehicles moving through public spaces around them, both right now and
3986 historically. And civic leaders should deploy sensors and civic drones
3987 to detect rogue drones, and instead of sending killer drones of their
3988 own up to shoot them down, they should notify humans to their
3989 presence. And in certain very high-security areas, perhaps civic
3990 drones would snare them and drag them off to a bomb disposal facility.</p>
3991
3992 <p>But notice, this is more an immune system than a weapons system. It
3993 would allow us to avail ourselves of the use of autonomous vehicles
3994 and drones while still preserving our open, civil society.</p>
3995
3996 </blockquote>
3997
3998 <p>The key is that <em>every citizen</em> should be able to read the
3999 radio beacons sent from the drones in the area, to be able to check
4000 both the government and others use of drones.  For such control to be
4001 effective, everyone must be able to do it.  What should such beacon
4002 contain?  At least formal owner, purpose, contact information and GPS
4003 location.  Probably also the origin and target position of the current
4004 flight.  And perhaps some registration number to be able to look up
4005 the drone in a central database tracking their movement.  Robots
4006 should not have privacy.  It is people who need privacy.</p>
4007
4008       </div>
4009       <div class="tags">
4010
4011
4012         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
4013
4014
4015       </div>
4016     </div>
4017     <div class="padding"></div>
4018
4019     <div class="entry">
4020       <div class="title">
4021         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo_.html">Lets make a wireless community network in Oslo!</a>
4022       </div>
4023       <div class="date">
4024         13th November 2013
4025       </div>
4026       <div class="body">
4027         <p>Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced
4028 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Bli_med___bygge_dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">our
4029 plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in
4030 Oslo</a>.  The workshop to help people get started will take place
4031 Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of
4032 people joining forces to make this happen.  We have
4033 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/oslo-nodes.geojson">9
4034 locations plotted on the map</a>, but we will need more before we have
4035 a connected mesh spread across Oslo.  If this sound interesting to
4036 you, please join us at the workshop.  If you are too impatient to wait
4037 15 days, please join us on the IRC channel
4038 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
4039 right away. :)</p>
4040
4041       </div>
4042       <div class="tags">
4043
4044
4045         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
4046
4047
4048       </div>
4049     </div>
4050     <div class="padding"></div>
4051
4052     <div class="entry">
4053       <div class="title">
4054         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Running_TP_Link_MR3040_as_a_batman_adv_mesh_node_using_openwrt.html">Running TP-Link MR3040 as a batman-adv mesh node using openwrt</a>
4055       </div>
4056       <div class="date">
4057         10th November 2013
4058       </div>
4059       <div class="body">
4060         <p>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
4061 use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
4062 bought arrived on Friday.  Here are my notes on how to set up the
4063 MR3040 as a mesh node using
4064 <a href="http://www.openwrt.org/">OpenWrt</a>.</p>
4065
4066 <p>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
4067 <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040">TL-MR3040</a>,
4068 and downloaded
4069 <a href="http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin">the
4070 recommended firmware image</a>
4071 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
4072 uploaded it into the original web interface.  The flashing went fine,
4073 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port.  After
4074 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
4075 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.</p>
4076
4077 <p>I started off by reading the instructions from
4078 <a href="http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine's_Research">Wireless
4079 Africa</a>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
4080 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
4081 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config">using
4082 batman-adv on OpenWrt</a>.  A small snag was the fact that the
4083 <tt>opkg install kmod-batman-adv</tt> command did not work as it
4084 should.  The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
4085 dependency crc16 was not already loaded.  I
4086 <a href="https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14452">reported the bug</a> to
4087 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon.  But the problem
4088 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
4089 seem to work when booting from scratch.</p>
4090
4091 <p>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/.  I did not bridge
4092 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
4093 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
4094 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
4095 them:</p>
4096
4097 <p><tt>/etc/config/network</tt></p>
4098
4099 <pre>
4100
4101 config interface 'loopback'
4102         option ifname 'lo'
4103         option proto 'static'
4104         option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
4105         option netmask '255.0.0.0'
4106
4107 config globals 'globals'
4108         option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
4109
4110 config interface 'lan'
4111         option ifname 'eth0'
4112         option type 'bridge'
4113         option proto 'dhcp'
4114         option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
4115         option netmask '255.255.255.0'
4116         option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
4117         option ip6assign '60'
4118
4119 config interface 'mesh'
4120         option ifname 'adhoc0'
4121         option mtu '1528'
4122         option proto 'batadv'
4123         option mesh 'bat0'
4124 </pre>
4125
4126 <p><tt>/etc/config/wireless</tt></p>
4127 <pre>
4128
4129 config wifi-device 'radio0'
4130         option type 'mac80211'
4131         option channel '11'
4132         option hwmode '11ng'
4133         option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
4134         option htmode 'HT20'
4135         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
4136         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
4137         list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
4138         list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
4139         option disabled '0'
4140
4141 config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
4142         option device 'radio0'
4143         option ifname 'adhoc0'
4144         option network 'mesh'
4145         option encryption 'none'
4146         option mode 'adhoc'
4147         option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
4148         option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
4149 </pre>
4150 <p><tt>/etc/config/batman-adv</tt></p>
4151 <pre>
4152
4153 config 'mesh' 'bat0'
4154         option interfaces 'adhoc0'
4155         option 'aggregated_ogms'
4156         option 'ap_isolation'
4157         option 'bonding'
4158         option 'fragmentation'
4159         option 'gw_bandwidth'
4160         option 'gw_mode'
4161         option 'gw_sel_class'
4162         option 'log_level'
4163         option 'orig_interval'
4164         option 'vis_mode'
4165         option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
4166         option 'distributed_arp_table'
4167         option 'network_coding'
4168         option 'hop_penalty'
4169
4170 # yet another batX instance
4171 # config 'mesh' 'bat5'
4172 #       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
4173 </pre>
4174
4175 <p>The mesh node is now operational.  I have yet to test its range,
4176 but I hope it is good.  I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box
4177 still wrapped up in plastic.</p>
4178
4179       </div>
4180       <div class="tags">
4181
4182
4183         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
4184
4185
4186       </div>
4187     </div>
4188     <div class="padding"></div>
4189
4190     <div class="entry">
4191       <div class="title">
4192         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
4193       </div>
4194       <div class="date">
4195          2nd November 2013
4196       </div>
4197       <div class="body">
4198         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
4199 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
4200 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
4201 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
4202 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
4203
4204 <p><pre>
4205 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
4206 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
4207 # Provides:          rsyslog
4208 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
4209 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
4210 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
4211 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
4212 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
4213 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
4214 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
4215 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
4216 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
4217 ### END INIT INFO
4218 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
4219 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
4220 </pre></p>
4221
4222 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
4223 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
4224 info/comments.</p>
4225
4226 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
4227 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
4228
4229 <p><pre>
4230 #!/bin/sh
4231
4232 # Define LSB log_* functions.
4233 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
4234 # and status_of_proc is working.
4235 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
4236
4237 #
4238 # Function that starts the daemon/service
4239
4240 #
4241 do_start()
4242 {
4243         # Return
4244         #   0 if daemon has been started
4245         #   1 if daemon was already running
4246         #   2 if daemon could not be started
4247         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
4248                 || return 1
4249         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
4250                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
4251                 || return 2
4252         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
4253         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
4254         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
4255 }
4256
4257 #
4258 # Function that stops the daemon/service
4259 #
4260 do_stop()
4261 {
4262         # Return
4263         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
4264         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
4265         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
4266         #   other if a failure occurred
4267         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
4268         RETVAL="$?"
4269         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
4270         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
4271         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
4272         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
4273         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
4274         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
4275         # sleep for some time.
4276         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
4277         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
4278         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
4279         rm -f $PIDFILE
4280         return "$RETVAL"
4281 }
4282
4283 #
4284 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
4285 #
4286 do_reload() {
4287         #
4288         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
4289         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
4290         # then implement that here.
4291         #
4292         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
4293         return 0
4294 }
4295
4296 SCRIPTNAME=$1
4297 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
4298 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
4299 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
4300     script="$1"
4301     shift
4302     . $script
4303 else
4304     exit 0
4305 fi
4306
4307 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
4308 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
4309
4310 # Exit if the package is not installed
4311 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
4312
4313 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
4314 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
4315
4316 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
4317 . /lib/init/vars.sh
4318
4319 case "$1" in
4320   start)
4321         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
4322         do_start
4323         case "$?" in
4324                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
4325                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
4326         esac
4327         ;;
4328   stop)
4329         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
4330         do_stop
4331         case "$?" in
4332                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
4333                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
4334         esac
4335         ;;
4336   status)
4337         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
4338         ;;
4339   #reload|force-reload)
4340         #
4341         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
4342         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
4343         #
4344         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
4345         #do_reload
4346         #log_end_msg $?
4347         #;;
4348   restart|force-reload)
4349         #
4350         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
4351         # 'force-reload' alias
4352         #
4353         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
4354         do_stop
4355         case "$?" in
4356           0|1)
4357                 do_start
4358                 case "$?" in
4359                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
4360                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
4361                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
4362                 esac
4363                 ;;
4364           *)
4365                 # Failed to stop
4366                 log_end_msg 1
4367                 ;;
4368         esac
4369         ;;
4370   *)
4371         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
4372         exit 3
4373         ;;
4374 esac
4375
4376 :
4377 </pre></p>
4378
4379 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
4380 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
4381 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
4382 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
4383
4384 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
4385 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
4386 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
4387 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
4388 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
4389
4390       </div>
4391       <div class="tags">
4392
4393
4394         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4395
4396
4397       </div>
4398     </div>
4399     <div class="padding"></div>
4400
4401     <div class="entry">
4402       <div class="title">
4403         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
4404       </div>
4405       <div class="date">
4406          1st November 2013
4407       </div>
4408       <div class="body">
4409         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
4410 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
4411 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
4412 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
4413 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
4414 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
4415 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
4416 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
4417 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
4418 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
4419 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
4420 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
4421
4422 <p>The source is now available from
4423 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
4424
4425       </div>
4426       <div class="tags">
4427
4428
4429         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4430
4431
4432       </div>
4433     </div>
4434     <div class="padding"></div>
4435
4436     <div class="entry">
4437       <div class="title">
4438         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
4439       </div>
4440       <div class="date">
4441         27th October 2013
4442       </div>
4443       <div class="body">
4444         <p>The
4445 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
4446 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
4447 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
4448 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
4449 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
4450 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
4451 of a plan to simplify the build system for
4452 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
4453 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
4454 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
4455 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
4456 Raspberry Pi.</p>
4457
4458 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
4459 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
4460 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
4461 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
4462 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
4463 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
4464 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
4465 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
4466 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
4467 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
4468 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
4469 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
4470 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
4471 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
4472 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
4473 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
4474 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
4475 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
4476 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
4477 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
4478 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
4479 available from
4480 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
4481 upstream project page</a>.</p>
4482
4483 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
4484 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
4485 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
4486 list:</p>
4487
4488 <p><pre>
4489 #!/bin/sh
4490 set -e # Exit on first error
4491 rootdir="$1"
4492 cd "$rootdir"
4493 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
4494 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
4495 EOF
4496 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
4497 # install a kernel somewhere too.
4498 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
4499     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4500 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4501 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
4502 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
4503 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
4504 </pre></p>
4505
4506 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
4507 to build the image:</p>
4508
4509 <pre>
4510 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
4511     --variant minbase \
4512     --arch armel \
4513     --distribution jessie \
4514     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
4515     --image test.img \
4516     --size 600M \
4517     --bootsize 64M \
4518     --boottype vfat \
4519     --log-level debug \
4520     --verbose \
4521     --no-kernel \
4522     --no-extlinux \
4523     --root-password raspberry \
4524     --hostname raspberrypi \
4525     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
4526     --customize `pwd`/customize \
4527     --package netbase \
4528     --package git-core \
4529     --package binutils \
4530     --package ca-certificates \
4531     --package wget \
4532     --package kmod
4533 </pre></p>
4534
4535 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
4536 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
4537 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
4538 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
4539 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
4540 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
4541 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
4542
4543 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
4544 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
4545 build dependency list.</p>
4546
4547 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
4548 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
4549 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
4550 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
4551
4552       </div>
4553       <div class="tags">
4554
4555
4556         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
4557
4558
4559       </div>
4560     </div>
4561     <div class="padding"></div>
4562
4563     <div class="entry">
4564       <div class="title">
4565         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</a>
4566       </div>
4567       <div class="date">
4568         21st October 2013
4569       </div>
4570       <div class="body">
4571         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
4572 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
4573 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
4574 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
4575 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
4576 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
4577 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
4578 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
4579
4580 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
4581 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
4582 instead, I started playing with a
4583 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
4584 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
4585 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
4586 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
4587 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
4588 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
4589 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
4590 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
4591 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
4592 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
4593 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
4594 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
4595 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
4596 every client on the local network.</p>
4597
4598 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
4599 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
4600 and a script
4601 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
4602 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
4603 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
4604 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
4605 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
4606 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
4607 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
4608 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
4609 support.</p>
4610
4611 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
4612 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
4613
4614 <p><pre>
4615 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
4616     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
4617 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
4618 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
4619 %
4620 </pre></p>
4621
4622 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
4623 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
4624 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
4625 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
4626 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
4627 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
4628
4629 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
4630 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
4631 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
4632
4633 <p><table>
4634
4635 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
4636 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
4637 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
4638 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
4639 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
4640 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
4641
4642 </table></p>
4643
4644 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
4645 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
4646 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
4647 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
4648 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
4649 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
4650 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
4651
4652       </div>
4653       <div class="tags">
4654
4655
4656         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
4657
4658
4659       </div>
4660     </div>
4661     <div class="padding"></div>
4662
4663     <div class="entry">
4664       <div class="title">
4665         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html">Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github</a>
4666       </div>
4667       <div class="date">
4668         19th October 2013
4669       </div>
4670       <div class="body">
4671         <p>Back in 2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
4672 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee">the Spykee robot</a>
4673 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
4674 web page.  Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
4675 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github.  If
4676 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
4677 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl">the
4678 libspykee-perl github repository</a>.</p>
4679
4680       </div>
4681       <div class="tags">
4682
4683
4684         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4685
4686
4687       </div>
4688     </div>
4689     <div class="padding"></div>
4690
4691     <div class="entry">
4692       <div class="title">
4693         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
4694       </div>
4695       <div class="date">
4696         15th October 2013
4697       </div>
4698       <div class="body">
4699         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
4700 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
4701 these. :)</p>
4702
4703 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
4704 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
4705 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
4706 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
4707 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
4708 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
4709 hope you will to. :)</p>
4710
4711 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
4712 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
4713 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
4714 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
4715 donated.  Are you next?</p>
4716
4717 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
4718 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
4719 statement under the heading
4720 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
4721 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
4722 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
4723 too.</p>
4724
4725       </div>
4726       <div class="tags">
4727
4728
4729         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
4730
4731
4732       </div>
4733     </div>
4734     <div class="padding"></div>
4735
4736     <div class="entry">
4737       <div class="title">
4738         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania</a>
4739       </div>
4740       <div class="date">
4741         11th October 2013
4742       </div>
4743       <div class="body">
4744         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
4745 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
4746 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
4747 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
4748 successful examples like
4749 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
4750 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
4751 (see
4752 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
4753 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
4754 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
4755 can be seen from their
4756 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
4757 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
4758 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
4759 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
4760 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
4761
4762 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
4763 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
4764 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
4765 my recent involvement in
4766 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
4767 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
4768 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
4769 when possible, given that most communication between people are
4770 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
4771 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
4772 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
4773 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
4774 important over the years.</p>
4775
4776 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
4777 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
4778 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
4779 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
4780 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
4781 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
4782 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
4783 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
4784 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
4785 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
4786 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
4787 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
4788 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
4789 speakers about this talk (from
4790 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
4791
4792 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
4793
4794 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
4795 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
4796 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
4797 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
4798 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
4799 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
4800 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
4801 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
4802 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
4803 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
4804 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
4805 that project (from
4806 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
4807
4808 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
4809
4810 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
4811 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
4812 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
4813 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
4814 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
4815 based community mesh networks.</p>
4816
4817 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
4818 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
4819 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
4820 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
4821 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
4822 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
4823 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
4824 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
4825 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
4826
4827 <p><table>
4828 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
4829 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
4830 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
4831 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
4832 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
4833 </table></p>
4834
4835 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
4836 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
4837 VillageTelco about
4838 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
4839 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
4840 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
4841 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
4842 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
4843 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
4844
4845 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
4846 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
4847 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
4848 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
4849
4850 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
4851 us on IRC, either channel
4852 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
4853 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
4854 irc.freenode.net.</p>
4855
4856 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
4857 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
4858 and Innovation called
4859 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
4860 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
4861 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
4862 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
4863 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
4864 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
4865 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
4866 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
4867
4868 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
4869 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
4870 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
4871 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
4872 mesh system.</p>
4873
4874       </div>
4875       <div class="tags">
4876
4877
4878         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
4879
4880
4881       </div>
4882     </div>
4883     <div class="padding"></div>
4884
4885     <div class="entry">
4886       <div class="title">
4887         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu 7.1 install and overview video from Marcelo Salvador</a>
4888       </div>
4889       <div class="date">
4890          8th October 2013
4891       </div>
4892       <div class="body">
4893         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
4894 Salvador had published a
4895 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
4896 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
4897 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
4898 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
4899 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
4900 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
4901 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
4902 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
4903 showing the <a href="http://www.zygotebody.com/">Zygote Body 3D model
4904 of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
4905 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
4906 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
4907 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
4908 computers without hard drives by installing one central
4909 <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP server</a>.</p>
4910
4911 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
4912
4913 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
4914
4915 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
4916 me know. :)</p>
4917
4918       </div>
4919       <div class="tags">
4920
4921
4922         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
4923
4924
4925       </div>
4926     </div>
4927     <div class="padding"></div>
4928
4929     <div class="entry">
4930       <div class="title">
4931         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
4932       </div>
4933       <div class="date">
4934         29th September 2013
4935       </div>
4936       <div class="body">
4937         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
4938 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
4939 complete announcement text can be found at
4940 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
4941 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
4942
4943 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
4944 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
4945 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
4946 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
4947
4948       </div>
4949       <div class="tags">
4950
4951
4952         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4953
4954
4955       </div>
4956     </div>
4957     <div class="padding"></div>
4958
4959     <div class="entry">
4960       <div class="title">
4961         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
4962       </div>
4963       <div class="date">
4964         27th September 2013
4965       </div>
4966       <div class="body">
4967         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
4968 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
4969 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
4970 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
4971
4972 <ul>
4973
4974 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
4975 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
4976
4977 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
4978 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
4979
4980 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
4981 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
4982 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
4983 (Youtube)</li>
4984
4985 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
4986 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
4987
4988 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
4989 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
4990
4991 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
4992 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
4993 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
4994
4995 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
4996 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
4997 (Youtube)</li>
4998
4999 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
5000 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
5001
5002 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
5003 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
5004
5005 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
5006 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
5007 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
5008
5009 </ul>
5010
5011 <p>A larger list is available from
5012 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
5013 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
5014
5015 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
5016 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
5017 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
5018 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
5019 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
5020 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
5021 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
5022 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
5023 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
5024 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
5025 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
5026
5027       </div>
5028       <div class="tags">
5029
5030
5031         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
5032
5033
5034       </div>
5035     </div>
5036     <div class="padding"></div>
5037
5038     <div class="entry">
5039       <div class="title">
5040         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_and_probably_last_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Wheezy.html">Third and probably last beta release of Debian Edu Wheezy</a>
5041       </div>
5042       <div class="date">
5043         16th September 2013
5044       </div>
5045       <div class="body">
5046         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
5047 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
5048
5049 <blockquote>
5050 <p>Hi,</p>
5051
5052 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
5053 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
5054 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
5055
5056 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
5057 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
5058 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
5059 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
5060
5061 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
5062 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
5063
5064 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
5065 compared to beta1:</p>
5066
5067 <ul>
5068
5069 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
5070 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
5071 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
5072 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
5073 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
5074 main server.</li>
5075 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
5076 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
5077 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
5078 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
5079 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
5080
5081 </ul>
5082
5083 <p>Where to get it:</p>
5084
5085 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
5086
5087 <ul>
5088 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
5089 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
5090 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
5091 </ul>
5092
5093 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
5094
5095 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
5096 <ul>
5097 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
5098 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
5099 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
5100 </ul>
5101
5102 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
5103
5104 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
5105 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
5106 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
5107 as the other isos.</p>
5108
5109 <p>How to report bugs</p>
5110
5111 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
5112 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
5113
5114
5115 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
5116
5117 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
5118 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
5119 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
5120 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
5121 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
5122 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
5123 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
5124 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
5125 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
5126 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
5127 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
5128 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
5129 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
5130
5131 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
5132 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
5133 Squeeze release.</p>
5134
5135 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
5136
5137 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
5138 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
5139 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
5140 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
5141 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
5142 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
5143 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
5144 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
5145 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
5146 directory.</p>
5147
5148
5149 <p>cheers,
5150 <br>        Holger</p>
5151 </blockquote>
5152
5153       </div>
5154       <div class="tags">
5155
5156
5157         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5158
5159
5160       </div>
5161     </div>
5162     <div class="padding"></div>
5163
5164     <div class="entry">
5165       <div class="title">
5166         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
5167       </div>
5168       <div class="date">
5169         10th September 2013
5170       </div>
5171       <div class="body">
5172         <p>I was introduced to the
5173 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
5174 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
5175 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
5176 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
5177 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
5178 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
5179 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
5180 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
5181
5182 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
5183 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
5184 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
5185 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
5186 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
5187
5188 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
5189 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
5190 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
5191 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
5192 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
5193 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
5194 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
5195 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
5196 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
5197 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
5198 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
5199 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
5200 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
5201 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
5202 missing in Debian).</p>
5203
5204 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
5205 scripts
5206 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
5207 and a administrative web interface
5208 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
5209 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
5210 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
5211 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
5212 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
5213 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
5214 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
5215 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
5216 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
5217 this is really working yet, see
5218 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
5219 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
5220 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
5221 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
5222 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
5223 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
5224 with lots of half baked features.</p>
5225
5226 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
5227 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
5228 at.</p>
5229
5230 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
5231
5232 <ol>
5233
5234 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
5235 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
5236 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
5237 to the Debian installer:<p>
5238 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
5239
5240 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
5241 install on.</li>
5242
5243 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
5244 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
5245
5246 </ol>
5247
5248 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
5249
5250 <ol>
5251
5252 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
5253 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
5254 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
5255 <pre>
5256 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
5257 </pre></li>
5258 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
5259 <pre>
5260 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
5261    apt-key add -
5262 apt-get update
5263 apt-get install freedombox-setup
5264 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
5265 </pre></li>
5266 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
5267
5268 </ol>
5269
5270 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
5271 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
5272 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
5273 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
5274 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
5275
5276 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
5277 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
5278 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
5279 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
5280
5281 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
5282 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
5283 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
5284 irc.debian.org and the
5285 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
5286 mailing list</a>.</p>
5287
5288 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
5289 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
5290 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
5291 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
5292 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
5293 default password is 'secret'.</p>
5294
5295       </div>
5296       <div class="tags">
5297
5298
5299         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
5300
5301
5302       </div>
5303     </div>
5304     <div class="padding"></div>
5305
5306     <div class="entry">
5307       <div class="title">
5308         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_release__beta_1__of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second beta release (beta 1) of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
5309       </div>
5310       <div class="date">
5311         22nd August 2013
5312       </div>
5313       <div class="body">
5314         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
5315 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
5316 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
5317
5318 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
5319
5320 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5321 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
5322
5323 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
5324
5325 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
5326 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
5327 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
5328 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
5329 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
5330 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
5331 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
5332 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
5333 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
5334 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
5335 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
5336 desktop contains
5337 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
5338 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
5339 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
5340 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
5341
5342 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
5343 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
5344 release.</p>
5345
5346 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
5347 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
5348 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
5349 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
5350 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
5351 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
5352 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
5353 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
5354 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
5355 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
5356 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
5357
5358 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
5359
5360 <ul>
5361
5362 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
5363     work also without a attached tty.</li>
5364 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
5365     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
5366     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
5367     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
5368     required).</li>
5369
5370 </ul>
5371
5372 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
5373
5374 <ul>
5375
5376 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
5377 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
5378 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
5379 stick ISO image.</li>
5380 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
5381 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
5382 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
5383     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
5384     cope with this.</li>
5385 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
5386 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
5387     empty password hashes.</li>
5388 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
5389     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
5390     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
5391
5392 </ul>
5393
5394 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
5395
5396 <ul>
5397
5398 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
5399     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
5400 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
5401     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
5402
5403 </ul>
5404
5405 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
5406
5407 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
5408
5409 <ul>
5410
5411 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
5412
5413 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
5414
5415 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
5416
5417 </ul>
5418
5419 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
5420 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
5421
5422 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
5423
5424 <ul>
5425
5426 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
5427 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
5428 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
5429
5430 </ul>
5431
5432 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
5433 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
5434
5435
5436 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
5437
5438 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
5439
5440       </div>
5441       <div class="tags">
5442
5443
5444         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5445
5446
5447       </div>
5448     </div>
5449     <div class="padding"></div>
5450
5451     <div class="entry">
5452       <div class="title">
5453         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
5454       </div>
5455       <div class="date">
5456         18th August 2013
5457       </div>
5458       <div class="body">
5459         <p>Earlier, I reported about
5460 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
5461 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
5462 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
5463 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
5464 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
5465 currently on the disk.</p>
5466
5467 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
5468 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
5469 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
5470 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
5471 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
5472 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
5473 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
5474 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
5475 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
5476 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
5477 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
5478 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
5479 the broken disks.</p>
5480
5481       </div>
5482       <div class="tags">
5483
5484
5485         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5486
5487
5488       </div>
5489     </div>
5490     <div class="padding"></div>
5491
5492     <div class="entry">
5493       <div class="title">
5494         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/90_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">90 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a>
5495       </div>
5496       <div class="date">
5497          2nd August 2013
5498       </div>
5499       <div class="body">
5500         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
5501 have worked on a Norwegian
5502 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
5503 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
5504 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
5505 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
5506 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
5507 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
5508 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
5509 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
5510 progress of the translation:</p>
5511
5512 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
5513
5514 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
5515 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
5516 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
5517 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
5518 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
5519 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
5520 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
5521 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
5522 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
5523 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
5524 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
5525
5526 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
5527 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
5528 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
5529 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
5530 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
5531 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
5532 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
5533 project files currently available from
5534 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
5535
5536 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
5537 the updated
5538 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
5539 and
5540 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
5541 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
5542 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
5543 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
5544
5545       </div>
5546       <div class="tags">
5547
5548
5549         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
5550
5551
5552       </div>
5553     </div>
5554     <div class="padding"></div>
5555
5556     <div class="entry">
5557       <div class="title">
5558         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First beta release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
5559       </div>
5560       <div class="date">
5561         27th July 2013
5562       </div>
5563       <div class="body">
5564         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
5565 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
5566
5567 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
5568 2013-07-27</strong></p>
5569
5570 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5571 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
5572
5573 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
5574
5575 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
5576 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
5577 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
5578 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
5579 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
5580 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
5581 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
5582 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
5583 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
5584 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
5585 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
5586 desktop contains
5587 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
5588 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
5589 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
5590 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
5591
5592 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
5593 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
5594 Squeeze release.</p>
5595
5596 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
5597 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
5598 release.</p>
5599
5600 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
5601
5602 <ul>
5603
5604 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
5605    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
5606 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
5607    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
5608    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
5609    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
5610    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
5611 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
5612 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
5613 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
5614    crash bugs.</li>
5615
5616 </ul>
5617
5618 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
5619
5620 <ul>
5621
5622 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
5623    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
5624 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
5625    netinst CD.</li>
5626 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
5627    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
5628 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
5629    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
5630    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
5631 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
5632    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
5633    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
5634 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
5635    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
5636    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
5637 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
5638    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
5639 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
5640
5641 </ul>
5642
5643 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
5644
5645 <ul>
5646
5647 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
5648 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
5649     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
5650 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
5651
5652 </ul>
5653
5654 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
5655
5656 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
5657
5658 <ul>
5659
5660 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
5661
5662 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
5663
5664 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
5665
5666 </ul>
5667
5668 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
5669 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
5670
5671 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
5672
5673 <ul>
5674
5675 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
5676 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
5677 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
5678
5679 </ul>
5680
5681 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
5682 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
5683
5684
5685 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
5686
5687 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
5688
5689       </div>
5690       <div class="tags">
5691
5692
5693         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5694
5695
5696       </div>
5697     </div>
5698     <div class="padding"></div>
5699
5700     <div class="entry">
5701       <div class="title">
5702         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
5703       </div>
5704       <div class="date">
5705         17th July 2013
5706       </div>
5707       <div class="body">
5708         <p>Today I switched to
5709 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
5710 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
5711 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
5712 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
5713 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
5714 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
5715 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
5716 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
5717 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
5718 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
5719 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
5720 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
5721 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
5722 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
5723 station from now on.</p>
5724
5725 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
5726 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
5727 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
5728 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
5729 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
5730 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
5731 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
5732 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
5733 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
5734 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
5735 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
5736 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
5737
5738 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
5739 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
5740 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
5741 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
5742 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
5743 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
5744 parameters are tuned:</p>
5745
5746 <ul>
5747
5748 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
5749     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
5750
5751 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
5752     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
5753     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
5754
5755 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
5756     systems.</li>
5757
5758 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
5759     /etc/fstab.</li>
5760
5761 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
5762
5763 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
5764     cron.daily).</li>
5765
5766 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
5767     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
5768
5769 </ul>
5770
5771 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
5772 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
5773 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
5774 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
5775 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
5776 from getting the data on the disk (see
5777 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
5778 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
5779 right thing to do.</p>
5780
5781 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
5782 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
5783 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
5784
5785 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
5786 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
5787 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
5788 instead of during my work.</p>
5789
5790 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
5791 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
5792
5793 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
5794 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
5795 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
5796
5797 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
5798 there.</p>
5799
5800 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
5801 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
5802 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
5803 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
5804 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
5805 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
5806 back.</p>
5807
5808       </div>
5809       <div class="tags">
5810
5811
5812         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5813
5814
5815       </div>
5816     </div>
5817     <div class="padding"></div>
5818
5819     <div class="entry">
5820       <div class="title">
5821         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
5822       </div>
5823       <div class="date">
5824         10th July 2013
5825       </div>
5826       <div class="body">
5827         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
5828 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
5829 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
5830 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
5831 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
5832 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
5833 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
5834 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
5835
5836 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
5837 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
5838 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
5839 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
5840 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
5841 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
5842 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
5843 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
5844 lock up when I download a new
5845 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
5846 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
5847 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
5848
5849 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
5850 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
5851 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
5852 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
5853 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
5854 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
5855
5856 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
5857 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
5858 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
5859 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
5860 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
5861 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
5862
5863 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
5864 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
5865 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
5866 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
5867 exist).</p>
5868
5869       </div>
5870       <div class="tags">
5871
5872
5873         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5874
5875
5876       </div>
5877     </div>
5878     <div class="padding"></div>
5879
5880     <div class="entry">
5881       <div class="title">
5882         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
5883       </div>
5884       <div class="date">
5885          9th July 2013
5886       </div>
5887       <div class="body">
5888         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
5889 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
5890 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
5891 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
5892 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5893 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
5894 Bitraf</a>.</p>
5895
5896 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
5897 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
5898 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
5899 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
5900 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
5901
5902       </div>
5903       <div class="tags">
5904
5905
5906         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5907
5908
5909       </div>
5910     </div>
5911     <div class="padding"></div>
5912
5913     <div class="entry">
5914       <div class="title">
5915         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
5916       </div>
5917       <div class="date">
5918          5th July 2013
5919       </div>
5920       <div class="body">
5921         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
5922 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
5923 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
5924 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
5925 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
5926 ended up picking a
5927 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
5928 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
5929 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
5930 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
5931 on that below.</p>
5932
5933 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
5934 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
5935 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
5936 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
5937 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
5938 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
5939 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
5940 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
5941 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
5942
5943 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
5944 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
5945 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
5946 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
5947 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
5948 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
5949 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
5950
5951 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
5952 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
5953
5954 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
5955 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
5956 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
5957 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
5958 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
5959 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
5960 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
5961 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
5962 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
5963 kernel developers as
5964 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
5965 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
5966 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
5967 Lenovo forums, both for
5968 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
5969 2012-11-10</a> and for
5970 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
5971 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
5972 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
5973 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
5974 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
5975 There is even a
5976 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
5977 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
5978 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
5979
5980 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
5981 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
5982 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
5983 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
5984 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
5985 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
5986 fixed. :)</p>
5987
5988       </div>
5989       <div class="tags">
5990
5991
5992         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5993
5994
5995       </div>
5996     </div>
5997     <div class="padding"></div>
5998
5999     <div class="entry">
6000       <div class="title">
6001         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
6002       </div>
6003       <div class="date">
6004          4th July 2013
6005       </div>
6006       <div class="body">
6007         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
6008 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
6009 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
6010 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
6011 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
6012 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
6013 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
6014 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
6015 with an expencive door stop.</p>
6016
6017 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
6018 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
6019 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
6020 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
6021 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
6022 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
6023 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
6024
6025 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
6026 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
6027 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
6028 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
6029 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
6030 new laptop now. :)</p>
6031
6032 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
6033
6034       </div>
6035       <div class="tags">
6036
6037
6038         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6039
6040
6041       </div>
6042     </div>
6043     <div class="padding"></div>
6044
6045     <div class="entry">
6046       <div class="title">
6047         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fourth_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Fourth alpha release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
6048       </div>
6049       <div class="date">
6050          3rd July 2013
6051       </div>
6052       <div class="body">
6053         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
6054 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
6055
6056 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
6057 2013-07-03</strong></p>
6058
6059 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6060 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
6061
6062 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
6063
6064 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
6065 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
6066 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
6067 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
6068 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
6069 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
6070 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
6071 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
6072 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
6073 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
6074 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
6075 desktop contains
6076 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
6077 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
6078 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
6079 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
6080
6081 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
6082 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
6083 Squeeze release.</p>
6084
6085 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
6086 <ul>
6087   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
6088   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
6089     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
6090     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
6091   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
6092     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
6093     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
6094   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
6095     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
6096     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
6097     too.</li>
6098   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
6099     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
6100 </ul>
6101 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
6102 <ul>
6103   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
6104   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
6105   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
6106     up for some language options.</li>
6107   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
6108   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
6109   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
6110     d-i is doing it.</li>
6111   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
6112     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
6113   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
6114     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
6115     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
6116   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
6117     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
6118   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
6119   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
6120     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
6121   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
6122     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
6123 </ul>
6124 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
6125 <ul>
6126   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
6127     available yet (698840).</li>
6128   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
6129 </ul>
6130 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
6131
6132 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
6133 <ul>
6134   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
6135   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
6136   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
6137 </ul>
6138
6139 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
6140 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
6141
6142 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
6143 <ul>
6144   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
6145   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
6146   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
6147 </ul>
6148
6149 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
6150 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
6151
6152 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
6153
6154 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
6155
6156       </div>
6157       <div class="tags">
6158
6159
6160         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6161
6162
6163       </div>
6164     </div>
6165     <div class="padding"></div>
6166
6167     <div class="entry">
6168       <div class="title">
6169         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
6170       </div>
6171       <div class="date">
6172         25th June 2013
6173       </div>
6174       <div class="body">
6175         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
6176 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
6177 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
6178 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
6179 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
6180 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
6181 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
6182 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
6183 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
6184 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
6185 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
6186
6187 <p><pre>
6188 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
6189 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
6190 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
6191 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
6192 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
6193 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
6194 firmware-ipw2x00
6195 firmware-ipw2x00
6196 Preconfiguring packages ...
6197 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
6198 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
6199 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
6200 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
6201 #
6202 </pre></p>
6203
6204 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
6205 printed instead:</p>
6206
6207 <p><pre>
6208 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
6209 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
6210 #
6211 </pre></p>
6212
6213 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
6214 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
6215
6216 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
6217 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
6218 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
6219 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
6220 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
6221 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
6222 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
6223 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
6224 machine.</p>
6225
6226 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
6227 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
6228 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
6229 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
6230 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
6231 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
6232
6233       </div>
6234       <div class="tags">
6235
6236
6237         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
6238
6239
6240       </div>
6241     </div>
6242     <div class="padding"></div>
6243
6244     <div class="entry">
6245       <div class="title">
6246         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html">The value of a good distro wide test suite...</a>
6247       </div>
6248       <div class="date">
6249         22nd June 2013
6250       </div>
6251       <div class="body">
6252         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
6253 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
6254 which check that services are running, working, and return the
6255 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
6256 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
6257 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
6258 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
6259 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
6260 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
6261
6262 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
6263 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
6264 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
6265 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
6266 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
6267 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
6268 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
6269 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
6270 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
6271 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
6272 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
6273 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
6274 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
6275 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
6276
6277 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
6278 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
6279 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
6280 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
6281 the problem.</p>
6282
6283 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
6284 please join us on
6285 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
6286 irc.debian.org</a> and the
6287 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
6288 list.</p>
6289
6290       </div>
6291       <div class="tags">
6292
6293
6294         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6295
6296
6297       </div>
6298     </div>
6299     <div class="padding"></div>
6300
6301     <div class="entry">
6302       <div class="title">
6303         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
6304       </div>
6305       <div class="date">
6306         17th June 2013
6307       </div>
6308       <div class="body">
6309         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
6310 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
6311 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
6312 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
6313 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
6314 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
6315 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
6316 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
6317
6318 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6319
6320 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
6321 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
6322 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
6323 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
6324 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
6325 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
6326 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
6327 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
6328 field.</p>
6329
6330 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
6331 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
6332 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
6333 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
6334 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
6335 the only one we have in our country.</p>
6336
6337 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
6338 project?</strong></p>
6339
6340 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
6341 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
6342 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
6343 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
6344 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
6345 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
6346 ways to contribute.</p>
6347
6348 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
6349 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
6350 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
6351 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
6352 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
6353 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
6354 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
6355 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
6356 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
6357 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
6358
6359 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6360 Edu?</strong></p>
6361
6362 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
6363 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
6364 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
6365 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
6366 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
6367 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
6368 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
6369 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
6370
6371 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
6372 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
6373 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
6374 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
6375 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
6376 project.</p>
6377
6378 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6379 Edu?</strong></p>
6380
6381 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
6382 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
6383 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
6384 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
6385 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
6386 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
6387 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
6388 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
6389 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
6390
6391 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
6392 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
6393 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
6394 on.</p>
6395
6396 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6397
6398 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
6399 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
6400 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
6401 Enlightenment project a lot!),
6402 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
6403 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
6404 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
6405 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
6406 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
6407
6408 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6409 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6410
6411 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
6412 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
6413 that:</p>
6414
6415 <ul>
6416
6417 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
6418
6419 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
6420     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
6421     of teenagers more?</li>
6422
6423 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
6424     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
6425     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
6426     them!)</li>
6427
6428 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
6429     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
6430     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
6431
6432 </ul>
6433
6434 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
6435 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
6436 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
6437 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
6438 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
6439
6440       </div>
6441       <div class="tags">
6442
6443
6444         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
6445
6446
6447       </div>
6448     </div>
6449     <div class="padding"></div>
6450
6451     <div class="entry">
6452       <div class="title">
6453         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
6454       </div>
6455       <div class="date">
6456         12th June 2013
6457       </div>
6458       <div class="body">
6459         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
6460 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6461 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
6462 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
6463 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
6464 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
6465
6466 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6467
6468 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
6469 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
6470 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
6471
6472 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
6473 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
6474 each other.</p>
6475
6476 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
6477 project?</strong></p>
6478
6479 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
6480 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
6481 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
6482 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
6483 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
6484 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
6485 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
6486 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
6487 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
6488 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
6489 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
6490 we'll get there one day.</p>
6491
6492 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6493 Edu?</strong></p>
6494
6495 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
6496 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
6497 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
6498 very high quality work.</p>
6499
6500 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
6501 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
6502 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
6503 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
6504 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
6505
6506 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6507 Edu?</strong></p>
6508
6509 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
6510 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
6511 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
6512
6513 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
6514 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
6515 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
6516 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
6517 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
6518 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
6519 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
6520 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
6521 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
6522 currently.</p>
6523
6524 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
6525 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
6526 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
6527 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
6528 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
6529 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
6530 autonomous.</p>
6531
6532 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6533
6534 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
6535 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
6536 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
6537 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
6538 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
6539
6540 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
6541 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
6542 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
6543 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
6544 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
6545 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
6546 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
6547 X.</p>
6548
6549 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
6550 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
6551 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
6552 it :p)
6553
6554 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6555 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6556
6557 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
6558 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
6559 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
6560 that.</p>
6561
6562 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
6563 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
6564 advantage of that.</p>
6565
6566 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
6567 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
6568 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
6569 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
6570 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
6571 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
6572 best solution for them.</p>
6573
6574 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
6575 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
6576 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
6577
6578       </div>
6579       <div class="tags">
6580
6581
6582         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
6583
6584
6585       </div>
6586     </div>
6587     <div class="padding"></div>
6588
6589     <div class="entry">
6590       <div class="title">
6591         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
6592       </div>
6593       <div class="date">
6594         11th June 2013
6595       </div>
6596       <div class="body">
6597         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
6598 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
6599 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
6600 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
6601 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
6602 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
6603 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
6604 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
6605 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
6606 i915 driver used by the
6607 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6608 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
6609
6610 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
6611 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
6612 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
6613 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
6614 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
6615
6616 <pre>
6617 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
6618 update-initramfs -u -k all
6619 </pre>
6620
6621 <p>Since March 2012 there is
6622 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
6623 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
6624 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
6625 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
6626 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
6627 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
6628 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
6629 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
6630 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
6631 number.</p>
6632
6633 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
6634 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
6635
6636 <p><pre>
6637 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
6638     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
6639     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
6640  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
6641  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
6642     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
6643  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
6644     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
6645  Latency: 0
6646  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
6647  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
6648  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
6649  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
6650  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
6651  Capabilities: <access denied>
6652  Kernel driver in use: i915
6653 </pre></p>
6654
6655 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
6656
6657 <p><pre>
6658 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
6659        ...
6660         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
6661         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
6662        ...
6663 }
6664 </pre></p>
6665
6666 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
6667 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
6668 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
6669 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
6670 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
6671 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
6672 yet shown up in
6673 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
6674 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
6675 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
6676 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
6677 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
6678 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
6679
6680 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
6681 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
6682 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
6683 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
6684 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
6685 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
6686 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
6687 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
6688 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
6689 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
6690 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
6691 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
6692
6693 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
6694 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
6695 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
6696 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
6697 backlight.</p>
6698
6699       </div>
6700       <div class="tags">
6701
6702
6703         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6704
6705
6706       </div>
6707     </div>
6708     <div class="padding"></div>
6709
6710     <div class="entry">
6711       <div class="title">
6712         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Third alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
6713       </div>
6714       <div class="date">
6715         10th June 2013
6716       </div>
6717       <div class="body">
6718         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
6719 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
6720
6721 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
6722 2013-06-10</strong></p>
6723
6724 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
6725 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
6726
6727 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
6728
6729 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
6730 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
6731 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
6732 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
6733 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
6734 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
6735 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
6736 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
6737 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
6738 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
6739 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
6740 desktop contains
6741 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
6742 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
6743 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
6744 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
6745
6746 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
6747 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
6748 Squeeze release.</p>
6749
6750 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
6751
6752 <ul>
6753
6754 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
6755 <li>Updated libxv (DSA-2674), libxvmc (DSA-2675), libxfixes (DSA-2676), libxrender (DSA-2677), mesa (DSA-2678), xserver-xorg-video-openchrome (DSA-2679), libxt (DSA-2680), libxcursor (DSA-2681), libxext (DSA-2682), libxi (DSA-2683), libxrandr (DSA-2684), libxp (DSA-2685), libxcb (DSA-2686), libfs (DSA-2687), libxres (DSA-2688), libxtst (DSA-2689), libxxf86dga (DSA-2690), libxinerama (DSA-2691), libxxf86vm (DSA-2692), libx11 (DSA-2693), chromium-browser (DSA-2695), gnutls26 (DSA-2697), wireshark (DSA-2700), krb5 (DSA-2701), telepathy-gabble (DSA-2702) and subversion (DSA-2703).
6756 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
6757 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
6758 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
6759
6760 </ul>
6761
6762 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
6763
6764 <ul>
6765
6766 <li>The subnet-change script is now able to change all files needing a change on the main-server when changing the IP network used.
6767 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
6768 <li>New Romanian translation.
6769 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
6770 <li>Fix roaming workstation setup (Closed in libpam-mklocaluser/0.8, libpam-mklocaluser/0.8~deb7u1: #706753: libpam-mklocaluser: Fail to create local user during first login).
6771 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
6772 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
6773 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
6774 <li>More testsuite tests.
6775 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
6776 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
6777
6778 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
6779 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
6780
6781 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
6782 them up with GOsa².</li>
6783
6784 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
6785
6786 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
6787 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
6788 entered password). </li>
6789
6790 </ul>
6791
6792 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
6793
6794 <ul>
6795
6796 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
6797
6798 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
6799 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
6800 missing import feature).</li>
6801
6802 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
6803
6804 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
6805 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
6806 unfixed.</li>
6807
6808 </ul>
6809
6810 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
6811
6812 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
6813
6814 <ul>
6815
6816 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
6817
6818 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
6819
6820 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
6821
6822 </ul>
6823
6824 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
6825 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
6826
6827 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
6828
6829 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
6830
6831       </div>
6832       <div class="tags">
6833
6834
6835         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6836
6837
6838       </div>
6839     </div>
6840     <div class="padding"></div>
6841
6842     <div class="entry">
6843       <div class="title">
6844         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html">Is there a PHP expert in the building?  Debian Edu need help!</a>
6845       </div>
6846       <div class="date">
6847          5th June 2013
6848       </div>
6849       <div class="body">
6850         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
6851 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
6852 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
6853 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
6854 the project:
6855
6856 <ol>
6857
6858 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
6859   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
6860   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
6861   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
6862   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
6863
6864 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
6865   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
6866   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
6867   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
6868   #698840</a>.</li>
6869
6870 </ol>
6871
6872 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
6873 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
6874 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
6875
6876       </div>
6877       <div class="tags">
6878
6879
6880         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6881
6882
6883       </div>
6884     </div>
6885     <div class="padding"></div>
6886
6887     <div class="entry">
6888       <div class="title">
6889         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
6890       </div>
6891       <div class="date">
6892          4th June 2013
6893       </div>
6894       <div class="body">
6895         <p>It has been a while since my last English
6896 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
6897 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
6898 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
6899 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
6900 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
6901
6902 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6903
6904 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
6905 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
6906 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
6907 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
6908
6909 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
6910 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
6911 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
6912
6913 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
6914 project?</strong></p>
6915
6916 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
6917 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
6918 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
6919 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
6920 manual.
6921
6922 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
6923 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
6924 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
6925 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
6926
6927 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
6928 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
6929 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
6930 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
6931 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
6932 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
6933 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
6934 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
6935 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
6936 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
6937
6938 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
6939 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
6940 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
6941 beautiful project.</p>
6942
6943 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6944 Edu?</strong></p>
6945
6946 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
6947 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
6948 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
6949
6950 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
6951 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
6952 of educational free software.</p>
6953
6954 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6955 Edu?</strong></p>
6956
6957 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
6958 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
6959 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
6960 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
6961 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
6962
6963 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
6964 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
6965 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
6966 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
6967 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
6968 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
6969 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
6970 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
6971
6972 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6973
6974 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
6975 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
6976 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
6977 also using the mathematical software
6978 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
6979 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
6980 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
6981
6982 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
6983 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
6984 statistics?</strong></p>
6985
6986 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
6987 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
6988 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
6989 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
6990
6991 <ul>
6992
6993 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
6994 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
6995 constructions in planar geometry
6996
6997 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
6998 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
6999 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
7000
7001 </ul>
7002
7003 <p>I like also
7004 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
7005 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
7006 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
7007
7008 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7009 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7010
7011 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
7012
7013 <ul>
7014
7015 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
7016
7017 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
7018     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
7019     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
7020
7021 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
7022
7023 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
7024     system.</li>
7025
7026 </ul>
7027
7028       </div>
7029       <div class="tags">
7030
7031
7032         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
7033
7034
7035       </div>
7036     </div>
7037     <div class="padding"></div>
7038
7039     <div class="entry">
7040       <div class="title">
7041         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">Educational applications included in Debian Edu / Skolelinux (the screenshot collection :-)</a>
7042       </div>
7043       <div class="date">
7044          1st June 2013
7045       </div>
7046       <div class="body">
7047         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
7048 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
7049 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
7050 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
7051 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
7052 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
7053 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
7054 program.</p>
7055
7056 <!-- for f in $(debtags tagcat|grep field::|awk '{print $2}'); do   echo; echo "<p><strong>$f</strong></p>"; echo "<p>";   (     for p in $(debtags search --names "use::learning && interface::x11 && role::program && $f"); do img="<img src='http://screenshots.debian.net/thumbnail/$p' alt='$p'>"; if dpkg -s $p > /dev/null 2>&1; then           echo "<a href='http://packages.qa.debian.org/$p'>$img</a>"; fi;     done;   ) | LANG=C sort; echo "</p>"; done -->
7057
7058 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
7059 <p>
7060 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=audacity'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/audacity.png' alt='audacity'></a>
7061 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
7062 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=denemo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/denemo.png' alt='denemo'></a>
7063 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=freebirth'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/freebirth.png' alt='freebirth'></a>
7064 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
7065 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gimp'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gimp.png' alt='gimp'></a>
7066 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=hydrogen'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/hydrogen.png' alt='hydrogen'></a>
7067 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lilypond'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lilypond.png' alt='lilypond'></a>
7068 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lmms'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lmms.png' alt='lmms'></a>
7069 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rosegarden'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rosegarden.png' alt='rosegarden'></a>
7070 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scribus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scribus.png' alt='scribus'></a>
7071 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=solfege'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/solfege.png' alt='solfege'></a>
7072 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stopmotion'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stopmotion.png' alt='stopmotion'></a>
7073 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxpaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxpaint.png' alt='tuxpaint'></a>
7074 </p>
7075
7076 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
7077 <p>
7078 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=celestia-gnome'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/celestia-gnome.png' alt='celestia-gnome'></a>
7079 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpredict'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gpredict.png' alt='gpredict'></a>
7080 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kstars'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kstars.png' alt='kstars'></a>
7081 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=planets'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/planets.png' alt='planets'></a>
7082 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stellarium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stellarium.png' alt='stellarium'></a>
7083 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
7084 </p>
7085
7086 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
7087 <p>
7088 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
7089 </p>
7090
7091 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
7092 <p>
7093 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=atomix'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/atomix.png' alt='atomix'></a>
7094 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=chemtool'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/chemtool.png' alt='chemtool'></a>
7095 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=easychem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/easychem.png' alt='easychem'></a>
7096 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gchempaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gchempaint.png' alt='gchempaint'></a>
7097 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gdis'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gdis.png' alt='gdis'></a>
7098 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ghemical'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ghemical.png' alt='ghemical'></a>
7099 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gperiodic'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gperiodic.png' alt='gperiodic'></a>
7100 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalzium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalzium.png' alt='kalzium'></a>
7101 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
7102 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
7103 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xdrawchem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xdrawchem.png' alt='xdrawchem'></a>
7104 </p>
7105
7106 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
7107 <p>
7108 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
7109 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
7110 </p>
7111
7112 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
7113 <p>
7114 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kgeography'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kgeography.png' alt='kgeography'></a>
7115 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=marble'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/marble.png' alt='marble'></a>
7116 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
7117 </p>
7118
7119 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
7120 <p>
7121 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
7122 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kanagram'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kanagram.png' alt='kanagram'></a>
7123 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=khangman'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/khangman.png' alt='khangman'></a>
7124 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=klettres'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/klettres.png' alt='klettres'></a>
7125 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=parley'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/parley.png' alt='parley'></a>
7126 </p>
7127
7128 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
7129 <p>
7130 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
7131 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=drgeo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/drgeo.png' alt='drgeo'></a>
7132 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
7133 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geogebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/geogebra.png' alt='geogebra'></a>
7134 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
7135 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=grace'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/grace.png' alt='grace'></a>
7136 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphmonkey'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphmonkey.png' alt='graphmonkey'></a>
7137 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphthing'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphthing.png' alt='graphthing'></a>
7138 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalgebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalgebra.png' alt='kalgebra'></a>
7139 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kbruch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kbruch.png' alt='kbruch'></a>
7140 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kig'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kig.png' alt='kig'></a>
7141 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kmplot'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kmplot.png' alt='kmplot'></a>
7142 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=mathwar'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/mathwar.png' alt='mathwar'></a>
7143 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rocs'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rocs.png' alt='rocs'></a>
7144 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
7145 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxmath'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxmath.png' alt='tuxmath'></a>
7146 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xabacus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xabacus.png' alt='xabacus'></a>
7147 </p>
7148
7149 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
7150 <p>
7151 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
7152 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=step'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/step.png' alt='step'></a>
7153 </p>
7154
7155 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
7156 <p>
7157 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=blinken'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/blinken.png' alt='blinken'></a>
7158 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=cgoban'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/cgoban.png' alt='cgoban'></a>
7159 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
7160 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
7161 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnuchess'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnuchess.png' alt='gnuchess'></a>
7162 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnugo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnugo.png' alt='gnugo'></a>
7163 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gtans'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gtans.png' alt='gtans'></a>
7164 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ktouch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ktouch.png' alt='ktouch'></a>
7165 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=librecad'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/librecad.png' alt='librecad'></a>
7166 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
7167 </p>
7168
7169 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
7170 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
7171 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
7172 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
7173 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
7174 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
7175 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
7176
7177       </div>
7178       <div class="tags">
7179
7180
7181         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7182
7183
7184       </div>
7185     </div>
7186     <div class="padding"></div>
7187
7188     <div class="entry">
7189       <div class="title">
7190         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
7191       </div>
7192       <div class="date">
7193         27th May 2013
7194       </div>
7195       <div class="body">
7196         <p>Two days ago, I asked
7197 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
7198 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
7199 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
7200 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
7201 and Windows 8.</p>
7202
7203 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
7204 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
7205 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
7206 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
7207 enough to tell.</p>
7208
7209 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
7210 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
7211 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
7212 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
7213 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
7214 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
7215 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
7216 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
7217 to follow.</p>
7218
7219 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
7220 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
7221 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
7222 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
7223 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
7224 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
7225 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
7226 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
7227
7228 <p>I've updated the
7229 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
7230 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
7231 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
7232 machine.</p>
7233
7234 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
7235 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
7236
7237       </div>
7238       <div class="tags">
7239
7240
7241         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7242
7243
7244       </div>
7245     </div>
7246     <div class="padding"></div>
7247
7248     <div class="entry">
7249       <div class="title">
7250         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
7251       </div>
7252       <div class="date">
7253         25th May 2013
7254       </div>
7255       <div class="body">
7256         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
7257 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
7258 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
7259 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
7260 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
7261 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
7262
7263 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
7264 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
7265 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
7266 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
7267 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
7268 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
7269 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
7270 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
7271 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
7272 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
7273
7274 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
7275 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
7276 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
7277 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
7278 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
7279 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
7280
7281 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
7282 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
7283 on new Laptops?</p>
7284
7285       </div>
7286       <div class="tags">
7287
7288
7289         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7290
7291
7292       </div>
7293     </div>
7294     <div class="padding"></div>
7295
7296     <div class="entry">
7297       <div class="title">
7298         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
7299       </div>
7300       <div class="date">
7301         17th May 2013
7302       </div>
7303       <div class="body">
7304         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
7305 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
7306 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
7307 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
7308 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
7309 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
7310 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
7311 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
7312 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
7313 donate some money</a>.
7314
7315 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
7316 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
7317 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
7318 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
7319 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
7320
7321 <p>The script,
7322 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
7323 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
7324 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
7325 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
7326
7327 <ol>
7328
7329 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
7330 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
7331 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
7332     our configuration.</li>
7333 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
7334     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
7335     according to the profile specified in the config above,
7336     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
7337 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
7338     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
7339 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
7340
7341 </ol>
7342
7343 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
7344 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
7345 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
7346 the needed packages.</p>
7347
7348 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
7349 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
7350 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
7351 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
7352 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
7353 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
7354
7355 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
7356 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
7357 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
7358
7359 <p><pre>
7360 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
7361 DESKTOP="lxde"
7362 </pre></p>
7363
7364 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
7365 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
7366 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
7367 boot.</p>
7368
7369       </div>
7370       <div class="tags">
7371
7372
7373         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7374
7375
7376       </div>
7377     </div>
7378     <div class="padding"></div>
7379
7380     <div class="entry">
7381       <div class="title">
7382         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
7383       </div>
7384       <div class="date">
7385         14th May 2013
7386       </div>
7387       <div class="body">
7388         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7389 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
7390 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
7391
7392 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
7393 2013-05-14</strong></p>
7394
7395 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
7396 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
7397 codename "Wheezy".</p>
7398
7399 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
7400
7401 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
7402 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
7403 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
7404 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
7405 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
7406 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
7407 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
7408 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
7409
7410 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
7411 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
7412 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
7413
7414 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
7415 <ul>
7416   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
7417     default.</li>
7418   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
7419   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
7420   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
7421     ibus-anthy.</li>
7422 </ul>
7423
7424 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
7425 <ul>
7426
7427   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
7428     reliability improvements.</li>
7429   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
7430     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
7431   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
7432     problems.</li>
7433   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
7434     direct:// URL.</li>
7435   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
7436   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
7437   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
7438   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
7439     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
7440   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
7441     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
7442 </ul>
7443
7444 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
7445 <ul>
7446
7447   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
7448     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
7449     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
7450   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
7451   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
7452     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
7453   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
7454   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
7455   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
7456     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
7457   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
7458     password submission problem
7459     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
7460
7461 </ul>
7462
7463 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
7464
7465 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
7466 <ul>
7467
7468   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
7469   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
7470   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</li>
7471
7472 </ul>
7473
7474 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
7475
7476 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
7477
7478 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
7479
7480 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
7481
7482       </div>
7483       <div class="tags">
7484
7485
7486         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7487
7488
7489       </div>
7490     </div>
7491     <div class="padding"></div>
7492
7493     <div class="entry">
7494       <div class="title">
7495         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
7496       </div>
7497       <div class="date">
7498         11th May 2013
7499       </div>
7500       <div class="body">
7501         <P>In January,
7502 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
7503 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
7504 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
7505 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
7506 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
7507 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
7508 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
7509 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
7510 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
7511 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
7512 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
7513 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
7514
7515 <p><table>
7516 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
7517 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
7518 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
7519 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
7520 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
7521 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
7522 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
7523 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
7524 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
7525 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
7526 </table></p>
7527
7528 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
7529 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
7530 available in experimental.</p>
7531
7532 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
7533 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
7534 for LEGO designers.</p>
7535
7536       </div>
7537       <div class="tags">
7538
7539
7540         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
7541
7542
7543       </div>
7544     </div>
7545     <div class="padding"></div>
7546
7547     <div class="entry">
7548       <div class="title">
7549         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
7550       </div>
7551       <div class="date">
7552          5th May 2013
7553       </div>
7554       <div class="body">
7555         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
7556 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
7557 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
7558 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
7559 soon.</p>
7560
7561 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
7562 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
7563 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
7564 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
7565 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
7566 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
7567 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
7568 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
7569 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
7570 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
7571 Edu.</a>
7572
7573 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
7574 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
7575 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
7576 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
7577 follow.<p>
7578
7579       </div>
7580       <div class="tags">
7581
7582
7583         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7584
7585
7586       </div>
7587     </div>
7588     <div class="padding"></div>
7589
7590     <div class="entry">
7591       <div class="title">
7592         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
7593       </div>
7594       <div class="date">
7595         26th April 2013
7596       </div>
7597       <div class="body">
7598         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
7599 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
7600 announcement:</p>
7601
7602 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
7603 2013-04-26</strong></p>
7604
7605 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
7606 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
7607
7608 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
7609
7610 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
7611 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
7612 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
7613 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
7614 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
7615 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
7616 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
7617 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
7618 installed via the network.</p>
7619
7620 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
7621 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
7622 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
7623
7624 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
7625
7626 <ul>
7627 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
7628   <ul>
7629      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
7630      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
7631          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
7632          manual.)</li>
7633      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
7634      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
7635      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
7636      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
7637      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
7638      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
7639      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
7640      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
7641      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
7642      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
7643      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
7644      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
7645          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
7646          manual</a> for more details.</li>
7647      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
7648          installation.</li>
7649      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
7650          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/releasenotes">release notes</a> and the <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation manual</a>.</li>
7651   </ul></li>
7652 </ul>
7653
7654 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
7655 <ul>
7656 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
7657     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
7658     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
7659 </ul>
7660
7661 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
7662 <ul>
7663 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
7664     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
7665     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
7666 </ul>
7667
7668 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
7669 <ul>
7670 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
7671     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
7672     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
7673 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
7674     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
7675     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
7676 </ul>
7677
7678 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
7679 <ul>
7680 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
7681     yet.</li>
7682 </ul>
7683
7684 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
7685
7686 <ul>
7687 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
7688     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
7689     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
7690 </ul>
7691
7692 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
7693
7694 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
7695 <ul>
7696 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
7697 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
7698 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
7699 </ul>
7700
7701 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
7702
7703 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
7704
7705 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
7706
7707 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
7708
7709       </div>
7710       <div class="tags">
7711
7712
7713         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7714
7715
7716       </div>
7717     </div>
7718     <div class="padding"></div>
7719
7720     <div class="entry">
7721       <div class="title">
7722         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_developer_gathering_in_2013_take_place_in_Trondheim.html">First Debian Edu / Skolelinux developer gathering in 2013 take place in Trondheim</a>
7723       </div>
7724       <div class="date">
7725         16th April 2013
7726       </div>
7727       <div class="body">
7728         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
7729 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
7730 Details about the gathering can be found
7731 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
7732 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
7733 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
7734 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
7735 weekend.</p>
7736
7737 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
7738 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
7739 Edu release.</p>
7740
7741 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
7742
7743       </div>
7744       <div class="tags">
7745
7746
7747         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7748
7749
7750       </div>
7751     </div>
7752     <div class="padding"></div>
7753
7754     <div class="entry">
7755       <div class="title">
7756         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
7757       </div>
7758       <div class="date">
7759          3rd April 2013
7760       </div>
7761       <div class="body">
7762         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
7763 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
7764 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
7765 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
7766
7767 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
7768 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
7769 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
7770 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
7771 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
7772 BTS. :)</p>
7773
7774       </div>
7775       <div class="tags">
7776
7777
7778         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
7779
7780
7781       </div>
7782     </div>
7783     <div class="padding"></div>
7784
7785     <div class="entry">
7786       <div class="title">
7787         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Change_the_font__save_the_world__and_save_some_money_in_the_process_.html">Change the font, save the world (and save some money in the process)</a>
7788       </div>
7789       <div class="date">
7790         26th March 2013
7791       </div>
7792       <div class="body">
7793         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
7794 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
7795 font you use when printing.</p>
7796
7797 <p>Three years ago,
7798 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
7799 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
7800 changed their default front from
7801 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
7802 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
7803 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
7804 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
7805 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
7806 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
7807 prints.</p>
7808
7809 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
7810 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
7811 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
7812 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
7813 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
7814 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
7815 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
7816 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
7817 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
7818 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
7819 depend on the documents printed.</p>
7820
7821 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
7822 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
7823 and save some money in the process.</p>
7824
7825 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
7826 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
7827 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
7828 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
7829 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
7830 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
7831 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
7832 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
7833 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
7834
7835       </div>
7836       <div class="tags">
7837
7838
7839         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7840
7841
7842       </div>
7843     </div>
7844     <div class="padding"></div>
7845
7846     <div class="entry">
7847       <div class="title">
7848         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_a_short_story_using_docbook_for_PDF__HTML_and_EPUB.html">Typesetting a short story using docbook for PDF, HTML and EPUB</a>
7849       </div>
7850       <div class="date">
7851         24th March 2013
7852       </div>
7853       <div class="body">
7854         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
7855 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
7856 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
7857 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
7858 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
7859 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
7860 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
7861 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
7862 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
7863 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
7864 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
7865 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
7866
7867 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
7868 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
7869 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
7870 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
7871 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
7872 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
7873 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
7874 all I had to do was to use the
7875 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
7876 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
7877 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
7878 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
7879 xsltproc/fop (aka
7880 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
7881 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
7882 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
7883 technical detail.</p>
7884
7885 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
7886 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
7887 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
7888 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
7889 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
7890 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
7891
7892 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
7893 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
7894 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
7895 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
7896 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
7897 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
7898 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
7899 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
7900 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
7901
7902 <p><blockquote><pre>
7903 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
7904 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
7905   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
7906     &lt;hr/&gt;
7907   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
7908 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
7909 </pre></blockquote></p>
7910
7911 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
7912
7913 <p><blockquote><pre>
7914 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
7915 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
7916   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
7917     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
7918       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
7919     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
7920   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
7921 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
7922 </pre></blockquote></p>
7923
7924 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
7925 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
7926 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
7927 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
7928 enough.</p>
7929
7930 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
7931 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
7932 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
7933 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
7934 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
7935 look like this:</p>
7936
7937 <p><blockquote><pre>
7938 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
7939 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
7940   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
7941     &lt;br/&gt;
7942   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
7943 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
7944 </pre></blockquote></p>
7945
7946 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
7947
7948 <p><blockquote><pre>
7949 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
7950 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
7951   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
7952   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
7953     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
7954   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
7955 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
7956 </pre></blockquote></p>
7957
7958 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
7959 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
7960 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
7961 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
7962 page.</p>
7963
7964 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
7965 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
7966 github</a>
7967 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
7968 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
7969 days.</p>
7970
7971       </div>
7972       <div class="tags">
7973
7974
7975         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
7976
7977
7978       </div>
7979     </div>
7980     <div class="padding"></div>
7981
7982     <div class="entry">
7983       <div class="title">
7984         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_6_got_a_video_review_from_Pcwizz.html">Skolelinux 6 got a video review from Pcwizz</a>
7985       </div>
7986       <div class="date">
7987         17th March 2013
7988       </div>
7989       <div class="body">
7990         <p>Via
7991 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
7992 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
7993 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
7994 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
7995 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
7996 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
7997 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
7998
7999 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
8000 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
8001
8002 <blockquote>
8003 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
8004 </blockquote>
8005
8006 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
8007
8008 <blockquote>
8009 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
8010 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
8011 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
8012 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
8013 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
8014 </blockquote>
8015
8016 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
8017 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
8018 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
8019 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
8020
8021 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
8022 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
8023
8024 <blockquote>
8025 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
8026 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
8027 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
8028 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
8029 </blockquote>
8030
8031 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
8032 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
8033 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
8034 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
8035 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
8036
8037 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
8038 embedding:</p>
8039
8040 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
8041
8042       </div>
8043       <div class="tags">
8044
8045
8046         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
8047
8048
8049       </div>
8050     </div>
8051     <div class="padding"></div>
8052
8053     <div class="entry">
8054       <div class="title">
8055         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
8056       </div>
8057       <div class="date">
8058          8th March 2013
8059       </div>
8060       <div class="body">
8061         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
8062 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
8063 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
8064 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
8065 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
8066 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
8067 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
8068
8069 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
8070
8071 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
8072 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
8073
8074 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
8075 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
8076 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
8077 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
8078 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
8079 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
8080
8081 <p>Images are available for download at
8082 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
8083
8084 <p>md5sums:
8085 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
8086 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
8087 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
8088
8089 <p>sha1sums:
8090 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
8091 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
8092 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
8093
8094 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
8095
8096 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
8097 2013-03-03:</p>
8098
8099 <ul>
8100   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
8101   <ul>
8102         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
8103         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
8104   </ul></li>
8105   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
8106   <ul>
8107         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
8108         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
8109   </ul></li>
8110   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
8111      <ul>
8112         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
8113         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
8114         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
8115                 Closes: #664596</li>
8116         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
8117                 Closes: #664976</li>
8118         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
8119            <ul>
8120                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
8121                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
8122            </ul></li>
8123         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
8124            <ul>
8125                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
8126                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
8127                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
8128                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
8129                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
8130            </ul></li>
8131         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
8132     </ul>
8133   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
8134     <ul>
8135         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
8136     </ul></li>
8137 </ul>
8138
8139 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
8140 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
8141 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
8142 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
8143
8144 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
8145 mailinglist
8146 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
8147 </p></blockquote>
8148
8149 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
8150
8151       </div>
8152       <div class="tags">
8153
8154
8155         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8156
8157
8158       </div>
8159     </div>
8160     <div class="padding"></div>
8161
8162     <div class="entry">
8163       <div class="title">
8164         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen___Complete_TV_station_organised_using_the_web.html">Frikanalen - Complete TV station organised using the web</a>
8165       </div>
8166       <div class="date">
8167          3rd March 2013
8168       </div>
8169       <div class="body">
8170         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
8171 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
8172 support using
8173 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
8174 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
8175 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
8176 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
8177 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
8178 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
8179 using the GNU LGPL, and
8180 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
8181
8182 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
8183 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
8184 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
8185 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
8186 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
8187 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
8188
8189 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
8190 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
8191 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
8192 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
8193 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
8194 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
8195 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
8196 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
8197 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
8198 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
8199 signal distribution is handled using
8200 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
8201 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
8202 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
8203 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
8204 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
8205 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
8206 them up a bit more first.</p>
8207
8208 <p>The development is coordinated on the
8209 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
8210 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
8211 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
8212 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
8213 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
8214 development.</p>
8215
8216       </div>
8217       <div class="tags">
8218
8219
8220         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
8221
8222
8223       </div>
8224     </div>
8225     <div class="padding"></div>
8226
8227     <div class="entry">
8228       <div class="title">
8229         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dr__Richard_Stallman__founder_of_Free_Software_Foundation__give_a_talk_in_Oslo_March_1st_2013.html">Dr. Richard Stallman, founder of Free Software Foundation, give a talk in Oslo March 1st 2013</a>
8230       </div>
8231       <div class="date">
8232         27th February 2013
8233       </div>
8234       <div class="body">
8235         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
8236 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
8237 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
8238 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
8239 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
8240 (where I am the chair of the board) and
8241 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
8242 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
8243 GNU», with this description:
8244
8245 <p><blockquote>
8246 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
8247 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
8248 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
8249 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
8250 </blockquote></p>
8251
8252 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
8253 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
8254 am really curious how many will show up.  See
8255 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
8256 page</a> for the location details.</p>
8257
8258       </div>
8259       <div class="tags">
8260
8261
8262         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
8263
8264
8265       </div>
8266     </div>
8267     <div class="padding"></div>
8268
8269     <div class="entry">
8270       <div class="title">
8271         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikart___Free_Garmin_maps_for_European_countries_based_on_OpenStreetmap.html">Frikart - Free Garmin maps for European countries based on OpenStreetmap</a>
8272       </div>
8273       <div class="date">
8274         15th February 2013
8275       </div>
8276       <div class="body">
8277         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
8278 now a great source of free maps available from
8279 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
8280 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
8281 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
8282 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
8283 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
8284 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
8285 page for descriptions).</p>
8286
8287 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
8288 map you can just edit the
8289 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
8290 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
8291
8292       </div>
8293       <div class="tags">
8294
8295
8296         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
8297
8298
8299       </div>
8300     </div>
8301     <div class="padding"></div>
8302
8303     <div class="entry">
8304       <div class="title">
8305         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html">"Electronic" paper invoices - using vCard in a QR code</a>
8306       </div>
8307       <div class="date">
8308         12th February 2013
8309       </div>
8310       <div class="body">
8311         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
8312 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
8313 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
8314 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
8315 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
8316 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
8317 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
8318 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
8319 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
8320 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
8321 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
8322 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
8323 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
8324 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
8325 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
8326 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
8327
8328 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
8329 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
8330 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
8331 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
8332 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
8333 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
8334 fields:</p>
8335
8336 <p><pre>
8337 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
8338 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
8339 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
8340 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
8341 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
8342 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
8343 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
8344 </pre></p>
8345
8346 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
8347 answer regarding
8348 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
8349 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
8350 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
8351 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
8352
8353 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
8354
8355 <p><pre>
8356 BEGIN:VCARD
8357 VERSION:2.1
8358 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
8359 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
8360 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
8361 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
8362 REV:20130212T095000Z
8363 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
8364 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
8365 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
8366 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
8367 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
8368 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
8369 END:VCARD
8370 </pre></p>
8371
8372 <p>The resulting QR code created using
8373 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
8374 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
8375 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
8376 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
8377 system.</p>
8378
8379 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
8380
8381 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
8382 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
8383 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
8384 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
8385
8386 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
8387 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
8388
8389       </div>
8390       <div class="tags">
8391
8392
8393         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
8394
8395
8396       </div>
8397     </div>
8398     <div class="padding"></div>
8399
8400     <div class="entry">
8401       <div class="title">
8402         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sleep_until_morning___home_automation_for_the_kids.html">Sleep until morning - home automation for the kids</a>
8403       </div>
8404       <div class="date">
8405         10th February 2013
8406       </div>
8407       <div class="body">
8408         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
8409
8410 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
8411 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
8412 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
8413 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
8414 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
8415 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
8416 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
8417 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
8418 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
8419 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
8420 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
8421
8422 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
8423 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
8424 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
8425 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
8426 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
8427 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
8428 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
8429 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
8430 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
8431 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
8432 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
8433 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
8434 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
8435 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
8436 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
8437 ones own
8438 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
8439 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
8440 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
8441 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
8442 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
8443 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
8444 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
8445 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
8446 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
8447 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
8448 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
8449
8450 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
8451 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
8452 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
8453 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
8454 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
8455 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
8456
8457 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
8458 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
8459 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
8460
8461       </div>
8462       <div class="tags">
8463
8464
8465         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8466
8467
8468       </div>
8469     </div>
8470     <div class="padding"></div>
8471
8472     <div class="entry">
8473       <div class="title">
8474         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
8475       </div>
8476       <div class="date">
8477          2nd February 2013
8478       </div>
8479       <div class="body">
8480         <p>My
8481 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
8482 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
8483 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
8484 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
8485 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
8486 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
8487 version too.</p>
8488
8489 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
8490 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
8491 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
8492 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
8493 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
8494 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
8495 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
8496 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
8497
8498 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
8499 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
8500 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
8501 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
8502 it. :)</p>
8503
8504 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
8505 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
8506 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8507
8508       </div>
8509       <div class="tags">
8510
8511
8512         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8513
8514
8515       </div>
8516     </div>
8517     <div class="padding"></div>
8518
8519     <div class="entry">
8520       <div class="title">
8521         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
8522       </div>
8523       <div class="date">
8524         22nd January 2013
8525       </div>
8526       <div class="body">
8527         <p>Yesterday, I
8528 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
8529 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
8530 pluggable hardware devices, which I
8531 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
8532 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
8533 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
8534 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
8535 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
8536 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
8537 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
8538 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
8539 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
8540 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
8541
8542 <pre>
8543 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
8544 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
8545 </pre>
8546
8547 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
8548 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
8549 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
8550 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
8551
8552 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
8553 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
8554 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
8555 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
8556 word.</p>
8557
8558 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
8559 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
8560 process.</p>
8561
8562 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
8563 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
8564
8565       </div>
8566       <div class="tags">
8567
8568
8569         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
8570
8571
8572       </div>
8573     </div>
8574     <div class="padding"></div>
8575
8576     <div class="entry">
8577       <div class="title">
8578         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
8579       </div>
8580       <div class="date">
8581         21st January 2013
8582       </div>
8583       <div class="body">
8584         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
8585 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
8586 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
8587 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
8588 it, fetch the
8589 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
8590 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
8591 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
8592 autostart script.</p>
8593
8594 <p>The design is simple:</p>
8595
8596 <ul>
8597
8598 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
8599 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
8600
8601 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
8602 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
8603 initially did.</li>
8604
8605 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
8606 the APT database, a database
8607 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
8608 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
8609
8610 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
8611 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
8612 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
8613 package or packages.</li>
8614
8615 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
8616 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
8617
8618 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
8619 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
8620
8621 </ul>
8622
8623 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
8624 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
8625 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
8626 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
8627
8628 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
8629 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
8630 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
8631 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
8632 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
8633
8634 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
8635 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
8636 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
8637 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
8638 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
8639 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
8640 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
8641 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
8642
8643 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
8644 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
8645 '<tt>svn checkout
8646 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
8647 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
8648 devscripts package.</p>
8649
8650 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
8651 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
8652 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
8653 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
8654 instructions</a> for details.</p>
8655
8656       </div>
8657       <div class="tags">
8658
8659
8660         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
8661
8662
8663       </div>
8664     </div>
8665     <div class="padding"></div>
8666
8667     <div class="entry">
8668       <div class="title">
8669         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
8670       </div>
8671       <div class="date">
8672         19th January 2013
8673       </div>
8674       <div class="body">
8675         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
8676 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
8677 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
8678 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
8679 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
8680 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
8681 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
8682 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
8683 not a durable solution.
8684
8685 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
8686 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
8687
8688 <ul>
8689
8690 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
8691   than A4).</li>
8692 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
8693 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
8694 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
8695 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
8696 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
8697 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
8698 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
8699 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
8700 size).</li>
8701 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
8702   X.org packages.</li>
8703 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
8704   the time).
8705
8706 </ul>
8707
8708 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
8709 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
8710 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
8711 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
8712 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
8713 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
8714 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
8715 still be useful.</p>
8716
8717 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
8718 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
8719 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
8720 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
8721 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
8722 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
8723
8724       </div>
8725       <div class="tags">
8726
8727
8728         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8729
8730
8731       </div>
8732     </div>
8733     <div class="padding"></div>
8734
8735     <div class="entry">
8736       <div class="title">
8737         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
8738       </div>
8739       <div class="date">
8740         18th January 2013
8741       </div>
8742       <div class="body">
8743         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
8744 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
8745 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
8746 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
8747 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
8748 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
8749 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
8750
8751 <pre>
8752 #!/usr/bin/python
8753 import sys
8754 import apt
8755 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
8756     cache = apt.Cache()
8757     cache.open(None)
8758     thepkgs = []
8759     for pkg in cache:
8760         version = pkg.candidate
8761         if version is None:
8762             version = pkg.installed
8763         if version is None:
8764             continue
8765         record = version.record
8766         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
8767             continue
8768         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
8769         for t in mime_types:
8770             t = t.rstrip().strip()
8771             if t == mimetype:
8772                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
8773     return thepkgs
8774 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
8775 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
8776     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
8777 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
8778 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
8779     print "  %s" %pkg
8780 </pre>
8781
8782 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
8783
8784 <pre>
8785 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
8786 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
8787   gecko-mediaplayer
8788 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
8789 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
8790   browser-plugin-gnash
8791 %
8792 </pre>
8793
8794 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
8795 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
8796 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
8797 anyone working on adding it?</p>
8798
8799 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
8800 request for icweasel support for this feature is
8801 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
8802 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
8803 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
8804 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
8805
8806       </div>
8807       <div class="tags">
8808
8809
8810         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8811
8812
8813       </div>
8814     </div>
8815     <div class="padding"></div>
8816
8817     <div class="entry">
8818       <div class="title">
8819         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
8820       </div>
8821       <div class="date">
8822         16th January 2013
8823       </div>
8824       <div class="body">
8825         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
8826 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
8827 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
8828 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
8829 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
8830 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
8831 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
8832 downloaded by the browser.</p>
8833
8834 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
8835 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
8836 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
8837 can be found on the
8838 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
8839 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
8840 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
8841 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
8842 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
8843
8844 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
8845
8846 <pre>
8847   count MIME type
8848   ----- -----------------------
8849      32 text/plain
8850      30 audio/mpeg
8851      29 image/png
8852      28 image/jpeg
8853      27 application/ogg
8854      26 audio/x-mp3
8855      25 image/tiff
8856      25 image/gif
8857      22 image/bmp
8858      22 audio/x-wav
8859      20 audio/x-flac
8860      19 audio/x-mpegurl
8861      18 video/x-ms-asf
8862      18 audio/x-musepack
8863      18 audio/x-mpeg
8864      18 application/x-ogg
8865      17 video/mpeg
8866      17 audio/x-scpls
8867      17 audio/ogg
8868      16 video/x-ms-wmv
8869 </pre>
8870
8871 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
8872
8873 <pre>
8874   count MIME type
8875   ----- -----------------------
8876      33 text/plain
8877      32 image/png
8878      32 image/jpeg
8879      29 audio/mpeg
8880      27 image/gif
8881      26 image/tiff
8882      26 application/ogg
8883      25 audio/x-mp3
8884      22 image/bmp
8885      21 audio/x-wav
8886      19 audio/x-mpegurl
8887      19 audio/x-mpeg
8888      18 video/mpeg
8889      18 audio/x-scpls
8890      18 audio/x-flac
8891      18 application/x-ogg
8892      17 video/x-ms-asf
8893      17 text/html
8894      17 audio/x-musepack
8895      16 image/x-xbitmap
8896 </pre>
8897
8898 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
8899
8900 <pre>
8901   count MIME type
8902   ----- -----------------------
8903      31 text/plain
8904      31 image/png
8905      31 image/jpeg
8906      29 audio/mpeg
8907      28 application/ogg
8908      27 image/gif
8909      26 image/tiff
8910      26 audio/x-mp3
8911      23 audio/x-wav
8912      22 image/bmp
8913      21 audio/x-flac
8914      20 audio/x-mpegurl
8915      19 audio/x-mpeg
8916      18 video/x-ms-asf
8917      18 video/mpeg
8918      18 audio/x-scpls
8919      18 application/x-ogg
8920      17 audio/x-musepack
8921      16 video/x-ms-wmv
8922      16 video/x-msvideo
8923 </pre>
8924
8925 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
8926 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
8927 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
8928 issues.</p>
8929
8930 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
8931 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
8932
8933       </div>
8934       <div class="tags">
8935
8936
8937         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8938
8939
8940       </div>
8941     </div>
8942     <div class="padding"></div>
8943
8944     <div class="entry">
8945       <div class="title">
8946         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
8947       </div>
8948       <div class="date">
8949         15th January 2013
8950       </div>
8951       <div class="body">
8952         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
8953 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
8954 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
8955 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
8956 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
8957 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
8958 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
8959 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
8960 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
8961 packages.</p>
8962
8963 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
8964 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
8965 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
8966 modalias.</p>
8967
8968 <p><blockquote>
8969 Package: package-name
8970 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
8971 </blockquote></p>
8972
8973 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
8974 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
8975
8976 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
8977 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
8978
8979 <p><blockquote>
8980 Package: cheese
8981 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
8982 </blockquote></p>
8983
8984 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
8985 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
8986
8987 <p><blockquote>
8988 Package: pcmciautils
8989 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
8990 </blockquote></p>
8991
8992 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
8993 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
8994
8995 <p><blockquote>
8996 Package: colorhug-client
8997 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
8998 </blockquote></p>
8999
9000 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
9001 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
9002 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
9003
9004 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
9005 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
9006 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
9007 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
9008 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
9009 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
9010 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
9011 Raring.</p>
9012
9013 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
9014 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
9015 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
9016 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
9017 try the
9018 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
9019 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
9020 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
9021 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
9022
9023 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
9024 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
9025
9026 <p><blockquote>
9027 % ./hw-support-lookup
9028 <br>yubikey-personalization
9029 <br>%
9030 </blockquote></p>
9031
9032 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
9033 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
9034
9035 <p><blockquote>
9036 % ./hw-support-lookup
9037 <br>pcmciautils
9038 <br>%
9039 </blockquote></p>
9040
9041 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
9042 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
9043 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
9044
9045 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
9046 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
9047 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
9048 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
9049 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
9050 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
9051 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
9052 see if it work.</p>
9053
9054 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
9055 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
9056 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
9057 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
9058
9059       </div>
9060       <div class="tags">
9061
9062
9063         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
9064
9065
9066       </div>
9067     </div>
9068     <div class="padding"></div>
9069
9070     <div class="entry">
9071       <div class="title">
9072         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
9073       </div>
9074       <div class="date">
9075         14th January 2013
9076       </div>
9077       <div class="body">
9078         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
9079 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
9080 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
9081 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
9082 in
9083 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
9084 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
9085
9086 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
9087
9088 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
9089 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
9090 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
9091 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
9092 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
9093 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
9094
9095 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
9096 this shell script:</p>
9097
9098 <pre>
9099 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
9100 </pre>
9101
9102 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
9103 using modinfo:</p>
9104
9105 <pre>
9106 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
9107 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
9108 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
9109 %
9110 </pre>
9111
9112 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
9113
9114 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
9115 Bridge memory controller:</p>
9116
9117 <p><blockquote>
9118 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
9119 </blockquote></p>
9120
9121 <p>This represent these values:</p>
9122
9123 <pre>
9124  v   00008086  (vendor)
9125  d   00002770  (device)
9126  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
9127  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
9128  bc  06        (bus class)
9129  sc  00        (bus subclass)
9130  i   00        (interface)
9131 </pre>
9132
9133 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
9134 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
9135 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
9136 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
9137
9138 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
9139 means.</p>
9140
9141 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
9142
9143 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
9144 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
9145
9146 <p><blockquote>
9147 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
9148 </blockquote></p>
9149
9150 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
9151
9152 <pre>
9153  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
9154  p    0001  (device product)
9155  d    0206  (bcddevice)
9156  dc     09  (device class)
9157  dsc    00  (device subclass)
9158  dp     00  (device protocol)
9159  ic     09  (interface class)
9160  isc    00  (interface subclass)
9161  ip     00  (interface protocol)
9162 </pre>
9163
9164 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
9165 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
9166 these alias entries show up:</p>
9167
9168 <p><blockquote>
9169 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
9170 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
9171 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
9172 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
9173 </blockquote></p>
9174
9175 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
9176 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
9177 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
9178
9179 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
9180
9181 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
9182 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
9183
9184 <p><blockquote>
9185 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
9186 </blockquote></p>
9187
9188 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
9189
9190 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
9191
9192 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
9193 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
9194 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
9195
9196 <p><blockquote>
9197 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
9198 </blockquote></p>
9199
9200 <p>The values present are</p>
9201
9202 <pre>
9203  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
9204  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
9205  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
9206  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
9207  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
9208  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
9209  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
9210  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
9211  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
9212  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
9213  ct   10             (chassis type)
9214  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
9215 </pre>
9216
9217 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
9218 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
9219
9220 <pre>
9221   3 Desktop
9222   4 Low Profile Desktop
9223   5 Pizza Box
9224   6 Mini Tower
9225   7 Tower
9226   8 Portable
9227   9 Laptop
9228  10 Notebook
9229  11 Hand Held
9230  12 Docking Station
9231  13 All In One
9232  14 Sub Notebook
9233  15 Space-saving
9234  16 Lunch Box
9235  17 Main Server Chassis
9236  18 Expansion Chassis
9237  19 Sub Chassis
9238  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
9239  21 Peripheral Chassis
9240  22 RAID Chassis
9241  23 Rack Mount Chassis
9242  24 Sealed-case PC
9243  25 Multi-system
9244  26 CompactPCI
9245  27 AdvancedTCA
9246  28 Blade
9247  29 Blade Enclosing
9248 </pre>
9249
9250 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
9251 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
9252 claim it is a desktop.</p>
9253
9254 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
9255
9256 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
9257 test machine:</p>
9258
9259 <p><blockquote>
9260 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
9261 </blockquote></p>
9262
9263 <p>The values present are</p>
9264
9265 <pre>
9266   ty  01  (type)
9267   pr  00  (prototype)
9268   id  00  (id)
9269   ex  00  (extra)
9270 </pre>
9271
9272 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
9273 the valid values are.</p>
9274
9275 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
9276
9277 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
9278 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
9279 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
9280 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
9281 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
9282 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
9283 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
9284
9285 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
9286
9287 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
9288 one can use the following shell script:</p>
9289
9290 <pre>
9291   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
9292     echo "$id" ; \
9293     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
9294   done
9295 </pre>
9296
9297 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
9298 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
9299
9300 <pre>
9301   acpi:ACPI0003:
9302     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
9303   acpi:device:
9304   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
9305   acpi:IBM0068:
9306     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
9307     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
9308     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
9309     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
9310   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
9311     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
9312     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
9313     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
9314   [...]
9315 </pre>
9316
9317 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
9318 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
9319 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
9320 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
9321
9322 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
9323 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
9324 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
9325
9326       </div>
9327       <div class="tags">
9328
9329
9330         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
9331
9332
9333       </div>
9334     </div>
9335     <div class="padding"></div>
9336
9337     <div class="entry">
9338       <div class="title">
9339         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
9340       </div>
9341       <div class="date">
9342         10th January 2013
9343       </div>
9344       <div class="body">
9345         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
9346 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
9347 Launcher and updated the Debian package
9348 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
9349 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
9350 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
9351 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
9352 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
9353 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
9354 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
9355 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
9356 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
9357 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
9358 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
9359 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
9360 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
9361 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
9362 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
9363
9364       </div>
9365       <div class="tags">
9366
9367
9368         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
9369
9370
9371       </div>
9372     </div>
9373     <div class="padding"></div>
9374
9375     <div class="entry">
9376       <div class="title">
9377         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
9378       </div>
9379       <div class="date">
9380          9th January 2013
9381       </div>
9382       <div class="body">
9383         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
9384 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
9385 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
9386 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
9387 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
9388 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
9389 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
9390 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
9391 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
9392 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
9393 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
9394
9395 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
9396 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
9397 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
9398 simple:
9399
9400 <ul>
9401
9402 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
9403   starting when a user log in.</li>
9404
9405 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
9406   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
9407
9408 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
9409   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
9410   packages.</li>
9411
9412 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
9413   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
9414
9415 </ul>
9416
9417 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
9418 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
9419 discover database to find packages and
9420 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
9421 packages.</p>
9422
9423 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
9424 draft package is now checked into
9425 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
9426 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
9427 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
9428 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
9429 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
9430 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
9431 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
9432 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
9433 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
9434 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
9435 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
9436 because of the freeze).</p>
9437
9438 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
9439 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
9440 inserted):</p>
9441
9442 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
9443
9444 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
9445 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
9446 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
9447
9448 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
9449 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
9450 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
9451 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
9452 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
9453 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
9454 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
9455
9456 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
9457 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
9458 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
9459 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
9460 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
9461 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
9462 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
9463 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
9464 not be installed?</p>
9465
9466 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
9467 please send me an email. :)</p>
9468
9469       </div>
9470       <div class="tags">
9471
9472
9473         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
9474
9475
9476       </div>
9477     </div>
9478     <div class="padding"></div>
9479
9480     <div class="entry">
9481       <div class="title">
9482         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
9483       </div>
9484       <div class="date">
9485          2nd January 2013
9486       </div>
9487       <div class="body">
9488         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
9489 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
9490 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
9491 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
9492 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
9493 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
9494 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
9495 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
9496 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
9497 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
9498
9499 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
9500 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
9501 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
9502
9503       </div>
9504       <div class="tags">
9505
9506
9507         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
9508
9509
9510       </div>
9511     </div>
9512     <div class="padding"></div>
9513
9514     <div class="entry">
9515       <div class="title">
9516         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
9517       </div>
9518       <div class="date">
9519         28th December 2012
9520       </div>
9521       <div class="body">
9522         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
9523 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
9524 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
9525 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
9526 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
9527 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
9528 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
9529 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
9530 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
9531 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
9532 followed by many others. :)</p>
9533
9534 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
9535 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
9536 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
9537 you want to donate to the project.</p>
9538
9539       </div>
9540       <div class="tags">
9541
9542
9543         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9544
9545
9546       </div>
9547     </div>
9548     <div class="padding"></div>
9549
9550     <div class="entry">
9551       <div class="title">
9552         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
9553       </div>
9554       <div class="date">
9555         25th December 2012
9556       </div>
9557       <div class="body">
9558         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
9559 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
9560
9561 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
9562 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
9563 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
9564 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
9565 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
9566 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
9567 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
9568 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
9569 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
9570 name.</p>
9571
9572 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
9573 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
9574 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
9575
9576 <blockquote><pre>
9577 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
9578 cd bitcoin
9579 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
9580 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
9581 </pre></blockquote>
9582
9583 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
9584 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
9585 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
9586 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
9587 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
9588 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
9589 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
9590 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
9591 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
9592
9593 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
9594 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
9595 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
9596
9597       </div>
9598       <div class="tags">
9599
9600
9601         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9602
9603
9604       </div>
9605     </div>
9606     <div class="padding"></div>
9607
9608     <div class="entry">
9609       <div class="title">
9610         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
9611       </div>
9612       <div class="date">
9613         21st December 2012
9614       </div>
9615       <div class="body">
9616         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
9617 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
9618 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
9619 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
9620 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
9621 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
9622 is now maintained by a
9623 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
9624 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
9625 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
9626 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
9627 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
9628 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
9629 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
9630 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
9631 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
9632 Corallo in a
9633 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
9634 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
9635 Debian package.</p>
9636
9637 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
9638 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
9639 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
9640 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
9641 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
9642 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
9643 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
9644 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
9645 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
9646 new version to unstable.
9647
9648 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
9649 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
9650 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
9651 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
9652 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
9653 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
9654 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
9655 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
9656 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
9657 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
9658 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
9659 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
9660 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
9661 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
9662 have not tested them.</p>
9663
9664 <p>My
9665 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
9666 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
9667 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
9668 years ago, as can be
9669 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
9670 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
9671 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
9672 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
9673 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
9674 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
9675 the same address as last time,
9676 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
9677
9678       </div>
9679       <div class="tags">
9680
9681
9682         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9683
9684
9685       </div>
9686     </div>
9687     <div class="padding"></div>
9688
9689     <div class="entry">
9690       <div class="title">
9691         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ledger___double_entry_accounting_using_text_based_storage_format.html">Ledger - double-entry accounting using text based storage format</a>
9692       </div>
9693       <div class="date">
9694         18th December 2012
9695       </div>
9696       <div class="body">
9697         <p>A few days ago I came across
9698 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
9699 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
9700 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
9701 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
9702 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
9703 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
9704 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
9705 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
9706 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
9707
9708 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
9709 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
9710 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
9711 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
9712
9713 <blockquote><pre>
9714 2004-05-27 Book Store
9715       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
9716       Liabilities:Visa
9717 </pre></blockquote>
9718
9719 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
9720 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
9721 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
9722 Spang</a>,
9723 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
9724 Keen</a>,
9725 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
9726 Cantino</a> and
9727 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
9728 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
9729 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
9730 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
9731 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
9732
9733 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
9734 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
9735 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
9736 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
9737 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
9738
9739 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
9740 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
9741 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
9742 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
9743 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
9744 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
9745 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
9746 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
9747 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
9748
9749       </div>
9750       <div class="tags">
9751
9752
9753         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9754
9755
9756       </div>
9757     </div>
9758     <div class="padding"></div>
9759
9760     <div class="entry">
9761       <div class="title">
9762         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Scripting_the_Cerebrum_bofhd_user_administration_system_using_XML_RPC.html">Scripting the Cerebrum/bofhd user administration system using XML-RPC</a>
9763       </div>
9764       <div class="date">
9765          6th December 2012
9766       </div>
9767       <div class="body">
9768         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
9769 Oslo</a>, we use the
9770 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
9771 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
9772 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
9773 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
9774 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
9775 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
9776 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
9777 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
9778 Python.</p>
9779
9780 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
9781 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
9782 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
9783 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
9784 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
9785 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
9786
9787 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
9788 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
9789 user currently logged in:</p>
9790
9791 <blockquote><pre>
9792 #!/usr/bin/env python
9793 import getpass
9794 import xmlrpclib
9795 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
9796 username = getpass.getuser()
9797 password = getpass.getpass()
9798 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
9799 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
9800 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
9801 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
9802 result = server.logout(sessionid)
9803 print result
9804 </pre></blockquote>
9805
9806 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
9807 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
9808
9809       </div>
9810       <div class="tags">
9811
9812
9813         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
9814
9815
9816       </div>
9817     </div>
9818     <div class="padding"></div>
9819
9820     <div class="entry">
9821       <div class="title">
9822         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_the_value_of_copyright_taxed_.html">Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?</a>
9823       </div>
9824       <div class="date">
9825         17th November 2012
9826       </div>
9827       <div class="body">
9828         <p>While working on a
9829 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
9830 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
9831 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
9832 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
9833 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
9834 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
9835
9836 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
9837 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
9838 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
9839 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
9840 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
9841 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
9842 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
9843 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
9844 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
9845 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
9846 arguments.</p>
9847
9848 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
9849 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
9850 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
9851 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
9852 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
9853 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
9854 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
9855 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
9856
9857 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
9858 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
9859 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
9860 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
9861 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
9862 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
9863 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
9864 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
9865 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
9866 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
9867 correct right holder.</p>
9868
9869 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
9870 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
9871 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
9872 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
9873 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
9874 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
9875 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
9876 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
9877 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
9878 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
9879 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
9880 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
9881 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
9882 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
9883
9884 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
9885 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
9886 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
9887
9888 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
9889 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
9890
9891       </div>
9892       <div class="tags">
9893
9894
9895         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
9896
9897
9898       </div>
9899     </div>
9900     <div class="padding"></div>
9901
9902     <div class="entry">
9903       <div class="title">
9904         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
9905       </div>
9906       <div class="date">
9907         14th November 2012
9908       </div>
9909       <div class="body">
9910         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
9911 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
9912 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
9913 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
9914 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
9915 the people behind the German
9916 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
9917 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
9918 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
9919
9920 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9921
9922 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
9923 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
9924 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
9925
9926 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
9927 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
9928 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
9929 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
9930 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
9931 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
9932
9933 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
9934 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
9935 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
9936 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
9937 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
9938 relationship management and the communication processes in the
9939 project.</p>
9940
9941 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
9942 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
9943 and a yoga teacher.</p>
9944
9945 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
9946 project?</strong></p>
9947
9948 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
9949
9950 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
9951 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
9952 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
9953 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
9954 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
9955 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
9956 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
9957 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
9958 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
9959 parents.</p>
9960
9961 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
9962 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
9963 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
9964 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
9965 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
9966 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
9967 Germany.</p>
9968
9969 <p>For information about our school project you can read
9970 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
9971 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
9972
9973 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
9974 Edu?</strong></p>
9975
9976 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
9977 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
9978
9979 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
9980 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
9981 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
9982 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
9983 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
9984 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
9985 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
9986 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
9987 teachers, parents...</p>
9988
9989 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
9990 Edu?</strong></p>
9991
9992 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
9993 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
9994
9995 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
9996 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
9997 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
9998 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
9999 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
10000
10001 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
10002 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
10003 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
10004 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
10005 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
10006 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
10007 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
10008
10009 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10010
10011 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
10012 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
10013 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
10014 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
10015
10016 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10017 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10018
10019 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
10020 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
10021 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
10022 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
10023 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
10024
10025 <ul>
10026
10027 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
10028 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
10029 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
10030
10031 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
10032 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
10033 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
10034 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
10035 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
10036 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
10037 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
10038
10039 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
10040 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
10041 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
10042 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
10043
10044 </ul>
10045
10046       </div>
10047       <div class="tags">
10048
10049
10050         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
10051
10052
10053       </div>
10054     </div>
10055     <div class="padding"></div>
10056
10057     <div class="entry">
10058       <div class="title">
10059         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_European_Central_Bank__ECB__take_a_look_at_bitcoin.html">The European Central Bank (ECB) take a look at bitcoin</a>
10060       </div>
10061       <div class="date">
10062          4th November 2012
10063       </div>
10064       <div class="body">
10065         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
10066 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
10067 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
10068 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
10069 see how a member of the bitcoin community
10070 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
10071 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
10072 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
10073 competition.  My thoughts go to the
10074 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
10075 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
10076 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
10077 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
10078 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
10079
10080 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
10081 that the community already seem to have
10082 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
10083 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
10084 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
10085 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
10086 wealth is available.</p>
10087
10088       </div>
10089       <div class="tags">
10090
10091
10092         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
10093
10094
10095       </div>
10096     </div>
10097     <div class="padding"></div>
10098
10099     <div class="entry">
10100       <div class="title">
10101         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html">12 years of outages - summarised by Stuart Kendrick</a>
10102       </div>
10103       <div class="date">
10104         26th October 2012
10105       </div>
10106       <div class="body">
10107         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
10108 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
10109 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
10110 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
10111 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
10112 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
10113 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
10114 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
10115 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
10116 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
10117 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
10118 it every time.</p>
10119
10120 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
10121 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
10122 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
10123 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
10124 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
10125 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
10126 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
10127 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
10128 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
10129 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
10130 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
10131 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
10132
10133 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
10134 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
10135 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
10136 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
10137 article: First the unplanned outage:
10138
10139 <blockquote><pre>
10140 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
10141 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
10142 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
10143 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
10144 Duration:    40 minutes
10145 Scope:       Exchange 2003
10146 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
10147              a cluster failover.
10148
10149 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
10150              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
10151 Technician:  [xxx]
10152 </pre></blockquote>
10153
10154 Next the planned outage:
10155
10156 <blockquote><pre>
10157 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
10158 Severity:    Major (Planned)
10159 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
10160 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
10161 Duration:    10 hours
10162 Scope:       H2 Transport
10163 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
10164              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
10165              4510s.
10166 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
10167              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
10168              connectivity.
10169 Technician:  [xxx]
10170 </pre></blockquote>
10171
10172 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
10173 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
10174 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
10175 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
10176 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
10177 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
10178 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
10179
10180 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
10181 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
10182 university too.  We do register
10183 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
10184 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
10185 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
10186 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
10187 for other sites to consider too?</p>
10188
10189       </div>
10190       <div class="tags">
10191
10192
10193         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix</a>.
10194
10195
10196       </div>
10197     </div>
10198     <div class="padding"></div>
10199
10200     <div class="entry">
10201       <div class="title">
10202         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html">Amazon steal books from customer and throw out her out without any explanation</a>
10203       </div>
10204       <div class="date">
10205         22nd October 2012
10206       </div>
10207       <div class="body">
10208         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
10209 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
10210 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
10211 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
10212 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
10213 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
10214 background information is available in Norwegian from
10215 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
10216 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
10217 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
10218 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
10219 willing to
10220 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
10221 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
10222 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
10223 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
10224 sounded like
10225 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
10226 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
10227 later.</p>
10228
10229 <p>And thought this action is
10230 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
10231 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
10232 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
10233 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
10234 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
10235 rights.</p>
10236
10237 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
10238 unacceptable terms.  For example
10239 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
10240 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
10241 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
10242 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
10243 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
10244
10245 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
10246 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
10247 restored the account of the user, as reported by
10248 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
10249 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
10250 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
10251 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
10252 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
10253 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
10254 reading two opinions from
10255 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
10256 Phipps</a> and
10257 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
10258 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
10259 details about the original story.</p>
10260
10261       </div>
10262       <div class="tags">
10263
10264
10265         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
10266
10267
10268       </div>
10269     </div>
10270     <div class="padding"></div>
10271
10272     <div class="entry">
10273       <div class="title">
10274         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
10275       </div>
10276       <div class="date">
10277         18th October 2012
10278       </div>
10279       <div class="body">
10280         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
10281 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
10282 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
10283 across a marvellous drawing by
10284 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
10285 visualising some of what is going on.
10286
10287 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
10288 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
10289
10290 <blockquote>
10291 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
10292 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
10293 </blockquote>
10294
10295 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
10296 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
10297 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
10298 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
10299 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
10300 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
10301
10302       </div>
10303       <div class="tags">
10304
10305
10306         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
10307
10308
10309       </div>
10310     </div>
10311     <div class="padding"></div>
10312
10313     <div class="entry">
10314       <div class="title">
10315         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
10316       </div>
10317       <div class="date">
10318         12th October 2012
10319       </div>
10320       <div class="body">
10321         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
10322 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
10323 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
10324 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
10325 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
10326 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
10327 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
10328 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
10329 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
10330 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
10331 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
10332 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
10333 matter".</p>
10334
10335 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
10336 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
10337 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
10338 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
10339 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
10340 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
10341 to argue its side.</p>
10342
10343 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
10344 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
10345 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
10346 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
10347
10348 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
10349 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
10350 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
10351
10352       </div>
10353       <div class="tags">
10354
10355
10356         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis</a>.
10357
10358
10359       </div>
10360     </div>
10361     <div class="padding"></div>
10362
10363     <div class="entry">
10364       <div class="title">
10365         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_is_your_local_library_collecting_the__wrong__computer_books_.html">Why is your local library collecting the "wrong" computer books?</a>
10366       </div>
10367       <div class="date">
10368          3rd October 2012
10369       </div>
10370       <div class="body">
10371         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
10372 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
10373 the computer science book collection available in his local
10374 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
10375 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
10376 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
10377 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
10378 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
10379 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
10380 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
10381 recently published books.</p>
10382
10383 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
10384 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
10385 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
10386 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
10387 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
10388 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
10389 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
10390 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
10391 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
10392 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
10393 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
10394 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
10395 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
10396 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
10397 for the library that evening.</p>
10398
10399 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
10400 going to know that for example
10401 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
10402 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
10403 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
10404 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
10405 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
10406 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
10407 book right away.</p>
10408
10409       </div>
10410       <div class="tags">
10411
10412
10413         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10414
10415
10416       </div>
10417     </div>
10418     <div class="padding"></div>
10419
10420     <div class="entry">
10421       <div class="title">
10422         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Seventy_percent_done_with_Norwegian_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Seventy percent done with Norwegian docbook version of Free Culture</a>
10423       </div>
10424       <div class="date">
10425         23rd September 2012
10426       </div>
10427       <div class="body">
10428         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
10429 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
10430 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
10431 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
10432 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
10433 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
10434
10435 When I started, I
10436 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
10437 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
10438 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
10439 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
10440 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
10441 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
10442 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
10443
10444 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
10445
10446 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
10447 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
10448 the project files currently available from
10449 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
10450
10451 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
10452 the updated
10453 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
10454 and
10455 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
10456 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
10457 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
10458 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
10459
10460       </div>
10461       <div class="tags">
10462
10463
10464         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
10465
10466
10467       </div>
10468     </div>
10469     <div class="padding"></div>
10470
10471     <div class="entry">
10472       <div class="title">
10473         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
10474       </div>
10475       <div class="date">
10476         17th September 2012
10477       </div>
10478       <div class="body">
10479         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
10480 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
10481 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
10482 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
10483 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
10484 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
10485 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
10486
10487 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10488
10489 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
10490 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
10491 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
10492 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
10493 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
10494 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
10495 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
10496 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
10497 training is anyway very important</p>
10498
10499 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
10500 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
10501 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
10502 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
10503 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
10504
10505 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10506 project?</strong></p>
10507
10508 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
10509 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
10510 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
10511 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
10512 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
10513 hole.</p>
10514
10515 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10516 Edu?</strong></p>
10517
10518 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
10519 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
10520 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
10521 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
10522 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
10523 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
10524 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
10525 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
10526 hassle.</p>
10527
10528 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10529 Edu?</strong></p>
10530
10531 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
10532 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
10533 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
10534 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
10535 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
10536 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
10537 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
10538 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
10539
10540 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10541
10542 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
10543 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
10544 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
10545 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
10546 has the same...</p>
10547
10548 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
10549 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
10550 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
10551 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
10552
10553 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10554 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10555
10556 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
10557 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
10558 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
10559
10560 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
10561 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
10562 don't.</p>
10563
10564 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
10565 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
10566 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
10567 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
10568 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
10569 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
10570 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
10571
10572       </div>
10573       <div class="tags">
10574
10575
10576         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
10577
10578
10579       </div>
10580     </div>
10581     <div class="padding"></div>
10582
10583     <div class="entry">
10584       <div class="title">
10585         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
10586       </div>
10587       <div class="date">
10588         15th September 2012
10589       </div>
10590       <div class="body">
10591         <p>After the
10592 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
10593 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
10594 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
10595 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
10596 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
10597 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
10598 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
10599 was
10600 <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
10601 formal working group should be formed.</p>
10602
10603 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
10604 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
10605 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
10606 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
10607 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
10608 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
10609 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
10610 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
10611
10612 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
10613 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
10614 IETF.</p>
10615
10616       </div>
10617       <div class="tags">
10618
10619
10620         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
10621
10622
10623       </div>
10624     </div>
10625     <div class="padding"></div>
10626
10627     <div class="entry">
10628       <div class="title">
10629         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
10630       </div>
10631       <div class="date">
10632         12th September 2012
10633       </div>
10634       <div class="body">
10635         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
10636 publication of of
10637 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
10638 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
10639 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
10640 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
10641 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
10642 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
10643 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
10644 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
10645 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
10646 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
10647
10648 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
10649 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
10650 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
10651 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
10652
10653 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
10654 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
10655
10656       </div>
10657       <div class="tags">
10658
10659
10660         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
10661
10662
10663       </div>
10664     </div>
10665     <div class="padding"></div>
10666
10667     <div class="entry">
10668       <div class="title">
10669         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
10670       </div>
10671       <div class="date">
10672          7th September 2012
10673       </div>
10674       <div class="body">
10675         <p>As I
10676 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
10677 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
10678 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
10679 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
10680 repository for the project</a>.</p>
10681
10682 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
10683 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
10684 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
10685 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
10686
10687 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
10688 PostScript formats at
10689 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
10690 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
10691
10692       </div>
10693       <div class="tags">
10694
10695
10696         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
10697
10698
10699       </div>
10700     </div>
10701     <div class="padding"></div>
10702
10703     <div class="entry">
10704       <div class="title">
10705         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_forced_Microsoft_to_open_Office__and_don_t_forget_Officeshots_.html">Free software forced Microsoft to open Office (and don't forget Officeshots)</a>
10706       </div>
10707       <div class="date">
10708         23rd August 2012
10709       </div>
10710       <div class="body">
10711         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
10712 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
10713 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
10714 revisit the great site
10715 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
10716 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
10717 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
10718
10719       </div>
10720       <div class="tags">
10721
10722
10723         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
10724
10725
10726       </div>
10727     </div>
10728     <div class="padding"></div>
10729
10730     <div class="entry">
10731       <div class="title">
10732         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_way_there_with_translated_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Half way there with translated docbook version of Free Culture</a>
10733       </div>
10734       <div class="date">
10735         17th August 2012
10736       </div>
10737       <div class="body">
10738         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
10739 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
10740 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
10741 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
10742 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
10743 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
10744 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
10745 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
10746 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
10747 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
10748 summer I
10749 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
10750 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
10751 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
10752
10753 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
10754 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
10755 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
10756 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
10757 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
10758 progress:</p>
10759
10760 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
10761
10762 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
10763 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
10764 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
10765 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
10766 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
10767 english version of the docbook source.</p>
10768
10769 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
10770 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
10771 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
10772 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
10773 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
10774 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
10775 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
10776 project files currently available from <a
10777 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
10778
10779 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
10780 the updated
10781 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
10782 and
10783 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
10784 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
10785 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
10786 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
10787
10788       </div>
10789       <div class="tags">
10790
10791
10792         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
10793
10794
10795       </div>
10796     </div>
10797     <div class="padding"></div>
10798
10799     <div class="entry">
10800       <div class="title">
10801         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Notes_on_language_codes_for_Norwegian_docbook_processing___.html">Notes on language codes for Norwegian docbook processing...</a>
10802       </div>
10803       <div class="date">
10804         10th August 2012
10805       </div>
10806       <div class="body">
10807         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
10808 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
10809 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
10810 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
10811 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
10812 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
10813 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
10814 case for the language
10815 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
10816 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
10817
10818 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
10819 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
10820 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
10821 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
10822 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
10823
10824 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
10825 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
10826 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
10827 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
10828 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
10829 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
10830 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
10831 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
10832 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
10833 alias for 'nb'.</p>
10834
10835 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
10836 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
10837 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
10838 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
10839 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
10840 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
10841 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
10842 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
10843 at the same time. :(</p>
10844
10845 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
10846 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
10847 processors. :(</p>
10848
10849 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
10850
10851       </div>
10852       <div class="tags">
10853
10854
10855         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
10856
10857
10858       </div>
10859     </div>
10860     <div class="padding"></div>
10861
10862     <div class="entry">
10863       <div class="title">
10864         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
10865       </div>
10866       <div class="date">
10867         31st July 2012
10868       </div>
10869       <div class="body">
10870         <p>I tried to send this text to the
10871 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
10872 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
10873 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
10874 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
10875 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
10876 out.</p>
10877
10878 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
10879 learning curve at the moment.</p>
10880
10881 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
10882 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
10883 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
10884 available from
10885 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
10886 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
10887 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
10888 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
10889 Squeeze.</p>
10890
10891 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
10892 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
10893 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
10894 problems.</p>
10895
10896 <ul>
10897
10898 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
10899    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
10900    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
10901    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
10902    index references spanning several pages (See
10903    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
10904    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
10905    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
10906
10907 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
10908    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
10909    #683163</a>).</li>
10910
10911 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
10912    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
10913    footnote and text body, see
10914    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
10915    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
10916    refs listed are not right).</li>
10917
10918 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
10919
10920 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
10921    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
10922
10923 </ul>
10924
10925 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
10926 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
10927 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
10928
10929 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
10930
10931       </div>
10932       <div class="tags">
10933
10934
10935         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
10936
10937
10938       </div>
10939     </div>
10940     <div class="padding"></div>
10941
10942     <div class="entry">
10943       <div class="title">
10944         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">Free Culture in Norwegian - 5 chapters done, 74 percent left to do</a>
10945       </div>
10946       <div class="date">
10947         21st July 2012
10948       </div>
10949       <div class="body">
10950         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
10951 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
10952 norwegian version</a> of the book
10953 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
10954 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
10955 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
10956 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
10957 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
10958
10959 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
10960 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
10961 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
10962 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
10963 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
10964 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
10965 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
10966 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
10967 print. :)</p>
10968
10969 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
10970 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
10971 language.</p>
10972
10973       </div>
10974       <div class="tags">
10975
10976
10977         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
10978
10979
10980       </div>
10981     </div>
10982     <div class="padding"></div>
10983
10984     <div class="entry">
10985       <div class="title">
10986         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Call_for_help_from_docbook_expert_to_tag_Free_Culture_by_Lawrence_Lessig.html">Call for help from docbook expert to tag Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a>
10987       </div>
10988       <div class="date">
10989         16th July 2012
10990       </div>
10991       <div class="body">
10992         <p>I am currently working on a
10993 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
10994 to translate</a> the book
10995 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
10996 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
10997 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
10998 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
10999 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
11000 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
11001 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
11002
11003 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
11004 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
11005 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
11006 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
11007 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
11008 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
11009 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
11010 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
11011 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
11012
11013       </div>
11014       <div class="tags">
11015
11016
11017         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
11018
11019
11020       </div>
11021     </div>
11022     <div class="padding"></div>
11023
11024     <div class="entry">
11025       <div class="title">
11026         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
11027       </div>
11028       <div class="date">
11029          9th July 2012
11030       </div>
11031       <div class="body">
11032         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
11033 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
11034 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
11035 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
11036 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
11037 to adjust and scale the just released
11038 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
11039 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
11040 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
11041
11042 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11043
11044 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
11045 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
11046 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
11047 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
11048 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
11049 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
11050 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
11051 perspective when working with IT.</p>
11052
11053 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11054 project?</strong></p>
11055
11056 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
11057 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
11058 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
11059 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
11060 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
11061 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
11062
11063 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11064 Edu?</strong></p>
11065
11066 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
11067 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
11068 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
11069 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
11070 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
11071 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
11072 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
11073 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
11074 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
11075 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
11076 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
11077 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
11078 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
11079 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
11080 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
11081 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
11082 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
11083 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
11084 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
11085 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
11086 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
11087 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
11088 quicker to update.
11089
11090 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11091 Edu?</strong></p>
11092
11093 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
11094 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
11095 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
11096 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
11097 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
11098 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
11099
11100 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
11101 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
11102 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
11103 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
11104 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
11105 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
11106 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
11107 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
11108 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
11109 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
11110 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
11111 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
11112 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
11113 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
11114 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
11115
11116 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
11117 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
11118 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
11119 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
11120 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
11121 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
11122 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
11123 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
11124
11125 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
11126 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
11127 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
11128 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
11129 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
11130 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
11131 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
11132 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
11133 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
11134 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
11135 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
11136 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
11137 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
11138 sound file.</p>
11139
11140 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
11141 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
11142 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
11143 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
11144 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
11145 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
11146 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
11147 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
11148 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
11149
11150 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11151
11152 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
11153 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
11154 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
11155 )</p>
11156
11157 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11158 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11159
11160 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
11161 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
11162 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
11163 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
11164 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
11165 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
11166 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
11167 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
11168 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
11169 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
11170 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
11171 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
11172 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
11173 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
11174 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
11175
11176 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
11177 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
11178 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
11179 management with Airtime</a>,
11180 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
11181 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
11182 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
11183 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
11184 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
11185
11186       </div>
11187       <div class="tags">
11188
11189
11190         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
11191
11192
11193       </div>
11194     </div>
11195     <div class="padding"></div>
11196
11197     <div class="entry">
11198       <div class="title">
11199         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
11200       </div>
11201       <div class="date">
11202          8th July 2012
11203       </div>
11204       <div class="body">
11205         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
11206 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
11207 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
11208 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
11209 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
11210 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
11211 Steinberg in his blog post
11212 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
11213 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
11214 spending of your tax money.</p>
11215
11216 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
11217 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
11218 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
11219 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
11220 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
11221 purchases.</p>
11222
11223       </div>
11224       <div class="tags">
11225
11226
11227         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11228
11229
11230       </div>
11231     </div>
11232     <div class="padding"></div>
11233
11234     <div class="entry">
11235       <div class="title">
11236         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
11237       </div>
11238       <div class="date">
11239          7th July 2012
11240       </div>
11241       <div class="body">
11242         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
11243 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
11244 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
11245 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
11246 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
11247 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
11248 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
11249 receive.  The software is
11250
11251 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
11252 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
11253 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
11254 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
11255 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
11256 Windows</a>.</p>
11257
11258 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
11259 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
11260
11261 <p><ul>
11262
11263   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
11264     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
11265
11266   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
11267     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
11268     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
11269     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
11270     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
11271     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
11272     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
11273     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
11274     </li>
11275
11276   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
11277     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
11278
11279   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
11280     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
11281
11282   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
11283     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
11284
11285   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
11286
11287   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
11288     formats </li>
11289
11290   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
11291     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
11292     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
11293     (as separate sets)</li>
11294
11295   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
11296     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
11297     percentage)</li>
11298
11299   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
11300     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
11301     memory):
11302     <ul>
11303       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
11304       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
11305       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
11306       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
11307       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
11308       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
11309       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
11310       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
11311       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
11312       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
11313           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
11314           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
11315           activity)</li>
11316       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
11317       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
11318     </ul></li>
11319
11320   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
11321     <ul>
11322       <li>Break periods</li>
11323       <li>For teacher(s):
11324         <ul>
11325           <li>Not available periods</li>
11326           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
11327           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
11328           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
11329           <li>Min hours daily</li>
11330           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
11331
11332           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
11333             days per week</li>
11334         </ul></li>
11335       <li>For students (sets):
11336         <ul>
11337           <li>Not available periods</li>
11338           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
11339           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
11340           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
11341           <li>Min hours daily</li>
11342           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
11343
11344           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
11345             days per week</li>
11346         </ul></li>
11347       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
11348         <ul>
11349           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
11350           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
11351           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
11352           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
11353           <li>End(s) students day</li>
11354           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
11355           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
11356             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
11357           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
11358           <li>Not overlapping</li>
11359           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
11360           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
11361         </ul></li>
11362     </ul></li>
11363
11364   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
11365     <ul>
11366       <li>Room not available periods</li>
11367       <li>For teacher(s):
11368         <ul>
11369           <li>Home room(s)</li>
11370           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
11371           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
11372         </ul>
11373       </li>
11374
11375       <li>For students (sets):
11376         <ul>
11377           <li>Home room(s)</li>
11378           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
11379           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
11380         </ul>
11381       </li>
11382       <li>Preferred room(s):
11383         <ul>
11384           <li>For a subject</li>
11385           <li>For an activity tag</li>
11386           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
11387           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
11388         </ul>
11389       </li>
11390
11391       <li>For a set of activities:
11392         <ul>
11393           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
11394         </ul>
11395       </li>
11396     </ul>
11397   </li>
11398 </ul></p>
11399
11400 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
11401 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
11402 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
11403 manually, check it out.
11404
11405 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
11406 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
11407 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
11408 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
11409 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
11410 section</a>.</p>
11411
11412       </div>
11413       <div class="tags">
11414
11415
11416         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11417
11418
11419       </div>
11420     </div>
11421     <div class="padding"></div>
11422
11423     <div class="entry">
11424       <div class="title">
11425         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Can_Zimbra_be_told_to_send_autoreplies_to_the_From__address_.html">Can Zimbra be told to send autoreplies to the From: address?</a>
11426       </div>
11427       <div class="date">
11428          3rd July 2012
11429       </div>
11430       <div class="body">
11431         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
11432 project (Norwegian version of
11433 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
11434 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
11435 a problem with the municipalities using
11436 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
11437 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
11438 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
11439 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
11440 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
11441 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
11442 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
11443 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
11444 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
11445 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
11446 the From: header.</p>
11447
11448 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
11449 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
11450 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
11451 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
11452 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
11453 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
11454 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
11455 behaviour.</p>
11456
11457 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
11458 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
11459 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
11460 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
11461 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
11462 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
11463 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
11464
11465       </div>
11466       <div class="tags">
11467
11468
11469         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
11470
11471
11472       </div>
11473     </div>
11474     <div class="padding"></div>
11475
11476     <div class="entry">
11477       <div class="title">
11478         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jos__Luis_Redrejo_Rodr_guez.html">Debian Edu interview: José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez</a>
11479       </div>
11480       <div class="date">
11481         26th June 2012
11482       </div>
11483       <div class="body">
11484         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
11485 another interview with the people behind
11486 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
11487 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
11488 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
11489 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
11490 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
11491 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
11492 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
11493
11494 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11495
11496 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
11497 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
11498 ICT in schools</p>
11499
11500 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11501 project?</strong></p>
11502
11503 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
11504 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
11505 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
11506 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
11507
11508 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11509 Edu?</strong></p>
11510
11511 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
11512 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
11513 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
11514 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
11515
11516 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11517 Edu?</strong></p>
11518
11519 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
11520 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
11521 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
11522 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
11523 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
11524 technologies in school.</p>
11525
11526 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11527
11528 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
11529 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
11530 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
11531
11532 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11533 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11534
11535 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
11536 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
11537 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
11538 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
11539
11540 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
11541 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
11542 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
11543
11544 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
11545 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
11546 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
11547 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
11548 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
11549 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
11550 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
11551 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
11552 working there.</p>
11553
11554       </div>
11555       <div class="tags">
11556
11557
11558         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
11559
11560
11561       </div>
11562     </div>
11563     <div class="padding"></div>
11564
11565     <div class="entry">
11566       <div class="title">
11567         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
11568       </div>
11569       <div class="date">
11570         24th June 2012
11571       </div>
11572       <div class="body">
11573         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
11574 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
11575 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
11576 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
11577 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
11578 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
11579 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
11580 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
11581 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
11582 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
11583 missing in my book.</p>
11584
11585 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
11586 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
11587 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
11588 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
11589 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
11590 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
11591 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
11592
11593       </div>
11594       <div class="tags">
11595
11596
11597         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
11598
11599
11600       </div>
11601     </div>
11602     <div class="padding"></div>
11603
11604     <div class="entry">
11605       <div class="title">
11606         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html">Debian Edu - some ideas for the future versions</a>
11607       </div>
11608       <div class="date">
11609         11th June 2012
11610       </div>
11611       <div class="body">
11612         <p>During my work on
11613 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
11614 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
11615 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
11616 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
11617 explanation.</p>
11618
11619 <p><ul>
11620
11621 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
11622 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
11623 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
11624 system depend on tasksel tasks in
11625 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
11626 installation.</li>
11627
11628 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
11629 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
11630 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
11631 at least try to enable it for these services:
11632 <ul>
11633
11634   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
11635     quotas.</li>
11636   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
11637   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
11638   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
11639   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
11640   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
11641
11642 </ul></li>
11643
11644 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
11645 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
11646 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
11647 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
11648
11649 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
11650 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
11651 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
11652
11653 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
11654 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
11655 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
11656 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
11657 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
11658 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
11659
11660 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
11661 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
11662 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
11663 in Wheezy.
11664
11665 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
11666 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
11667 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
11668
11669 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
11670 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
11671 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
11672 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
11673
11674 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
11675 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
11676 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
11677 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
11678
11679 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
11680 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
11681 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
11682
11683 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
11684 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
11685 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
11686
11687 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
11688 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
11689 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
11690 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
11691 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
11692
11693 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
11694 <ul>
11695
11696 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
11697 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
11698 <li>and probably more?</li>
11699 </ul></li>
11700
11701 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
11702 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
11703 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
11704 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
11705 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
11706 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
11707 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
11708 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
11709
11710
11711 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
11712 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
11713 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
11714 use.</li>
11715
11716 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
11717 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
11718 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
11719 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
11720 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
11721
11722 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
11723 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
11724 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
11725 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
11726 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
11727 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
11728
11729 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
11730 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
11731 There are at least three implementations,
11732 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
11733 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
11734 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
11735 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
11736 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
11737 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
11738 given room.</li>
11739
11740 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
11741 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
11742 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
11743 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
11744 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
11745 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
11746 investigated.</li>
11747
11748 </ul></p>
11749
11750 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
11751 version.</p>
11752
11753       </div>
11754       <div class="tags">
11755
11756
11757         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11758
11759
11760       </div>
11761     </div>
11762     <div class="padding"></div>
11763
11764     <div class="entry">
11765       <div class="title">
11766         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html">TV with face recognition, for improved viewer experience</a>
11767       </div>
11768       <div class="date">
11769          9th June 2012
11770       </div>
11771       <div class="body">
11772         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
11773 <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
11774 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
11775 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
11776 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
11777 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
11778 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
11779 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
11780 be willing to pay for.</p>
11781
11782 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
11783 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
11784 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
11785 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
11786 Orwell</a>.</p>
11787
11788       </div>
11789       <div class="tags">
11790
11791
11792         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
11793
11794
11795       </div>
11796     </div>
11797     <div class="padding"></div>
11798
11799     <div class="entry">
11800       <div class="title">
11801         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html">Web service to look up HP and Dell computer hardware support status</a>
11802       </div>
11803       <div class="date">
11804          6th June 2012
11805       </div>
11806       <div class="body">
11807         <p>A few days ago
11808 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
11809 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
11810 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
11811 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
11812 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
11813 code for HP, Dell and IBM
11814 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
11815 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
11816 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
11817 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
11818 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
11819
11820 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
11821 output:
11822
11823 <blockquote><pre>
11824 % 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>
11825 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": ""})
11826 %
11827 </pre></blockquote>
11828
11829 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
11830 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
11831 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
11832
11833       </div>
11834       <div class="tags">
11835
11836
11837         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
11838
11839
11840       </div>
11841     </div>
11842     <div class="padding"></div>
11843
11844     <div class="entry">
11845       <div class="title">
11846         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
11847       </div>
11848       <div class="date">
11849          2nd June 2012
11850       </div>
11851       <div class="body">
11852         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
11853 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
11854 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
11855 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
11856 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
11857 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
11858
11859 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11860
11861 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
11862 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
11863 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
11864 by Angela).</p>
11865
11866 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
11867 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
11868 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
11869 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
11870 becoming an osteopath.</p>
11871
11872 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
11873 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
11874 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
11875 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
11876 skills with communication skills.</p>
11877
11878 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11879 project?</strong></p>
11880
11881 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
11882 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
11883 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
11884 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
11885 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
11886
11887 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
11888 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
11889 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
11890 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
11891 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
11892 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
11893 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
11894 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
11895 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
11896
11897 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
11898 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
11899 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
11900
11901 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
11902
11903 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
11904 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
11905 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
11906 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
11907 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
11908 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
11909 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
11910 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
11911 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
11912 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
11913 point.</p>
11914
11915 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
11916 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
11917 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
11918 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
11919 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
11920 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
11921
11922 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
11923 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
11924 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
11925 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
11926 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
11927 spare time.</p>
11928
11929 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
11930 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
11931 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
11932 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
11933 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
11934
11935 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
11936 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
11937 avoidance do exist.</p>
11938
11939 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
11940 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
11941 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
11942 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
11943 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
11944 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
11945 and probably a gain for all.</p>
11946
11947 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11948 Edu?</strong></p>
11949
11950 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
11951 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
11952 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
11953 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
11954 project communication, honest communication within the group of
11955 developers, etc.</p>
11956
11957 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11958 Edu?</strong></p>
11959
11960 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
11961
11962 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
11963 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
11964 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
11965 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
11966 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
11967 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
11968 contribute).</p>
11969
11970 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
11971 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
11972 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
11973 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
11974 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
11975 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
11976 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
11977 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
11978 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
11979 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
11980
11981 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11982
11983 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
11984
11985 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
11986 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
11987 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
11988
11989 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
11990 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
11991 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
11992 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
11993
11994 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
11995 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
11996 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
11997 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
11998 whiteboard.</p>
11999
12000 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
12001
12002 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12003 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12004
12005 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
12006 enrol people.</p>
12007
12008       </div>
12009       <div class="tags">
12010
12011
12012         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
12013
12014
12015       </div>
12016     </div>
12017     <div class="padding"></div>
12018
12019     <div class="entry">
12020       <div class="title">
12021         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">SOAP based webservice from Dell to check server support status</a>
12022       </div>
12023       <div class="date">
12024          1st June 2012
12025       </div>
12026       <div class="body">
12027         <p>A few years ago I wrote
12028 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
12029 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
12030 I have learned from colleges here at the
12031 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
12032 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
12033 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
12034 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
12035 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
12036
12037 <p><pre>
12038 use strict;
12039 use warnings;
12040 use SOAP::Lite;
12041 use Data::Dumper;
12042 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
12043 my $App = 'test';
12044 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
12045 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
12046 my $s = SOAP::Lite
12047     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
12048     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
12049     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
12050     ;
12051 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
12052     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
12053     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
12054     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
12055 );
12056 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
12057 </pre></p>
12058
12059 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
12060
12061 <p><pre>
12062 $VAR1 = {
12063           'Asset' => {
12064                      'Entitlements' => {
12065                                        'EntitlementData' => [
12066                                                             {
12067                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
12068                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
12069                                                               'Provider' => '',
12070                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
12071                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
12072                                                             },
12073                                                             {
12074                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
12075                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
12076                                                               'Provider' => '',
12077                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
12078                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
12079                                                             },
12080                                                             {
12081                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
12082                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
12083                                                               'Provider' => '',
12084                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
12085                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
12086                                                             }
12087                                                           ]
12088                                      },
12089                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
12090                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
12091                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
12092                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
12093                                           'Buid' => '2323',
12094                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
12095                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
12096                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
12097                                         }
12098                    }
12099         };
12100 </pre></p>
12101
12102 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
12103 service outside the
12104 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
12105 documentation</a>, and according to
12106 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
12107 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
12108 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
12109
12110 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
12111 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
12112
12113       </div>
12114       <div class="tags">
12115
12116
12117         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
12118
12119
12120       </div>
12121     </div>
12122     <div class="padding"></div>
12123
12124     <div class="entry">
12125       <div class="title">
12126         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
12127       </div>
12128       <div class="date">
12129         31st May 2012
12130       </div>
12131       <div class="body">
12132         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
12133 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
12134 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
12135 running Debian Squeeze, where
12136 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
12137 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
12138 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
12139 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
12140 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
12141 another day.</p>
12142
12143 <p>After calibration, I get a
12144 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
12145 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
12146 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
12147 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
12148 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
12149 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
12150 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
12151 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
12152 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
12153 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
12154 and a simple</p>
12155
12156 <p><pre>
12157 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
12158 </pre></p>
12159
12160 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
12161 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
12162 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
12163 enough for now.</p>
12164
12165       </div>
12166       <div class="tags">
12167
12168
12169         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12170
12171
12172       </div>
12173     </div>
12174     <div class="padding"></div>
12175
12176     <div class="entry">
12177       <div class="title">
12178         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
12179       </div>
12180       <div class="date">
12181         27th May 2012
12182       </div>
12183       <div class="body">
12184         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
12185 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
12186 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
12187 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
12188 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
12189 since then, helping to make sure the
12190 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
12191 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
12192
12193 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12194
12195 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
12196 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
12197 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
12198 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
12199 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
12200 our computer network.</p>
12201
12202 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
12203 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
12204 (4 months).</p>
12205
12206 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12207 project?</strong></p>
12208
12209 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
12210 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
12211 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
12212 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
12213 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
12214 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
12215 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
12216 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
12217 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
12218 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
12219 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
12220 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
12221 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
12222 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
12223
12224 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12225 Edu?</strong></p>
12226
12227 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
12228 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
12229 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
12230 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
12231 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
12232 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
12233 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
12234 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
12235
12236 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12237 Edu?</strong></p>
12238
12239 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
12240 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
12241 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
12242 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
12243 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
12244 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
12245 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
12246 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
12247 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
12248 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
12249 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
12250 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
12251
12252 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12253
12254 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
12255 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
12256 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
12257
12258 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12259 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12260
12261 <p><ol>
12262
12263 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
12264 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
12265 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
12266 developing.</li>
12267
12268 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
12269 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
12270 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
12271 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
12272 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
12273
12274 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
12275 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
12276 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
12277
12278 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
12279 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
12280 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
12281 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
12282
12283 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
12284 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
12285 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
12286
12287 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
12288
12289 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
12290 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
12291 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
12292 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
12293
12294 </ol></p>
12295
12296       </div>
12297       <div class="tags">
12298
12299
12300         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
12301
12302
12303       </div>
12304     </div>
12305     <div class="padding"></div>
12306
12307     <div class="entry">
12308       <div class="title">
12309         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
12310       </div>
12311       <div class="date">
12312         26th May 2012
12313       </div>
12314       <div class="body">
12315         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
12316 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
12317 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
12318 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
12319 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
12320
12321 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
12322 <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>
12323 comment:</p>
12324
12325 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
12326 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
12327 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
12328 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
12329 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
12330 </blockquote></p>
12331
12332 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
12333 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
12334 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
12335 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
12336 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
12337 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
12338 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
12339 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
12340 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
12341 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
12342 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
12343 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
12344 of wasted effort.</p>
12345
12346 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
12347 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
12348 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
12349
12350 <p>See
12351 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
12352 and
12353 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
12354 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
12355 </blockquote></p>
12356
12357       </div>
12358       <div class="tags">
12359
12360
12361         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
12362
12363
12364       </div>
12365     </div>
12366     <div class="padding"></div>
12367
12368     <div class="entry">
12369       <div class="title">
12370         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColorHug___USB_and_free_software_based_screen_color_calibration.html">ColorHug - USB and free software based screen color calibration</a>
12371       </div>
12372       <div class="date">
12373         18th May 2012
12374       </div>
12375       <div class="body">
12376         <p>In january, I
12377 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
12378 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
12379 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
12380 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
12381 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
12382 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
12383 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
12384 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
12385 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
12386 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
12387
12388 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
12389 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
12390 drivers. :)</p>
12391
12392       </div>
12393       <div class="tags">
12394
12395
12396         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12397
12398
12399       </div>
12400     </div>
12401     <div class="padding"></div>
12402
12403     <div class="entry">
12404       <div class="title">
12405         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
12406       </div>
12407       <div class="date">
12408         13th May 2012
12409       </div>
12410       <div class="body">
12411         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
12412 publish another interview with the people behind
12413 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
12414 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
12415 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
12416 details get right before release.
12417
12418 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12419
12420 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
12421 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
12422 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
12423 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
12424 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
12425 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
12426 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
12427 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
12428
12429 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
12430 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
12431 home since 2006.</p>
12432
12433 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12434 project?</strong></p>
12435
12436 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
12437 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
12438 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
12439 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
12440 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
12441 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
12442
12443 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
12444 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
12445 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
12446 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
12447 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
12448 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
12449 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
12450 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
12451 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
12452 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
12453 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
12454 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
12455 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
12456 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
12457 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
12458 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
12459
12460 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12461 Edu?</strong></p>
12462
12463 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
12464 for me as today.</p>
12465
12466 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
12467
12468 <p><ul>
12469
12470 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
12471 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
12472
12473 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
12474 cost.</li>
12475
12476 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
12477 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
12478 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
12479 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
12480 server</li>
12481
12482 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
12483 school.</li>
12484
12485 </ul></p>
12486
12487 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
12488 came up in this way:</p>
12489
12490 <p><ul>
12491
12492 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
12493 now.</li>
12494
12495 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
12496 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
12497 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
12498
12499 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
12500 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
12501 interfaces used in the past.</li>
12502
12503 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
12504 different needs.</li>
12505
12506 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
12507
12508 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
12509 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
12510 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
12511
12512 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
12513 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
12514
12515 </ul></p>
12516
12517 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12518 Edu?</strong></p>
12519
12520 <p><ul>
12521
12522 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
12523 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
12524 whole municipality areas.</li>
12525
12526 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
12527 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
12528 politicians.</li>
12529
12530 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
12531
12532 </ul></p>
12533
12534 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12535
12536 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
12537 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
12538 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
12539 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
12540 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
12541 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
12542
12543 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
12544 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
12545 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
12546 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
12547 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
12548
12549 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12550 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12551
12552 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
12553 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
12554 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
12555
12556       </div>
12557       <div class="tags">
12558
12559
12560         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
12561
12562
12563       </div>
12564     </div>
12565     <div class="padding"></div>
12566
12567     <div class="entry">
12568       <div class="title">
12569         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cutting_it_short___and_picking_the_right_tool_for_the_job.html">Cutting it short - and picking the right tool for the job</a>
12570       </div>
12571       <div class="date">
12572         30th April 2012
12573       </div>
12574       <div class="body">
12575         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
12576 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
12577
12578 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
12579 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
12580 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
12581 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
12582 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
12583 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
12584 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
12585 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
12586 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
12587 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
12588 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
12589 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
12590 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
12591 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
12592 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
12593 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
12594
12595 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
12596 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
12597 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
12598 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
12599 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
12600 finally found a Danish supplier
12601 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
12602 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
12603 days ago.</p>
12604
12605 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
12606 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
12607 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
12608 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
12609 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
12610 toys.</p>
12611
12612       </div>
12613       <div class="tags">
12614
12615
12616         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12617
12618
12619       </div>
12620     </div>
12621     <div class="padding"></div>
12622
12623     <div class="entry">
12624       <div class="title">
12625         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/HTC_One_X___Your_video___What_do_you_mean_.html">HTC One X - Your video?  What do you mean?</a>
12626       </div>
12627       <div class="date">
12628         26th April 2012
12629       </div>
12630       <div class="body">
12631         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
12632 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
12633 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
12634 that the video editor application included with
12635 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
12636 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
12637 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
12638
12639 <p><blockquote>
12640 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
12641 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
12642 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
12643 </blockquote></p>
12644
12645 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
12646
12647 <p><blockquote>
12648 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
12649 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
12650 </blockquote></p>
12651
12652 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
12653 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
12654 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
12655 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
12656 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
12657 video.  AMR is
12658 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
12659 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
12660 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
12661 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
12662 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
12663 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
12664 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
12665
12666 <p>I know why I prefer
12667 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
12668 standards</a> also for video.</p>
12669
12670       </div>
12671       <div class="tags">
12672
12673
12674         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
12675
12676
12677       </div>
12678     </div>
12679     <div class="padding"></div>
12680
12681     <div class="entry">
12682       <div class="title">
12683         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
12684       </div>
12685       <div class="date">
12686         19th April 2012
12687       </div>
12688       <div class="body">
12689         <p>Here in Norway, the
12690 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
12691 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
12692 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
12693 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
12694 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
12695 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
12696 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
12697 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
12698 on the same level.</p>
12699
12700 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
12701 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
12702 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
12703 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
12704 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
12705 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
12706 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
12707 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
12708 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
12709 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
12710 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
12711 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
12712 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
12713 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
12714 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
12715 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
12716 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
12717 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
12718
12719 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
12720 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
12721 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
12722 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
12723 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
12724 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
12725 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
12726 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
12727
12728 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
12729 from Simon Phipps
12730 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
12731 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
12732
12733 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
12734 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
12735 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
12736 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
12737 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
12738 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
12739 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
12740 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
12741 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
12742
12743       </div>
12744       <div class="tags">
12745
12746
12747         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
12748
12749
12750       </div>
12751     </div>
12752     <div class="padding"></div>
12753
12754     <div class="entry">
12755       <div class="title">
12756         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
12757       </div>
12758       <div class="date">
12759         15th April 2012
12760       </div>
12761       <div class="body">
12762         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
12763 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
12764 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
12765 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
12766 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
12767 up in the recently released
12768 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
12769 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
12770
12771 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12772
12773 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
12774 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
12775 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
12776 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
12777 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
12778 information technology and science/technology.</p>
12779
12780 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12781 project?</strong></p>
12782
12783 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
12784 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
12785 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
12786 contributing.</p>
12787
12788 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12789 Edu?</strong></p>
12790
12791 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
12792 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
12793 Debian Project!</p>
12794
12795 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12796 Edu?</strong></p>
12797
12798 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
12799 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
12800 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
12801 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
12802 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
12803 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
12804 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
12805
12806 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
12807 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
12808
12809 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12810
12811 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
12812 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
12813 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
12814 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
12815
12816 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12817 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12818
12819 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
12820 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
12821 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
12822 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
12823 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
12824 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
12825 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
12826
12827 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
12828 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
12829 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
12830 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
12831 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
12832 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
12833 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
12834 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
12835
12836       </div>
12837       <div class="tags">
12838
12839
12840         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
12841
12842
12843       </div>
12844     </div>
12845     <div class="padding"></div>
12846
12847     <div class="entry">
12848       <div class="title">
12849         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
12850       </div>
12851       <div class="date">
12852          8th April 2012
12853       </div>
12854       <div class="body">
12855         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
12856 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
12857 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
12858 contributor to the
12859 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
12860 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
12861
12862 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12863
12864 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
12865 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
12866
12867 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12868 project?</strong></p>
12869
12870 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
12871 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
12872 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
12873 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
12874 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
12875 "localisation".</p>
12876
12877 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12878 Edu?</strong></p>
12879
12880 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12881 Edu?</strong></p>
12882
12883 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
12884 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
12885 education system.</p>
12886
12887 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
12888 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
12889 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
12890 money on the latest hardware.</p>
12891
12892 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12893
12894 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
12895 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
12896 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
12897
12898 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12899 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12900
12901 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
12902 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
12903 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
12904
12905       </div>
12906       <div class="tags">
12907
12908
12909         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
12910
12911
12912       </div>
12913     </div>
12914     <div class="padding"></div>
12915
12916     <div class="entry">
12917       <div class="title">
12918         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_the_KDE_menu_is_slow_when__usr__is_NFS_mounted___and_a_workaround.html">Why the KDE menu is slow when /usr/ is NFS mounted - and a workaround</a>
12919       </div>
12920       <div class="date">
12921          6th April 2012
12922       </div>
12923       <div class="body">
12924         <p>Recently I have spent time with
12925 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
12926 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
12927 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
12928 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
12929 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
12930 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
12931 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
12932 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
12933
12934 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
12935 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
12936 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
12937 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
12938 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
12939 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
12940 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
12941 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
12942
12943 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
12944 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
12945 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
12946 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
12947 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
12948 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
12949 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
12950 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
12951
12952 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
12953 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
12954 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
12955 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
12956 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
12957 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
12958 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
12959 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
12960 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
12961 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
12962
12963 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
12964 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
12965 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
12966 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
12967
12968 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
12969 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
12970
12971       </div>
12972       <div class="tags">
12973
12974
12975         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12976
12977
12978       </div>
12979     </div>
12980     <div class="padding"></div>
12981
12982     <div class="entry">
12983       <div class="title">
12984         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
12985       </div>
12986       <div class="date">
12987          5th April 2012
12988       </div>
12989       <div class="body">
12990         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
12991 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
12992 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
12993 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
12994 for schools.  Check out his article
12995 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
12996 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
12997
12998       </div>
12999       <div class="tags">
13000
13001
13002         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13003
13004
13005       </div>
13006     </div>
13007     <div class="padding"></div>
13008
13009     <div class="entry">
13010       <div class="title">
13011         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
13012       </div>
13013       <div class="date">
13014          1st April 2012
13015       </div>
13016       <div class="body">
13017         <p>Germany is a core area for the
13018 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
13019 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
13020 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
13021
13022 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
13023
13024 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
13025 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
13026 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
13027 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
13028 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
13029 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
13030 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
13031 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
13032
13033 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
13034 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
13035 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
13036 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
13037 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
13038 the end of April this year.</p>
13039
13040 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
13041 project?</strong></p>
13042
13043 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
13044 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
13045 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
13046 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
13047 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
13048 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
13049 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
13050 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
13051 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
13052 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
13053 Skolelinux.</p>
13054
13055 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
13056 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
13057 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
13058 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
13059 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
13060 the admin teachers.</p>
13061
13062 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13063 Edu?</strong></p>
13064
13065 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
13066 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
13067 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
13068
13069 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
13070 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
13071 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
13072 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
13073 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
13074
13075 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13076 Edu?</strong></p>
13077
13078 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
13079
13080 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
13081
13082 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
13083 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
13084 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
13085 LibreOffice.</p>
13086
13087 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
13088 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
13089
13090 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
13091 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
13092 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
13093
13094       </div>
13095       <div class="tags">
13096
13097
13098         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
13099
13100
13101       </div>
13102     </div>
13103     <div class="padding"></div>
13104
13105     <div class="entry">
13106       <div class="title">
13107         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Checking_email_with_kmail_using_Kerberos_authentication.html">Debian Edu screencast: Checking email with kmail using Kerberos authentication</a>
13108       </div>
13109       <div class="date">
13110         25th March 2012
13111       </div>
13112       <div class="body">
13113         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
13114
13115 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
13116 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
13117 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
13118 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
13119 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
13120 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
13121 and download as a
13122 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
13123 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
13124
13125 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
13126   <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"' />
13127     <p>Download video as
13128       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
13129 </video></p>
13130
13131       </div>
13132       <div class="tags">
13133
13134
13135         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13136
13137
13138       </div>
13139     </div>
13140     <div class="padding"></div>
13141
13142     <div class="entry">
13143       <div class="title">
13144         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
13145       </div>
13146       <div class="date">
13147         19th March 2012
13148       </div>
13149       <div class="body">
13150         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
13151 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
13152 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
13153 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
13154 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
13155
13156 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
13157
13158 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
13159 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
13160 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
13161 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
13162 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
13163 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
13164 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
13165 installations.</p>
13166
13167 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
13168 project?</strong></p>
13169
13170 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
13171 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
13172 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
13173 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
13174 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
13175 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
13176 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
13177 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
13178 these things we decided to try it.</p>
13179
13180 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13181 Edu?</strong></p>
13182
13183 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
13184 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
13185 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
13186 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
13187 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
13188 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
13189 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
13190 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
13191
13192 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13193 Edu?</strong></p>
13194
13195 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
13196 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
13197 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
13198 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
13199 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
13200
13201 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
13202
13203 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
13204 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
13205 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
13206 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
13207 that counts...)</p>
13208
13209 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
13210 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
13211
13212 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
13213 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
13214 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
13215 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
13216 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
13217 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
13218 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
13219 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
13220 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
13221 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
13222 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
13223
13224 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
13225 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
13226 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
13227
13228       </div>
13229       <div class="tags">
13230
13231
13232         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
13233
13234
13235       </div>
13236     </div>
13237     <div class="padding"></div>
13238
13239     <div class="entry">
13240       <div class="title">
13241         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
13242       </div>
13243       <div class="date">
13244         16th March 2012
13245       </div>
13246       <div class="body">
13247         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
13248 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
13249 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
13250 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
13251
13252 <ol>
13253
13254 <li>The documentation is written in a
13255 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
13256 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
13257 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
13258 docbook XML.</li>
13259
13260 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
13261 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
13262 with the translated text.</li>
13263
13264 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
13265 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
13266 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
13267 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
13268 images.</li>
13269
13270 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
13271 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
13272
13273 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
13274 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
13275
13276 </ol>
13277
13278 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
13279 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
13280 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
13281 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
13282 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
13283
13284 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
13285 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
13286 package</a>.</p>
13287
13288       </div>
13289       <div class="tags">
13290
13291
13292         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13293
13294
13295       </div>
13296     </div>
13297     <div class="padding"></div>
13298
13299     <div class="entry">
13300       <div class="title">
13301         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
13302       </div>
13303       <div class="date">
13304         11th March 2012
13305       </div>
13306       <div class="body">
13307         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
13308 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
13309 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
13310 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
13311 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
13312 you have not done so already.</p>
13313
13314 <p>I plan to present the new version at
13315 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
13316 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
13317 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
13318
13319       </div>
13320       <div class="tags">
13321
13322
13323         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13324
13325
13326       </div>
13327     </div>
13328     <div class="padding"></div>
13329
13330     <div class="entry">
13331       <div class="title">
13332         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
13333       </div>
13334       <div class="date">
13335          9th March 2012
13336       </div>
13337       <div class="body">
13338         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
13339 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
13340 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
13341 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
13342 more international audience.</p>
13343
13344 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
13345 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
13346 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
13347 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
13348 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
13349 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
13350 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
13351
13352
13353 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
13354
13355 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
13356 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
13357 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
13358 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
13359 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
13360 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
13361 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
13362 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
13363 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
13364 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
13365 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
13366
13367 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
13368 project?</strong></p>
13369
13370 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
13371 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
13372 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
13373 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
13374 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
13375 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
13376 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
13377 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
13378 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
13379 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
13380 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
13381 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
13382 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
13383
13384 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13385 Edu?</strong></p>
13386
13387 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
13388 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
13389 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
13390 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
13391 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
13392 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
13393 Japan.</p>
13394
13395 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13396 Edu?</strong></p>
13397
13398 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
13399 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
13400 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
13401 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
13402 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
13403 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
13404 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
13405 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
13406 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
13407 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
13408 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
13409 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
13410 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
13411 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
13412 help.</p>
13413
13414 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
13415
13416 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
13417 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
13418 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
13419 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
13420 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
13421 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
13422 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
13423 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
13424 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
13425 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
13426 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
13427
13428 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
13429 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
13430
13431 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
13432 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
13433 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
13434 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
13435 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
13436 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
13437 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
13438 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
13439 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
13440 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
13441 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
13442 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
13443
13444       </div>
13445       <div class="tags">
13446
13447
13448         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
13449
13450
13451       </div>
13452     </div>
13453     <div class="padding"></div>
13454
13455     <div class="entry">
13456       <div class="title">
13457         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Mass_creation_of_user_accounts_in_Squeeze.html">Debian Edu screencast: Mass creation of user accounts in Squeeze</a>
13458       </div>
13459       <div class="date">
13460          7th March 2012
13461       </div>
13462       <div class="body">
13463         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
13464
13465 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
13466 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
13467 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
13468 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
13469 download as a
13470 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
13471 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
13472
13473 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
13474   <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"' />
13475     <p>Download video as
13476       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
13477 </video></p>
13478
13479       </div>
13480       <div class="tags">
13481
13482
13483         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13484
13485
13486       </div>
13487     </div>
13488     <div class="padding"></div>
13489
13490     <div class="entry">
13491       <div class="title">
13492         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Third release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
13493       </div>
13494       <div class="date">
13495          4th March 2012
13496       </div>
13497       <div class="body">
13498         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
13499 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
13500 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
13501 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
13502 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
13503 need a software solution for your school.</p>
13504
13505       </div>
13506       <div class="tags">
13507
13508
13509         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13510
13511
13512       </div>
13513     </div>
13514     <div class="padding"></div>
13515
13516     <div class="entry">
13517       <div class="title">
13518         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Stopmotion_for_making_stop_motion_animations_on_Linux___reloaded.html">Stopmotion for making stop motion animations on Linux - reloaded</a>
13519       </div>
13520       <div class="date">
13521          3rd March 2012
13522       </div>
13523       <div class="body">
13524         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
13525 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
13526 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
13527 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
13528 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
13529 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
13530 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
13531 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
13532 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
13533 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
13534 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
13535 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
13536 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
13537 year...</p>
13538
13539 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
13540 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
13541 name,
13542 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
13543 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
13544 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
13545 mean). I've been following
13546 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
13547 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
13548 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
13549 Check it out. :)</p>
13550
13551       </div>
13552       <div class="tags">
13553
13554
13555         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
13556
13557
13558       </div>
13559     </div>
13560     <div class="padding"></div>
13561
13562     <div class="entry">
13563       <div class="title">
13564         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Second release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
13565       </div>
13566       <div class="date">
13567         27th February 2012
13568       </div>
13569       <div class="body">
13570         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
13571 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
13572 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
13573 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
13574 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
13575 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
13576 need a software solution for your school.</p>
13577
13578       </div>
13579       <div class="tags">
13580
13581
13582         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13583
13584
13585       </div>
13586     </div>
13587     <div class="padding"></div>
13588
13589     <div class="entry">
13590       <div class="title">
13591         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">First release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
13592       </div>
13593       <div class="date">
13594         19th February 2012
13595       </div>
13596       <div class="body">
13597         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
13598 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
13599 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
13600 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
13601 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
13602 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
13603 solution for your school.</p>
13604
13605       </div>
13606       <div class="tags">
13607
13608
13609         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13610
13611
13612       </div>
13613     </div>
13614     <div class="padding"></div>
13615
13616     <div class="entry">
13617       <div class="title">
13618         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_figure_out_which_RAID_disk_to_replace_when_it_fail.html">How to figure out which RAID disk to replace when it fail</a>
13619       </div>
13620       <div class="date">
13621         14th February 2012
13622       </div>
13623       <div class="body">
13624         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
13625 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
13626 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
13627 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
13628 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
13629 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
13630 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
13631 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
13632 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
13633
13634 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
13635 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
13636 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
13637 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
13638 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
13639
13640 <blockquote><pre>
13641 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
13642 do
13643     printf "Failed disk $d: "
13644     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
13645 done
13646 </blockquote></pre>
13647
13648 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
13649 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
13650
13651 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
13652
13653 <blockquote><pre>
13654 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
13655 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
13656 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
13657 </blockquote></pre>
13658
13659 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
13660 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
13661 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
13662 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
13663 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
13664 mounted inside my box.</p>
13665
13666 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
13667 Software RAID in the
13668 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
13669 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
13670 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
13671 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
13672 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
13673 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
13674
13675       </div>
13676       <div class="tags">
13677
13678
13679         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid</a>.
13680
13681
13682       </div>
13683     </div>
13684     <div class="padding"></div>
13685
13686     <div class="entry">
13687       <div class="title">
13688         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
13689       </div>
13690       <div class="date">
13691         13th February 2012
13692       </div>
13693       <div class="body">
13694         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
13695 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
13696 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
13697 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
13698 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
13699 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
13700 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
13701 change the global proxy setting by editing
13702 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
13703 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
13704
13705 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
13706 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
13707 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
13708
13709 <blockquote><pre>
13710 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
13711 {
13712    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
13713        isPlainHostName(host) ||
13714        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
13715       return "DIRECT";
13716    else
13717       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
13718 }
13719 </pre></blockquote>
13720
13721 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
13722
13723 <blockquote><pre>
13724 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
13725 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
13726 </pre></blockquote>
13727
13728 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
13729 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
13730 would be used for
13731 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
13732 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
13733 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
13734 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
13735 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
13736 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
13737 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
13738 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
13739 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
13740 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
13741
13742 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
13743 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
13744 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
13745 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
13746 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
13747 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
13748
13749 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
13750 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
13751 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
13752 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
13753 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
13754 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
13755 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
13756 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
13757 the network setup changes.</p>
13758
13759 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
13760 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
13761 draft</a> and a
13762 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
13763 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
13764
13765       </div>
13766       <div class="tags">
13767
13768
13769         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13770
13771
13772       </div>
13773     </div>
13774     <div class="padding"></div>
13775
13776     <div class="entry">
13777       <div class="title">
13778         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Saving_power_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_using_shutdown_at_night.html">Saving power with Debian Edu / Skolelinux using shutdown-at-night</a>
13779       </div>
13780       <div class="date">
13781          5th February 2012
13782       </div>
13783       <div class="body">
13784         <p>Since the Lenny version of
13785 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
13786 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
13787 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
13788 in the morning.  This is done using the
13789 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
13790
13791 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
13792 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
13793 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
13794 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
13795 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
13796 the
13797 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
13798 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
13799 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
13800 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
13801 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
13802
13803 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
13804 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
13805 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
13806 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
13807 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
13808 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
13809 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
13810
13811 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
13812 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
13813 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
13814 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
13815 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
13816
13817       </div>
13818       <div class="tags">
13819
13820
13821         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13822
13823
13824       </div>
13825     </div>
13826     <div class="padding"></div>
13827
13828     <div class="entry">
13829       <div class="title">
13830         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Third beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
13831       </div>
13832       <div class="date">
13833          4th February 2012
13834       </div>
13835       <div class="body">
13836         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
13837 publish the third beta version of
13838 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
13839 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
13840 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
13841 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
13842 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
13843 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
13844 on the project announcement list.</p>
13845
13846 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
13847 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
13848
13849 <ul>
13850
13851 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
13852   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
13853   the installation.</li>
13854
13855 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
13856   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
13857
13858 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
13859   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
13860   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
13861
13862 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
13863   for the local system administrator is created during installation
13864   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
13865   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
13866   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
13867   up to date on the system.</li>
13868
13869 </ul>
13870
13871 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
13872 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
13873 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
13874 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
13875
13876 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
13877 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
13878 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
13879 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
13880 will see you there?</p>
13881
13882       </div>
13883       <div class="tags">
13884
13885
13886         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13887
13888
13889       </div>
13890     </div>
13891     <div class="padding"></div>
13892
13893     <div class="entry">
13894       <div class="title">
13895         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Handling_non_free_firmware_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Handling non-free firmware in Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
13896       </div>
13897       <div class="date">
13898         27th January 2012
13899       </div>
13900       <div class="body">
13901         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
13902 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
13903 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
13904 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
13905 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
13906 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
13907 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
13908
13909 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
13910 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
13911 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
13912 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
13913 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
13914 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
13915 not taken care of by this.</p>
13916
13917 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
13918 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
13919 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
13920 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
13921 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
13922 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
13923 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
13924 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
13925 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
13926 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
13927 firmware packages.</p>
13928
13929 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
13930 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
13931 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
13932 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
13933 initrd with extra firmware, the
13934 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
13935 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
13936 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
13937
13938 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
13939 network cards working.  For this,
13940 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
13941 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
13942 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
13943
13944 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
13945 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
13946 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
13947
13948 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
13949 try.</p>
13950
13951       </div>
13952       <div class="tags">
13953
13954
13955         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13956
13957
13958       </div>
13959     </div>
13960     <div class="padding"></div>
13961
13962     <div class="entry">
13963       <div class="title">
13964         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Setting_up_a_new_school_with_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Setting up a new school with Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
13965       </div>
13966       <div class="date">
13967         25th January 2012
13968       </div>
13969       <div class="body">
13970         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
13971 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
13972 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
13973 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
13974 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
13975
13976 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
13977 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
13978 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
13979 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
13980 this is done, log on to the central server and run
13981 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
13982 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
13983 will look similar to this:</p>
13984
13985 <p><blockquote><pre>
13986 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
13987 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
13988 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.
13989
13990 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
13991
13992 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13993 enter password: *******
13994 %
13995 </pre></blockquote></p>
13996
13997 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
13998 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
13999 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
14000 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
14001 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
14002 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
14003 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
14004 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
14005 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
14006 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
14007 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
14008 automatically.</p>
14009
14010 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
14011 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
14012
14013 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
14014 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
14015 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
14016
14017       </div>
14018       <div class="tags">
14019
14020
14021         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
14022
14023
14024       </div>
14025     </div>
14026     <div class="padding"></div>
14027
14028     <div class="entry">
14029       <div class="title">
14030         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Changing_the_default_Iceweasel_start_page_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Changing the default Iceweasel start page in Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
14031       </div>
14032       <div class="date">
14033         10th January 2012
14034       </div>
14035       <div class="body">
14036         <p>In the Squeeze version of
14037 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
14038 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
14039 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
14040 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
14041 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
14042 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
14043 first time.</p>
14044
14045 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
14046 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
14047 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
14048 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
14049
14050 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
14051 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
14052 new setting.</p>
14053
14054 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
14055 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
14056 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
14057
14058       </div>
14059       <div class="tags">
14060
14061
14062         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
14063
14064
14065       </div>
14066     </div>
14067     <div class="padding"></div>
14068
14069     <div class="entry">
14070       <div class="title">
14071         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Second beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
14072       </div>
14073       <div class="date">
14074          7th January 2012
14075       </div>
14076       <div class="body">
14077         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
14078 the second beta version of
14079 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
14080 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
14081 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
14082 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
14083 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
14084 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
14085 on the project announcement list.</p>
14086
14087       </div>
14088       <div class="tags">
14089
14090
14091         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14092
14093
14094       </div>
14095     </div>
14096     <div class="padding"></div>
14097
14098     <div class="entry">
14099       <div class="title">
14100         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_an_hanging_debian_installer_for_Debian_Edu.html">Fixing an hanging debian installer for Debian Edu</a>
14101       </div>
14102       <div class="date">
14103          3rd January 2012
14104       </div>
14105       <div class="body">
14106         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
14107 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
14108 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
14109 interesting.</p>
14110
14111 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
14112 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
14113 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
14114 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
14115 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
14116 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
14117 wrap up its tasks.</p>
14118
14119 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
14120 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
14121 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
14122 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
14123 because I was typing.</P>
14124
14125 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
14126 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
14127 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
14128 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
14129 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
14130 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
14131 generate entropy.</p>
14132
14133 <p>The fix is in
14134 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
14135 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
14136 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
14137 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
14138
14139       </div>
14140       <div class="tags">
14141
14142
14143         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14144
14145
14146       </div>
14147     </div>
14148     <div class="padding"></div>
14149
14150     <div class="entry">
14151       <div class="title">
14152         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
14153       </div>
14154       <div class="date">
14155         21st November 2011
14156       </div>
14157       <div class="body">
14158         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
14159 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
14160 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
14161 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
14162 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
14163 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
14164 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
14165 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
14166 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
14167 the tools to do so.</p>
14168
14169 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
14170 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
14171 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
14172 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
14173
14174 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
14175 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
14176 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
14177 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
14178 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
14179 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
14180 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
14181 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
14182
14183 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
14184 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
14185 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
14186
14187 <p><pre>
14188 #!/usr/bin/perl
14189 use strict;
14190 use warnings;
14191 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
14192 BEGIN {
14193     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
14194     my %rhelmodules = (
14195         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
14196         );
14197     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
14198         eval "use $module;";
14199         if ($@) {
14200             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
14201             system("yum install -y $pkg");
14202             eval "use $module;";
14203         }
14204     }
14205 }
14206 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
14207
14208 upgrade_dell();
14209
14210 exit 0;
14211
14212 sub run_firmware_script {
14213     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
14214     unless ($script) {
14215         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
14216         exit 1
14217     }
14218     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
14219
14220     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
14221         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
14222     } else {
14223         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
14224     }
14225 }
14226
14227 sub run_firmware_scripts {
14228     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
14229     # Run firmware packages
14230     for my $dir (@dirs) {
14231         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
14232         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
14233         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
14234             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
14235             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
14236         }
14237         closedir $dh;
14238     }
14239 }
14240
14241 sub download {
14242     my $url = shift;
14243     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
14244     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
14245 }
14246
14247 sub upgrade_dell {
14248     my @dirs;
14249     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
14250     chomp $product;
14251
14252     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
14253
14254         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
14255         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
14256
14257         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
14258             CLEANUP => 1
14259             );
14260         chdir($tmpdir);
14261         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
14262         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
14263         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
14264         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
14265         my $fwopts = "-q";
14266         if (@paths) {
14267             for my $url (@paths) {
14268                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
14269             }
14270             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
14271         } else {
14272             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
14273             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
14274         }
14275         chdir('/');
14276     } else {
14277         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
14278         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
14279     }
14280 }
14281
14282 sub fetch_dell_fw {
14283     my $path = shift;
14284     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
14285     download($url);
14286 }
14287
14288 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
14289 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
14290 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
14291 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
14292     my $filename = shift;
14293
14294     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
14295     chomp $product;
14296     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
14297
14298     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
14299
14300     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
14301     my @paths;
14302     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
14303         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
14304         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
14305         my $oscode;
14306         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
14307             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
14308         } else {
14309             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
14310         }
14311         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
14312         {
14313             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
14314         }
14315     }
14316     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
14317         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
14318
14319         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
14320         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
14321
14322         my $cpath = $component->{path};
14323         for my $path (@paths) {
14324             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
14325                 push(@paths, $cpath);
14326             }
14327         }
14328     }
14329     return @paths;
14330 }
14331 </pre>
14332
14333 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
14334 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
14335 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
14336 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
14337 outdated.</p>
14338
14339       </div>
14340       <div class="tags">
14341
14342
14343         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14344
14345
14346       </div>
14347     </div>
14348     <div class="padding"></div>
14349
14350     <div class="entry">
14351       <div class="title">
14352         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_e_book_kiosk_for_the_public_libraries_.html">Free e-book kiosk for the public libraries?</a>
14353       </div>
14354       <div class="date">
14355          7th October 2011
14356       </div>
14357       <div class="body">
14358         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
14359 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
14360 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
14361 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
14362 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
14363 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
14364 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
14365 models.</p>
14366
14367 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
14368 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
14369 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
14370 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
14371
14372 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
14373 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
14374 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
14375 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
14376 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
14377 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
14378 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
14379 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
14380 distributed.</p>
14381
14382 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
14383
14384 <ul>
14385
14386 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
14387   other relevant equipment.</li>
14388
14389 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
14390
14391 </ul>
14392
14393 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
14394 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
14395 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
14396 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
14397 books available.</p>
14398
14399 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
14400 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
14401 libraries. :)</p>
14402
14403       </div>
14404       <div class="tags">
14405
14406
14407         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
14408
14409
14410       </div>
14411     </div>
14412     <div class="padding"></div>
14413
14414     <div class="entry">
14415       <div class="title">
14416         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
14417       </div>
14418       <div class="date">
14419         17th September 2011
14420       </div>
14421       <div class="body">
14422         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
14423 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
14424 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
14425 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
14426 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
14427 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
14428 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
14429 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
14430
14431 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
14432
14433 <blockquote><pre>
14434 #!/bin/sh
14435 # apt-get install lsdvd
14436 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
14437 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
14438 </pre></blockquote>
14439
14440 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
14441 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
14442 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
14443 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
14444
14445 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
14446 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
14447 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
14448 back as an ISO.
14449
14450 <blockquote><pre>
14451 #!/bin/sh
14452 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
14453 set -e
14454 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
14455 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
14456 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
14457 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
14458 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
14459 </pre></blockquote>
14460
14461 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
14462
14463 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
14464 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
14465 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
14466 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
14467 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
14468
14469 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
14470 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
14471 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
14472 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
14473 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
14474 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
14475
14476       </div>
14477       <div class="tags">
14478
14479
14480         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
14481
14482
14483       </div>
14484     </div>
14485     <div class="padding"></div>
14486
14487     <div class="entry">
14488       <div class="title">
14489         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
14490       </div>
14491       <div class="date">
14492          4th August 2011
14493       </div>
14494       <div class="body">
14495         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
14496 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
14497 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
14498 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
14499 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
14500 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
14501 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
14502 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
14503 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
14504
14505 <p><blockquote>
14506 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
14507 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
14508 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
14509 </blockquote></p>
14510
14511 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
14512 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
14513 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
14514 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
14515 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
14516 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
14517 hard to explain.</p>
14518
14519 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
14520 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
14521 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
14522 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
14523 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
14524 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
14525 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
14526 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
14527 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
14528 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
14529 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
14530 mode).</p>
14531
14532 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
14533 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
14534 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
14535 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
14536 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
14537 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
14538 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
14539 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
14540 after visiting single user mode.</p>
14541
14542 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
14543 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
14544 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
14545 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
14546 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
14547 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
14548 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
14549 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
14550
14551 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
14552 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
14553 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
14554
14555       </div>
14556       <div class="tags">
14557
14558
14559         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14560
14561
14562       </div>
14563     </div>
14564     <div class="padding"></div>
14565
14566     <div class="entry">
14567       <div class="title">
14568         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
14569       </div>
14570       <div class="date">
14571         30th July 2011
14572       </div>
14573       <div class="body">
14574         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
14575 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
14576 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
14577 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
14578 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
14579 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
14580 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
14581 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
14582 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
14583 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
14584 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
14585 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
14586 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
14587
14588 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
14589 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
14590 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
14591 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
14592 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
14593 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
14594 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
14595 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
14596 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
14597
14598 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
14599 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
14600 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
14601 is presented.</p>
14602
14603 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
14604 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
14605 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
14606 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
14607 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
14608 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
14609 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
14610 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
14611 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
14612 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
14613 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
14614 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
14615 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
14616 find time to push this forward.</p>
14617
14618       </div>
14619       <div class="tags">
14620
14621
14622         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14623
14624
14625       </div>
14626     </div>
14627     <div class="padding"></div>
14628
14629     <div class="entry">
14630       <div class="title">
14631         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</a>
14632       </div>
14633       <div class="date">
14634         29th July 2011
14635       </div>
14636       <div class="body">
14637         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
14638 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
14639 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
14640 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
14641 issues.</p>
14642
14643 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
14644 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
14645 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
14646
14647 <ol>
14648
14649 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
14650 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
14651 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
14652 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
14653 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
14654 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
14655 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
14656 Debian.</li>
14657
14658 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
14659 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
14660 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
14661 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
14662 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
14663 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
14664 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
14665 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
14666 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
14667 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
14668 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
14669 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
14670 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
14671
14672 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
14673 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
14674 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
14675 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
14676 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
14677 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
14678 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
14679 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
14680 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
14681 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
14682
14683 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
14684 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
14685 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
14686 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
14687 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
14688 latter behaviour.</li>
14689
14690 </ol>
14691
14692 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
14693 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
14694 it do not matter much.</p>
14695
14696 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
14697 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
14698 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
14699
14700       </div>
14701       <div class="tags">
14702
14703
14704         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
14705
14706
14707       </div>
14708     </div>
14709     <div class="padding"></div>
14710
14711     <div class="entry">
14712       <div class="title">
14713         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
14714       </div>
14715       <div class="date">
14716         26th July 2011
14717       </div>
14718       <div class="body">
14719         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
14720 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
14721 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
14722 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
14723 security support for a few years.</p>
14724
14725 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
14726 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
14727 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
14728 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
14729 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
14730 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
14731 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
14732 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
14733 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
14734 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
14735 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
14736 easier in the future.</p>
14737
14738 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
14739 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
14740 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
14741 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
14742 do not have time for.</p>
14743
14744       </div>
14745       <div class="tags">
14746
14747
14748         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
14749
14750
14751       </div>
14752     </div>
14753     <div class="padding"></div>
14754
14755     <div class="entry">
14756       <div class="title">
14757         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
14758       </div>
14759       <div class="date">
14760         20th June 2011
14761       </div>
14762       <div class="body">
14763         <p>Reading
14764 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
14765 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
14766 parts of the
14767 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
14768 and
14769 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
14770 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
14771 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
14772 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
14773
14774       </div>
14775       <div class="tags">
14776
14777
14778         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
14779
14780
14781       </div>
14782     </div>
14783     <div class="padding"></div>
14784
14785     <div class="entry">
14786       <div class="title">
14787         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experimental_Open311_API_for_the_mySociety_fixmystreet_system.html">Experimental Open311 API for the mySociety fixmystreet system</a>
14788       </div>
14789       <div class="date">
14790         30th April 2011
14791       </div>
14792       <div class="body">
14793         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
14794 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
14795 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
14796 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
14797 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
14798 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
14799 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
14800 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
14801 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
14802 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
14803
14804 <p>Where is it?  Visit
14805 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
14806 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
14807 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
14808 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
14809
14810       </div>
14811       <div class="tags">
14812
14813
14814         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311</a>.
14815
14816
14817       </div>
14818     </div>
14819     <div class="padding"></div>
14820
14821     <div class="entry">
14822       <div class="title">
14823         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Initial_notes_on_adding_Open311_server_API_on_FixMyStreet.html">Initial notes on adding Open311 server API on FixMyStreet</a>
14824       </div>
14825       <div class="date">
14826         29th April 2011
14827       </div>
14828       <div class="body">
14829         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
14830 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
14831 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
14832 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
14833 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
14834 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
14835 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
14836 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
14837 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
14838 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
14839 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
14840 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
14841 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
14842
14843 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
14844 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
14845 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
14846 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
14847 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
14848 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
14849 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
14850 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
14851 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
14852 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
14853 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
14854 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
14855 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
14856
14857 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
14858 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
14859 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
14860 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
14861 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
14862 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
14863 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
14864 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
14865 it.</p>
14866
14867 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
14868 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
14869 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
14870 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
14871 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
14872 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
14873 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
14874
14875 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
14876 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
14877 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
14878 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
14879 and range= options.</p>
14880
14881 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
14882 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
14883 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
14884 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
14885 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
14886 to best handle this.  I've noticed
14887 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
14888 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
14889 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
14890 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
14891
14892 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
14893 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
14894 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
14895 discussions instead of only
14896 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
14897 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
14898 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
14899 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
14900 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
14901 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
14902
14903       </div>
14904       <div class="tags">
14905
14906
14907         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311</a>.
14908
14909
14910       </div>
14911     </div>
14912     <div class="padding"></div>
14913
14914     <div class="entry">
14915       <div class="title">
14916         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
14917       </div>
14918       <div class="date">
14919          6th April 2011
14920       </div>
14921       <div class="body">
14922         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
14923 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
14924 A few days ago the project
14925 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
14926 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
14927 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
14928 into Gnash.</p>
14929
14930       </div>
14931       <div class="tags">
14932
14933
14934         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
14935
14936
14937       </div>
14938     </div>
14939     <div class="padding"></div>
14940
14941     <div class="entry">
14942       <div class="title">
14943         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
14944       </div>
14945       <div class="date">
14946          3rd April 2011
14947       </div>
14948       <div class="body">
14949         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
14950 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
14951 update in English.</p>
14952
14953 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
14954 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
14955 of the British service
14956 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
14957 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
14958 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
14959 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
14960 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
14961 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
14962 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
14963 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
14964 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
14965 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
14966 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
14967 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
14968 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
14969
14970 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
14971 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
14972 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
14973 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
14974 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
14975 public infrastructure.</p>
14976
14977 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
14978 such service?</p>
14979
14980       </div>
14981       <div class="tags">
14982
14983
14984         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
14985
14986
14987       </div>
14988     </div>
14989     <div class="padding"></div>
14990
14991     <div class="entry">
14992       <div class="title">
14993         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
14994       </div>
14995       <div class="date">
14996         28th January 2011
14997       </div>
14998       <div class="body">
14999         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
15000 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
15001 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
15002 available on the Internet, and check our locally
15003 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
15004 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
15005 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
15006 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
15007 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
15008 out which security holes were present in our free software
15009 collection.</p>
15010
15011 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
15012 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
15013 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
15014 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
15015 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
15016 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
15017 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
15018 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
15019 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
15020 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
15021 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
15022 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
15023 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
15024 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
15025 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
15026 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
15027
15028 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
15029 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
15030 check out, one could look up
15031 <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
15032 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
15033 The most recent one is
15034 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
15035 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
15036 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
15037
15038 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
15039 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
15040 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
15041 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
15042 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
15043 security issues out.</p>
15044
15045 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
15046 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
15047 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
15048 RHEL is providing
15049 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
15050 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
15051 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
15052
15053 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
15054 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
15055 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
15056 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
15057 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
15058 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
15059 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
15060 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
15061 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
15062 established soon.</p>
15063
15064 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
15065 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
15066 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
15067 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
15068 for their packages.</p>
15069
15070       </div>
15071       <div class="tags">
15072
15073
15074         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
15075
15076
15077       </div>
15078     </div>
15079     <div class="padding"></div>
15080
15081     <div class="entry">
15082       <div class="title">
15083         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
15084       </div>
15085       <div class="date">
15086         23rd January 2011
15087       </div>
15088       <div class="body">
15089         <p>In the
15090 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
15091 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
15092 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
15093 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
15094 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
15095 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
15096 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
15097 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
15098 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
15099 one of my machines like this:</p>
15100
15101 <pre>
15102 loaded modules:
15103 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
15104 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
15105 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
15106 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
15107 10de:03ec pata_amd
15108 10de:03f6 sata_nv
15109 1022:1103 k8temp
15110 109e:036e bttv
15111 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
15112 11ab:4364 sky2
15113 </pre>
15114
15115 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
15116 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
15117
15118 <pre>
15119 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
15120     echo loaded pci modules:
15121     (
15122         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
15123         for address in * ; do
15124             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
15125                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
15126                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
15127                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
15128                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
15129                     echo "$id $module"
15130                 fi
15131             fi
15132         done
15133     )
15134     echo
15135 fi
15136 </pre>
15137
15138 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
15139 mappings:</p>
15140
15141 <pre>
15142 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
15143     echo loaded usb modules:
15144     (
15145         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
15146         for address in * ; do
15147             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
15148                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
15149                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
15150                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
15151                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
15152                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
15153                         echo "$id $module"
15154                     fi
15155                 fi
15156             fi
15157         done
15158     )
15159     echo
15160 fi
15161 </pre>
15162
15163 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
15164 well.</p>
15165
15166       </div>
15167       <div class="tags">
15168
15169
15170         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15171
15172
15173       </div>
15174     </div>
15175     <div class="padding"></div>
15176
15177     <div class="entry">
15178       <div class="title">
15179         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_video_format_most_supported_in_web_browsers_.html">The video format most supported in web browsers?</a>
15180       </div>
15181       <div class="date">
15182         16th January 2011
15183       </div>
15184       <div class="body">
15185         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
15186 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
15187 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
15188 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
15189 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
15190 the Wikipedia article on
15191 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
15192 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
15193 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
15194 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
15195 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
15196 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
15197 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
15198 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
15199 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
15200 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
15201 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
15202 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
15203
15204 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
15205 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
15206 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
15207 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
15208 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
15209 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
15210 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
15211 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
15212 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
15213 from last week</a>.</p>
15214
15215 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
15216 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
15217 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
15218 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
15219 was without royalties and license terms, check out
15220 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
15221 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
15222
15223 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
15224 available from
15225 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
15226 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
15227 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
15228
15229 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
15230 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
15231 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
15232 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
15233
15234       </div>
15235       <div class="tags">
15236
15237
15238         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
15239
15240
15241       </div>
15242     </div>
15243     <div class="padding"></div>
15244
15245     <div class="entry">
15246       <div class="title">
15247         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html">Chrome plan to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt;</a>
15248       </div>
15249       <div class="date">
15250         12th January 2011
15251       </div>
15252       <div class="body">
15253         <p>Today I discovered
15254 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
15255 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
15256 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
15257 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
15258 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
15259 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
15260 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
15261 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
15262 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
15263 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
15264 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
15265 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
15266 on the Google announcement is available from
15267 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
15268 A good read. :)</p>
15269
15270 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
15271 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
15272 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
15273 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
15274 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
15275 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
15276 browsers support H.264, and others support
15277 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
15278 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
15279 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
15280 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
15281 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
15282 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
15283 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
15284 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
15285
15286 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
15287 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
15288 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
15289 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
15290 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
15291 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
15292 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
15293
15294 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
15295 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
15296 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
15297 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
15298 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
15299 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
15300 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
15301
15302 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
15303 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
15304 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
15305 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
15306 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
15307 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
15308 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
15309
15310 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
15311 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
15312 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
15313 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
15314 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
15315 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
15316 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
15317 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
15318 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
15319 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
15320 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
15321 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
15322 I guess time will tell.</p>
15323
15324 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
15325 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
15326 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
15327
15328       </div>
15329       <div class="tags">
15330
15331
15332         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
15333
15334
15335       </div>
15336     </div>
15337     <div class="padding"></div>
15338
15339     <div class="entry">
15340       <div class="title">
15341         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_standards_are_Free_and_Open_as_defined_by_Digistan_.html">What standards are Free and Open as defined by Digistan?</a>
15342       </div>
15343       <div class="date">
15344         30th December 2010
15345       </div>
15346       <div class="body">
15347         <p>After trying to
15348 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
15349 Ogg Theora</a> to
15350 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
15351 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
15352 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
15353 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
15354 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
15355 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
15356 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
15357
15358 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
15359 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
15360 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
15361 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
15362 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
15363 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
15364 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
15365
15366 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
15367 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
15368
15369       </div>
15370       <div class="tags">
15371
15372
15373         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
15374
15375
15376       </div>
15377     </div>
15378     <div class="padding"></div>
15379
15380     <div class="entry">
15381       <div class="title">
15382         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
15383       </div>
15384       <div class="date">
15385         27th December 2010
15386       </div>
15387       <div class="body">
15388         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
15389 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
15390 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
15391 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
15392 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
15393 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
15394 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
15395 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
15396
15397 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
15398 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
15399 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
15400 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
15401 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
15402 page</a>.</p>
15403
15404 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
15405 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
15406 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
15407 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
15408 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
15409 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
15410 specification on equal terms.</p>
15411
15412 <blockquote>
15413
15414 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
15415 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
15416 open standard:</p>
15417
15418 <ul>
15419
15420 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
15421 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
15422 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
15423 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
15424
15425 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
15426 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
15427 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
15428 nominal fee.</li>
15429
15430 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
15431 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
15432 free basis.</li>
15433
15434 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
15435
15436 </ul>
15437 </blockquote>
15438
15439 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
15440 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
15441 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
15442 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
15443 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
15444 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
15445 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
15446
15447 <blockquote>
15448
15449 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
15450
15451 <ol>
15452
15453 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
15454 tilgængelig.</li>
15455
15456 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
15457 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
15458
15459 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
15460 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
15461
15462 </ol>
15463
15464 </blockquote>
15465
15466 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
15467 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
15468
15469 <blockquote>
15470
15471 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
15472
15473 <ol>
15474
15475 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
15476 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
15477
15478 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
15479 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
15480 Standard themselves;</li>
15481
15482 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
15483 any party or in any business model;</li>
15484
15485 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
15486 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
15487 parties;</li>
15488
15489 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
15490 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
15491 parties.</li>
15492
15493 </ol>
15494
15495 </blockquote>
15496
15497 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
15498 its
15499 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
15500 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
15501
15502 <blockquote>
15503 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
15504
15505 <ul>
15506
15507 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
15508   democratic:
15509
15510          <ul>
15511
15512          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
15513             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
15514             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
15515             and managed.</li>
15516
15517          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
15518             method, can be changed through input from all
15519             participants.</li>
15520
15521          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
15522             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
15523
15524          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
15525             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
15526
15527          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
15528             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
15529             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
15530
15531          </ul>
15532
15533 </li>
15534
15535 </ul>
15536
15537 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
15538 <ul>
15539
15540 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
15541   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
15542   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
15543   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
15544   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
15545
15546 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
15547   a technical or economic barriers</li>
15548
15549 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
15550   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
15551   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
15552   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
15553   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
15554   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
15555   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
15556   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
15557   intended to function.</li>
15558
15559 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
15560   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
15561   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
15562
15563 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
15564   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
15565   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
15566   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
15567   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
15568   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
15569   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
15570   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
15571
15572       <ul>
15573
15574       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
15575         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
15576         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
15577
15578       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
15579         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
15580         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
15581         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
15582
15583       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
15584         licensor</li>
15585
15586       </ul>
15587 </li>
15588
15589 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
15590   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
15591   or restricted licensing terms</li>
15592
15593 </ul>
15594
15595 </blockquote>
15596
15597 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
15598 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
15599 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
15600 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
15601 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
15602 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
15603 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
15604 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
15605 Standards.</p>
15606
15607       </div>
15608       <div class="tags">
15609
15610
15611         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
15612
15613
15614       </div>
15615     </div>
15616     <div class="padding"></div>
15617
15618     <div class="entry">
15619       <div class="title">
15620         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">Is Ogg Theora a free and open standard?</a>
15621       </div>
15622       <div class="date">
15623         25th December 2010
15624       </div>
15625       <div class="body">
15626         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
15627 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
15628
15629 <blockquote>
15630
15631 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
15632 as follows:</p>
15633
15634 <ol>
15635
15636 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
15637 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
15638 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
15639
15640 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
15641 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
15642 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
15643 parties.</li>
15644
15645 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
15646 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
15647 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
15648
15649 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
15650 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
15651
15652 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
15653
15654 </ol>
15655
15656 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
15657 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
15658 products based on the standard.</p>
15659 </blockquote>
15660
15661 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
15662 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
15663 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
15664 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
15665 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
15666 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
15667 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
15668 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
15669
15670 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
15671
15672 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
15673 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
15674 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
15675 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
15676 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
15677 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
15678 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
15679 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
15680 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
15681 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
15682 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
15683 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
15684 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
15685 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
15686
15687 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
15688
15689 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
15690 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
15691 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
15692 documentation indicating this.</p>
15693
15694 <p>According to
15695 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
15696 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
15697 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
15698 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
15699 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
15700 report is correct.</p>
15701
15702 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
15703
15704 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
15705 container format</a> and both the
15706 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
15707 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
15708 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
15709
15710 <blockquote>
15711
15712 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
15713 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
15714 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
15715 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
15716 specification compliance.
15717
15718 </blockquote>
15719
15720 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
15721 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
15722 this is the term:<p>
15723
15724 <blockquote>
15725
15726 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
15727 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
15728 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
15729 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
15730 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
15731 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
15732 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
15733 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
15734 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
15735 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
15736 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
15737 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
15738
15739 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
15740 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
15741 </blockquote>
15742
15743 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
15744 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
15745 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
15746 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
15747 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
15748
15749 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
15750
15751 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
15752 Theora format.
15753 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
15754 and
15755 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
15756 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
15757 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
15758 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
15759 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
15760 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
15761 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
15762 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
15763
15764 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
15765
15766 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
15767
15768 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
15769
15770 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
15771 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
15772 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
15773 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
15774 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
15775 this.</p>
15776
15777 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
15778 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
15779
15780       </div>
15781       <div class="tags">
15782
15783
15784         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
15785
15786
15787       </div>
15788     </div>
15789     <div class="padding"></div>
15790
15791     <div class="entry">
15792       <div class="title">
15793         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_reply_from_Edgar_Villanueva_to_Microsoft_in_Peru.html">The reply from Edgar Villanueva to Microsoft in Peru</a>
15794       </div>
15795       <div class="date">
15796         25th December 2010
15797       </div>
15798       <div class="body">
15799         <p>A few days ago
15800 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
15801 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
15802 2.0 of
15803 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
15804 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
15805 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
15806 Nothing very surprising there, given
15807 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
15808 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
15809 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
15810 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
15811 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
15812 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
15813 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
15814 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
15815 standard definition from its content.</p>
15816
15817 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
15818 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
15819 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
15820 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
15821 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
15822 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
15823 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
15824 background information about that story is available in
15825 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
15826 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
15827
15828 <blockquote>
15829 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
15830 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
15831 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
15832
15833 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
15834
15835 <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>
15836
15837 <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>
15838
15839 <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>
15840
15841 <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>
15842
15843 <p>
15844 <ul>
15845 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
15846 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
15847 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
15848 </ul>
15849 </p>
15850
15851 <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>
15852
15853 <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>
15854
15855 <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>
15856
15857 <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>
15858
15859 <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>
15860
15861
15862 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
15863 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
15864 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
15865 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
15866 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
15867 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
15868
15869 </p>
15870
15871 <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>
15872
15873 <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>
15874
15875 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
15876
15877 <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>
15878
15879 <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>
15880
15881 <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>
15882
15883 <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>
15884
15885 <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>
15886
15887 <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>
15888
15889 <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>
15890
15891 <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>
15892
15893 <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>
15894
15895 <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>
15896
15897 <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>
15898
15899 <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>
15900
15901 <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>
15902
15903 <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>
15904
15905 <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>
15906
15907 <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>
15908
15909 <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>
15910
15911 <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>
15912
15913 <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>
15914
15915 <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>
15916
15917 <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>
15918
15919 <p>On security:</p>
15920
15921 <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>
15922
15923 <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>
15924
15925 <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>
15926
15927 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
15928
15929 <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>
15930
15931 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
15932
15933 <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>
15934
15935 <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>
15936
15937 <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>
15938
15939 <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>
15940
15941 <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>
15942
15943 <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>
15944
15945 <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>
15946
15947 <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>
15948
15949 <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>
15950
15951 <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>
15952
15953 <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>
15954
15955 <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>
15956
15957 <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>
15958
15959 <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>
15960
15961 <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>
15962
15963 <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>
15964
15965 <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>
15966
15967 <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>
15968
15969 <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>
15970
15971 <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>
15972
15973 <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>
15974
15975 <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>
15976
15977 <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>
15978
15979 <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>
15980
15981 <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>
15982
15983 <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>
15984
15985 <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>
15986
15987 <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>
15988
15989 <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>
15990
15991 <p>Cordially,<br>
15992 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
15993 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
15994 </blockquote>
15995
15996       </div>
15997       <div class="tags">
15998
15999
16000         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
16001
16002
16003       </div>
16004     </div>
16005     <div class="padding"></div>
16006
16007     <div class="entry">
16008       <div class="title">
16009         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
16010       </div>
16011       <div class="date">
16012         25th December 2010
16013       </div>
16014       <div class="body">
16015         <p>Half a year ago I
16016 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
16017 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
16018 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
16019 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
16020
16021 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
16022 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
16023 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
16024 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
16025 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
16026 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
16027 got such a great test tool available.</p>
16028
16029       </div>
16030       <div class="tags">
16031
16032
16033         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
16034
16035
16036       </div>
16037     </div>
16038     <div class="padding"></div>
16039
16040     <div class="entry">
16041       <div class="title">
16042         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a>
16043       </div>
16044       <div class="date">
16045         22nd December 2010
16046       </div>
16047       <div class="body">
16048         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
16049 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
16050 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
16051 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
16052 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
16053 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
16054 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
16055 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
16056 university.</p>
16057
16058 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
16059 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
16060 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
16061 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
16062 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
16063 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
16064 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
16065 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
16066
16067 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
16068 I perform on a new model.</p>
16069
16070 <ul>
16071
16072 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
16073 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
16074 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
16075
16076 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
16077 installation, X.org is working.</li>
16078
16079 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
16080 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
16081 reported by the program.</li>
16082
16083 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
16084 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
16085 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
16086 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
16087 normally test this by playing
16088 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
16089 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
16090
16091 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
16092 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
16093
16094 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
16095 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
16096
16097 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
16098 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
16099
16100 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
16101 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
16102 few.</li>
16103
16104 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
16105 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
16106 notice this.</li>
16107
16108 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
16109 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
16110 resume.</li>
16111
16112 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
16113 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
16114 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
16115 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
16116 not.</li>
16117
16118 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
16119 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
16120 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
16121 existence.</li>
16122
16123 </ul>
16124
16125 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
16126 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
16127 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
16128 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
16129 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
16130 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
16131 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
16132 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
16133
16134       </div>
16135       <div class="tags">
16136
16137
16138         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16139
16140
16141       </div>
16142     </div>
16143     <div class="padding"></div>
16144
16145     <div class="entry">
16146       <div class="title">
16147         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
16148       </div>
16149       <div class="date">
16150         11th December 2010
16151       </div>
16152       <div class="body">
16153         <p>As I continue to explore
16154 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
16155 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
16156 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
16157
16158 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
16159 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
16160 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
16161 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
16162 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
16163 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
16164 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
16165 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
16166 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
16167 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
16168 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
16169 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
16170 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
16171 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
16172 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
16173 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
16174 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
16175 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
16176 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
16177 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
16178
16179 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
16180 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
16181 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
16182 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
16183 If the Skolelinux foundation
16184 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
16185 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
16186 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
16187 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
16188 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
16189 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
16190 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
16191 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
16192
16193 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
16194 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
16195 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
16196 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
16197 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
16198 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
16199 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
16200 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
16201 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
16202 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
16203 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
16204 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
16205 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
16206 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
16207 currencies.</p>
16208
16209 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
16210 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
16211 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
16212 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
16213 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
16214 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
16215 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
16216 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
16217 BitCoins.  Check out
16218 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
16219 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
16220 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
16221 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
16222 yet.</p>
16223
16224 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
16225 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
16226 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
16227 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
16228 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
16229
16230       </div>
16231       <div class="tags">
16232
16233
16234         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
16235
16236
16237       </div>
16238     </div>
16239     <div class="padding"></div>
16240
16241     <div class="entry">
16242       <div class="title">
16243         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
16244       </div>
16245       <div class="date">
16246         10th December 2010
16247       </div>
16248       <div class="body">
16249         <p>With this weeks lawless
16250 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
16251 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
16252 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
16253 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
16254 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
16255 A blog post from
16256 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
16257 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
16258 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
16259 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
16260 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
16261 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
16262 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
16263
16264 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
16265 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
16266 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
16267 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
16268 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
16269 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
16270 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
16271 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
16272 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
16273 Debian</a> soon.</p>
16274
16275 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
16276 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
16277 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
16278 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
16279 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
16280 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
16281 you can even get
16282 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
16283 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
16284 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
16285 on the current exchange rates.</p>
16286
16287 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
16288 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
16289 donations to the address
16290 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
16291
16292       </div>
16293       <div class="tags">
16294
16295
16296         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
16297
16298
16299       </div>
16300     </div>
16301     <div class="padding"></div>
16302
16303     <div class="entry">
16304       <div class="title">
16305         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Student_group_continue_the_work_on_my_Reprap_3D_printer.html">Student group continue the work on my Reprap 3D printer</a>
16306       </div>
16307       <div class="date">
16308          9th December 2010
16309       </div>
16310       <div class="body">
16311         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
16312 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
16313 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
16314 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
16315 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
16316 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
16317 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
16318 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
16319 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
16320 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
16321 operational.</p>
16322
16323 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
16324 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
16325 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
16326 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
16327 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
16328 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
16329 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
16330
16331       </div>
16332       <div class="tags">
16333
16334
16335         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap</a>.
16336
16337
16338       </div>
16339     </div>
16340     <div class="padding"></div>
16341
16342     <div class="entry">
16343       <div class="title">
16344         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_development_gathering_and_General_Assembly_for_FRiSK.html">Debian Edu development gathering and General Assembly for FRiSK</a>
16345       </div>
16346       <div class="date">
16347         29th November 2010
16348       </div>
16349       <div class="body">
16350         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
16351 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
16352 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
16353 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
16354 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
16355 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
16356
16357 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
16358 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
16359 will hold its
16360 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
16361 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
16362 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
16363 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
16364 vote this year.</p>
16365
16366       </div>
16367       <div class="tags">
16368
16369
16370         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
16371
16372
16373       </div>
16374     </div>
16375     <div class="padding"></div>
16376
16377     <div class="entry">
16378       <div class="title">
16379         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
16380       </div>
16381       <div class="date">
16382         27th November 2010
16383       </div>
16384       <div class="body">
16385         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
16386 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
16387 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
16388 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
16389 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
16390 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
16391 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
16392 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
16393
16394 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
16395 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
16396 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
16397 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
16398 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
16399 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
16400 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
16401 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
16402 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
16403 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
16404 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
16405
16406 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
16407 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
16408 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
16409 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
16410 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
16411 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
16412 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
16413 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
16414 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
16415 what is going on.</p>
16416
16417       </div>
16418       <div class="tags">
16419
16420
16421         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
16422
16423
16424       </div>
16425     </div>
16426     <div class="padding"></div>
16427
16428     <div class="entry">
16429       <div class="title">
16430         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</a>
16431       </div>
16432       <div class="date">
16433         22nd November 2010
16434       </div>
16435       <div class="body">
16436         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
16437 upgrade testing of the
16438 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
16439 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
16440 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
16441 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
16442
16443 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
16444
16445 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
16446
16447 <blockquote><p>
16448   apache2.2-bin
16449   aptdaemon
16450   baobab
16451   binfmt-support
16452   browser-plugin-gnash
16453   cheese-common
16454   cli-common
16455   cups-pk-helper
16456   dmz-cursor-theme
16457   empathy
16458   empathy-common
16459   freedesktop-sound-theme
16460   freeglut3
16461   gconf-defaults-service
16462   gdm-themes
16463   gedit-plugins
16464   geoclue
16465   geoclue-hostip
16466   geoclue-localnet
16467   geoclue-manual
16468   geoclue-yahoo
16469   gnash
16470   gnash-common
16471   gnome
16472   gnome-backgrounds
16473   gnome-cards-data
16474   gnome-codec-install
16475   gnome-core
16476   gnome-desktop-environment
16477   gnome-disk-utility
16478   gnome-screenshot
16479   gnome-search-tool
16480   gnome-session-canberra
16481   gnome-system-log
16482   gnome-themes-extras
16483   gnome-themes-more
16484   gnome-user-share
16485   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
16486   gstreamer0.10-tools
16487   gtk2-engines
16488   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
16489   gtk2-engines-smooth
16490   hamster-applet
16491   libapache2-mod-dnssd
16492   libapr1
16493   libaprutil1
16494   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
16495   libaprutil1-ldap
16496   libart2.0-cil
16497   libboost-date-time1.42.0
16498   libboost-python1.42.0
16499   libboost-thread1.42.0
16500   libchamplain-0.4-0
16501   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
16502   libcheese-gtk18
16503   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
16504   libcryptui0
16505   libdiscid0
16506   libelf1
16507   libepc-1.0-2
16508   libepc-common
16509   libepc-ui-1.0-2
16510   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
16511   libfreerdp0
16512   libgconf2.0-cil
16513   libgdata-common
16514   libgdata7
16515   libgdu-gtk0
16516   libgee2
16517   libgeoclue0
16518   libgexiv2-0
16519   libgif4
16520   libglade2.0-cil
16521   libglib2.0-cil
16522   libgmime2.4-cil
16523   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
16524   libgnome2.24-cil
16525   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
16526   libgpod-common
16527   libgpod4
16528   libgtk2.0-cil
16529   libgtkglext1
16530   libgtksourceview2.0-common
16531   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
16532   libmono-addins0.2-cil
16533   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
16534   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
16535   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
16536   libmono-posix2.0-cil
16537   libmono-security2.0-cil
16538   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
16539   libmono-system2.0-cil
16540   libmtp8
16541   libmusicbrainz3-6
16542   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
16543   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
16544   libopal3.6.8
16545   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
16546   libpt2.6.7
16547   libpython2.6
16548   librpm1
16549   librpmio1
16550   libsdl1.2debian
16551   libsrtp0
16552   libssh-4
16553   libtelepathy-farsight0
16554   libtelepathy-glib0
16555   libtidy-0.99-0
16556   media-player-info
16557   mesa-utils
16558   mono-2.0-gac
16559   mono-gac
16560   mono-runtime
16561   nautilus-sendto
16562   nautilus-sendto-empathy
16563   p7zip-full
16564   pkg-config
16565   python-aptdaemon
16566   python-aptdaemon-gtk
16567   python-axiom
16568   python-beautifulsoup
16569   python-bugbuddy
16570   python-clientform
16571   python-coherence
16572   python-configobj
16573   python-crypto
16574   python-cupshelpers
16575   python-elementtree
16576   python-epsilon
16577   python-evolution
16578   python-feedparser
16579   python-gdata
16580   python-gdbm
16581   python-gst0.10
16582   python-gtkglext1
16583   python-gtksourceview2
16584   python-httplib2
16585   python-louie
16586   python-mako
16587   python-markupsafe
16588   python-mechanize
16589   python-nevow
16590   python-notify
16591   python-opengl
16592   python-openssl
16593   python-pam
16594   python-pkg-resources
16595   python-pyasn1
16596   python-pysqlite2
16597   python-rdflib
16598   python-serial
16599   python-tagpy
16600   python-twisted-bin
16601   python-twisted-conch
16602   python-twisted-core
16603   python-twisted-web
16604   python-utidylib
16605   python-webkit
16606   python-xdg
16607   python-zope.interface
16608   remmina
16609   remmina-plugin-data
16610   remmina-plugin-rdp
16611   remmina-plugin-vnc
16612   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
16613   rhythmbox-plugins
16614   rpm-common
16615   rpm2cpio
16616   seahorse-plugins
16617   shotwell
16618   software-center
16619   system-config-printer-udev
16620   telepathy-gabble
16621   telepathy-mission-control-5
16622   telepathy-salut
16623   tomboy
16624   totem
16625   totem-coherence
16626   totem-mozilla
16627   totem-plugins
16628   transmission-common
16629   xdg-user-dirs
16630   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
16631   xserver-xephyr
16632 </p></blockquote>
16633
16634 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
16635
16636 <blockquote><p>
16637   cheese
16638   ekiga
16639   eog
16640   epiphany-extensions
16641   evolution-exchange
16642   fast-user-switch-applet
16643   file-roller
16644   gcalctool
16645   gconf-editor
16646   gdm
16647   gedit
16648   gedit-common
16649   gnome-games
16650   gnome-games-data
16651   gnome-nettool
16652   gnome-system-tools
16653   gnome-themes
16654   gnuchess
16655   gucharmap
16656   guile-1.8-libs
16657   libavahi-ui0
16658   libdmx1
16659   libgalago3
16660   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
16661   libgtksourceview2.0-0
16662   liblircclient0
16663   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
16664   libspeexdsp1
16665   libsvga1
16666   rhythmbox
16667   seahorse
16668   sound-juicer
16669   system-config-printer
16670   totem-common
16671   transmission-gtk
16672   vinagre
16673   vino
16674 </p></blockquote>
16675
16676 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
16677
16678 <blockquote><p>
16679   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
16680 </p></blockquote>
16681
16682 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
16683
16684 <blockquote><p>
16685 [nothing]
16686 </p></blockquote>
16687
16688 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
16689
16690 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
16691
16692 <blockquote><p>
16693   ksmserver
16694 </p></blockquote>
16695
16696 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
16697
16698 <blockquote><p>
16699   kwin
16700   network-manager-kde
16701 </p></blockquote>
16702
16703 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
16704
16705 <blockquote><p>
16706   arts
16707   dolphin
16708   freespacenotifier
16709   google-gadgets-gst
16710   google-gadgets-xul
16711   kappfinder
16712   kcalc
16713   kcharselect
16714   kde-core
16715   kde-plasma-desktop
16716   kde-standard
16717   kde-window-manager
16718   kdeartwork
16719   kdeartwork-emoticons
16720   kdeartwork-style
16721   kdeartwork-theme-icon
16722   kdebase
16723   kdebase-apps
16724   kdebase-workspace
16725   kdebase-workspace-bin
16726   kdebase-workspace-data
16727   kdeeject
16728   kdelibs
16729   kdeplasma-addons
16730   kdeutils
16731   kdewallpapers
16732   kdf
16733   kfloppy
16734   kgpg
16735   khelpcenter4
16736   kinfocenter
16737   konq-plugins-l10n
16738   konqueror-nsplugins
16739   kscreensaver
16740   kscreensaver-xsavers
16741   ktimer
16742   kwrite
16743   libgle3
16744   libkde4-ruby1.8
16745   libkonq5
16746   libkonq5-templates
16747   libnetpbm10
16748   libplasma-ruby
16749   libplasma-ruby1.8
16750   libqt4-ruby1.8
16751   marble-data
16752   marble-plugins
16753   netpbm
16754   nuvola-icon-theme
16755   plasma-dataengines-workspace
16756   plasma-desktop
16757   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
16758   plasma-runners-addons
16759   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
16760   plasma-scriptengine-python
16761   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
16762   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
16763   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
16764   plasma-scriptengines
16765   plasma-wallpapers-addons
16766   plasma-widget-folderview
16767   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
16768   ruby
16769   sweeper
16770   update-notifier-kde
16771   xscreensaver-data-extra
16772   xscreensaver-gl
16773   xscreensaver-gl-extra
16774   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
16775 </p></blockquote>
16776
16777 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
16778
16779 <blockquote><p>
16780   ark
16781   google-gadgets-common
16782   google-gadgets-qt
16783   htdig
16784   kate
16785   kdebase-bin
16786   kdebase-data
16787   kdepasswd
16788   kfind
16789   klipper
16790   konq-plugins
16791   konqueror
16792   ksysguard
16793   ksysguardd
16794   libarchive1
16795   libcln6
16796   libeet1
16797   libeina-svn-06
16798   libggadget-1.0-0b
16799   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
16800   libgps19
16801   libkdecorations4
16802   libkephal4
16803   libkonq4
16804   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
16805   libkscreensaver5
16806   libksgrd4
16807   libksignalplotter4
16808   libkunitconversion4
16809   libkwineffects1a
16810   libmarblewidget4
16811   libntrack-qt4-1
16812   libntrack0
16813   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
16814   libplasmaclock4a
16815   libplasmagenericshell4
16816   libprocesscore4a
16817   libprocessui4a
16818   libqalculate5
16819   libqedje0a
16820   libqtruby4shared2
16821   libqzion0a
16822   libruby1.8
16823   libscim8c2a
16824   libsmokekdecore4-3
16825   libsmokekdeui4-3
16826   libsmokekfile3
16827   libsmokekhtml3
16828   libsmokekio3
16829   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
16830   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
16831   libsmokekparts3
16832   libsmokektexteditor3
16833   libsmokekutils3
16834   libsmokenepomuk3
16835   libsmokephonon3
16836   libsmokeplasma3
16837   libsmokeqtcore4-3
16838   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
16839   libsmokeqtgui4-3
16840   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
16841   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
16842   libsmokeqtscript4-3
16843   libsmokeqtsql4-3
16844   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
16845   libsmokeqttest4-3
16846   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
16847   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
16848   libsmokeqtxml4-3
16849   libsmokesolid3
16850   libsmokesoprano3
16851   libtaskmanager4a
16852   libtidy-0.99-0
16853   libweather-ion4a
16854   libxklavier16
16855   libxxf86misc1
16856   okteta
16857   oxygencursors
16858   plasma-dataengines-addons
16859   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
16860   plasma-widget-lancelot
16861   plasma-widgets-addons
16862   plasma-widgets-workspace
16863   polkit-kde-1
16864   ruby1.8
16865   systemsettings
16866   update-notifier-common
16867 </p></blockquote>
16868
16869 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
16870 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
16871 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
16872 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
16873
16874       </div>
16875       <div class="tags">
16876
16877
16878         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16879
16880
16881       </div>
16882     </div>
16883     <div class="padding"></div>
16884
16885     <div class="entry">
16886       <div class="title">
16887         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
16888       </div>
16889       <div class="date">
16890         22nd November 2010
16891       </div>
16892       <div class="body">
16893         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
16894 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
16895 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
16896 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
16897 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
16898 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
16899 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
16900 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
16901 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
16902
16903 <p>I found
16904 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
16905 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
16906 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
16907 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
16908 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
16909 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
16910
16911 <pre>
16912 #!/bin/sh
16913
16914 # Based on
16915 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
16916
16917 set -e
16918 set -x
16919
16920 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
16921     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
16922     exit 1
16923 else
16924     host="$1"
16925 fi
16926
16927 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
16928     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
16929     exit 1
16930 fi
16931
16932 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
16933 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
16934 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
16935 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
16936
16937 img=$host.img
16938 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
16939 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
16940
16941 parted $img mklabel msdos
16942 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
16943 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
16944 parted $img set 1 boot on
16945
16946 modprobe dm-mod
16947 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
16948 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
16949
16950 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
16951 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
16952 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
16953
16954 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
16955 losetup -d /dev/loop0
16956 </pre>
16957
16958 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
16959 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
16960
16961 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
16962 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
16963 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
16964 seem to work just fine.</p>
16965
16966       </div>
16967       <div class="tags">
16968
16969
16970         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16971
16972
16973       </div>
16974     </div>
16975     <div class="padding"></div>
16976
16977     <div class="entry">
16978       <div class="title">
16979         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</a>
16980       </div>
16981       <div class="date">
16982         20th November 2010
16983       </div>
16984       <div class="body">
16985         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
16986 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
16987 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
16988 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
16989
16990 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
16991 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
16992 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
16993
16994 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
16995
16996 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
16997
16998 <blockquote><p>
16999   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
17000   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
17001   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
17002   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
17003   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
17004   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
17005   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
17006   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
17007   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
17008   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
17009   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
17010   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
17011   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
17012   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
17013   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
17014   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
17015   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
17016   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
17017   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
17018   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
17019   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
17020   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
17021   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
17022   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
17023   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
17024   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
17025   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
17026   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
17027   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
17028   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
17029   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
17030   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
17031   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
17032   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
17033   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
17034   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
17035   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
17036   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
17037   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
17038   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
17039   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
17040   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
17041   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
17042   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
17043   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
17044   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
17045   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
17046   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
17047   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
17048   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
17049   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
17050   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
17051   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
17052   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
17053   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
17054   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
17055   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
17056   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
17057   zip
17058 </p></blockquote>
17059
17060 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
17061
17062 <blockquote><p>
17063   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
17064   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
17065   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
17066   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
17067   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
17068   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
17069   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
17070   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
17071   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
17072   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
17073   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
17074   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
17075   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
17076   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
17077   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
17078   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
17079   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
17080   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
17081   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
17082   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
17083   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
17084   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
17085   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
17086   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
17087   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
17088   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
17089   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
17090   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
17091   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
17092 </p></blockquote>
17093
17094 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
17095
17096 <blockquote><p>
17097   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
17098 </p></blockquote>
17099
17100 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
17101
17102 <blockquote><p>
17103 [nothing]
17104 </p></blockquote>
17105
17106 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
17107
17108 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
17109
17110 <blockquote><p>
17111   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
17112   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
17113   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
17114   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
17115   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
17116   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
17117   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
17118   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
17119   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
17120   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
17121   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
17122   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
17123   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
17124   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
17125   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
17126   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
17127   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
17128   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
17129   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
17130   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
17131   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
17132   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
17133   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
17134   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
17135   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
17136   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
17137   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
17138   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
17139   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
17140   ttf-sazanami-gothic
17141 </p></blockquote>
17142
17143 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
17144
17145 <blockquote><p>
17146   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
17147   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
17148   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
17149   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
17150   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
17151   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
17152   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
17153   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
17154   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
17155   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
17156   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
17157   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
17158   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
17159   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
17160   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
17161   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
17162   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
17163   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
17164   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
17165   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
17166   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
17167   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
17168   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
17169   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
17170   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
17171   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
17172   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
17173   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
17174   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
17175   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
17176   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
17177   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
17178   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
17179 </p></blockquote>
17180
17181 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
17182
17183 <blockquote><p>
17184   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
17185   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
17186   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
17187   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
17188   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
17189   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
17190   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
17191 </p></blockquote>
17192
17193 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
17194
17195 <blockquote><p>
17196   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
17197 </p></blockquote>
17198
17199       </div>
17200       <div class="tags">
17201
17202
17203         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
17204
17205
17206       </div>
17207     </div>
17208     <div class="padding"></div>
17209
17210     <div class="entry">
17211       <div class="title">
17212         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
17213       </div>
17214       <div class="date">
17215         20th November 2010
17216       </div>
17217       <div class="body">
17218         <p>Answering
17219 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
17220 call from the Gnash project</a> for
17221 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
17222 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
17223 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
17224 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
17225 releases out more often.</p>
17226
17227 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
17228 I have considered setting up a <a
17229 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
17230 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
17231 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
17232 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
17233 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
17234 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
17235 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
17236 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
17237 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
17238 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
17239 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
17240 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
17241
17242       </div>
17243       <div class="tags">
17244
17245
17246         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
17247
17248
17249       </div>
17250     </div>
17251     <div class="padding"></div>
17252
17253     <div class="entry">
17254       <div class="title">
17255         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
17256       </div>
17257       <div class="date">
17258          9th November 2010
17259       </div>
17260       <div class="body">
17261         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
17262
17263 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
17264 3D linked in from
17265 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
17266 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
17267
17268       </div>
17269       <div class="tags">
17270
17271
17272         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
17273
17274
17275       </div>
17276     </div>
17277     <div class="padding"></div>
17278
17279     <div class="entry">
17280       <div class="title">
17281         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_room_on_the_Debian_Edu_Sqeeze_DVD.html">Making room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD</a>
17282       </div>
17283       <div class="date">
17284          7th November 2010
17285       </div>
17286       <div class="body">
17287         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
17288 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
17289 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
17290 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
17291 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
17292 working using this DVD.</p>
17293
17294 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
17295 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
17296 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
17297 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
17298 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
17299 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
17300 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
17301
17302 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
17303 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
17304 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
17305 Debian archive.</p>
17306
17307 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
17308 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
17309 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
17310 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
17311 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
17312 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
17313 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
17314 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
17315 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
17316 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
17317 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
17318 free X driver should work.</p>
17319
17320 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
17321 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
17322 DVD more useful again.</p>
17323
17324       </div>
17325       <div class="tags">
17326
17327
17328         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
17329
17330
17331       </div>
17332     </div>
17333     <div class="padding"></div>
17334
17335     <div class="entry">
17336       <div class="title">
17337         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
17338       </div>
17339       <div class="date">
17340         24th October 2010
17341       </div>
17342       <div class="body">
17343         <p>Some updates.</p>
17344
17345 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
17346 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
17347 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
17348 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
17349 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
17350 :)</p>
17351
17352 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
17353 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
17354 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
17355 It is called
17356 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
17357 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
17358 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
17359 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
17360 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
17361 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
17362
17363 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
17364 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
17365 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
17366 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
17367 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
17368 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
17369 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
17370 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
17371 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
17372 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
17373
17374       </div>
17375       <div class="tags">
17376
17377
17378         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
17379
17380
17381       </div>
17382     </div>
17383     <div class="padding"></div>
17384
17385     <div class="entry">
17386       <div class="title">
17387         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pledge_for_funding_to_the_Gnash_project_to_get_AVM2_support.html">Pledge for funding to the Gnash project to get AVM2 support</a>
17388       </div>
17389       <div class="date">
17390         19th October 2010
17391       </div>
17392       <div class="body">
17393         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
17394 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
17395 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
17396 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
17397 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
17398 AVM2 flash files.</p>
17399
17400 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
17401 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
17402 following text:</P>
17403
17404 <p><blockquote>
17405
17406   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
17407   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
17408
17409   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
17410
17411   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
17412
17413   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
17414   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
17415   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
17416   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
17417   days. The project web page is available from
17418   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
17419   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
17420   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
17421
17422   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
17423   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
17424   to get this to happen.</p>
17425
17426   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
17427   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
17428
17429 </blockquote></p>
17430
17431 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
17432 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
17433 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
17434 :)</p>
17435
17436       </div>
17437       <div class="tags">
17438
17439
17440         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
17441
17442
17443       </div>
17444     </div>
17445     <div class="padding"></div>
17446
17447     <div class="entry">
17448       <div class="title">
17449         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_version_of_a_Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot.html">First version of a Perl library to control the Spykee robot</a>
17450       </div>
17451       <div class="date">
17452          9th October 2010
17453       </div>
17454       <div class="body">
17455         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
17456 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
17457 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
17458 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
17459 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
17460 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
17461 robots.</p>
17462
17463 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
17464 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
17465 a few less important features too.</p>
17466
17467 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
17468 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
17469 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
17470 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
17471
17472 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
17473 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
17474 source or binary package:</p>
17475
17476 <p><ul>
17477 <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>
17478 <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>
17479 <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>
17480 </ul></p>
17481
17482 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
17483 please let me know.</p>
17484
17485       </div>
17486       <div class="tags">
17487
17488
17489         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
17490
17491
17492       </div>
17493     </div>
17494     <div class="padding"></div>
17495
17496     <div class="entry">
17497       <div class="title">
17498         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
17499       </div>
17500       <div class="date">
17501          3rd October 2010
17502       </div>
17503       <div class="body">
17504         <p><ul>
17505
17506 <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
17507 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
17508
17509 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
17510 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
17511 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
17512
17513 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
17514 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
17515 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
17516 simple setup.
17517
17518 </ul></p>
17519
17520       </div>
17521       <div class="tags">
17522
17523
17524         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
17525
17526
17527       </div>
17528     </div>
17529     <div class="padding"></div>
17530
17531     <div class="entry">
17532       <div class="title">
17533         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">Terms of use for video produced by a Canon IXUS 130 digital camera</a>
17534       </div>
17535       <div class="date">
17536          9th September 2010
17537       </div>
17538       <div class="body">
17539         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
17540 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
17541 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
17542 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
17543 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
17544 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
17545 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
17546 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
17547 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
17548
17549 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
17550 written:</p>
17551
17552 <blockquote>
17553 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
17554 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
17555 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
17556 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
17557 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
17558
17559 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
17560 standard.</p>
17561 </blockquote>
17562
17563 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
17564 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
17565 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
17566 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
17567
17568 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
17569 read
17570 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
17571 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
17572 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
17573 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
17574 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
17575 the issue.  The solution is to support the
17576 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
17577 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
17578 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
17579
17580       </div>
17581       <div class="tags">
17582
17583
17584         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
17585
17586
17587       </div>
17588     </div>
17589     <div class="padding"></div>
17590
17591     <div class="entry">
17592       <div class="title">
17593         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
17594       </div>
17595       <div class="date">
17596          4th September 2010
17597       </div>
17598       <div class="body">
17599         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
17600 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
17601 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
17602 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
17603 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
17604 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
17605 installed.</p>
17606
17607 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
17608 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
17609 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
17610 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
17611 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
17612 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
17613 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
17614 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
17615 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
17616
17617 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
17618 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
17619 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
17620 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
17621 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
17622 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
17623 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
17624 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
17625 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
17626 pages they want to visit.</p>
17627
17628 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
17629 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
17630 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
17631 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
17632 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
17633 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
17634 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
17635 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
17636 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
17637 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
17638 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
17639
17640       </div>
17641       <div class="tags">
17642
17643
17644         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
17645
17646
17647       </div>
17648     </div>
17649     <div class="padding"></div>
17650
17651     <div class="entry">
17652       <div class="title">
17653         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_first_perl_GUI_application___controlling_a_Spykee_robot.html">My first perl GUI application - controlling a Spykee robot</a>
17654       </div>
17655       <div class="date">
17656          1st September 2010
17657       </div>
17658       <div class="body">
17659         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
17660 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
17661 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
17662 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
17663 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
17664 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
17665 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
17666 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
17667 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
17668 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
17669 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
17670 drive around.</p>
17671
17672 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
17673 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
17674
17675 <p><pre>
17676 use Spykee;
17677 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
17678 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
17679 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
17680 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
17681 $spykee->left();
17682 sleep 2;
17683 $spykee->right();
17684 sleep 2;
17685 $spykee->forward();
17686 sleep 2;
17687 $spykee->back();
17688 sleep 2;
17689 $spykee->stop();
17690 </pre></p>
17691
17692 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
17693 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
17694 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
17695 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
17696 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
17697 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
17698 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
17699 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
17700 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
17701 going. :).</p>
17702
17703 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
17704 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
17705 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
17706 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
17707
17708       </div>
17709       <div class="tags">
17710
17711
17712         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
17713
17714
17715       </div>
17716     </div>
17717     <div class="padding"></div>
17718
17719     <div class="entry">
17720       <div class="title">
17721         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
17722       </div>
17723       <div class="date">
17724         30th August 2010
17725       </div>
17726       <div class="body">
17727         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
17728 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
17729 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
17730 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
17731 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
17732 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
17733 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
17734
17735 <pre>
17736 % ln foo bar
17737 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
17738 %
17739 </pre>
17740
17741 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
17742 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
17743 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
17744 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
17745 nevertheless. :)</p>
17746
17747 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
17748 git from
17749 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
17750
17751       </div>
17752       <div class="tags">
17753
17754
17755         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
17756
17757
17758       </div>
17759     </div>
17760     <div class="padding"></div>
17761
17762     <div class="entry">
17763       <div class="title">
17764         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
17765       </div>
17766       <div class="date">
17767         26th August 2010
17768       </div>
17769       <div class="body">
17770         <p>My file system sematics program
17771 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
17772 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
17773 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
17774 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
17775 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
17776 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
17777 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
17778 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
17779 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
17780 script:</p>
17781
17782 <pre>
17783 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
17784   mode_t retval = 0;
17785   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
17786   if (-1 != fd) {
17787     unlink(name);
17788     struct stat statbuf;
17789     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
17790       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
17791     }
17792     close(fd);
17793   }
17794   return retval;
17795 }
17796
17797 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
17798 int test_umask(void) {
17799   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
17800
17801   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
17802   mode_t newmode;
17803   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
17804     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
17805            newmode);
17806   }
17807   umask(007);
17808   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
17809     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
17810            newmode);
17811   }
17812
17813   umask (orig_umask);
17814   return 0;
17815 }
17816
17817 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
17818   [...]
17819   test_umask();
17820   return 0;
17821 }
17822 </pre>
17823
17824 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
17825
17826 <pre>
17827 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
17828 info: testing symlink creation
17829 info: testing subdirectory creation
17830 info: testing fcntl locking
17831   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17832   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17833   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
17834   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17835   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17836   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
17837 info: testing umask effect on file creation
17838 </pre>
17839
17840 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
17841 result:</p>
17842
17843 <pre>
17844 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
17845 info: testing symlink creation
17846 info: testing subdirectory creation
17847 info: testing fcntl locking
17848   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17849   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17850   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
17851   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17852   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17853   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
17854 info: testing umask effect on file creation
17855   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
17856   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
17857 </pre>
17858
17859 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
17860 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
17861 directory.</p>
17862
17863 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
17864 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
17865
17866 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
17867 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
17868 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
17869
17870       </div>
17871       <div class="tags">
17872
17873
17874         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
17875
17876
17877       </div>
17878     </div>
17879     <div class="padding"></div>
17880
17881     <div class="entry">
17882       <div class="title">
17883         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
17884       </div>
17885       <div class="date">
17886         15th August 2010
17887       </div>
17888       <div class="body">
17889         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
17890 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
17891 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
17892 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
17893 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
17894 long time.</p>
17895
17896       </div>
17897       <div class="tags">
17898
17899
17900         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
17901
17902
17903       </div>
17904     </div>
17905     <div class="padding"></div>
17906
17907     <div class="entry">
17908       <div class="title">
17909         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
17910       </div>
17911       <div class="date">
17912          9th August 2010
17913       </div>
17914       <div class="body">
17915         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
17916 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
17917 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
17918 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
17919 generated configuration.</p>
17920
17921 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
17922 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
17923 without any manual configuration.</p>
17924
17925 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
17926 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
17927 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
17928 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
17929 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
17930 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
17931 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
17932 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
17933 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
17934 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
17935 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
17936 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
17937 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
17938 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
17939 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
17940 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
17941 use.</p>
17942
17943 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
17944 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
17945 working properly out of the box:</p>
17946
17947 <ul>
17948 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
17949 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
17950 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
17951 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
17952 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
17953 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
17954 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
17955 </ul>
17956
17957 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
17958
17959 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
17960 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
17961 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
17962 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
17963 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
17964
17965 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
17966 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
17967 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
17968 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
17969 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
17970 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
17971 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
17972 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
17973
17974 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
17975 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
17976 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
17977 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
17978 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
17979 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
17980 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
17981 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
17982 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
17983 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
17984 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
17985 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
17986 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
17987 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
17988 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
17989 current DNS domain is used.</p>
17990
17991 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
17992 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
17993 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
17994 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
17995 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
17996 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
17997 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
17998 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
17999 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
18000 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
18001 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
18002 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
18003 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
18004
18005 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
18006 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
18007 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
18008 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
18009 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
18010 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
18011 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
18012 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
18013 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
18014 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
18015 do for now. :)</p>
18016
18017 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
18018 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
18019 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
18020 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
18021 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
18022 yet.</p>
18023
18024 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
18025 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18026
18027 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
18028 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
18029 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
18030 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
18031
18032       </div>
18033       <div class="tags">
18034
18035
18036         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
18037
18038
18039       </div>
18040     </div>
18041     <div class="padding"></div>
18042
18043     <div class="entry">
18044       <div class="title">
18045         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">Testing if a file system can be used for home directories...</a>
18046       </div>
18047       <div class="date">
18048          8th August 2010
18049       </div>
18050       <div class="body">
18051         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
18052 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
18053 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
18054 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
18055 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
18056 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
18057 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
18058
18059 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
18060 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
18061 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
18062 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
18063 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
18064 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
18065 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
18066
18067 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
18068 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
18069 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
18070 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
18071 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
18072
18073 <pre>
18074 /*
18075  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
18076  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
18077  * directory.
18078  * License: GPL v2 or later
18079  *
18080  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
18081  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
18082 */
18083
18084 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
18085 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
18086 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
18087
18088 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
18089
18090 #include &lt;errno.h>
18091 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
18092 #include &lt;stdio.h>
18093 #include &lt;string.h>
18094 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
18095 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
18096 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
18097 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
18098 #include &lt;unistd.h>
18099
18100 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
18101 /*
18102  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
18103  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
18104  * below.
18105  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
18106  */
18107 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
18108 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
18109   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
18110 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
18111   char *zErrMsg;
18112   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
18113   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
18114   unlink(name);
18115   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
18116   if( rc ){
18117     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
18118     sqlite3_close(db);
18119     return -1;
18120   }
18121
18122   /* create tables */
18123   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
18124   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
18125     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
18126     sqlite3_close(db);
18127     return -1;
18128   }
18129   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
18130   sqlite3_close(db);
18131   return 0;
18132 }
18133 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
18134
18135 /*
18136  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
18137  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
18138  * done in the sqlite3 library.
18139  * See also
18140  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
18141  * POSIX specification
18142  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
18143  */
18144 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
18145   struct flock fl;
18146   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
18147   unlink(name);
18148   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
18149   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
18150
18151   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
18152   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
18153   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
18154   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
18155   fl.l_len    = 1;
18156   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
18157   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
18158
18159   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
18160   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
18161   fl.l_len    = 510;
18162   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
18163   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
18164
18165   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
18166   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
18167   fl.l_len    = 1;
18168   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
18169   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
18170
18171   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
18172   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
18173   fl.l_len    = 1;
18174   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
18175   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
18176
18177   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
18178   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
18179   fl.l_len    = 510;
18180   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
18181
18182   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
18183   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
18184   fl.l_len    = 2;
18185   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
18186   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
18187
18188   close(fd);
18189   return 0;
18190 }
18191
18192 /*
18193  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
18194  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
18195  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
18196  * slowing down file operations.
18197  */
18198 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
18199 #define LEVELS 5
18200   char *path = strdup("test");
18201   char *dirs[LEVELS];
18202   int level;
18203   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
18204   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
18205     char *newpath = NULL;
18206     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
18207       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
18208              path, strerror(errno));
18209       break;
18210     }
18211     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
18212     free(path);
18213     path = newpath;
18214   }
18215   return 0;
18216 }
18217
18218 /*
18219  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
18220  * KDE.
18221  */
18222 int test_symlinks(void) {
18223   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
18224   unlink("symlink");
18225   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
18226     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
18227   return 0;
18228 }
18229
18230 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
18231   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
18232   test_symlinks();
18233   test_subdirectory_creation();
18234 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
18235   test_sqlite_open();
18236 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
18237   test_gcompris_locking();
18238   return 0;
18239 }
18240 </pre>
18241
18242 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
18243 this:</p>
18244
18245 <pre>
18246 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
18247 info: testing symlink creation
18248 info: testing subdirectory creation
18249 info: sqlite worked
18250 info: testing fcntl locking
18251   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
18252   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
18253   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
18254   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
18255   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
18256   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
18257 </pre>
18258
18259 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
18260 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
18261 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
18262 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
18263 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
18264 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
18265 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
18266 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
18267
18268 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
18269 it. :)</p>
18270
18271 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
18272 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
18273 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
18274
18275       </div>
18276       <div class="tags">
18277
18278
18279         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
18280
18281
18282       </div>
18283     </div>
18284     <div class="padding"></div>
18285
18286     <div class="entry">
18287       <div class="title">
18288         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Autodetecting_Client_setup_for_roaming_workstations_in_Debian_Edu.html">Autodetecting Client setup for roaming workstations in Debian Edu</a>
18289       </div>
18290       <div class="date">
18291          7th August 2010
18292       </div>
18293       <div class="body">
18294         <p>A few days ago, I
18295 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
18296 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
18297 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
18298 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
18299 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
18300 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
18301 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
18302 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
18303 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
18304
18305 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
18306 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
18307 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
18308 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
18309 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
18310 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
18311 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
18312 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
18313 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
18314 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
18315 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
18316 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
18317 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
18318 gave it a IP address.</p>
18319
18320 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
18321 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
18322 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
18323 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
18324 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
18325 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
18326 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
18327 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
18328
18329 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
18330 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
18331 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
18332 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
18333 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
18334 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
18335
18336 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
18337 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
18338 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
18339 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
18340 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
18341 with UID and GID values.</p>
18342
18343 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
18344 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18345
18346       </div>
18347       <div class="tags">
18348
18349
18350         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
18351
18352
18353       </div>
18354     </div>
18355     <div class="padding"></div>
18356
18357     <div class="entry">
18358       <div class="title">
18359         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">Debian Edu roaming workstation - at the university of Oslo</a>
18360       </div>
18361       <div class="date">
18362          3rd August 2010
18363       </div>
18364       <div class="body">
18365         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
18366 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
18367 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
18368 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
18369 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
18370 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
18371 servers.</p>
18372
18373 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
18374 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
18375 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
18376 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
18377 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
18378 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
18379 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
18380 .uio.no.</p>
18381
18382 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
18383 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
18384 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
18385 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
18386 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
18387 university servers.</p>
18388
18389 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
18390 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
18391 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
18392 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
18393 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
18394 uses.</p>
18395
18396       </div>
18397       <div class="tags">
18398
18399
18400         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
18401
18402
18403       </div>
18404     </div>
18405     <div class="padding"></div>
18406
18407     <div class="entry">
18408       <div class="title">
18409         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
18410       </div>
18411       <div class="date">
18412         27th July 2010
18413       </div>
18414       <div class="body">
18415         <p>I discovered this while doing
18416 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
18417 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
18418 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
18419 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
18420 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
18421
18422 <p>An example is from todays
18423 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
18424 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
18425 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
18426 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
18427 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
18428 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
18429 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
18430
18431 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
18432
18433 <blockquote><pre>
18434 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
18435  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
18436   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
18437 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
18438  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
18439 </pre></blockquote>
18440
18441 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
18442 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
18443 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
18444 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
18445 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
18446 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
18447 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
18448 of dependency loops.</p>
18449
18450 <p>Thanks to
18451 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
18452 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
18453 dependencies
18454 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
18455 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
18456
18457 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
18458 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
18459 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
18460 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
18461 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
18462 it.</p>
18463
18464       </div>
18465       <div class="tags">
18466
18467
18468         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
18469
18470
18471       </div>
18472     </div>
18473     <div class="padding"></div>
18474
18475     <div class="entry">
18476       <div class="title">
18477         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu_test_release__alpha0__based_on_Squeeze_is_released.html">First Debian Edu test release (alpha0) based on Squeeze is released</a>
18478       </div>
18479       <div class="date">
18480         27th July 2010
18481       </div>
18482       <div class="body">
18483         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
18484 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
18485 completed.</p>
18486
18487 <blockquote>
18488 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
18489 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
18490 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
18491 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
18492 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
18493 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
18494 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
18495 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
18496
18497 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
18498 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
18499 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
18500
18501 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
18502 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
18503 much.</p>
18504
18505 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
18506
18507 <ul>
18508 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
18509 <ul>
18510   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
18511          combination with some new artwork
18512   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
18513   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
18514   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
18515   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
18516   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
18517   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
18518   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
18519   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
18520   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
18521 </ul></li>
18522 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
18523     Enabled for:
18524 <ul>
18525   <li>PAM
18526   <li>LDAP
18527   <li>IMAP
18528   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
18529 </ul>
18530 </li>
18531 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
18532 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
18533     fetched from LDAP.</li>
18534 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
18535 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
18536 </ul>
18537 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
18538
18539 <ul>
18540 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
18541     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
18542     for testing.</li>
18543 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
18544     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
18545     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
18546 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
18547 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
18548 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
18549 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
18550     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
18551 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
18552     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
18553     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
18554 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
18555     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
18556     and help out with translations.</li>
18557 </ul>
18558
18559 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
18560
18561 <ul>
18562 <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>
18563 <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>
18564 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
18565 </ul>
18566 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
18567
18568 <ul>
18569 <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>
18570 <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>
18571 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
18572 </ul>
18573
18574 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
18575 get closer to the final release.</p>
18576
18577 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
18578
18579 <ul>
18580 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
18581 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
18582 </ul>
18583
18584 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
18585 <ul>
18586 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
18587 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
18588 </ul>
18589 <p>How to report bugs:
18590 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
18591
18592 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
18593 </blockquote>
18594
18595       </div>
18596       <div class="tags">
18597
18598
18599         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
18600
18601
18602       </div>
18603     </div>
18604     <div class="padding"></div>
18605
18606     <div class="entry">
18607       <div class="title">
18608         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_step_closer_to_single_signon_in_Debian_Edu.html">One step closer to single signon in Debian Edu</a>
18609       </div>
18610       <div class="date">
18611         25th July 2010
18612       </div>
18613       <div class="body">
18614         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
18615 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
18616 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
18617 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
18618 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
18619
18620 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
18621 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
18622 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
18623 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
18624 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
18625 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
18626 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
18627
18628 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
18629 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
18630 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
18631 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
18632 up. :)</p>
18633
18634 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
18635 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
18636 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
18637
18638 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
18639 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
18640 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
18641 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
18642 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
18643 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
18644 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
18645 release another day.</p>
18646
18647 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
18648 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18649
18650       </div>
18651       <div class="tags">
18652
18653
18654         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
18655
18656
18657       </div>
18658     </div>
18659     <div class="padding"></div>
18660
18661     <div class="entry">
18662       <div class="title">
18663         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenStreetmap_one_step_closer_to_having_routing_on_its_front_page.html">OpenStreetmap one step closer to having routing on its front page</a>
18664       </div>
18665       <div class="date">
18666         18th July 2010
18667       </div>
18668       <div class="body">
18669         <p>Thanks to
18670 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
18671 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
18672 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
18673 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
18674 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
18675 only available from the development server, until more experience is
18676 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
18677
18678 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
18679 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
18680 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
18681 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
18682 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
18683 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
18684 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
18685
18686       </div>
18687       <div class="tags">
18688
18689
18690         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
18691
18692
18693       </div>
18694     </div>
18695     <div class="padding"></div>
18696
18697     <div class="entry">
18698       <div class="title">
18699         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
18700       </div>
18701       <div class="date">
18702         17th July 2010
18703       </div>
18704       <div class="body">
18705         <p>This is a
18706 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
18707 on my
18708 <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
18709 work</a> on
18710 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
18711 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
18712
18713 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
18714 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
18715 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
18716 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
18717
18718 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
18719 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
18720 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
18721
18722 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
18723
18724 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
18725 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
18726 the web.
18727
18728 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
18729 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
18730 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
18731 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
18732 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
18733 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
18734
18735 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
18736 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
18737 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
18738 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
18739 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
18740 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
18741 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
18742 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
18743 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
18744 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
18745 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
18746 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
18747 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
18748 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
18749 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
18750 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
18751
18752 <blockquote><pre>
18753 ldapsearch -h ldap \
18754   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
18755   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
18756   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
18757   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
18758   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
18759   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
18760
18761 ldapsearch -h ldap \
18762   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
18763   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
18764   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
18765   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
18766   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
18767 </pre></blockquote>
18768
18769 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
18770 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
18771 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
18772 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18773 also exist.</p>
18774
18775 <blockquote><pre>
18776 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18777 objectclass: top
18778 objectclass: dnsdomain
18779 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
18780 dc: tjener
18781 arecord: 10.0.2.2
18782 associateddomain: tjener.intern
18783
18784 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18785 objectclass: top
18786 objectclass: dnsdomain2
18787 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
18788 dc: 2
18789 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
18790 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
18791 </pre></blockquote>
18792
18793 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
18794 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
18795 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
18796 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
18797 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
18798 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
18799 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
18800 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
18801 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
18802 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
18803 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
18804 instead.</p>
18805
18806 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
18807 like this:</p>
18808
18809 <blockquote><pre>
18810 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
18811   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
18812   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
18813   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
18814   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
18815   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
18816
18817 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
18818   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
18819 </pre></blockquote>
18820
18821 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
18822 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
18823 reverse lookups.</p>
18824
18825 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
18826 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
18827 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
18828 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
18829
18830 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
18831 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
18832 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
18833
18834 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
18835 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
18836 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
18837 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
18838 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
18839
18840 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
18841 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
18842 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
18843 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
18844 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
18845
18846 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
18847 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
18848 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
18849 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
18850 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
18851 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
18852
18853 <blockquote><pre>
18854 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
18855     SUP top
18856     AUXILIARY
18857     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
18858           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
18859           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
18860           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
18861           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
18862     ))
18863 </pre></blockquote>
18864
18865 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
18866 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
18867 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
18868 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
18869 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
18870 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
18871
18872 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
18873
18874 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
18875 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
18876 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
18877 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
18878 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
18879
18880 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
18881 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
18882 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
18883 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
18884
18885 <blockquote><pre>
18886 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
18887 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
18888 </pre></blockquote>
18889
18890 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
18891 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
18892 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
18893 search result is this entry:</p>
18894
18895 <blockquote><pre>
18896 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18897 cn: dhcp
18898 objectClass: top
18899 objectClass: dhcpServer
18900 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18901 </pre></blockquote>
18902
18903 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
18904 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
18905 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
18906 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
18907 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
18908 The search result is this entry:</p>
18909
18910 <blockquote><pre>
18911 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18912 cn: DHCP Config
18913 objectClass: top
18914 objectClass: dhcpService
18915 objectClass: dhcpOptions
18916 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18917 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
18918 dhcpStatements: authoritative
18919 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
18920 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
18921 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
18922 </pre></blockquote>
18923
18924 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
18925 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
18926 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
18927 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
18928 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
18929 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
18930 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
18931 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
18932 related computer objects.</p>
18933
18934 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
18935 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
18936 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
18937 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
18938 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
18939 like:</p>
18940
18941 <blockquote><pre>
18942 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18943 cn: hostname
18944 objectClass: top
18945 objectClass: dhcpHost
18946 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
18947 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
18948 </pre></blockquote>
18949
18950 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
18951 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
18952 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
18953 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
18954 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
18955 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
18956 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
18957 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
18958 structural object class.
18959
18960 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
18961
18962 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
18963 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
18964 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
18965 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
18966 in the configuration.</p>
18967
18968 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
18969 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
18970 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
18971 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
18972 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
18973 structure.</p>
18974
18975 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
18976 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
18977
18978 <blockquote><pre>
18979 ou=services
18980   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
18981     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
18982     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
18983       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
18984         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
18985     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
18986       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
18987         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
18988     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
18989       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
18990 </pre></blockquote>
18991
18992 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
18993 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
18994 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
18995 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
18996
18997 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
18998 like this:</p>
18999
19000 <blockquote><pre>
19001 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
19002 dc: hostname
19003 objectClass: top
19004 objectClass: dhcpHost
19005 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
19006 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
19007 associateddomain: hostname.intern
19008 arecord: 10.11.12.13
19009 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
19010 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
19011 </pre></blockquote>
19012
19013 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
19014 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
19015 auxiliary object class.</p>
19016
19017       </div>
19018       <div class="tags">
19019
19020
19021         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19022
19023
19024       </div>
19025     </div>
19026     <div class="padding"></div>
19027
19028     <div class="entry">
19029       <div class="title">
19030         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
19031       </div>
19032       <div class="date">
19033         14th July 2010
19034       </div>
19035       <div class="body">
19036         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
19037 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
19038 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
19039 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
19040 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
19041
19042 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
19043 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
19044
19045 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
19046 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
19047 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
19048 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
19049 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
19050 to a slave DNS server.</p>
19051
19052 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
19053 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
19054 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
19055 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
19056 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
19057 seem to work.</p>
19058
19059 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
19060 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
19061 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
19062 this:</p>
19063
19064 <blockquote><pre>
19065   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
19066   cn: hostname
19067   objectClass: dhcphost
19068   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
19069   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
19070   associateddomain: hostname.intern
19071   arecord: 10.11.12.13
19072   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
19073   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
19074   ldapconfigsound: Y
19075 </pre></blockquote>
19076
19077 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
19078 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
19079 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
19080 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
19081
19082 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
19083 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
19084 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
19085 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
19086 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
19087 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
19088 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
19089 might be a good place to put it.</p>
19090
19091 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
19092 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
19093
19094       </div>
19095       <div class="tags">
19096
19097
19098         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19099
19100
19101       </div>
19102     </div>
19103     <div class="padding"></div>
19104
19105     <div class="entry">
19106       <div class="title">
19107         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
19108       </div>
19109       <div class="date">
19110         11th July 2010
19111       </div>
19112       <div class="body">
19113         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
19114 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
19115 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
19116 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
19117
19118 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
19119 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
19120 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
19121 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
19122 LTSP clients.</p>
19123
19124 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
19125 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
19126 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
19127
19128 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
19129 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
19130 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
19131
19132 <blockquote><pre>
19133 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
19134 #
19135 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
19136 #
19137 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
19138 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
19139 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
19140 #
19141 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
19142 # existence of attribute names.
19143 #
19144 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
19145 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
19146 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
19147 #
19148 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
19149 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
19150 #
19151 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
19152 #     SUP top
19153 #     AUXILIARY
19154 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
19155
19156 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
19157 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
19158     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
19159     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
19160         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
19161         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
19162             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
19163             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
19164             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
19165             # bass value on to clients
19166             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
19167         done
19168     done
19169 fi
19170 </pre></blockquote>
19171
19172 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
19173 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
19174 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
19175 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
19176 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
19177
19178 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
19179 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
19180
19181 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
19182 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
19183 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
19184 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
19185 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
19186 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
19187
19188       </div>
19189       <div class="tags">
19190
19191
19192         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19193
19194
19195       </div>
19196     </div>
19197     <div class="padding"></div>
19198
19199     <div class="entry">
19200       <div class="title">
19201         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
19202       </div>
19203       <div class="date">
19204          9th July 2010
19205       </div>
19206       <div class="body">
19207         <p>Since
19208 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
19209 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
19210 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
19211 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
19212 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
19213 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
19214 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
19215 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
19216 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
19217 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
19218 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
19219 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
19220 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
19221
19222       </div>
19223       <div class="tags">
19224
19225
19226         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19227
19228
19229       </div>
19230     </div>
19231     <div class="padding"></div>
19232
19233     <div class="entry">
19234       <div class="title">
19235         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</a>
19236       </div>
19237       <div class="date">
19238          3rd July 2010
19239       </div>
19240       <div class="body">
19241         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
19242 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
19243 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
19244 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
19245 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
19246 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
19247 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
19248 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
19249
19250 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
19251 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
19252 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
19253 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
19254 publish the difference.</p>
19255
19256 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
19257
19258 <blockquote><p>
19259   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
19260   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
19261   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
19262   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
19263   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
19264   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
19265   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
19266   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
19267 </p></blockquote>
19268
19269 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
19270
19271 <blockquote><p>
19272   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
19273   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
19274   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
19275   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
19276   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
19277   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
19278   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
19279   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
19280   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
19281   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
19282   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
19283   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
19284   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
19285   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
19286   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
19287   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
19288   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
19289   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
19290   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
19291   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
19292 </p></blockquote>
19293
19294 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
19295
19296 <blockquote><p>
19297   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
19298   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
19299   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
19300   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
19301   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
19302   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
19303   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
19304   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
19305   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
19306   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
19307   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
19308   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
19309   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
19310   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
19311   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
19312   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
19313   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
19314   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
19315   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
19316   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
19317   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
19318 </p></blockquote>
19319
19320 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
19321
19322 <blockquote><p>
19323   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
19324   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
19325   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
19326 </p></blockquote>
19327
19328 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
19329 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
19330 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
19331 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
19332 the difference somewhat.
19333
19334       </div>
19335       <div class="tags">
19336
19337
19338         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
19339
19340
19341       </div>
19342     </div>
19343     <div class="padding"></div>
19344
19345     <div class="entry">
19346       <div class="title">
19347         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Caching_password__user_and_group_on_a_roaming_Debian_laptop.html">Caching password, user and group on a roaming Debian laptop</a>
19348       </div>
19349       <div class="date">
19350          1st July 2010
19351       </div>
19352       <div class="body">
19353         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
19354 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
19355 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
19356 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
19357 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
19358 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
19359 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
19360 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
19361 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
19362
19363 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
19364
19365 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
19366 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
19367 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
19368 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
19369 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
19370 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
19371 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
19372 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
19373 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
19374 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
19375 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
19376 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
19377 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
19378 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
19379 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
19380
19381 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
19382
19383 <blockquote><pre>
19384 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
19385 </pre></blockquote>
19386
19387 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
19388 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
19389 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
19390 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
19391 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
19392 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
19393 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
19394 on how to get this working.</p>
19395
19396 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
19397 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
19398 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
19399 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
19400 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
19401 instructions I found in the
19402 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
19403 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
19404
19405 <blockquote><pre>
19406         debug-level             0
19407         reload-count            unlimited
19408         paranoia                no
19409
19410         enable-cache            passwd          yes
19411         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
19412         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
19413         suggested-size          passwd          211
19414         check-files             passwd          yes
19415         persistent              passwd          yes
19416         shared                  passwd          yes
19417         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
19418         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
19419
19420         enable-cache            group           yes
19421         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
19422         negative-time-to-live   group           20
19423         suggested-size          group           211
19424         check-files             group           yes
19425         persistent              group           yes
19426         shared                  group           yes
19427         max-db-size             group           33554432
19428         auto-propagate          group           yes
19429
19430         enable-cache            hosts           no
19431         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
19432         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
19433         suggested-size          hosts           211
19434         check-files             hosts           yes
19435         persistent              hosts           yes
19436         shared                  hosts           yes
19437         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
19438
19439         enable-cache            services        yes
19440         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
19441         negative-time-to-live   services        20
19442         suggested-size          services        211
19443         check-files             services        yes
19444         persistent              services        yes
19445         shared                  services        yes
19446         max-db-size             services        33554432
19447 </pre></blockquote>
19448
19449 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
19450 automatically like the one provided in
19451 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
19452 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
19453 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
19454 look like this:</p>
19455
19456 <blockquote><pre>
19457 passwd:         files ldap
19458 group:          files ldap
19459 shadow:         files ldap
19460 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
19461 networks:       files
19462 protocols:      files
19463 services:       files
19464 ethers:         files
19465 rpc:            files
19466 netgroup:       files ldap
19467 </pre></blockquote>
19468
19469 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
19470 shadow and netgroup.</p>
19471
19472 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
19473 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
19474 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
19475 attributes cached.
19476
19477 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
19478   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
19479
19480 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
19481 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
19482 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
19483 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
19484 discovered sssd.</p>
19485
19486 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
19487
19488 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
19489 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
19490 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
19491 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
19492 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
19493 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
19494 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
19495 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
19496 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
19497 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
19498 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
19499 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
19500 version 1.2 is now in testing.
19501
19502 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
19503 roaming setup I want</p>
19504
19505 <blockquote><pre>
19506 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
19507 </pre></blockquote>
19508
19509 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
19510 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
19511
19512 <blockquote><pre>
19513 [sssd]
19514 config_file_version = 2
19515 reconnection_retries = 3
19516 sbus_timeout = 30
19517 services = nss, pam
19518 domains = INTERN
19519
19520 [nss]
19521 filter_groups = root
19522 filter_users = root
19523 reconnection_retries = 3
19524
19525 [pam]
19526 reconnection_retries = 3
19527
19528 [domain/INTERN]
19529 enumerate = false
19530 cache_credentials = true
19531
19532 id_provider = ldap
19533 auth_provider = ldap
19534 chpass_provider = ldap
19535
19536 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
19537 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
19538 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
19539 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
19540 </pre></blockquote>
19541
19542 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
19543 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
19544
19545 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
19546 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
19547 modify it manually.</p>
19548
19549 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
19550 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
19551
19552       </div>
19553       <div class="tags">
19554
19555
19556         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19557
19558
19559       </div>
19560     </div>
19561     <div class="padding"></div>
19562
19563     <div class="entry">
19564       <div class="title">
19565         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
19566       </div>
19567       <div class="date">
19568         28th June 2010
19569       </div>
19570       <div class="body">
19571         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
19572 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
19573 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
19574 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
19575 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
19576 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
19577 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
19578 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
19579 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
19580 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
19581
19582 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
19583 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
19584 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
19585 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
19586 released.</p>
19587
19588 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
19589 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
19590 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
19591 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
19592
19593 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
19594 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
19595
19596 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
19597 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
19598 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
19599 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
19600 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
19601
19602       </div>
19603       <div class="tags">
19604
19605
19606         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19607
19608
19609       </div>
19610     </div>
19611     <div class="padding"></div>
19612
19613     <div class="entry">
19614       <div class="title">
19615         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</a>
19616       </div>
19617       <div class="date">
19618         24th June 2010
19619       </div>
19620       <div class="body">
19621         <p>A while back, I
19622 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
19623 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
19624 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
19625 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
19626
19627 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
19628 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
19629 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
19630 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
19631
19632 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
19633 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
19634 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
19635 Debian Edu.</p>
19636
19637 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
19638 the
19639 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
19640 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
19641 available today from IETF.</p>
19642
19643 <pre>
19644 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
19645 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
19646 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
19647  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
19648         NAME 'dhcpHost'
19649         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
19650 -       SUP top
19651 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
19652         MUST cn
19653         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
19654         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
19655 </pre>
19656
19657 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
19658 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
19659 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
19660
19661 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
19662 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
19663
19664       </div>
19665       <div class="tags">
19666
19667
19668         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19669
19670
19671       </div>
19672     </div>
19673     <div class="padding"></div>
19674
19675     <div class="entry">
19676       <div class="title">
19677         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
19678       </div>
19679       <div class="date">
19680         16th June 2010
19681       </div>
19682       <div class="body">
19683         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
19684 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
19685 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
19686 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
19687 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
19688 this:
19689
19690 <blockquote><pre>
19691 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
19692 tasksel --new-install
19693 </pre></blockquote>
19694
19695 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
19696 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
19697 any output what so ever.
19698
19699 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
19700 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
19701 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
19702 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
19703 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
19704 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
19705 code like this:
19706
19707 <blockquote><pre>
19708 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
19709 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
19710 $cmd
19711 </pre></blockquote>
19712
19713 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
19714 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
19715 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
19716 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
19717 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
19718 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
19719 installation.</p>
19720
19721 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
19722 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
19723 like this.</p>
19724
19725       </div>
19726       <div class="tags">
19727
19728
19729         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19730
19731
19732       </div>
19733     </div>
19734     <div class="padding"></div>
19735
19736     <div class="entry">
19737       <div class="title">
19738         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
19739       </div>
19740       <div class="date">
19741         13th June 2010
19742       </div>
19743       <div class="body">
19744         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
19745 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
19746 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
19747 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
19748 pages.</p>
19749
19750 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
19751 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
19752 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
19753 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
19754 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
19755 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
19756 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
19757 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
19758 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
19759 see how the project is doing.</p>
19760
19761 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
19762 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
19763 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
19764 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
19765 Windows.  This is great.</p>
19766
19767       </div>
19768       <div class="tags">
19769
19770
19771         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
19772
19773
19774       </div>
19775     </div>
19776     <div class="padding"></div>
19777
19778     <div class="entry">
19779       <div class="title">
19780         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
19781       </div>
19782       <div class="date">
19783         13th June 2010
19784       </div>
19785       <div class="body">
19786         <p>My
19787 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
19788 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
19789 finally made the upgrade logs available from
19790 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
19791 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
19792 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
19793 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
19794
19795 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
19796 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
19797 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
19798 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
19799 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
19800 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
19801 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
19802 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
19803
19804 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
19805 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
19806 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
19807 too surprising.</p>
19808
19809 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
19810 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
19811 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
19812 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
19813 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
19814 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
19815 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
19816 continue.</p>
19817
19818 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
19819 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
19820   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
19821   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
19822   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
19823   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
19824   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
19825   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
19826   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
19827   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
19828   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
19829   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
19830   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
19831   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
19832   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
19833   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
19834   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
19835   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
19836   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
19837   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
19838   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
19839   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
19840   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
19841   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
19842   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
19843   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
19844   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
19845   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
19846   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
19847   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
19848
19849 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
19850
19851 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
19852   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
19853   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
19854   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
19855   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
19856   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
19857   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
19858   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
19859   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
19860   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
19861   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
19862   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
19863   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
19864   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
19865   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
19866   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
19867   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
19868   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
19869   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
19870   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
19871   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
19872   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
19873   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
19874   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
19875   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
19876   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
19877   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
19878   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
19879   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
19880   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
19881   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
19882   zip</p>
19883
19884 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
19885
19886 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
19887   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
19888   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
19889   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
19890   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
19891   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
19892   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
19893   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
19894   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
19895   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
19896   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
19897   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
19898   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
19899   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
19900   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
19901   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
19902   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
19903   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
19904   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
19905   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
19906   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
19907   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
19908   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
19909   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
19910   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
19911   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
19912   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
19913   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
19914
19915 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
19916 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
19917   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
19918   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
19919   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
19920   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
19921   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
19922   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
19923   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
19924   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
19925   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
19926   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
19927   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
19928   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
19929   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
19930   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
19931   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
19932   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
19933   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
19934   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
19935   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
19936   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
19937   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
19938   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
19939   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
19940   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
19941   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
19942   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
19943   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
19944   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
19945   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
19946   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
19947   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
19948   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
19949   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
19950   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
19951   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
19952   xulrunner-1.9</p>
19953
19954
19955       </div>
19956       <div class="tags">
19957
19958
19959         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
19960
19961
19962       </div>
19963     </div>
19964     <div class="padding"></div>
19965
19966     <div class="entry">
19967       <div class="title">
19968         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
19969       </div>
19970       <div class="date">
19971         11th June 2010
19972       </div>
19973       <div class="body">
19974         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
19975 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
19976 have been discovered and reported in the process
19977 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
19978 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
19979 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
19980 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
19981 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
19982
19983 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
19984 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
19985 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
19986 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
19987 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
19988 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
19989
19990 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
19991 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
19992 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
19993 is created.  The bug report
19994 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
19995 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
19996 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
19997 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
19998 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
19999 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
20000 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
20001 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
20002 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
20003 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
20004 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
20005 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
20006 Debian Squeeze.</p>
20007
20008 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
20009 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
20010 trick:</p>
20011
20012 <blockquote><pre>
20013 #!/bin/sh
20014 set -ex
20015
20016 if [ "$1" ] ; then
20017     desktop=$1
20018 else
20019     desktop=gnome
20020 fi
20021
20022 from=lenny
20023 to=squeeze
20024
20025 exec &lt; /dev/null
20026 unset LANG
20027 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
20028 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
20029 fuser -mv .
20030 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
20031 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
20032 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
20033 #!/bin/sh
20034 exit 101
20035 EOF
20036 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
20037 exit_cleanup() {
20038     umount $tmpdir/proc
20039 }
20040 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
20041 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
20042 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
20043
20044 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
20045
20046 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
20047 # to return the correct answers.
20048 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
20049     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
20050
20051 # Include the desktop and laptop task
20052 for test in desktop laptop ; do
20053     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
20054 #!/bin/sh
20055 exit 2
20056 EOF
20057     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
20058 done
20059
20060 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
20061 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
20062 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
20063 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
20064
20065 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
20066 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
20067 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
20068 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
20069 fuser -mv
20070 </pre></blockquote>
20071
20072 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
20073 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
20074 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
20075 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
20076 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
20077 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
20078
20079 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
20080 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
20081 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
20082 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
20083 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
20084 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
20085 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
20086
20087 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
20088 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
20089 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
20090 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
20091 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
20092 packages.</p>
20093
20094       </div>
20095       <div class="tags">
20096
20097
20098         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
20099
20100
20101       </div>
20102     </div>
20103     <div class="padding"></div>
20104
20105     <div class="entry">
20106       <div class="title">
20107         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a>
20108       </div>
20109       <div class="date">
20110          6th June 2010
20111       </div>
20112       <div class="body">
20113         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
20114 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
20115 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
20116 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
20117 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
20118 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
20119 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
20120
20121 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
20122 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
20123 COLUMNS):</p>
20124
20125 <blockquote><pre>
20126 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
20127 previous=N
20128 PREVLEVEL=
20129 RUNLEVEL=
20130 runlevel=S
20131 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
20132 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
20133 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
20134 </pre></blockquote>
20135
20136 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
20137 script.</p>
20138
20139 <blockquote><pre>
20140 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
20141 previous=N
20142 PREVLEVEL=N
20143 RUNLEVEL=S
20144 runlevel=S
20145 </pre></blockquote>
20146
20147 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
20148 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
20149 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
20150
20151 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
20152 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
20153 choice.</p>
20154
20155       </div>
20156       <div class="tags">
20157
20158
20159         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
20160
20161
20162       </div>
20163     </div>
20164     <div class="padding"></div>
20165
20166     <div class="entry">
20167       <div class="title">
20168         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
20169       </div>
20170       <div class="date">
20171          6th June 2010
20172       </div>
20173       <div class="body">
20174         <p>Via the
20175 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
20176 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
20177 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
20178 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
20179 following the standards wars of today.</p>
20180
20181       </div>
20182       <div class="tags">
20183
20184
20185         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
20186
20187
20188       </div>
20189     </div>
20190     <div class="padding"></div>
20191
20192     <div class="entry">
20193       <div class="title">
20194         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a>
20195       </div>
20196       <div class="date">
20197          3rd June 2010
20198       </div>
20199       <div class="body">
20200         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
20201 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
20202 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
20203 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
20204 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
20205
20206 <blockquote><pre>
20207 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
20208   vendor                    count
20209   Dell Computer Corporation     1
20210     PowerEdge 1750              1
20211   IBM                           1
20212     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
20213   Intel                         2
20214   [no-dmi-info]                 3
20215 maintainer:~#
20216 </pre></blockquote>
20217
20218 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
20219 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
20220 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
20221 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
20222 option to list the individual machines.</p>
20223
20224 <p>A larger list is
20225 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
20226 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
20227 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
20228 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
20229 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
20230 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
20231 collector.</p>
20232
20233       </div>
20234       <div class="tags">
20235
20236
20237         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
20238
20239
20240       </div>
20241     </div>
20242     <div class="padding"></div>
20243
20244     <div class="entry">
20245       <div class="title">
20246         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</a>
20247       </div>
20248       <div class="date">
20249          1st June 2010
20250       </div>
20251       <div class="body">
20252         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
20253 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
20254 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
20255 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
20256 wait.</p>
20257
20258 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
20259 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
20260 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
20261 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
20262 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
20263 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
20264
20265 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
20266 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
20267 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
20268 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
20269 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
20270 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
20271 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
20272 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
20273
20274 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
20275
20276       </div>
20277       <div class="tags">
20278
20279
20280         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
20281
20282
20283       </div>
20284     </div>
20285     <div class="padding"></div>
20286
20287     <div class="entry">
20288       <div class="title">
20289         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
20290       </div>
20291       <div class="date">
20292         27th May 2010
20293       </div>
20294       <div class="body">
20295         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
20296 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
20297 issues are known and should be solved:
20298
20299 <p><ul>
20300
20301 <li>The wicd package seen to
20302 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
20303 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
20304 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
20305 seem to be on the case.</li>
20306
20307 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
20308 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
20309 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
20310 maintainer is on the case.</li>
20311
20312 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
20313 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
20314 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
20315 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
20316 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
20317 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
20318 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
20319 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
20320
20321 </ul></p>
20322
20323 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
20324 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
20325 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
20326 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
20327
20328 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
20329 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
20330 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
20331 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
20332
20333 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
20334
20335       </div>
20336       <div class="tags">
20337
20338
20339         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
20340
20341
20342       </div>
20343     </div>
20344     <div class="padding"></div>
20345
20346     <div class="entry">
20347       <div class="title">
20348         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
20349       </div>
20350       <div class="date">
20351         22nd May 2010
20352       </div>
20353       <div class="body">
20354         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
20355 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
20356 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
20357 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
20358
20359 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
20360 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
20361 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
20362 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
20363 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
20364 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
20365 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
20366 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
20367 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
20368 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
20369 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
20370 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
20371 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
20372 going to work.</p>
20373
20374 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
20375 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
20376 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
20377 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
20378 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
20379 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
20380 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
20381 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
20382 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
20383 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
20384 Edu.</p>
20385
20386 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
20387 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
20388 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
20389 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
20390 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
20391 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
20392
20393 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
20394 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
20395
20396       </div>
20397       <div class="tags">
20398
20399
20400         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
20401
20402
20403       </div>
20404     </div>
20405     <div class="padding"></div>
20406
20407     <div class="entry">
20408       <div class="title">
20409         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pieces_of_the_roaming_laptop_puzzle_in_Debian.html">Pieces of the roaming laptop puzzle in Debian</a>
20410       </div>
20411       <div class="date">
20412         19th May 2010
20413       </div>
20414       <div class="body">
20415         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
20416 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
20417 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
20418 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
20419 into unstable.  The
20420 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
20421 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
20422 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
20423 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
20424 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
20425 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
20426 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
20427
20428 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
20429 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
20430 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
20431 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
20432 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
20433 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
20434 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
20435 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
20436
20437 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
20438 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
20439 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
20440 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
20441 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
20442 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
20443 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
20444
20445 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
20446 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
20447 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
20448 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
20449 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
20450 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
20451 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
20452 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
20453 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
20454 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
20455 on the home directory servers.</p>
20456
20457 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
20458 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
20459 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
20460 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
20461 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
20462 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
20463
20464 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
20465 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
20466
20467       </div>
20468       <div class="tags">
20469
20470
20471         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20472
20473
20474       </div>
20475     </div>
20476     <div class="padding"></div>
20477
20478     <div class="entry">
20479       <div class="title">
20480         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html">Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</a>
20481       </div>
20482       <div class="date">
20483         14th May 2010
20484       </div>
20485       <div class="body">
20486         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
20487 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
20488 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
20489 expected, if I am to believe the
20490 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
20491 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
20492 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
20493 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
20494 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
20495 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
20496 version.</p>
20497
20498 More information about
20499 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
20500 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
20501 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
20502 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
20503
20504 <blockquote><pre>
20505 CONCURRENCY=none
20506 </pre></blockquote>
20507
20508 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
20509 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
20510 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
20511 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
20512
20513       </div>
20514       <div class="tags">
20515
20516
20517         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
20518
20519
20520       </div>
20521     </div>
20522     <div class="padding"></div>
20523
20524     <div class="entry">
20525       <div class="title">
20526         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
20527       </div>
20528       <div class="date">
20529         14th May 2010
20530       </div>
20531       <div class="body">
20532         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
20533 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
20534 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
20535 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
20536 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
20537 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
20538 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
20539 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
20540
20541 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
20542 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
20543 this on the collector host:</p>
20544
20545 <blockquote><pre>
20546 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
20547 </pre></blockquote>
20548
20549 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
20550 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
20551
20552 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
20553 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
20554 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
20555 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
20556 written yet.</p>
20557
20558       </div>
20559       <div class="tags">
20560
20561
20562         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
20563
20564
20565       </div>
20566     </div>
20567     <div class="padding"></div>
20568
20569     <div class="entry">
20570       <div class="title">
20571         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
20572       </div>
20573       <div class="date">
20574         13th May 2010
20575       </div>
20576       <div class="body">
20577         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
20578 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
20579 has been
20580 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
20581
20582 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
20583 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
20584 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
20585 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
20586 based boot system.  Tollef is
20587 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
20588 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
20589 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
20590 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
20591 at the moment do not.</p>
20592
20593 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
20594 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
20595 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
20596 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
20597 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
20598 way forward.</p>
20599
20600 <p>In the mean time, based on the
20601 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
20602 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
20603 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
20604 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
20605 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
20606 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
20607 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
20608 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
20609
20610       </div>
20611       <div class="tags">
20612
20613
20614         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20615
20616
20617       </div>
20618     </div>
20619     <div class="padding"></div>
20620
20621     <div class="entry">
20622       <div class="title">
20623         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</a>
20624       </div>
20625       <div class="date">
20626          6th May 2010
20627       </div>
20628       <div class="body">
20629         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
20630 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
20631 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
20632 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
20633 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
20634 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
20635 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
20636
20637 <blockquote><pre>
20638 CONCURRENCY=makefile
20639 </pre></blockquote>
20640
20641 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
20642 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
20643 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
20644 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
20645 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
20646 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
20647 make this happen.</p>
20648
20649 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
20650 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
20651 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
20652 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
20653 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
20654
20655 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
20656 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
20657 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
20658 fix the remaining issues.</p>
20659
20660 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
20661 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
20662 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
20663 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
20664
20665       </div>
20666       <div class="tags">
20667
20668
20669         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
20670
20671
20672       </div>
20673     </div>
20674     <div class="padding"></div>
20675
20676     <div class="entry">
20677       <div class="title">
20678         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Forcing_new_users_to_change_their_password_on_first_login.html">Forcing new users to change their password on first login</a>
20679       </div>
20680       <div class="date">
20681          2nd May 2010
20682       </div>
20683       <div class="body">
20684         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
20685 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
20686 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
20687
20688 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
20689 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
20690 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
20691 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
20692 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
20693
20694 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
20695 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
20696
20697 <blockquote><pre>
20698 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
20699 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
20700 Password expires                                        : never
20701 Password inactive                                       : never
20702 Account expires                                         : never
20703 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
20704 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
20705 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
20706 root@tjener:~#
20707 </pre></blockquote>
20708
20709 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
20710 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
20711 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
20712 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
20713 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
20714 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
20715
20716 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
20717 intended:</p>
20718
20719 <blockquote><pre>
20720 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
20721 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
20722 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
20723 Password expires                                        : never
20724 Password inactive                                       : never
20725 Account expires                                         : never
20726 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
20727 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
20728 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
20729 root@tjener:~#
20730 </pre></blockquote>
20731
20732 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
20733 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
20734 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
20735
20736 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
20737 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
20738
20739 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
20740 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
20741
20742 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
20743 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
20744 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
20745 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
20746 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
20747 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
20748 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
20749
20750 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
20751 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
20752 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
20753 change.</p>
20754
20755       </div>
20756       <div class="tags">
20757
20758
20759         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
20760
20761
20762       </div>
20763     </div>
20764     <div class="padding"></div>
20765
20766     <div class="entry">
20767       <div class="title">
20768         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thoughts_on_roaming_laptop_setup_for_Debian_Edu.html">Thoughts on roaming laptop setup for Debian Edu</a>
20769       </div>
20770       <div class="date">
20771         28th April 2010
20772       </div>
20773       <div class="body">
20774         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
20775 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
20776 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
20777 and go.</p>
20778
20779 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
20780 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
20781 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
20782 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
20783
20784 <ul>
20785
20786  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
20787    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
20788    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
20789    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
20790    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
20791    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
20792    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
20793    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
20794    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
20795    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
20796    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
20797    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
20798
20799  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
20800    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
20801    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
20802    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
20803    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
20804    or the Fedora developed
20805    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
20806    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
20807
20808  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
20809    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
20810    directory, using unison.</li>
20811
20812  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
20813    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
20814    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
20815    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
20816    implemented.</li>
20817
20818  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
20819    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
20820
20821  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
20822    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
20823    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
20824
20825 </ul>
20826
20827 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
20828 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
20829 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
20830 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
20831 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
20832 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
20833 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
20834 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
20835 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
20836
20837 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
20838 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
20839
20840       </div>
20841       <div class="tags">
20842
20843
20844         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20845
20846
20847       </div>
20848     </div>
20849     <div class="padding"></div>
20850
20851     <div class="entry">
20852       <div class="title">
20853         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Great_book___Content__Selected_Essays_on_Technology__Creativity__Copyright__and_the_Future_of_the_Future_.html">Great book: "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future"</a>
20854       </div>
20855       <div class="date">
20856         19th April 2010
20857       </div>
20858       <div class="body">
20859         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
20860 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
20861 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
20862 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
20863 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
20864 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
20865 restrictions on the web, for example from
20866 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
20867 epub-version from
20868 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
20869 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
20870 strongly recommend this book.</p>
20871
20872       </div>
20873       <div class="tags">
20874
20875
20876         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
20877
20878
20879       </div>
20880     </div>
20881     <div class="padding"></div>
20882
20883     <div class="entry">
20884       <div class="title">
20885         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
20886       </div>
20887       <div class="date">
20888         14th April 2010
20889       </div>
20890       <div class="body">
20891         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
20892 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
20893 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
20894 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
20895 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
20896 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
20897 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
20898 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
20899 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
20900
20901 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
20902 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
20903 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
20904 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
20905 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
20906
20907 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
20908 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
20909
20910 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
20911 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
20912 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
20913 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
20914 to work properly.</p>
20915
20916 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
20917 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
20918 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
20919 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
20920 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
20921 time.</p>
20922
20923 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
20924 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
20925 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
20926 up in a few days.</p>
20927
20928       </div>
20929       <div class="tags">
20930
20931
20932         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20933
20934
20935       </div>
20936     </div>
20937     <div class="padding"></div>
20938
20939     <div class="entry">
20940       <div class="title">
20941         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/After_6_years_of_waiting__the_Xreset_d_feature_is_implemented.html">After 6 years of waiting, the Xreset.d feature is implemented</a>
20942       </div>
20943       <div class="date">
20944          6th March 2010
20945       </div>
20946       <div class="body">
20947         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
20948 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
20949 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
20950 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
20951 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
20952 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
20953
20954 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
20955 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
20956 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
20957 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
20958
20959 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
20960 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
20961 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
20962 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
20963 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
20964 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
20965
20966       </div>
20967       <div class="tags">
20968
20969
20970         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
20971
20972
20973       </div>
20974     </div>
20975     <div class="padding"></div>
20976
20977     <div class="entry">
20978       <div class="title">
20979         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Lenny_released__work_continues.html">Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Lenny released, work continues</a>
20980       </div>
20981       <div class="date">
20982         11th February 2010
20983       </div>
20984       <div class="body">
20985         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
20986 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
20987 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
20988 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
20989 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
20990 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
20991 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
20992
20993 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
20994
20995 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
20996 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
20997 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
20998 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
20999
21000       </div>
21001       <div class="tags">
21002
21003
21004         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21005
21006
21007       </div>
21008     </div>
21009     <div class="padding"></div>
21010
21011     <div class="entry">
21012       <div class="title">
21013         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
21014       </div>
21015       <div class="date">
21016         27th January 2010
21017       </div>
21018       <div class="body">
21019         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
21020 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
21021 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
21022 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
21023 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
21024 further.</p>
21025
21026 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
21027 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
21028 configured to be a server for the
21029 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
21030 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
21031 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
21032 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
21033 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
21034 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
21035 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
21036 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
21037 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
21038 and Nagios configuration.</p>
21039
21040 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
21041 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
21042 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
21043 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
21044
21045 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
21046 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
21047 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
21048 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
21049 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
21050 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
21051 the machine.</p>
21052
21053 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
21054 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
21055 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
21056 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
21057
21058 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
21059 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
21060 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
21061 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
21062 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
21063 everything is taken care of.</p>
21064
21065       </div>
21066       <div class="tags">
21067
21068
21069         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
21070
21071
21072       </div>
21073     </div>
21074     <div class="padding"></div>
21075
21076     <div class="entry">
21077       <div class="title">
21078         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Relative_popularity_of_document_formats__MS_Office_vs__ODF_.html">Relative popularity of document formats (MS Office vs. ODF)</a>
21079       </div>
21080       <div class="date">
21081         12th August 2009
21082       </div>
21083       <div class="body">
21084         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
21085 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
21086 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
21087 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
21088
21089 <table>
21090 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
21091 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
21092 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
21093 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
21094 </table>
21095
21096 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
21097 got these numbers:</p>
21098
21099 <table>
21100 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
21101 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
21102 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
21103 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
21104 </table>
21105
21106 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
21107
21108 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
21109 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
21110 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
21111 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
21112 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
21113
21114
21115 <table>
21116 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
21117 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
21118 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
21119 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
21120 </table>
21121
21122 <p>And with 'site:no':
21123
21124 <table>
21125 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
21126 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
21127 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
21128 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
21129 </table>
21130
21131 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
21132 numbers.</p>
21133
21134       </div>
21135       <div class="tags">
21136
21137
21138         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
21139
21140
21141       </div>
21142     </div>
21143     <div class="padding"></div>
21144
21145     <div class="entry">
21146       <div class="title">
21147         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
21148       </div>
21149       <div class="date">
21150          8th August 2009
21151       </div>
21152       <div class="body">
21153         <p>According to <a
21154 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
21155 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
21156 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
21157 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
21158 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
21159 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
21160 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
21161 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
21162 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
21163 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
21164
21165 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
21166 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
21167 seminar this autumn.</p>
21168
21169       </div>
21170       <div class="tags">
21171
21172
21173         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
21174
21175
21176       </div>
21177     </div>
21178     <div class="padding"></div>
21179
21180     <div class="entry">
21181       <div class="title">
21182         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
21183       </div>
21184       <div class="date">
21185         27th July 2009
21186       </div>
21187       <div class="body">
21188         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
21189 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
21190 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
21191 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
21192 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
21193 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
21194 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
21195
21196 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
21197 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
21198 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
21199
21200       </div>
21201       <div class="tags">
21202
21203
21204         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21205
21206
21207       </div>
21208     </div>
21209     <div class="padding"></div>
21210
21211     <div class="entry">
21212       <div class="title">
21213         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
21214       </div>
21215       <div class="date">
21216         22nd July 2009
21217       </div>
21218       <div class="body">
21219         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
21220 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
21221 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
21222 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
21223 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
21224 the package up to date.</p>
21225
21226 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
21227 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
21228 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
21229 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
21230 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
21231 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
21232 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
21233 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
21234 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
21235 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
21236 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
21237 working on the future release.</p>
21238
21239 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
21240 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
21241
21242       </div>
21243       <div class="tags">
21244
21245
21246         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21247
21248
21249       </div>
21250     </div>
21251     <div class="padding"></div>
21252
21253     <div class="entry">
21254       <div class="title">
21255         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
21256       </div>
21257       <div class="date">
21258         24th June 2009
21259       </div>
21260       <div class="body">
21261         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
21262 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
21263 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
21264 funded
21265 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
21266 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
21267 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
21268 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
21269 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
21270 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
21271
21272 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
21273 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
21274 boot:</p>
21275
21276 <ul>
21277
21278 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
21279
21280 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
21281    clock is in UTC.</li>
21282
21283 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
21284    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
21285    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
21286
21287 </ul>
21288
21289 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
21290 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
21291 Villegas</a>.
21292
21293 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
21294 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
21295 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
21296 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
21297 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
21298 using this.</p>
21299
21300 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
21301 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
21302 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
21303 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
21304 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
21305 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
21306 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
21307
21308       </div>
21309       <div class="tags">
21310
21311
21312         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
21313
21314
21315       </div>
21316     </div>
21317     <div class="padding"></div>
21318
21319     <div class="entry">
21320       <div class="title">
21321         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html">Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</a>
21322       </div>
21323       <div class="date">
21324          2nd May 2009
21325       </div>
21326       <div class="body">
21327         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
21328 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
21329 do not yet know them.</p>
21330
21331 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
21332 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
21333 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
21334 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
21335 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
21336 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
21337 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
21338 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
21339 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
21340 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
21341 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
21342
21343 <p>The second one is
21344 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
21345 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
21346 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
21347 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
21348 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
21349 and the company behind it is running
21350 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
21351 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
21352 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
21353 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
21354 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
21355 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
21356 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
21357 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
21358
21359 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
21360 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
21361 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
21362 surrounded by today.</p>
21363
21364       </div>
21365       <div class="tags">
21366
21367
21368         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
21369
21370
21371       </div>
21372     </div>
21373     <div class="padding"></div>
21374
21375     <div class="entry">
21376       <div class="title">
21377         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
21378       </div>
21379       <div class="date">
21380         28th April 2009
21381       </div>
21382       <div class="body">
21383         <p>Julien Blache
21384 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
21385 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
21386 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
21387 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
21388 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
21389 properties.</p>
21390
21391       </div>
21392       <div class="tags">
21393
21394
21395         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21396
21397
21398       </div>
21399     </div>
21400     <div class="padding"></div>
21401
21402     <div class="entry">
21403       <div class="title">
21404         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
21405       </div>
21406       <div class="date">
21407          5th April 2009
21408       </div>
21409       <div class="body">
21410         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
21411 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
21412 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
21413 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
21414 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
21415 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
21416 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
21417 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
21418
21419 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
21420 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
21421 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
21422   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
21423   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
21424
21425 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
21426 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
21427 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
21428 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
21429
21430 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
21431 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
21432 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
21433 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
21434
21435 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
21436 set -e
21437 URL="$1"
21438 SAVEFILE="$2"
21439 DURATION="$3"
21440 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
21441   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
21442   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
21443 pid=$!
21444 sleep $DURATION
21445 kill $pid
21446 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
21447
21448       </div>
21449       <div class="tags">
21450
21451
21452         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
21453
21454
21455       </div>
21456     </div>
21457     <div class="padding"></div>
21458
21459     <div class="entry">
21460       <div class="title">
21461         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</a>
21462       </div>
21463       <div class="date">
21464         30th March 2009
21465       </div>
21466       <div class="body">
21467         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
21468 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
21469 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
21470 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
21471 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
21472 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
21473 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
21474 application.</p>
21475
21476 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
21477 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
21478 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
21479 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
21480 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
21481 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
21482 blocked from doing so.</p>
21483
21484 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
21485 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
21486 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
21487 requirements change.</p>
21488
21489 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
21490 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
21491 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
21492
21493       </div>
21494       <div class="tags">
21495
21496
21497         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
21498
21499
21500       </div>
21501     </div>
21502     <div class="padding"></div>
21503
21504     <div class="entry">
21505       <div class="title">
21506         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
21507       </div>
21508       <div class="date">
21509         29th March 2009
21510       </div>
21511       <div class="body">
21512         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
21513 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
21514 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
21515 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
21516 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
21517 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
21518 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
21519 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
21520 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
21521 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
21522 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
21523 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
21524 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
21525 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
21526 now. :)</p>
21527
21528       </div>
21529       <div class="tags">
21530
21531
21532         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21533
21534
21535       </div>
21536     </div>
21537     <div class="padding"></div>
21538
21539     <div class="entry">
21540       <div class="title">
21541         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
21542       </div>
21543       <div class="date">
21544         29th March 2009
21545       </div>
21546       <div class="body">
21547         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
21548 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
21549 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
21550 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
21551 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
21552 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
21553
21554 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
21555 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
21556 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
21557 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
21558 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
21559 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
21560 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
21561 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
21562 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
21563 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
21564 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
21565 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
21566 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
21567
21568 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
21569 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
21570 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
21571 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
21572
21573 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
21574 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
21575
21576 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
21577 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
21578 new IETF work group?</p>
21579
21580       </div>
21581       <div class="tags">
21582
21583
21584         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21585
21586
21587       </div>
21588     </div>
21589     <div class="padding"></div>
21590
21591     <div class="entry">
21592       <div class="title">
21593         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">Checking server hardware support status for Dell, HP and IBM servers</a>
21594       </div>
21595       <div class="date">
21596         28th February 2009
21597       </div>
21598       <div class="body">
21599         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
21600 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
21601 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
21602 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
21603 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
21604 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
21605 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
21606 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
21607 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
21608 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
21609 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
21610 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
21611 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
21612 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
21613 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
21614 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
21615 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
21616 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
21617 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
21618 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
21619 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
21620 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
21621 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
21622 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
21623 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
21624 machine.</p>
21625
21626 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
21627 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
21628 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
21629 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
21630 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
21631 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
21632 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
21633
21634 <pre>
21635 use LWP::Simple;
21636 use POSIX;
21637 use WWW::Mechanize;
21638 use Date::Parse;
21639 [...]
21640 sub get_support_info {
21641     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
21642     my $str;
21643
21644     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
21645         # fetch website from Dell support
21646         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";
21647         my $webpage = get($url);
21648         return undef unless ($webpage);
21649
21650         my $daysleft = -1;
21651         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
21652         foreach my $line (@lines) {
21653             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
21654             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
21655             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
21656
21657             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
21658             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
21659             my $lastend = "";
21660             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
21661                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
21662
21663                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
21664                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
21665                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
21666                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
21667                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
21668                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
21669                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
21670             }
21671             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
21672             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
21673                 if ($lastend lt $today);
21674         }
21675     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
21676         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
21677         my $url =
21678             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
21679         $mech->get($url);
21680         my $fields = {
21681             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
21682             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
21683             'country' => 'NO',
21684             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
21685             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
21686         };
21687         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
21688                             fields      => $fields );
21689         # Next step is screen scraping
21690         my $content = $mech->content();
21691
21692         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
21693         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
21694         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
21695         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
21696
21697         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
21698
21699         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
21700             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
21701                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
21702             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
21703             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
21704                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
21705             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
21706                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
21707
21708             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
21709
21710             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
21711                 if ($end lt $today);
21712         }
21713     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
21714         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
21715         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
21716         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
21717             my $content =
21718                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
21719             if ($content) {
21720                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
21721                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
21722                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
21723                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
21724
21725                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
21726                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
21727
21728                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
21729
21730                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
21731                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
21732                     if ($end lt $today);
21733             }
21734         }
21735     }
21736     return $str;
21737 }
21738 </pre>
21739
21740 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
21741 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
21742 from dmidecode.</p>
21743
21744 <pre>
21745 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
21746                        "447707-B21");
21747 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
21748 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
21749                        "1234567");
21750 </pre>
21751
21752 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
21753 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
21754
21755 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
21756 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
21757 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
21758 do so.</p>
21759
21760       </div>
21761       <div class="tags">
21762
21763
21764         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21765
21766
21767       </div>
21768     </div>
21769     <div class="padding"></div>
21770
21771     <div class="entry">
21772       <div class="title">
21773         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
21774       </div>
21775       <div class="date">
21776         20th February 2009
21777       </div>
21778       <div class="body">
21779         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
21780 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
21781 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
21782 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
21783 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
21784 the "missing" computer.</p>
21785
21786 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
21787 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
21788 code blocks as defined in the
21789 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
21790 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
21791 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
21792 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
21793 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
21794 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
21795 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
21796 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
21797 codes.</p>
21798
21799 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
21800 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
21801 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
21802 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
21803 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
21804 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
21805
21806 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
21807 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
21808 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
21809 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
21810 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
21811 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
21812 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
21813 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
21814 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
21815 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
21816
21817 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
21818 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
21819 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
21820
21821       </div>
21822       <div class="tags">
21823
21824
21825         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
21826
21827
21828       </div>
21829     </div>
21830     <div class="padding"></div>
21831
21832     <div class="entry">
21833       <div class="title">
21834         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html">When web browser developers make a video player...</a>
21835       </div>
21836       <div class="date">
21837         17th January 2009
21838       </div>
21839       <div class="body">
21840         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
21841 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
21842 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
21843 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
21844 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
21845 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
21846 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
21847 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
21848 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
21849 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
21850 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
21851 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
21852 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
21853 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
21854
21855 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
21856 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
21857 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
21858 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
21859 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
21860 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
21861 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
21862 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
21863 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
21864 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
21865 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
21866 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
21867 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
21868 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
21869 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
21870 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
21871 playing when the download is done.</p>
21872
21873 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
21874 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
21875 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
21876 too.</p>
21877
21878 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
21879 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
21880 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
21881 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
21882
21883       </div>
21884       <div class="tags">
21885
21886
21887         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
21888
21889
21890       </div>
21891     </div>
21892     <div class="padding"></div>
21893
21894     <div class="entry">
21895       <div class="title">
21896         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
21897       </div>
21898       <div class="date">
21899         28th December 2008
21900       </div>
21901       <div class="body">
21902         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
21903 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
21904 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
21905 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
21906 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
21907 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
21908 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
21909 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
21910 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
21911 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
21912 source, sink and mixer applications and
21913 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
21914 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
21915 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
21916 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
21917 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
21918 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
21919 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
21920 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
21921 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
21922
21923 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
21924 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
21925 larger stick as well.</p>
21926
21927       </div>
21928       <div class="tags">
21929
21930
21931         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
21932
21933
21934       </div>
21935     </div>
21936     <div class="padding"></div>
21937
21938     <div class="entry">
21939       <div class="title">
21940         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html">Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</a>
21941       </div>
21942       <div class="date">
21943          7th December 2008
21944       </div>
21945       <div class="body">
21946         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
21947 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
21948 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
21949 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
21950 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
21951 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
21952 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
21953 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
21954
21955 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
21956 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
21957 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
21958 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
21959 of these cards.</p>
21960
21961       </div>
21962       <div class="tags">
21963
21964
21965         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
21966
21967
21968       </div>
21969     </div>
21970     <div class="padding"></div>
21971
21972     <div class="entry">
21973       <div class="title">
21974         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</a>
21975       </div>
21976       <div class="date">
21977         25th November 2008
21978       </div>
21979       <div class="body">
21980         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
21981 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
21982 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
21983 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
21984 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
21985 notes are available on
21986 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
21987 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
21988 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
21989 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
21990 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
21991 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
21992 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
21993 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
21994 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
21995
21996 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
21997 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
21998
21999       </div>
22000       <div class="tags">
22001
22002
22003         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
22004
22005
22006       </div>
22007     </div>
22008     <div class="padding"></div>
22009
22010     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="english.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
22011     <div id="sidebar">
22012
22013
22014
22015 <h2>Archive</h2>
22016 <ul>
22017
22018 <li>2015
22019 <ul>
22020
22021 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
22022
22023 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
22024
22025 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
22026
22027 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (2)</a></li>
22028
22029 </ul></li>
22030
22031 <li>2014
22032 <ul>
22033
22034 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
22035
22036 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
22037
22038 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
22039
22040 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
22041
22042 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
22043
22044 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
22045
22046 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
22047
22048 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
22049
22050 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
22051
22052 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
22053
22054 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
22055
22056 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
22057
22058 </ul></li>
22059
22060 <li>2013
22061 <ul>
22062
22063 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
22064
22065 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
22066
22067 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
22068
22069 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
22070
22071 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
22072
22073 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
22074
22075 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
22076
22077 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
22078
22079 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
22080
22081 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
22082
22083 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
22084
22085 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
22086
22087 </ul></li>
22088
22089 <li>2012
22090 <ul>
22091
22092 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
22093
22094 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
22095
22096 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
22097
22098 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
22099
22100 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
22101
22102 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
22103
22104 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
22105
22106 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
22107
22108 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
22109
22110 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
22111
22112 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
22113
22114 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
22115
22116 </ul></li>
22117
22118 <li>2011
22119 <ul>
22120
22121 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
22122
22123 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
22124
22125 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
22126
22127 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
22128
22129 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
22130
22131 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
22132
22133 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
22134
22135 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
22136
22137 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
22138
22139 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
22140
22141 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
22142
22143 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
22144
22145 </ul></li>
22146
22147 <li>2010
22148 <ul>
22149
22150 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
22151
22152 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
22153
22154 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
22155
22156 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
22157
22158 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
22159
22160 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
22161
22162 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
22163
22164 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
22165
22166 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
22167
22168 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
22169
22170 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
22171
22172 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
22173
22174 </ul></li>
22175
22176 <li>2009
22177 <ul>
22178
22179 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
22180
22181 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
22182
22183 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
22184
22185 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
22186
22187 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
22188
22189 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
22190
22191 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
22192
22193 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
22194
22195 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
22196
22197 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
22198
22199 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
22200
22201 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
22202
22203 </ul></li>
22204
22205 <li>2008
22206 <ul>
22207
22208 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
22209
22210 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
22211
22212 </ul></li>
22213
22214 </ul>
22215
22216
22217
22218 <h2>Tags</h2>
22219 <ul>
22220
22221  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
22222
22223  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
22224
22225  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
22226
22227  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
22228
22229  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
22230
22231  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
22232
22233  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
22234
22235  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
22236
22237  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (109)</a></li>
22238
22239  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (151)</a></li>
22240
22241  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
22242
22243  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
22244
22245  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (13)</a></li>
22246
22247  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
22248
22249  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (273)</a></li>
22250
22251  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
22252
22253  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
22254
22255  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (15)</a></li>
22256
22257  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
22258
22259  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (14)</a></li>
22260
22261  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
22262
22263  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
22264
22265  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
22266
22267  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
22268
22269  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
22270
22271  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
22272
22273  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
22274
22275  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
22276
22277  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (32)</a></li>
22278
22279  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (260)</a></li>
22280
22281  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (176)</a></li>
22282
22283  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (16)</a></li>
22284
22285  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
22286
22287  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (51)</a></li>
22288
22289  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (83)</a></li>
22290
22291  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
22292
22293  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
22294
22295  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
22296
22297  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
22298
22299  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
22300
22301  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
22302
22303  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
22304
22305  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
22306
22307  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
22308
22309  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
22310
22311  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
22312
22313  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (46)</a></li>
22314
22315  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
22316
22317  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
22318
22319  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (30)</a></li>
22320
22321  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
22322
22323  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
22324
22325  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
22326
22327  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (50)</a></li>
22328
22329  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
22330
22331  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (35)</a></li>
22332
22333 </ul>
22334
22335
22336     </div>
22337     <p style="text-align: right">
22338  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
22339 </p>
22340
22341   </body>
22342 </html>